BG 3.33 - "Even a man of knowledge acts according to his own nature, for everyone follows his nature. What can repression accomplish?…It is better to be situated in one's position and to try to attain Krsna consciousness under superior training. Thus one may be freed from the clutches of maya."

Sometimes Srila Prabhupada would say stuff like this, but, as far as I can see by studying all SP's books lectures and audio I have found that Srila Prabhupada clearly emphasized book distribution over everything else. Even though sometimes he would make statements like the above. So how are we to understand all this???

I often times meet devotees, and I, being a servant of Srila Prabhupada, want to stick to his instructions as close as possible, and naturally as a result feel fired up to talk about the wonderfulness of transcendental book distribution with others. But - most of the time other devotees do not feel that book distribution is the most important service. And it seems that also MOST of the time, it seems that they are simply annoyed by me being fired up about it and cannot relate to me at all due to them being so not fired up, and me being fixed on it. So I feel like they are in maya, and serious illusion, for not being fired up about book distribution. All this depresses me and makes me sad.

What am I supposed to think?

Any way, every time I write to you something you tell me "post it on the blog" so here I am posting it on the blog lets see what happens...

DISCLAIMER - let me make it implicitly clear that I am not, nor do I think I am any type of advanced devotee! Nor am I very fixed up, I am just some dufice that is trying to some-how-or-other do some service for Srila Prabhupada. 

I am just posting this because I am sick of being disgusted by seeing other devotees. I want to be ecstatic when I see other devotees! But how can I when they have no enthusiasm to do sankirtana! and when I tell them about how important it is they basically tell me to go to hell.   

- To have some lazy devotees twiddle some incense in the temple and eat nice overly spicy prasadam with too much chillies in it so it becomes doubtful if even Krishna likes it - is NOT why Srila Prabhupada traveled all over the planet and worked so hard!  

Sankirtana means going out of the temple and preaching through book distribution and Harinama. Not sitting in the temple waiting till sunday when the #$%%^  come and stuff the hundi (donation box), bring some cheap GMO rice, and pull their ears.

I get frustrated that this is the pitiful condition that Srila Prabhupada's movement has come to. and want to be happy and have nice fired up devotees to associate with that also can get the simple fact that Srila Prabhupada wanted us to not sit in the temple on our @#$ and twiddle some incense but get our #$% out on sankirtana!

So what am I to think when people say to me that they do not want to distribute books???

The following list of quotes are just a few I dug up to prove my point, but if necessary, I could give much much more quotes and instances to substantiate that Srila Prabhupada placed book distribution clearly above EVERYTHING else.

(still want me to contribute to this forum?)

it is explicitly directed that one should perform sankirtana-yajna and nothing more.

SB 3.13.36

if a person is not interested in others' welfare, he should be considered to be condemned by the Personality of Godhead 

SB 4.17.26

Preaching is our first-class engagement, including Sankirtana party, selling books, speaking, like that. But if for some reason a devotee is unable to do these things, then I say that they are allowed to live outside and work as a concession. Our service for Krishna is voluntary and can never be forced. And whatever position in life one holds he can serve Krishna in that way. But yourselves being such qualified and experienced preachers, what is the benefit of engaging in the second-class activity when there is so much preaching work to be done?

Letter to: Vamanadeva, Indira  -  Delhi 8 December, 1971

So that is the real preaching, selling books. Who can speak better than the books? At least whoever buys, he will look over. If you have to sell books, do it by hook or by crook. The real preaching is selling books. You should know the tactic how to sell without irritating. What your lecture will do for three minutes, but if he reads one page his life may be turned….the success of your preaching will be substantiated by how many books are sold.

Letter to: Bali-mardana  -  Los Angeles 30 September, 1972

ASA - Jaya!   AGTSP       paoho.       Esteemed, Fired-Up Dufice.       Yes!              Definitely please continue contributing.  Of course you see we erased the following 27-pages of letters that you quoted because we feel that some of your passions are just to  #@$%  to put in print.   Haw!      Haw!      Haw!

Your contribution is super.     Please write more, but because it is a Blog please keep the letters short and then frequent - a dialog rather than a mono-log.

In those parameters we have many things to say but can only say a few.

1)   Basically you seem to be right-on.    So please keep writing.

2)    We spent two intense hours with Vaisesika Das yesterday discussing the Bhakti Sastri, Bhakti-vaibhava courses and his Sankirtana.   He has taken an average ISKCON Temple plagued with the faults you described and now they distribute thousands and thousands of dollars of books.  So, what do you think about you following his example to improve things.

3) What about the citation, "...sell without irritating...", huh?   You didn't highlight that.   Why not become a clever Dufice for Prabhupada than a    @#$%%  Dufice for Prabhupada?

O.K.   Are you still gonna write to the Blog!!?   Haw!    Haw!    Haw!                  Such fun.     Buy 'em.   Stack 'em up where you can see them and get 'em out. 

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