18- Using all opportunities
When distributing, it’s important to be attentive to opportunities that may present themselves to augment our book distribution. An interested person may put you in contact with a group of other nice persons, where you can distribute a number of books to quality people. Different events in the town attract different types of individuals, and many such groups may be favourable to our books. By going there and talking to people when they are entering or leaving (or sometimes even when they are inside), you can again get in contact with quality people who may be much more interested than most people in the street. In the United States, for example, devotees distribute large amounts of books at the entrance of rock concerts, where the young public is generally quite receptive. There are so many nice people that a lot of times they just start to scream: “Books about yoga and meditation!” and interested people go to them.
Even on ordinary days, when we are just distributing in the street, there are always some opportunities: persons who are waiting for someone, groups of people, and so on. Lines can be an especially interesting target, because we have a stream of bored people just waiting. One problem with lines is that when people see others refusing the books, they tend to adopt a herd behaviour, and also start to refuse, creating a chain reaction. One way to avoid this is to start from the end of the line (so people don’t see you until you approach them). Another is to combine different techniques that we use on person to person sankirtana (choosing the right persons, disarming their initial impulse to reject, use jokes, smiling, etc.) to do a frontal attack, starting from the front of the line. The secret is to choose a nice person to start with: when he takes the books and starts looking and hearing your mantra, try to involve the others that are near, using small jokes and other tactics, so they also hold books and listen to your mantra. It’s difficult to master, but if you can do this effectively, you can end up speaking your mantra to three or six people at a time. When you finish with the first group, find another nice person a little ahead (just quickly greeting the grumpy ones) and start again. If you can convince the first person to take a book, chances are that others in the group will also take (it’s the same herd effect that normally makes people refuse, but this time used the other way around), so you may end up distributing books up to three or six people at a time with just a two minute mantra, making the distribution very effective.
In commercial districts, many times the people working in the stores are actually nicer and more interested than the ones in the street, so you can augment your distribution by also distributing to the workers and owners of the stores. Naturally, that’s a different style of book distribution, that has its own particularities, but where there is a will, there is a way.
Even when doing person to person distribution in the street, there are always opportunities to stop groups of people. It works the same way: if you can identify the leader and convince him to take a book, there is a good chance that all the others are going to take also. Another interesting thing is that sometimes, under the right circumstances, it is possible to stop a second or even a third person while you are already talking with the first one. This is very difficult to do, but can be learned with practice. If both you and the person you are talking to look happy, some of the other people who pass by are going to be attracted. You will notice that some of them will be looking to you, or showing some obvious signs. If you can make them stop using your look, some discrete hand signal, or some very short sentence (without disturbing the flow of the conversation with the first person), it’s possible to seamlessly include one or two more people in the conversation, converting it into a group. The same general idea applies: if the first person takes books, the others are also probably going to take.
19- Distributing when you can’t speak
To distribute books without speaking may sound like something very mystical, but it is actually a problem that we may face frequently. One situation is when you lose your voice because of a throat infection or some other temporary problem. Another situation is when you are visiting a foreign country and you don’t know the language. Both situations are similar, since you can’t use your communication skills freely.
In my experience, the best approach in this situation is to dress nicely (with nice and groomed devotional clothes, or in respectable karmi clothes), be peaceful and happy and, from this platform, stop people by looking them in the eyes and by using gestures.
By doing that, you are going to stop fewer people than when using questions and jokes, but it has two advantages: you are going to stop only nice people, and people who do stop will be attentive, since they will understand that you can’t communicate well. It is a style that will stop only the ripe fruits, which is exactly what we need in this situation since we are not going to be able to speak in an articulate way, much less to enter into heated discussions.
To dress well and to be peaceful and happy is especially needed in this case, since without speaking we have to stop people based only on the first impression we give and in our spiritual energy. If we chant our rounds attentively in the morning, it will work, because sincere people will be attracted to our energy.
In case you can speak (just not very well), like if you have an infection in the throat and can’t speak clearly, or if you can speak a few sentences in the local language, but not very much, you can just give your mantra in a paused way, using gestures, facial expressions and looking the person in the eyes. Since you are going to be speaking mainly with ripe fruits, you can have some pretty deep interactions with people, even without speaking much.
