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Here at ISKCON Silicon Valley we are in the middle of our Janmastami Vyasa Puja Sankirtan Festival, which is another two weekend event. We've completed the first weekend and we are heading into the second. Below are the emails that Vaisesika Prabhu has sent out to inspire us to perform the sankirtan yajna.

Kripamoya Prabhu explains history and development of book distribution follow-up strategies in the UK. This online-book contains the following articles:

• Book Distribution Follow Up Strategies: The Mail Order Miracle
• Book Distribution Follow Up Strategies: Meet the Monks!
• Book Distribution Follow Up Strategies: Market Place Festivals

The articles have been posted originally on his blog, The Vaishnava Voice. If and when Kripamoya Prabhu writes more on this subject, I'll include it here.

You can download the whole series as a pdf-file, too.

Our Bhaktivinode Thakur Sankirtan Festival begins today with a harinam procession in downtown Palo Alto. Here is an excerpt from an email Vaisesika Prabhu sent out to inspire everyone for the upcoming festivities.

It is a really amazing glimpse into the heart of a vaishnava; I am very grateful to be connected to such a wonderful personality.

Why is book distribution so glorious? Here are a few benefits:

On BD (book distribution) we interact on the level of soul to soul—we are talking about Krishna, glorifying Him, glorifying the spiritual master, and acting in a way that pleases the Lord—doing His work, His mission. Such interactrions with others satisfy the heart.

Here are a couple of video from our most recently Monthly Sankirtan Festival. [YouTube videos inside]

The Monthly Sankirtan Festival is a program pioneered by Vaisesika Prabhu, the idea is to get everyone in the congregation out on sankirtana, hitting the streets to distribute Srila Prabhupada's books. The MSF kicks off on Friday night with everyone dancing and chanting together chanting the holy names in the streets. Then all day Saturday and Sunday everyone splits up into teams and goes all around the bay area. This program has been so successful that last year Iskcon Silicon Valley came in third in all of North America, with no full time book distributors.

by Dayananda Das

Most of us are familiar with Prabhupada’s statements about the importance of book distribution: “It is my foremost desire;” “It is your duty, try your best;” “It is pleasing and inspiring to me.”

Interestingly, in Melbourne, he also said, “Selling books is ‘Krishna anxiety’—spiritual anxiety.” Regarding a society without sankirtana yajna, he commented that there will be “scarcity” and “no happiness.” He wrote that varnasrama-dharma (the duty of varnasrama society) is sankirtana yajna or Vishnu aradhana. Without this dharma, people become like animals. Yet, unfortunately, “sankirtana” has strange connotations for some devotees.

For example, sankirtana has been called “scam-kirtana.” Moreover, many are conflicted about ISKCON’s book distribution methods, both past and present. The grand efforts of the past now languish while old Christian women still flog their pamphlets and brochures on the streets.

I do not want to embarrass him, but everyone here in San Jose agrees that the secret of our success is to have Vaisesika's personal association. [But you can't have him he's ours. :-) ]

Actually, Vaish goes around frequently to different temples to inspire book distribution, mostly in North America. He is a kind of national treasure. On Dandavats there is a recent article, not very descriptively titled "Watch LA TV Live Transcendental Video," which is really a short video clip from a presentation Vaish gave in Dallas in 2006, regarding "Four Laws of Book Distribution." I encourage you to watch it. [phani: I couldn't find it.]

What has happened here is: Vaish personally has been giving classes on Bhagavad-gita and Srimad Bhagavatam on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings, for a long time (about six or seven years or more).

Everything starts from sound vibration. He obviously studies Srila Prabhupada's books very carefully and keeps himself absorbed in hearing transcendental sound vibration constantly. When he speaks to us about the Gita and Bhagavatam (and leads kirtanas), everyone becomes convinced of Srila Prabhupada's message and wants to dive deeper.

Category Book Distribution from www.sspteamdev.com, a website established by the ISKCON North America Executive Committee.

