7- Spiritual consciousness
To see everyone as part and parcel of Krsna and therefore treat every person in a respectful and personal way is another difference between material and spiritual consciousness. In material consciousness, we see ourselves as the enjoyers and others as objects of our enjoyment. Contaminated with this mentality we tend to treat people just like that: as objects. We treat nicely those who we think will be useful for our sense gratification and discard the others. Even when we treat someone nicely, it’s just because we want to enjoy him in some way: we flatter wishing to get something. If a person doesn’t act as we expect, we become angry and so on. Many times, we go out on book distribution with such a mentality, and therefore our sankirtana becomes heavily contaminated by passion and ignorance. We hand out the books caring only about the scores, and not about the people. We become upset when someone doesn’t want a book or gives a small donation. We are impersonal and inconsiderate in our dealings.
Spiritual consciousness is the opposite: we see ourselves as servants and everyone else as recipients of our service. In spiritual consciousness we really care about people’s well being, we desire good to everyone, and therefore we can be kind and personal with every person, treating them all like old friends, without expecting anything in return. We want to distribute a lot of books, yet the main point is to help people. We can understand this point by studying how Srila Prabhupada was dealing with everyone in a very personal and considerate way, out of deep understanding, humility and compassion.
HG Vijaya Prabhu: More important than people walk away with a book, is that everybody walks away with a very good impression. Prabhupada said that a devotee means perfect gentleman. This means that we are honest, we are compassionate, we are tolerant, we are friendly. And that’s what it means to be an instrument in the hands of Krsna: nimitta-matram bhava savya-sacin, that we are out there with the good qualities of a Vaishnava, and when people walk away from us, they should feel that they met a very nice person, with very good qualities. (video interview, 2014)
In any case, no matter what you do, what you say or how expert you are, not everyone will stop, so it’s better not to worry too much about it. This is another essential point on book distribution: detachment. We are looking for people who are open to spiritual knowledge, or whom we can make interested. Many may not be open at all, therefore we keep our interactions with them polite and very short, focusing on the most promising ones.
The general rule is that when there are several persons to choose from, we should choose the most promising ones. However, when there is only one person, we should give him a try, even if the chances are small. Sometimes even the most seemingly improbable people take books. One time, for example, I was distributing books in the downtown of a small city on a Sunday. There were not so many people to begin with, and to make things worse, it started to rain and the street became deserted. At one point, there was only one person passing by, a poor, dirty old man who was collecting discarded aluminium cans from the garbage. I didn’t have anything to lose, so I just approached him to see if he would somehow be interested. I started showing him some books and he revealed himself to be an inquisitive man. Eventually, I quoted Bg 5.18, that a sage sees everyone with equal vision. He smiled and said: “You know why I like you people? You follow what you preach!”. He took whatever little money he had and gave for the book. By the mercy of the Lord, the impossible happened: the garbage man took a book!
8- Being bold
To stop people in the street always demands a bold and confident attitude. That’s why devotees who are more sociable and extroverted usually have more facility in the beginning. Their conditioning can be more readily applied in Krsna’s service. Still, the goal for everyone is to act on the spiritual platform; it’s not about from where we start, but to where we want to go. Many prominent book distributors were very shy or physically weak in the beginning, but by sincerely trying, Krsna helped them to ascend to the transcendental platform, and from there to distribute many books. He explains:
“To those who are constantly devoted to serving Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me.” (BG 10.10).
There is nothing we can’t do when we are determined in spiritual life and favoured by guru and Krsna. As Srila Prabhupada once said, in a letter dated 4 April 1973: “Krsna has given everyone something extraordinary and to serve Krishna with one’s extraordinary talent means successful life.”
Back to book distribution. After stopping people, the next step is to present yourself in a brief and concise way. The first thing you would like to know when a stranger stops you in the street is with whom you’re talking to. You can explain that you are from the Vedic center, or that you are a travelling monk, a bhakti yoga teacher, or maybe just that you are from ISKCON. You don’t need to give the details, just give some label which can satisfy the immediate curiosity. From there you can ask another question, or say something nice to the person to start a conversation and create a friendly atmosphere.
We can include positive sentences to break the ice, like “We are making a special presentation for special people”, “Today we are showing these books only to nice persons”, “We are trying to talk to the most intelligent people” and so on. The main thing when using such lines is your enthusiasm and energy, that’s what really attracts people, the words are actually secondary. If people notice that you are very enthusiastic and happy they will be curious about the books.