“THOSE GUYS WITH THE BOOKS”: I was doing sankirtan on Auckland’s Queen Street when I stopped a guy who looked vaguely familiar. Turns out we’d met four years ago, and apparently I tried to give him a book back then. “Yeah, I almost took it,” he reflected, “but I wasn’t ready for the good stuff yet.”
Then he surprised me: “It’s crazy seeing you because for the past two yers I’ve been trying to find you guys on Queen Street!” I laughed. We’re literally always on Queen Street. For a second I thought maybe he’d accidentally shifted timelines into some alternate New Zealand where sankirtan had been outlawed –but nah, material reality is far too linear for that.
Then he told me what had actually happened. After we first met, he was walking with his wife when suddenly somebody randomly punched him in the head. One blow and he was in a coma for six months! During that coma, he “lived” through five entirely different past lives. When he finally woke up, the biggest shock wasn’t the coma, or even that he was still alive—it was seeing his current wife, not any of the past wives from his coma dream, one of whom he actually liked better.
The whole thing threw him into an existential crisis. His reality cracked open, his marriage didn’t survive, and he began searching for “those guys with the books,” convinced we’d be the only ones who could make sense of it all.
Now, after two years of searching, he had finally run into us again. He joyfully gave a donation, took three books, and said he would visit the Loft as soon as possible. How patient the Lord is! If it takes a traumatic brain injury and a trip through the astral suburbs to finally pick up a Bhagavad-gita, so be it. Krsna will still be there for us.
My spiritual master, HH Devamrita Swami, likes to say how in a small country like NZ you can expect to meet the same people over and over again. But that’s a plus. Doing book distribution in the same places for years allows you to meet and re-meet people as they progress through their life’s journey. Whether they take the books or not initially, their meeting a devotee plants a seed for further inquiry the next time. Keep going out there and you may meet them when that seed has sprouted and they’ve been looking for you. In this man’s case, Krsna increased his hankering by somehow making him miss us for two whole years, but when the time was right, he got his chance and was all in!
All glories to the patient efforts of the sankirtan devotees!
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Ys Manobhirama Dasa
“THOSE GUYS WITH THE BOOKS”: I was doing sankirtan on Auckland’s Queen Street when I stopped a guy who looked vaguely familiar. Turns out we’d met four years ago, and apparently I tried to give him a book back then. “Yeah, I almost took it,” he reflected, “but I wasn’t ready for the good stuff yet.”
Then he surprised me: “It’s crazy seeing you because for the past two yers I’ve been trying to find you guys on Queen Street!” I laughed. We’re literally always on Queen Street. For a second I thought maybe he’d accidentally shifted timelines into some alternate New Zealand where sankirtan had been outlawed –but nah, material reality is far too linear for that.
Then he told me what had actually happened. After we first met, he was walking with his wife when suddenly somebody randomly punched him in the head. One blow and he was in a coma for six months! During that coma, he “lived” through five entirely different past lives. When he finally woke up, the biggest shock wasn’t the coma, or even that he was still alive—it was seeing his current wife, not any of the past wives from his coma dream, one of whom he actually liked better.
The whole thing threw him into an existential crisis. His reality cracked open, his marriage didn’t survive, and he began searching for “those guys with the books,” convinced we’d be the only ones who could make sense of it all.
Now, after two years of searching, he had finally run into us again. He joyfully gave a donation, took three books, and said he would visit the Loft as soon as possible. How patient the Lord is! If it takes a traumatic brain injury and a trip through the astral suburbs to finally pick up a Bhagavad-gita, so be it. Krsna will still be there for us.
My spiritual master, HH Devamrita Swami, likes to say how in a small country like NZ you can expect to meet the same people over and over again. But that’s a plus. Doing book distribution in the same places for years allows you to meet and re-meet people as they progress through their life’s journey. Whether they take the books or not initially, their meeting a devotee plants a seed for further inquiry the next time. Keep going out there and you may meet them when that seed has sprouted and they’ve been looking for you. In this man’s case, Krsna increased his hankering by somehow making him miss us for two whole years, but when the time was right, he got his chance and was all in!
All glories to the patient efforts of the sankirtan devotees!
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Ys Manobhirama Dasa