Here is a story from our book distribution team.

Vraja Nari gives out Srila Prabhupada’s books in Swanston St. Six months ago she noticed one particular street guy: middle-aged with long unkempt hair and beard. He would sit sprawled on the pavement with a vacant look, arms and legs outstretched, and an old blanket beside him. Vraja thought he was begging.

The man began coming up to Vraja when he saw her in the street. He wanted to look at the books and touch them. Then he would walk away.

One day she bent down and dropped a damaged Bhagavad-gita onto his blanket. Leon’s eyes opened wide as he recognised it! Later he gave Vraja a few coins he had collected. From then on whenever he saw her, he would ask ‘Do you have any more books?’

As time passed, he gave Vraja larger donations for more of Srila Prabhupada’s books. Leon seemed to become more and more conscious of his surroundings. One day Vraja gave him a set of beads. ‘Chant Hare Krishna like this,’ she showed him.

Vraja began to see Leon in the Crossways library. He would sit on the floor in front of a picture of Krishna, chanting on his beads. Vraja had never seen anyone so obviously enlivened by Srila Prabhupada’s books. But still he asked, ‘Do you have any more books?’

‘I think you’ve got all of them now,’ Vraja smiled. Then she thought of the sets of Srimad-Bhagavatams kept upstairs. ‘Leon, do you remember the Bhagavad-gita? I’ve got a set of books like that I can show you.’

His face lit up. ‘Yes, please!’ he begged. So Vraja brought down a Bhagavatam set. Pulling a wad of notes from his coat, he bought the lot! ‘Do you live in the street?’ she asked. ‘No, I live in a hostel. I’ve got schizophrenia,’ he replied. ‘But soon I will be getting my own place.’

As time went on Leon asked more: ‘Why do the men shave their heads?’

‘Srila Prabhupada wanted his students to be clean,’ Vraja told him. The next day she found his beard gone, his hair cropped short.

Leon’s new flat doesn’t have any furniture. It does have a beautiful picture of Srila Prabhupada chanting, Srila Prabhupada’s books piled around it. Leon uses a new blue duster to carefully clean his picture and his books.

And now he asks Vraja timidly, ‘Are there many devotees at the temple? Are they chanting kirtana?’

‘…Wake up, sleeping souls!’ Lord Gauranga calls, ‘You have slept so long in the lap of the witch Maya!...I have brought the medicine for destroying the illusion of Maya. Now beg for this hari-nama-maha-mantra and take it.’ (Bhaktivinode Thakur: Arunodaya Kirtana)


# Posted by Aniruddha at 24/6/07; 4:50:11 PM to the Book Distribution dept.
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Begging for Krsna

Srimad Bhagavatam 10.58.17 - Our real interest lies in the satisfaction of Krsna.
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# Posted by Nanda Mandira Dasa at 24/6/07; 2:52:19 PM to the Daily Class dept.
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Daily Class - Ciranjiva Prabhu