ISKCON Halifax

At mid­day, we walked the path beside the river in New Glas­gow, over the bridge and to the main street. There is no dif­fer­ence between Prab­hu­pada and his books, and our mis­sion was to give Prabhupada’s asso­ci­a­tion to the town’s peo­ple. When, in late Jan­u­ary, we had come to cel­e­brate Lord Nityananda’s appear­ance, we had also tried to go out on book dis­tri­b­u­tion. The day we went out, snow was blow­ing in our faces. Some of us paced up and down the town’s main street, try­ing to stop peo­ple and give them a book. In an hour we had dis­trib­uted thirty-seven books to those who were brav­ing the cold with us. The expe­ri­ence was really extra­or­di­nary because we were not think­ing that so many books could be dis­trib­uted. New Glasgow’s pop­u­la­tion is con­sid­er­ably smaller than that of Hal­i­fax, and we dis­trib­uted more books that hour than we had in an entire day back in the city. New Glas­gow became a mem­o­rable place to distribute.

Today was as mean­ing­ful. We met a long-lost friend of Krishna. We were sit­ting on a small patch of grass near the side­walk, under the shade of an adja­cent store-building. The small one-way street is lined with park­ing meters. As this per­son left his parked car to fuel the meter, he noticed us sit­ting nearby count­ing books. His sur­prise at see­ing devo­tees in New Glas­gow spurred me to ask where he knew devo­tees from. When he asked us to guess, Karuna quickly said “Arme­nia.” The man replied, “close…I came to Krishna con­scious­ness twenty-five years ago in Tehran.” He told us that he had actu­ally trans­lated two chap­ters of Prabhupada’s Bhagavad-Gita As It Is into Per­sian for the devo­tees there. We sat there in awe as he related to us the degree to which devo­tional ser­vice touched his life. And, as he spoke of his old devo­tee friend Nara­hari and his love for Krishna and Krishna prasadam, we could see by his con­tent coun­te­nance the promise of this. After he left, I sort of sat there feel­ing unable to under­stand the whole sit­u­a­tion. As he spoke, I lis­tened and watched him and felt joy see­ing the result of bhakti-yoga being pre­sented to me on this day in this curi­ous town.

Later, Dhruva and I walked to a local store that pro­motes spir­i­tual well-being: The White Lotus. I went there briefly in Jan­u­ary. At that time, the pur­pose of my visit had been to use the wash­room, so I left Prabhupada’s books at the front for the employ­ees to see. When I came out, Anthony and Jeff, who had been vis­it­ing all the stores on the street, were there dis­trib­ut­ing the books I left to the two women stand­ing behind the counter. Remem­ber­ing this inci­dent, I thought to return and give the owner a few more of Prabhupada’s books to place in her store. We gave her the only Higher Taste on us; but, she wanted two more. As Dhruva ran back to get the books, I noticed a Kŗşņa Book set sit­ting on a dis­play table in the front of the store. So, New Glas­gow is a very spe­cial place. Peo­ple here are really hos­pitable and are attracted to sim­ple liv­ing and high thinking.

We thank the devo­tees in Hal­i­fax who are car­ry­ing on and giv­ing us the oppor­tu­nity to explore our own ser­vice and become more expe­ri­enced. I am hop­ing they find these sto­ries a source of enthu­si­asm and inspiration.

Hare Krishna,
Jacob

Today’s Sankir­tan Score: thirty-eight books.
 

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