Encouraged by a recipient of Prabupada’s books | ISKCON Book Distribution. For a whole week I’d experienced a profound sense of detachment while distributing books at the southbound platform within the illustrious Broadway-Lafayette subway station in New York City. My steadiness and purity of mind were unprecedented. I jotted down notes to myself on how one must be kind and smile at everyone, regardless of their response. Be light. That was the key. The next week I attempted to employ the realizations Krsna had compassionately offered me. As the recently elected sankirtana leader, I felt it my duty to grow into a position of steadiness and lightness. What I met with, however, as a result of my efforts, was unremitting and exquisite torture from one subway stop to the next. Everyone I approached knew me by name and didn’t want to hear it anymore. Had I burned my home base completely? Grand Central Station was fresh but no more merciful. And just as I was pushed to my limits, ready to break, I called out, “Krsnaaa! This has to stop! I’m not going to let everyone walk all over me. It’s insane. It stops now!” My scores picked up somewhat, but mostly I was overcome with a low sense of confidence and self-worth, a struggling infantryman for Srila Prabhupada, out on the front lines. During one exchange, I distinctly felt myself a puppet in Lord Caitanya’s hands. The vigor with which I spoke the same lines of an age-old sankirtana mantra was completely foreign to me. But the challenges did not end there. In urgently trying to reconcile the two conflicting realizations of kindness and firmness, lightness and gravity, from one week to the next in my new position of sankirtana leader, I found myself again at my wit’s end. I wondered what my Lord had in mind with this transcendental trickery. It was on another day at West 4th St.’s underground transport lair that I found my answer while pushing harder and harder to distribute the law books of human society for transition into the spiritual abode. Meditating on the doggedness of not becoming a doormat rather than on the sweetness and lightness of mercy flowing from above, I persistently spoke with an older Hispanic man who declined to purchase a book. I did not know at the time whether what I was doing was good or even all right, but I felt I had no choice. I had to vie for Prabhupada while there was still a window of opportunity! The next thing I knew I had a twenty-dollar bill in my hand and the man had a “Journey of Self-Discovery” in his. Unfortunately, I could not continue on such a high platform of distribution. Rather, I struggled onward at a snail’s pace. One hour. Another hour. Losing steam. Losing inspiration. Just one hour left. “Maybe I should call it quits early today,” I thought. No! I refused to go home with my tail between my legs. “Anything is possible out here,” I told myself. I pushed on. And on. And on. And then I stopped. I had nothing left in me. I shut my eyes and called out, “Krsnaaa! I feel totally disconnected from these people! I feel totally disconnected from You! I don’t like this. I feel horrible, like a fraud, to act so impersonally before You. Please help me.” I felt so very low. I reluctantly approached a fair-skinned boy who was reading a book. He was extremely attentive to my every word. Then he responded with softness in his voice: “I’m going to buy this and share it with my mother. She is really into karma and dharma.” Then he repeated several times: “This is so nice of you, Ari.” As I bid the boy farewell, having provided him with my email address and encouraged him to stay in touch, he looked up at me and, raising his right arm triumphantly in the air, declared, “You have to distribute these books!” Ten seconds later I encountered a heavyset man with awful teeth and gray hair. Towering over me, he quickly took a book and offered me ten dollars and a priceless smile. Your Servant, Ari