A friend at every step

Approximately 8-10 months ago I met 3 people outside a major intersection in downtown Toronto. It was a cold and windy evening but I remember this guy, his girlfriend and his brother stopped to explore Srila Prabhupada’s books and they each took a book. I didn’t think much of it then but yesterday I ran into them again. They instantly recognised me and reminded me of their previous meeting. It took me a few minutes to remember everything. I started to ask them if they had read the book they took last time and he told me his girlfriend had read it completely and he was 3 quarters of the way through. I thought perhaps they were talking of a small book, so I showed them the Bhagavad Gita. This is when they told me that it was Bhagavad gita that they had read. At this moment I remembered the entire conversation from 8 months ago and felt great happiness in knowing they had read the Bhagavad gita. Their enthusiasm was obvious and it was like meeting old friends. The younger brother had studied the smaller books. He reminded me of how I had explained to him the picture of the chariot with the horses and to my surprise he remembered it all. So this time I showed them the science of self realisation and explained how it will help them understand the Bhagavad gita and they readily agreed. I requested them to visit us soon or we will keep meeting every few months.

As they left I had two realisations. One that we should preach directly the message of Krishna consciousness when we meet someone with even a little interest. If we just present the message as it is, people will remember it. It is transcendental knowledge not deteriorating with time, not like material knowledge that we forget overnight. Secondly, when someone gets a book a bond of friendship is established that becomes sweeter over time. If we keep distributing Srila Prbahupada’s books – we will have friends all over the world.