Skip to main content

POWER OF A BOOK

"Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light." — Vera Nazarian

Here is a simple yet powerful story which shows the world "the power of a book". This is a real life story of two boys named Richie and Willy which happened during the 1970's, in the city of California. One day while walking on the streets of California, Richie bumped across the Hare Krishna devotees and one of the devotees convinced him to buy a magazine that they were selling. He bought it reluctantly more for his friend, Willly than himself because he knew that Willy was more spiritual then he was. He bought the magazine and ran to the house of Willy to give him that magazine. But on that day, Willy had locked himself in his room and was meditating and praying to God that his true path in life be revealed; little did he know that his prayer was going to be answered on this day in a very unusual way. Richie was knocking the door and telling Willy, "Open the door, I have got something for you." But Willy, because he was following a vow of silence, he didn't open the door - he didn't want to be disturbed. Finally, Richie left the magazine outside and yelled to him saying, "I am leaving this magazine outside the door which I bought from the Hare Krishna devotees. I am sure you will like it" and he left.

QUESTIONS ANSWERED
After Richie left, Willy slowly opened the door and he got hold of that magazine. On that magazine, on the cover page was the picture of Lord Chaitanya dancing with his associates. The title read "Back to Godhead - Godhead is light, nescience is darkness. Where there is light, there is no darkness." He flipped the magazine and in the inner cover was a picture of a guru, it was a painting and he was mesmerized by this picture. For a long time he kept staring at it. He felt a strong sense of conviction saying to him "This is your teacher". This was A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, the Founder Acharya of ISKCON. As he read the magazine, every question he had - What is death? Why do we die? Who is God? How to know God? was answered perfectly and clearly. God had actually answered his prayers through this magazine. God's ways of answering sincere prayers are amazing, isn't it.

One particular article in this magazine captivated him like none. The title of the article was, "Liberation for the cave dwellers". The article mentioned that people who live in material consciousness and are not exposed to the spiritual world are just like a cave dweller who has never gone out of his cave and never seen the rays of the sun. What is the possibility that such a cave dweller can understand the sun? Only if someone from outside the cave comes in his cave and explains to him the magnificence of the sun and probably shows him a ray of light. Willy could immediately connect to this article. He understood that he was this cave dweller and the room of his was the cave. And this magazine was like the ray of light and a particular devotee had come to his life through his friend, to deliver him this magazine. This magazine had come to help him see "the light".

HERO DISCOVERED
As he read the entire magazine from cover to cover, Willy was completely convinced that this was his true path and very soon he joined ISKCON and now almost 50 years later, he is one of the most influential, powerful leaders of ISKCON who has been distributing similar spiritual books on the streets around the world and helping people find their light - helping the cave dwellers of this world find their transformation. This young boy is now famous as Vaisesika Das, one of the foremost book distributors of ISKCON. Just imagine, if that devotee on that particular day in the year 1970 hadn't gone out on the streets of California and hadn't distributed that magazine, we wouldn't be having Vaisesika Das with us in ISKCON, now.

As they say - "On every book, on every magazine, there is a name of a person written. We just need to find out who it is." And who knows there might be a very great soul waiting, like Vaisesika Das to be found out by all of us. And, what other better book to give someone other than the message of the Gita. This book has transformed the life of unlimited individuals throughout centuries and it has great potential to bring about the light in the life of anyone who comes in touch with it. So let us be instruments of this light, let us be an agent of change, an agent of transformation and take this as an opportunity to give this message to others.

"Give a Gita and Save a Life."

- Achyut Gopal Das

Comments

  1. Hare Krishna Dandvat Pranaam 🙏🏻 Thank u very much Prabhuji for enlighting us with ur knowledge...It really makes a difference in our lives

    All Glories to u 🙏🏻
    Hare Krishna
    Hari Bol

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

RACE AGAINST TIME

Time and tide wait for none. Time is one of the most powerful feature of this world. In fact, Lord Krishna introduces Himself as time in the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita. However powerful a personality one may be, at the end everyone has to bow down in front of time and surrender to it. History is the proof of the power of time. Big, big people reduced to dust by time. Time is so imperceptible in it's working that we don't even realize how days, weeks, months and years pass away - until it's too late . Our life can be compared to a video game with a timer on. Only, the one who wins the game before the time runs out is declared the winner. The only difference between the video game and and the game of life is that in the video game, you know how much time is left but in the game of life, you don't know how much time is left. If while playing a simple game we have to be fully focused and conscious not to waste time to win it, how much more, we hav

A SMALL MEMBER IN A HUGE FAMILY

"God is unlimited, so are the number of His devotees." Every morning after the morning program in ISKCON temples and every time devotees offer their respects to the devotees of Lord Krishna, it is a custom to chant the phrase - "ananta koti vaishnava vrinda ki jai". It means - "all glories to the unlimited, countless devotees of the Lord". I got to witness a glimpse of this phrase in the recent annual Vrindavan Yatra. The Yatra itself had 7000 registered pilgrim devotees along side lakhs of other devotees who flock to Vrindavan to be in the holiest of holy months, the Karthik month. It was a crazy crowd filled with devotees crazy for Krishna, not minding inconvenience of any sort. In fact, one starts to realise that being surrounded by devotees on all sides is a bliss of a different sort. Vrindavan was filled to the brim. This is only the number of countless devotees in Vrindavan. Add to it the unlimited devotees in other holy places, Tirupati, Sri Ranga

PRACTICAL TOOLS FOR DESIRE MANAGEMENT

“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of, so they can see that it’s not the answer.” ― Jim Carrey, American - Canadian actor Long back, I heard this analogy to explain the nature of the unlimited desires in our hearts. It is explained in this analogy that, even if all the water bodies in earth are made into ink to fill a pen whose nib is as small as an atom and the sky is made into paper to write on; the ink will get exhausted, the nib will break and the paper will run-out but our list of desires will not get over - we will still have more left. Over these years of spiritual practices, I have realized the truth behind this analogy. I have become more aware of the dynamics of desires and it's working in life. Even though our hearts are filled with unlimited desires, luckily just a few jump into awareness every now and then, just like a few fish jump out of the surface of the ocean every now and then even though the ocean is filled with u