Power of Prabhupada books

I barely had strength to go on sankirtan for 5 minutes today and I guess people could see my fatigue and every ‘no’ from them was sounding so heavy – but suddenly this man stopped. He told me we had met before 2 months ago. I asked him if he had taken a book from me and he said he had taken the Bhagavad gita and he even confirmed he had read bits of it. I offered him another book and his first reaction was that he has his own practice and no more books. So I did not push him but then he asked me “I have read that Bhagavad gita, what this Krishna consciousness is?” I exclaimed it was a beautiful question and tried to answer his question with examples on how we imagine happiness to be a by-product of senses and sense object interactions but it never happens and frustrates us. I told him how we need to look for the ultimate pleasure object of the senses Krishna and as he is eternal and unlimited we will be happy. We discussed several examples and then he asked me “How do you make others see this”. So I told him we start from the point of purifying ourselves and instead of looking down upon others we look at them with compassion and try to serve them in a mood of humility. I gave him examples of how he can make prashad and sing kirtan etc. Then he asked, ‘what is the process of purifying yourself?’ By this time I was shocked so I asked him, would you do it if I told you. So I asked him to repeat the maha mantra after me but he said – no no mantras, I have my practice I don’t want to leave. So I said no problem, I will tell you a small mantra ‘Gauranga’ and then I continued to explain to him how sound vibration transforms consciousness, giving various examples. By this time he was holding the path of perfection in his hands. This was now turning into a class and he finally asked the most important question – ‘what does that mantra mean, the one that you were asking me to repeat’So I shared with him the Hare Krishna maha mantra and explained the meaning and how it works on the dirt in our heart. He himself gave a generous donation for the book and asked me when is the discourse in the temple. He was such a sincere soul, I encouraged his practice and complimented his mother who I commented had a strong influence on him. He was very surprised and asked me how did I know. Remembering Srila Prabhupada’s words to one of his disciple’s parents I said “ When the fruit is so nice, you can judge that tree is wonderful” He was a genuine soul so affected by just a few words of Srila Prabhupada’s books, he left saying he would come again and I pray that he does.