Podcast for S.P. book distribution marathon
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · 2016
Chapters
Gratitude for book distribution efforts
Dear Vaisnavas of British Yatra, all those devotees who are out on the streets distributing Srila Prabhupada books.
Please accept my most humble obeisances, all glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda. I'm very much honored to address you in this marathon.
I was thinking what to speak about and I thought that sometimes we don't we take for it for granted uh certain things which are in reality uh are very precious in our life. Our ability to distribute Prabhupada's books is also one of such things which sometimes is taken for granted.
As you may know, this year in Russia a new law was adopted, and according to this new law, preaching on the streets is strictly prohibited.
It really limits the ability of devotees to express their natural belief and uh to give other people a chance to share this belief by reading Prabhupada's books and to appreciate the beauty of this belief and scientific nature of Krishna consciousness.
So now the whole Russian Dyatra is in-puzzled, not knowing how to deal with this new law and how to still execute the will of Srila Prabhupada by distributing his books in this month of December.
So my simple message on this day will be that please let's not take it for granted.
Rare privilege of sharing beliefs
Our ability to preach is something really special. And the fact that we have this chance to preach, to speak with other, to speak about Krishna consciousness is an extremely rare chance.
Srila Prabhupada used to say that if you speak to others about Krishna consciousness, you will strengthen your own belief and conviction.
It's definitely a very unique opportunity for all of us to become much more uh convinced and much more immersed in Krishna consciousness.
And uh the very fact that uh we can do it freely in uh this country is actually rare. In many countries of the world, it's not possible.
It's not possible in North Korea, it's not possible in many, many other countries of the world.
And another thing which I wanted to say in regard to Srila Prabhupada's books, as the time passes on, the relevance of Srila Prabhupada's teachings becomes more and more obvious
because now the whole world is basically in crisis and the crisis is in all spheres of our life.
There is a severe political crisis. The whole world doesn't know what to expect from the new American president and, what's going to happen? The extremist forces becoming more and more prominent.
Both in old democracies uh or uh as well as in uh developing countries where they were always uh more promising uh more prominent. So on so forth. This is just political crisis. There is ecological crisis.
There is basically value crisis, crisis of family values and moral values, which is eroding the whole human society. And honestly speaking, the humanity doesn't have the solution for all these crises. They are trying.
When Prabhupāda was saying this in the end of the 70s when he was saying that United Nations didn't solve any problems and the crisis becoming more and more acute. It was nothing in comparison with the present time situation.
The crisis has become hundreds time more acute and more severe in all spheres of life. And practically speaking, nobody has a solution.
And the more we think about the beautiful solution which is given by Śrīla Prabhupāda in his books, which is given by the ancient Vedic sages, the architects of Vedic culture, the more we will become convinced that this is the way for the future.
Without Krishna consciousness, humanity at large, the whole earth does not have future. It's not a sectarian belief.
Books as solutions to global crises
It's not a alarmist sort of statement to you know I'm definitely not somebody who is uh proclaiming uh doomsday uh to be coming soon but it's uh gloomy reality which we are dealing with practically on a daily basis.
So every book which we are able to distribute during this marathon should be considered as a solution towards the global problems. And definitely it makes the you know the real solution closer to us.
Now solution is very far away only because people don't know the solution given by Śrīla Prabhupāda. But if they read his books and understand his solution, they will definitely be convinced.
And it basically means that we will be little closer to the global solution towards the problems of the world.
And even if this is not going to happen, still we can be sure that the local solution, the solution of this particular soul, this particular human being, will become solved or at least alleviated to a certain extent.
And that's in itself a huge benefit and very auspicious activity. So please be convinced that this is the most auspicious activity which one can do in this day and age.
Thank you very much for your service, Hare Kṛṣṇa. Bhakti Vikas Swami, your servant.