Even if you can’t speak at all, it is still possible to distribute by making cards with sentences of your mantra. You can make some nice printed cards with different sentences and laminate them to make them durable.
Once a person stops, you may gesticulate that you can’t talk and start showing cards from the deck and presenting books, making gestures and facial expressions, like in old silent films. This kind of presentation actually works well, since people tend to become attentive. It is even possible to make decks of mantra cards in different languages to “talk” with people of different nationalities.
While we will speak with fewer people using these approaches, the end result may not be bad, because we may compensate in the quality of the interactions. There are days that I need to distribute like this because I lost my voice and the result ends up being more or less the same as a normal day. The main point is that when we are distributing books, we work as gears in Mahaprabhu’s preaching machine. If we have the proper mentality and do what we can, according to the situation, Krsna can put us in contact with people who we can help, even in that particular situation. Even if we can’t speak, Krsna can use us to distribute books to people who can be convinced by a smile and a few short sentences. The main thing is to engage whatever energy we have in the mission, no matter what the condition.
20- Understanding people
A more advanced aspect of book distribution, that we can develop with time, is the art of reading minds and identifying people by their physical appearance and attributes.
When one mentions something about “reading minds” we think about yogi’s with siddhis, but in this case, it is something much less mystical. Srila Prabhupada explains that the face is the index of the mind, therefore by attentively following the facial expressions and other reactions of a person, it’s possible to accurately understand what is going on inside his head.
Another point is to understand a person’s consciousness from the appearance of his body. This is actually a Vedic art, called physiognomy, and is briefly described in SB 1.19.28:
He was blackish and very beautiful due to his youth. Because of the glamor of his body and his attractive smiles, he was pleasing to women. Though he tried to cover his natural glories, the great sages present there were all expert in the art of physiognomy, and so they honored him by rising from their seats.
When someone is inside the womb of his mother, the body is slowly formed, molded around his consciousness. Since the body is constructed around the consciousness, like a piece of cloth, it’s possible to get clues about the consciousness of the soul living inside that particular body just by studying the body itself. That was how the sages in Naimisharanya were able to recognize Sukadeva Gosvami when he appeared, even though he didn’t manifest symptoms of belonging to any social order or status of life, was not properly dressed and was surrounded with women and children. From the assembly of sages, only Vyasadeva and Narada Muni knew Sukadeva Gosvami, and they did not say anything. Still, all the sages immediately understood who he was and paid him their respects.
These are two subtle arts that take time to master, but they are invaluable on book distribution, since they allow one to identify which persons are prone to take a book in a crowd, to approach them in an appropriate way, to understand if a person is interested or not, and so on.
A third art, that is still more advanced, is to be connected with the Lord and be able to hear Him and follow His dictations. The Lord is in the heart of everyone, and He knows everything. When a sankirtana devotee is truly connected with the Lord in the heart, he is connected with the source of all knowledge, therefore he can get transcendental tips from Him. The devotee may not be able to explain why or how, but somehow he just knows that he needs to be in a particular place, that he needs to speak some particular thing to a specific person and so on. This naturally supersedes any mundane art.
This sankirtana story about HG Bhrigupati Prabhu illustrates this point. In one sense, Krsna made the man give twenty dollars because Bhrigupati Prabhu said it would be so, but on the other hand, he said it because, somehow, he knew it was the will of the Lord. Just like Lord Nrshinhadeva came out of the pillar because Prahlada Maharaja said, but Prahlada said it only because the Lord was about to come. This kind of connection with the Lord is quite frequent in sincere devotees:
HG Chandrasekhar Acarya Prabhu: “Bhrigupati Prabhu, the grandfather Bhisma of Sankirtana (26 years of book distribution- almost all of which as full-time book distribution), who lives in New Dwarka and who goes to the LAX airport everyday to bless numberless souls with Srila Prabhupada’s books, says something and that thing becomes true immediately: Several months ago, I was sitting with him in one of the seats in the United Airlines terminal, having lunch. In the middle of our samosa, he noticed a young man walking by. Bhrigupati Prabhu told me “go, run up to him and show him the Bhagavad Gita- he’ll give you twenty dollars.” I ran up to him with my hands still moochy and I somehow showed him the Gita. To my surprise, he gave me twenty dollars. Yesterday, Bhakta Alex was with Bhrigupati Prabhu in Continental Airlines. A young man passed by, Bhrigupati Prabhu told Alex “go, catch up with him and sell him a book- he’ll give you twenty.” Sure enough, Bhakta Alex caught up with the man, showed him the book, and he gave Alex twenty dollars. Even Bhrigupati himself was surprised!” (Article: The Power of Bhrigupati Prabhu)
Another example is a pastime from HG Harinamananda Prabhu, told by HG Navina Nirada Prabhu. Once, devotees were in the van, coming back from book distribution. Out of the blue, when passing through a residential area, Harinamananda Prabhu insisted to stop the van. The driver complied and he hurried out of the car, carrying a Bhagavatam set. He went straight to a particular house and knocked on the door. A man opened it and he offered him the set. A few minutes later, he came back to the van without the set. From inside the heart, Krsna told him that this man, in this particular house, would take a set.
