Hare Krsna-below is a few amazing stories the devotees told Srila Prabhupada of how his books were changing peoples lives.
For some reasons, certain devotees don’t even like to hear devotees names who later on became infamous instead of famous. Personally, if it is connected with sankirtan book distribution, I love to hear them. Who among us is 100% pure anyway? The last one I knew, left our mortal vision 45 years ago.
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Please consider some of the wisdom of Canakya pandit whom Srila Prabhupada often quoted.
Ethical aphorisms from Canakya pandit
ch 1 verse 16–One must accept nectar from the midst of poison, gold even from an impure place, good instructions from a low class person and a jewel even from a girl from a wicked family”
ch 3 verse 5-Therefore a man of ambitions gathers high minded gentlemen around him because they never leave their associates either in the days of progress or a downfall
ch 5 verse 19-It is the power of truth which is the basis for this earth. It is the power of truth which allows the sun to radiate heat and life energy throughout four billion miles of the Brahmanda. It is the power of truth by which the air blows. Only by observing the truth by the tongue, eyes, mind, every thought word, and deed unfailingly, do the desired results come. What more to say: everything is based on truth throughout the ten directions in the fourteen worlds.
damaghosa das
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June 5 1976 LA conversations
Dānavīr: Śrīla Prabhupāda, there was one boy who just joined a few months ago, and he had been reading your books, and he came to join the temple. He had graduated from college and he’s been to law school, and we found out after some time that his father, his name was Dr. Royal McClain, he was a very, very big preacher in the South, and he had his own television program.
Rāmeśvara: Christian. His father was the biggest Christian preacher in the South, he had his own TV show. Very big preacher, very strict Christian, and his son joined our movement. So the father calls up the son, “How could you desert our religion and join this Kṛṣṇa movement?” So…. (laughter)
Dānavīr: He explained how he was actually feeling real love of God now for the first time in his life.
Rāmeśvara: He convinced his father that he should stay in our movement.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Recently, in New York, my parents came to visit me. You know they…. Actually they didn’t come to see me, they came to the restaurant, but I happened to be there. (Prabhupāda laughs) So, ah, they related a very unusual incident that one of their friends is a lawyer in New York. So they were having dinner with him the other day, and he mentioned that recently he had gone to Las Vegas for a vacation. In Las Vegas there are many gambling casinos. So when he was about to depart on the plane, one of his friends gave him a five dollar bill and told him that “In order that your gambling to be fortunate, the first good person you see there, you give this five dollar bill to him, and it will automatically bring you good luck.” So the man went to Las Vegas, and when he got out at the airport, one of our devotees approached him, and this gentleman happens to be a lawyer who’s fighting against us to keep us out of the New York airport, he’s representing the airline company. So he didn’t know it was one of our devotees because they were in the regular clothes, civilian clothes. So the devotee said, “Please, we’re doing good work, educating people, you kindly give a donation.” So the man thought: “Well, my friend gave me this,” he gave him five dollars, and naturally, the devotee gave him a book. So the man didn’t look at it, but he went into the taxi, the lawyer, and then when he looked he realized-(laughter) he was supporting the enemy. And another incident they related is that they go on vacation to South America. So there were in the Amazon, in the jungle, in the Amazon…
Hṛdayānanda: Oh, I heard this when I…
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: …and they, right in the middle of the jungle, suddenly the devotees were there. (laughter) Hṛdayānanda’s men were there preaching, and they said they could not imagine that they were in this most unusual place, no one was around, but suddenly the Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees were. (laughter)
Hṛdayānanda: They told me they met Tamāla Kṛṣṇa’s mother.
Rādhāvallabha: If he gets a book in an unusual place, they always say, “You people are everywhere.”
Rāmeśvara: When we tell the public that we only have maybe ten thousand devotees, they are very surprised there are so few Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees, because they see us everywhere.
Prabhupāda: [break]…say that all the ten thousand devotees, each of them is a moon, not a star.
Devotees: Jaya!
Prabhupāda: Hmm. Ekaś candras tamo hanti. Stars, they cannot do anything; they simply glitter, that’s all. Glow-worms.
Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, one boy joined our temple here, he was attending a very well known college and straight A’s in physics, a scientist. So his parents were a little concerned. His father is a very big professor at California Institute of Technology, the biggest technical school in America. His mother is a professor of anthropology, and she is in the family of millionaires from Germany, German industrialists, so they were very concerned. So they came to visit their boy at our temple, and now the mother is coming regularly, giving nice donations and sometimes spending the weekend.
Prabhupāda: (indistinct)
Dānavīr: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So give him nice. He’s living with us?