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AUDIOBOOK, VOLUME ONE, \u201cCHASING RHINOS WITH THE SWAMI\u201d<\/p>\n
Shyamasundar das: Srila Prabhupada has always been my hero. During the seven years I spent at his side\u2014three years as his personal secretary\u2014I observed the most amazing person who ever graced our planet. His bold, fearless, victorious adventures and heroic acts are the stuff of legends, and his message to us\u2014who is God, who am I, the meaning of life\u2014is the absolute truth. Prabhupada always said, \u201cJust pass this knowledge on to others, then you are Krishna\u2019s best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
I knew I was specially blessed to be an intimate witness to Bhaktivedanta Swami\u2019s magical sojourn among us, so I always knew I had to do this, write, try to somehow describe the acts and words of the Perfect Person. In fact, Prabhupada groomed me for this task. When we\u2019d go over a letter, he would say, \u201cNo, say like this: \u2018To construct the form is the difficult portion of the adventure, but when it is there, it is not difficult to finish it\u2014simply it requires a little taste.\u2019\u201d Srila Prabhupada was himself the ultimate wordsmith and poet.<\/p>\n
How do you present such absolute knowledge in a narrative which might appeal to a broad spectrum of readers across time and space? Well, seeing Prabhupada in motion has made this very easy: He\u2019s an action-hero, full of power and surprise, laughter, leaping tall buildings in a single bound, with words of wisdom to leave you wondering and wanting more. The \u201cChasing Rhinos\u201d books are adventure novels.<\/p>\n
But I had to wait till my hurried years were behind, those years for creating money and the time for contemplation, finally setting pen to paper in 2013. To accurately and profoundly describe Srila Prabhupada demands the final qualification, the most mature work for any author. Slowly, over the past ten years, this project has grown, at the rate of maybe one page per eight-hour day\u2026<\/p>\n
This audiobook version of Volume One of \u201cChasing Rhinos With The Swami\u201d is the ripened fruit of those ten years. I was surprised to hear my own voice speaking, with the volume, emotions, and cadence occasioned by the moment, sometimes crying when Prabhupada\u2019s glance of deep love met my eyes, laughing at his astonishing behavior, my voice child-like for a fresh new session, growing gruff near the end of another long day. And I realized how much more powerful, and meaningful, this audio medium is. Just like when you hear one of Prabhupada\u2019s lectures, the experience sinks in much deeper than the reading of it.<\/p>\n
Srila Prabhupada\u2019s words and actions are timeless and will profoundly affect both young and old for millennia to come. But if you examine, his words and actions were primarily aimed at the youth, those young bodies that surrounded him wherever he went. He said, \u201cGo for it! Chase the rhino! Change the world for Krishna!\u201d This urgency has not changed. Fifty years later, we\u2019ve come full circle to an era of youthful outrage, a digital age crying for change, with a magic link to every person on the planet right there in your pocket. I can hear Prabhupada saying, \u201cPush those buttons, change the world for Krishna!\u201d<\/p>\n
To order the books (three volumes) of \u201cChasing Rhinos With The Swami\u201d or the new Audiobook for Volume One, go to:<\/p>\n