21- Recalling people
Finally, there is the question of how to remember persons who we have spoken with previously. Naturally, many times we will remember a person, especially the ones with who we spent more time with and had some meaningful interaction, but no matter how good our memory is, we can’t remember everyone. You can just imagine a book distributor like HG Bhrigupati Prabhu, who is distributing since the 1980’s and already has distributed almost half a million books. He can’t possibly remember everyone who he talked to!
The secret is to observe people’s reactions when you try to stop them. Most of the times, you may not remember the person, but the person will remember you, therefore by their reaction you can understand that you spoke with them previously. In other words, they usually give the game away. Most of the time it’s something subtle: the person looks at you and pauses for half a second, making a particular type of face, as though saying: “do you remember me?”. Other times they just smile and greet you in a very warm way, because they remember you as a friend from your previous conversation. When you get the giveaway, you can understand that you already spoke with him previously and react in an appropriate way: “Oh! We spoke the other day, right?!”.
Of course, sometimes we may understand things in the wrong way (maybe the person pauses just because he is confused, or smiles in an extraordinary way just because he’s an open person), but it doesn’t matter much. To say something like “Hey, we already spoke a few months ago right? How are you!?” is also a good way to stop a person, since he will have to stop to think from where he knows you. If he says that he doesn’t remember you, then you can just quickly change the subject and start presenting the books, since he has already stopped: “We didn’t speak? Well, it must be someone very like you then… Anyway, can I show you something?”
Summing-up
With all these details, one could get the impression that book distribution is a very complicated activity, but once we start putting our heart into it, it becomes quite natural. The soul’s nature is to love and serve Krsna, and book distribution is a manifestation of this true nature. Book distribution is connected with the natural inclination of the soul, therefore to distribute books is quite a natural activity for anybody, we just need to forget about all these temporary designations and simply be connected with our true nature. Navina Nirada Prabhu summarizes the most important points:
HG Navina Nirada Prabhu: People want to know three things: Who are you, what’s this book and what’s in it for me. If we learn how to present it in an attractive, in a relatable, in a current way, people can actually become attracted. Just to give you a few lines that I have been using, and that work well for me: I go up to people and I say –I just start off with a question, either “Are you from here?”, or “How is your mind?”, “Are you mindful or mindless?”, “How are things going?”, “How do you feel?”, something that opens them up for a discussion. And immediately I can see whether they are ready to engage or not. If not, simply move on, there is plenty of people out there. But if they respond, then just get into a conversation, and then, as soon as possible present the book. Put it in their hands: if the book is in your hand, it will stay there; if it is in their hands it will stay with them. Don’t throw it at then, but just hand it over nicely, and say something about the book, ask them a few questions, relate the book to their person and then ask for a contribution. It’s not rocket science, it’s been done before.
What is the secret? We have to actually like the people. In order to like the people, it requires our understanding that these are our eternal brothers and sisters. They are family, so of course we like them, they are part of our family, they are Krsna’s parts and parcels, so I love doing sankirtana because I meet a lot of my relatives, I meet a lot of friends out there. Then sankirtana becomes very enlivening. I don’t see anybody as an enemy or anybody as a person who I can gain something from, I simply try to go out and help them. One of the secrets is really, besides liking the people, to not get in the way, just try to take ourselves out of the center and to let the energy flow without obstruction, not to become a wall between Krsna’s potency and the people. (Podcast to London devotees, 2018).