I shall donate from my piggy bank

One fourth grader girl was happy to take a Bhakti book inspite of her father's reluctance

and gave 35 cents from her piggy bank as Balaram asked for some donation.

Yas,

Ananda Vrndavan dd

Never too late to be a Sankirtan devotee

: These two new guests yesterday were very nice, highly qualified visitors whom we expect to see more of. The husband is C.J. Arunkumar, and the wife is Vasanthi Arunkumar. They are both electronics engineers, and they moved to the U.S. a little over 20 years ago. They have been living in Union City all this time, but never came to an ISKCON temple in this area until yesterday.

They originally hail from Kanchi and Cholapuram in Tamil Nadu, but after getting engineering degrees in India they worked in Finland before coming to the U.S. They have a son and daughter, and the daughter has one son, theiur only grandchild. Their son, 28, lives in San Francisco.

In about 1980, they met an ISKCON swami from India (possibly Gopal Krishna Maharaja?) on a plane, and he advised them to visit the ISKCON temple in Seattle. They visited New Vrndavana in about 1991 and loved it. They have been meaning to get in touch with ISKCON in the Bay Area for many years.

Earlier this year, Vasanthi was laid off, and she is using her extra free time to pursue spiritual interests. Recently she fulfilled a long-term ambition by making a pilgrimage to Mt. Kailash, in Tibet. C.J. came with her and they completed the 56 km parikram in 3 days by foot, staying in tents and braving high altitudes.

They were happy to meet all the friendly devotees are they very eager to read Prabhupada's books. They would like us to have a program at their home to welcome the Bhagavatam set into their home. They also got a BBT art calendar and bead bags with beads from the temple gift store, and they are going to try chanting japa.

They expressed a willingness to go out on a door-to-door book distribution party, but then we spent a long time at the temple showing them the books and bead bags, etc. (it was a late program because of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta's Disappearance Day), and they decided to save that for another day. I think they should come on Harinama on Friday for sure. Please let me know where and when it will be and I will make sure to invite them.

Y.s., Akruranatha dasa

A bunch of pennies

It was very cold that evening, still the children went door to door very enthusiastically and distributed lots of books. All the time they kept chanting Mahamantra while walking around that must have attracted Lord's mercy towards them.

Many people mentioned being out of job and have no money, then children would very sweetly say even a penny is fine, and some of them donated bunch of pennies collected in the home. In fact most of the donation was a collection of pennies and other coins.

Anuradha Mataji approached one person and showed the books and explained very nicely and she said we are accepting donation if you with to give something. That person immediately replied, 'oh I am also accepting some donation if you wish to donate something!', and Mataji gave book bag to him and said this is what we are giving out today :)

Pooja had a dance performance that evening where she distributed many books with her parents. That score is included in this report.

Param Vijayate Sri Krishna Sankirtanam!

YS

Kamesvari devi dasi

Following in the footsteps of ISV sankirtan model

Dear Vaisesika Prabhuji

pamho

AgtSP

Following the many months of association with Glorious Sankirtan Generals AT isv like you I had learned something about book distribution. When I came here to Bangalore I saw that the book distribution program is very much lackluster compared to ISV. I thought I should try to implement a few things that I had learned from you. Emulating the Walmart Model, I decided to target the big malls in Bangalore where there is a lot of foot fall. So I started with one mall named Big Bazaar near my residence. I made friends with the Store Manager, took prasadam for him regularly and befriended him. Somehow by Krishna's mercy he liked my company. He allowed me to distribute books on his store premises. I asked him if he could put in a word to all his other friends. In a span of two weeks we have got permission to distribute books from about 7 different malls across the city with another 3 to added to the list starting this week.

I then started targeting Railway Stations in Bangalore that are packed with people always. We found out about devotees who work in the Secretariat and are working with the Deputy Regional Manager for the Railways to secure permission to setup spots at the Railway Stations and also have volunteers walking across the different platforms to distribute books. We hope to receive the green signal this week. While chanting my rounds last week I kept hearing "Hospitals" in my head. I sometimes feel I day dream or dont chant with proper attention, I thought it to be a passing phase. However I realised that I was being prompted to target hospitals for book distribution. I've found out about devotees in the congregation who work in hospitals and they are helping arranging a meeting for me with the Management. I am planning on meeting a few big hospital groups to have a copy of 'Beyond Birth & Death" and also "Bhagavad-Gita" in every room. Please keep us in your prayers so we can become successful in these two projects.

For the Marathon, the Bangalore ISKCON Temple in Seshadripuram has started advertising in the Radio on a local channel called RED FM, which is heard by over 2-3 million people daily, for anyone to purchase a copy of the Gita for just Rs 99 simply by sending an SMS to 56066 with the word GITA for a FREE home delivery. We're also advertising radio ads called 'jingles' on RED FM that run for about 30 seconds about the offer to get a Gita for half the regular price (Rs99) along with a spiritual message. There is a program from 6am-7am every Sunday like a radio talk show where people can call in and ask questions on the Gita or simply describe how the Gita has helped them in their lives. This has also been a good venue for the Gitas to be distributed as many people who did not have the Gita, ordered for one after hearing the program. Maybe ISV could try that on NPR or some local channel.

