06/19/98-1880

Harikesa Swami Marathon Video

Sweden (VNN) - Marathon speech from a video by Srila Harikesa Swami, May 1998.

"Hare Krishna devotees of the North European zone. Here we are in the middle of May, 1998. Now this is going to be a very informal discussion just me and you, about what we are going to do for the June marathon, or July marathon, or whatever it may be according to the country you are in. Don't expect a professional presentation, I am not a professional actor, I am not going to make a professional video, don't expect to be entertained, in fact, you might be very upset with some things I might say.

I'd like to start off by giving a message to our leaders. We have to distribute books. We have to make marathons periodically to do this book distribution. We have managed to put aside book distribution as the most important preaching activity we can do. We have done this for various reasons, no need to analyze them all now. Having a good economy is probably the first reason. Because distributing books, when it is done improperly, is not very good economically. Actually, if you distribute books for the right price, you don't have to distribute all that many, but when you do it for the right price, book distribution is a very good business. It is our real business, it is our spiritual business and it is something which we should try to do and figure out how to do more and more. Actually, we should not just be interested in distributing tons and tons of books for a very cheap price. Because then, after a while, we figure out, "Well, all these people who are distributing all these tons of books could be better off distributing something else, which makes more money." And then we reducebook distribution.

We should increase the quality of the book distributing, we should increase the quality of the distributors, making them first class preachers. Maybe they distribute less books, but every book they distribute should be for the right price, or more even, so that we get a good return on each and every book and the people who get the books are very spiritually happy with the persons they have met. In this way, we can actually turn book distribution into the first class economic basis that Prabhupada actually wanted it to be. It doesn't mean we have to stop anything else, doesn't mean that we have to start something else, in order to go on preaching. We already have the perfect mechanism by which we can preach right in front of us. We just have to go out distribute books for a very good price. All the expenses will be covered and we can distribute books nicely to nice people and make them Krishna conscious too. So that is a very good reason to go on with book distribution, economically, everything depends on money more or less. And people are always thinking about the economic considerations first and foremost. One of my problems is I don't think of money first, it is a tool by which the preaching mission can be accomplished. I feel personally that book distribution is still the best means to preach. For example, many people look at our movement and say, "You have the best philosophy, but the application of the philosophy is not very nice, and it is not very relevant to me." And they are right. Therefore, the most important thing we can do is to develop our own spiritual house, get it in proper order.

But one may say, "Then we should stop everything else and not do any preaching and not do anything else at the same time." No, that is a mistake. We should increase the preaching and get our spiritual house in order and then we will have the potency to do it nicely. If you don't increase the preaching, then you fall back into mundane considerations, mundane social considerations, mundane mental considerations, and thus everything becomes very material. We have to find a balance between these two, how to increase the preaching, and how to actually get ourselves fixed up as a society, so that when people come and see us, they see a proper, practical, spiritual example of what we are actually preaching in these books and that is the most important thing. So therefore, if we can start by just getting our book distributors to be first class Vaisnava preachers, then they will actually automatically convince people that the society is nice, because people are mainly concerned with people. Just like you may go to a building. You see a building and you may think for five seconds, "Oooh, this is a very nice building." That has its own effect, of course. But if you meet one person in that building, who so-called represents what this building is meant to be, and that person is obnoxious, rude, improperly acting, improperly speaking, unclean, not properly looking. Then what will happen is that the person will reject this building, because for that person, the most important thing is the people that he meets. So when you meet a good book distributor, that lasting impression will actually tell people that this Krishna consciousness movement is nice, that the book distributor is nice, that these books are therefore nice, because they are producing nice people. Although it seems a little bit unusual to speak about this, but what is the use of distributing tons and millions, and billions of books, if the people have no appreciation of what those books are supposed to produce?

