His Grace Yajna Purusha Das - Bhaktivedanta Ashram - Bhakti Center
Book Distribution in New York City


My name is Yajna Purusha dasa, a disciple of HH Niranjana Swami. I have lived in Manhattan for the last 11 years where we have developed the Bhaktivedanta Ashram: a brahmacary ashram dedicated to spreading Krishna Consciousness in NYC through book distribution, college outreach and harinam sankirtan.

We are about 13 brahmacaries and take care of 26 Second Ave, The Matchless Gifts storefront, started by Srila Prabhupada in 1966 and a 6 story building, now called The Bhakti Center, just 1 block away from 26 2nd Ave.

Our ashram and community is growing and so is our overhead, or as I like to put it: our expenses are increasing 'by the day'. Therefore I am extremely grateful to Benediction Moon for supporting our efforts through the donation of Srila Prabhupada's books. As you will hear from some of the distributors themselves, this opportunity to offer a book of Srila Prabhupada to the people of New York City is very rewarding and purifying.

I did full-time book distribution myself for about 10 years and I know that I wouldn't be here today without that service and I am deeply satisfied to see our new brahmacaries getting the same profound experience without having to be in anxiety about the amount of laxmi they are collecting.

Another beauty of our situation here in New York is that our distributors meet so many people every day and they actually have a place they can invite them to, and so many people have come and attended our programs, because they met a sankirtana devotee and our centre is just a few blocks away.

I pray for the blessings of all the Vaisnavas so that we may be able to continue our efforts of establishing a vibrant and growing community of Krsna bhaktas.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Your servant
Yajna Purusha dasa


Testimony from Doyal Gauranga das:

There were several of us on the subway on our way to distribute Srila Prabhupada's books. The subway platforms of New York are dark, loud, congested, and I guess if you were to use one word to describe the overall mood of the place and people, it can be nicely put as "unpleasant." So what I did, after we split up and started to approach people was make a resolution in my mind. "It doesn't matter how many rejections you get, just keep going" That became my mantra. I told myself over and over again, "don't be concerned with the number of people that reject you. A hundred people can turn you down in a row, and it doesn't matter." I began walking up and down the subway platform with this meditation, and was actually counting the number of rejections I was getting. Five, ten, twenty....the number was increasing. I was wondering how many it would take before somebody took a book. But I reminded myself that that wasn't the point. This wasn't just some gimmick for my mind, or a type of trick where after a certain number of rejections, a book would go out. This was Krsna teaching me the real purpose of book distribution. I realized as long as I focused on the types of responses I got from people, whether they were friendly or not, receptive or not, took a book or not, my mind would constantly give me trouble. But if I kept the meditation that my service to Srila Prabhupada and the other devotees on the sankirtan team wasn't just to distribute books, but it was simply to be out there and give my best, then the mind would not cause any trouble. It actually didn't matter if I didn't distribute a single book, or even met one nice person. The point was that I never stopped trying and never got discouraged from a single rejection. And I think that's why, by Krsna and Prabhupada's mercy, I distributed all my books that day, and even had to borrow a few from another devotees bag. I just got over the mental dilemna over what type of response I would get from each person. The rejections never stopped, and neither did I.

One particularly interesting story worth sharing, which I may even consider my all-time book distribution high-light, also happened that same day. I noticed a young, hip-looking guy in his late teens or early twenties. I thought, this guy may not take a book, but he definitely doesn't look like he'll be rude to me. It's worth a shot. So I approached him, gave the opening line, and before I could say anything about the book he snatched it from my hand, gave it a hard slap and said without losing his cool demeanor, "Don't bother explaining it to me, I'm gonna take this book right now and give you a donation." I was shocked! What had just happened? How did he even know what was going on? He continued to say, "yeah, I've seen you guys chanting before and I've alway wanted to take a book, but I never had any money on me. So now I've got a few dollars and I want to take the book." So he took the book and I gladly accepted the donation, and that was that. So you never know where people are at, how they will respond, or even how one experience now will fructify sometime in the later future. Thank-you to those devotees who were chanting chanting!



Testimony from Radha Vallabha das:

Every day on book distribution I have to sift through hundreds of people to find one person who is a bit interested in Prabhupada's books. Often it's a huge relief just to get someone who is willing to take the book in his hand and listen to my pitch! And of those people who are actually interested, it's not unusual to get people who simply have no money. It happens all the time. They look through their wallet or purse or pockets and they just have nothing. My habit and training is to take it as Krsna's arrangement and move on. After all, at the end of the day I have to double my BBT price. Only if someone seems really attached to the book do I take a loss and give them a smaller book--which is always a disappointment to them. So, what a relief it's been that after all that blood sweat and tears --and sweat and tears and more tears -- this is NYC Subways, remember! -- that when I finally find a person interested in checking out the Gita, but has no money, I can just give them the book. Without that deep rooted nagging concern about doubling my BBT I can give them the chance to sit down and hear the pure teachings of Srila Prabhupada. What a gift!


If you would like to assist the enthusiastic and surrendered brahmacaris in distributing Srila Prabhupada's books in one of the most challenging and important cities in the world, simply go here and enter "Bhakti Center NY" in the field "I would like books sent to..."