Krishna Consciousness is called nitya seva, eternal service. That means that the service you perform for Krishna is everlasting and never dies. Srila Prabhupada called this the "spiritual bank account." Whatever goes into that spiritual bank account is never lost, even at the time of death. In material life, whatever is gained will ultimately be taken away at death, and therefore the Bhavagatam calls this material work the "hard labor for nothing" life.

by Anuttama das

The most surprising news perhaps was that in 2007 nearly seventy-six percent of all BBT sales were made in India. Also, India reported printing more than 1,600,000 Bhagavad-gitas last year.

“This is a phenomenal increase in book publication and sales for India,” said Brahma Muhurta, “but it also challenges our other international divisions to keep up with India.”

Much credit was given to the congregations of India’s major temples, including New Delhi, Juhu (Mumbai), and Chowpatty (Mumbai). Each of those congregations took part in ISKCON’s international book marathon during the month of December. December is known as Gita Jayanti month in India, during which Lord Krishna is understood to have spoken Bhagavad-gita. Each of those temples reported over 150,000 maha big books (large hard bound volumes) sold in that period.

You never know how much that person will appreciate the book you offer them, or what it will mean in their lives!

The other night, as I was entering into the grocery store to buy some staple foods, I was feeling disappointed that I had not distributed any books that day. I had one book in my purse, so I desparately reached in and handed it to the first man I saw exiting the grocery store and asked, "would you like a book about meditation?"

Fear, according to the Srimad-Bhagavatam (11.2.37), comes due to a loss of focus. When one is absorbed in thoughts of Krishna, there is no fear. When this focus is lost, fear kicks in.

Then how is it that sometimes while trying to serve Krishna—an activity that naturally guides the mind toward Him—we feel fear? Because we have lost the focus. Book distribution is a good example to illustrate this point. We hold books in our hands and dread the thought of entering a store and asking a simple question: "Hi. Would you mind if I leave a few spiritual books here for your customers to read?" Sometimes we may be so fearful that we don't even get so far as to take some books for distribution, let alone approach unknown people. If we feel like that, it means our absorption in Krishna is not strong.

by Tattvavada das

Caitanya Ananda Prabhu faced the challenge of his life last December. Doctors concluded that he had an incurable cancer, melanoma. Nothing could prevent the disease from spreading; neither the best western or ayurvedic remedies, nor natural herbs. This interview took place in June, on a train from Mumbai to Mathura, when Caitanya Ananda Prabhu was already under terminal treatment.

Weekend Warriors—Book Distribution is Back

A renaissance in book distribution is blooming in North America. This revival is being led by a new pedigree of transcendental book distributors—the “Weekend Warrior.”

Many “Warriors” are householders who have family obligations and who work during the week to earn their livelihood. But despite their busy professional and family lives, these devotees, eager for the nectar that comes from direct preaching, go out on weekends to distribute Srila Prabhupada’s books.

But the “Weekend Warrior” comes in all shapes and sizes: Kids, students, temple managers, retired book distributors, and congregational members of ISKCON are all joining the swelling ranks of the “Weekend Warriors.” In fact, this new approach to book distribution is so simple and appealing that even devotees who previously thought of book distribution as being intimidating or too demanding are now enjoying Srila Prabhupada’s favorite method of preaching.

The following articles are preliminary documents for supporting your efforts on this initiative.

In creating your action plan for this initiative, the following primary actions are suggested:  read more »

1.  Review the strategy documents with your book distribution team
2. Involve devotees from the congregation
3. contact Vaisesika das for advice and consultation
4. consider looking for sponsors for the Smart box and other strategies

In the beginning of the strategic planning exercise, the team identified the following Core Strategy for achieving the mission of ISKCON in North America:

Distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books with the focus of nurturing a sanga of Vaishnavas who exemplify the ideals in His books.

The Book Distribution Initiative is the first component of this strategy and thus is naturally the first high priority initiative.
 read more »

Report by Vaisesika dasa

We first determined our purpose: To increase book distribution in North America by identifying new markets and methods, improving traditional markets and methods, and by involving greater numbers of devotees through education, training and support.  read more »

Dear Sankirtan Devotees! Pamho, agtSP!