I'm trying to become friends with the MLA(political leader) in the area where I live, so we can get additional traction and help in Government offices. I've made friends with the friend of his PA. Long way to go but let's hope something works out. There are a lot of Government entities here in Bangalore like BHEL, BEL, HAL, BEML, etc (similar to NASA, Pentagon,etc). We know of one devotee who just got transferred to BEL Bangalore. We're taking his help to see if we can work out to get bulk orders from these corporates. Could you send me the contact information of the devotee in Mumbai who does corporate Sankirtan?

As promised it would be really helpful and encouraging if you could give a 15-20 min video presentation on Book Distribution for the devotees in Bangalore to help encourage them so they feel inspired to distribute Srila Prabhupada's books. I have talked to the TP and he said he can give me a 20 minute window immediately after the Sunday Feast Lecture so I can show your video.

Working out all the logistics and all the background services is also no easy task keeping in mind Bangalore's widely distributed congregation with the city's traffic, etc. I realize how much work Praveena and Malini have done for all MSF's at ISV.

Finally the numbers ... about 2000 Gitas in 2 weeks just from the malls. All books should be around 3-4k in two weeks. The goal is to distribute 30000 Gitas. But I highly doubt if even 10000 books is possible. We need help, inspiration and blessings.

YS

Narahari dev das

Bhaktivinod Thakur MSF Harinam

You are selling religion !!!

I was preaching to the students and another person (may be a professor or SJ Spirit leader - Bible teacher), He was commenting "on the name of Yoga, you are selling religion" I can imagine why it is so.. he was referring the picture of Lord Visnu in the POY book. I am impressed that he can recognise Lord Visnu.. Great..

But as you know he was not happy.. after few minutes , 2 Police cab came near to my spot, But I was continuing my program,, later I realised that they are observing me ..

It may be my speculations... But I stopped distributing books rather staying there for 10 mins with personal chanting only.. Somehow I relaised that not to pick up a risk unnecessarily, I left the spot... But the police presence may be something different... anyway I thought them to be Jay & Vijay manifesting Ravana * Kumbhakarna...

Balaram was very compassionate to his teacher being non vegetarian, he thought of presenting a Higher taste book and Gita so that at least he will be attracted to the vegetarian food...He presented to his teacher this Christmas gift and his teacher liked it very much,

Jaya Srila Prabhupada.

Yas,

Balimrdana das

Military man afraid of Door - to - Door Battle

H.G Vaisesika Prabhu told us his encounter with a very old man

He was retired military man he invited us to his home.

" He told us that you are very brave people to knock everyones door .

I can fight with gun but I am very scared to knock the door of people :) " .

we again went to his home with Vaisesika Prabhu he greeted us and took BG and pack of books and donated some lakshmi.

The MSF of 'twenty thousand' ki.. Jai !

yhs,

sreekanth

OUT of the Box thinking

A little out-of-the-box thinking was employed to inch closer towards our goal of deploying 150 devotees. The method today was to encourage the people who were receiving books to pass it out to their friends in the spirit of holidays. I went to the motel laundry and gave some books to the lady who passed them out to her friends.

In the same way, the motel manager Sanjeshini got some books and was planning to give it to her mom who is devout lady and she visits the Fremont/Livermore temple. That motel can be a prospective target for our Motel Gita program. Carlos volunteered to talk to the manager.

In the farmer's market, I spoke to Robert and gave him a book to give it to his boss which he did.

Thus those who received books were giving it out to others.

MSF of 20k ki jaya !

YS

Srivasa Pandita Das

Please donate a penny

Finally one gentlemen opened the door for us and he was interested to know more about the various activites we do at the temple. In the end, he said he will come to the temple to donate laxmi. Since the temple has come all the way to his house,

I have requested him to donate atleast a penny.

He said let me look for a quarter/penny. We could hear from inside that his wife doesn't want to give a penny especially when we took on a weekend to distrbute books.

We were amazed that they gave a laxmi of 51 dollars :-)

…. Sushma, Rahul & Kumar

A Bhagavad gita to unite a family

My Grandmother from South America has been visiting me for the last couple weeks and I gave her a Bhagavad Gita in Spanish. She has visited India several times to visit sites where Jesus has gone. She wanted to learn about my religious practice and had many questions, so I have her a Bhagavad Gita and told her a little about the philosophy. Then the most amazing thing happened. My uncle Juan came by the house. I never see my uncle due to some due to an old family fued. My family never listens to me and so I usually don't preach to them with words. On the other hand, my uncle is a very successful man and everybody listens to what he says. He saw the Bhagavad Gita and exclaimed,"Oh that's a great book! I've been reading this book since I was in colledge. You are supposed to read it at every stage of life. You should read this book at least 7 times." My family could not believe it. Now they all wanted to read the Gita. Krsna is so wonder full. The Bhagavad Gita helped to unite my family.

Transcendental Book Distribution Ki Jai!

Ys,

Jorge