I was distributing Srila Prabhupada's books on a parking lot of a supermarket in Brno. I approached an old man who went to shop there. When I approached him and showed him the books he took them into his hands and proudly stated: "Yes, I am a member of the Hare Krishna movement."

Want to increase the enthusiasm and spirit of your congregation and catapult book distribution scores to new highs? Success is guaranteed with the Monthly Sankirtan Festival program (MSF) pioneered by the intrepid, ever blissful book distributor Vaisesika Dasa. ...

Our book distributors are all householders living outside the temple, holding down demanding jobs throughout the week. Nevertheless, without any full time asram devotees, just holding one festival per month has caused our temple to climb dramatically in the Sankirtan Newsletter charts. During these festivals we have brought blissful new devotees into our congregation, and have given the existing congregation a renewed sense of purpose, direction and real bhakti.

Every one of us wants to distribute books. But what if someone is entangled in householder life, and just don’t have time? Well, there is good news for them. There are a few innovative ways that have been recently created by the Sastra-dana team, where householders can also engage in book distribution, directly and indirectly.

One way is to support the Sastra-dana program, which has become quite popular. The Sastra-dana program accepts donations, and they use these donations to pay for the books. They then take the sponsored books and put them in public places, such as libraries, coffee shops, magazine racks in beauty palors, doctor’s offices, places where there are waiting areas, so that as people wait, they can read one of Prabhupada’s books.

Recently, when I posted an article about book distribution on a popular website, it received one comment from a user who expressed the following:

Some of the places mentioned by Bhakta Corey happen to be illegal.

She was refering to some of the book distribution spots I mentioned, including Wal-Mart, grocery store parking lots, shopping mall parking lots, etc.

I wanted to clear up any misunderstanding about this point, first through a legal explanation, and then through an explanation of practical experience.

Hare Krishna! We thought that you guys would be interested to know about the most unusual library that we have ever placed books in.

At the end of March a dozen of us, devotees from San Diego, went to join an interesting event organized by a group of San Diego youngsters. The name of the gathering was E=MC2 which stood for Music, Arts, & Conscious Lifestyle Event. The event was supposed to help people expand awareness and consciousness through community involvement. The words “awareness” and “consciousness” were never really explained or elaborated upon during the four days of the event. Well, I guess that’s why we went there: to discuss “awareness and consciousness”.

It turned out to be a very nice preaching event for us. We had a large 20’x20’ tent, nicely decorated, with an altar for Krishna, instruments and all kinds of interesting paraphernalia lying around. Many were attracted. Oh, I would love to tell you all about it but there is not enough room for all that text in this newsletter. So let me tell you about the library.

There is a lot of discussion about core preaching, such as book distribution, harinama, prasada distribution. But right from the very beginning, Prabhupada also spoke about making devotees among the people neighboring our temples. And Srila Prabhupada certainly did house programs. He wrote [1 June 1969]: “The boys and girls from the neighborhood coming to help the temple activities is the good result of our attempts. The temple center is started just to present example to the neighboring residents how they can make a small temple in each and every home.”

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said to develop Navadvipa-dhama and the parikrama, to print books and distribute them, and to do Nama-hatta preaching. We all know about the book part, but we don’t often hear about the Nama-hatta part of it. He said that Nama-hatta will help to develop the holy dhama, help to distribute more books. So this was the original strategy.

By Kaunteya Das

[ A speech given by Kaunteya pr. at the Book Distribution Seminar during the Gaura Purnima Festival 2007]

A few days ago, at the GBC meetings, book distribution was a main focus. The GBC members met “privately” with the BBT trustees. And as far as I understand, they really wanted to have an open and frank talk on ways to increase book distribution. Therefore for that session they didn’t want the presence of the GBC deputies. I attended the meeting of the GBC deputies and we also discussed book distribution. The focus was on why in the ’70s there was huge distribution and thirty years later many less books are going out.