Just like you may be able to read a book, I also often do this, read many books on new medical theories. A person is writing a book and he says, "If you just take this medicine, or if you just take this diet, all your problems will be solved." So I try it. I take the medicine, I take the diet, and my problems aren't solved. Because generally these things don't solve your problems. Or, I hear about other persons who have taken, they don't impress me very much either. What impresses me, when I try it myself and it works, or I see others who have tried it, and it works on them, and things are changed for the better, then I am convinced to try it myself. Now, not everybody is going to try the Krishna conscious process, even if they read a book about that. They want to see how others have changed their lives and how others are doing nicely, according to this process. And when they meet sankirtana devotees, who are actually spiritually advanced, who are actually quality, very filled with good, spiritual qualities, are first class people who have love and compassion in their hearts, are not angry with people, are not upset with people, are thinking of helping people, then the person who sees such a devotee will automatically change his understanding about Krishna consciousness and will be very attracted to the book. What to speak if we go and visit these people. If we make programs in their homes at night, or on the weekends. If we start preaching too to these people, and they become interested in Krishna consciousness and they come to the temple, and they see how nice it is, and they eat prasadam, then we can have a very wonderful preaching activity going on.

So, we have to go on preaching that is the point. This is not just the duty of a small group of sankirtana devotees. It is the duty of every single devotee in this Krishna consciousness movement, and it must be facilitated by the leaders of this Krishna consciousness movement, who should not simply see things in terms of how much money it makes, but should see things in terms of how much preaching it brings. How much preaching effect it has. How many people become interested in Krishna consciousness and thus become interested in supporting Krishna consciousness. This is very important. The preaching spirit is diminishing, I have seen it, it is very discouraging. I want to see it expand again. Individual devotees should take the initiative to increase the preaching. Everything depends on devotees, everything depends on people. Institutions are only as good as the people in them. Buildings have no value whatsoever, unless they are occupied by first class people. That goes on all levels. The individual level, also the familial level. A marriage is only as good as the husband and wife who are making it up. A family is only as good as the children and parents who are in that family. When the people are not qualified, when the people are not proper, when they have not advanced in spiritual life, when they have not become Krishna conscious, then the whole institution which they represent becomes meaningless, disturbed and full anxieties. So we have to create first class people, that is our responsibility. And the most first class people of all are those who preach Krishna consciousness. And of all the preachers of Krishna consciousness, the book distributors are doing the most important service for the satisfaction of Lord Sri Krishna and Srila Prabhupada. You should know it for certain, there is no better way to preach this Krishna consciousness movement, than through the distribution of Srila Prabhupada's books. Therefore, we have to revive this preaching spirit, bring back the preaching spirit, for all devotees, on all levels. Therefore, the leaders must facilitate this marathon.

The June marathon is very important, it is the yearly marathon, the one month yearly marathon, we should not say that, "Well we will do something else later on." If you do like that, then either we have to stop this June marathon and go back to a grueling December full month marathon, so that everybody gets sick, and they waste three months being unhealthy and we smash all the vans. The ice and the cold, and nobody likes it, which I don't think is good for the devotees, but if you insist on being useless, then we may have to do that. Or the best thing is, you change your understanding and get into the mood of this marathon and make things happen. Every temple, everywhere in this zone except for the one exception of the Abentheuer temple, which will for the first part of June facilitate a very important GBC and educational meetings there, everybody everywhere should simply be out on this marathon, simply be out preaching to people, with these books. It is your duty. It will help you, it will wake you up, it will make you enlivened, it will give you spiritual energy. It will make you happy and it will make me happy and it will make Prabhupada happy and it will make Krishna happy. This is more important than anything else. Everything else can wait. And anyway, it will wait, because we are so dull lately, due to the influence of the modes of ignorance and passion, that we have forgotten even how to do the simplest things, and everything has become a big burden, a big trouble, a big difficulty. I am finding that I have to push devotees a thousand times to do the simplest things. Initiative is getting less and less. Fighting, problems, quarrels, disturbances becoming more and more, the age of Kali is indeed advancing. And there is only one thing that stops that age of Kali dead in its tracks, that is when we do the mission of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the chanting of His holy names all over the world, and the distribution of these Krishna conscious books all over the world, Kali has nothing to say. Therefore, let us push on this sankirtana movement, and push out of these lower modes of material nature.

Instead of seeing book distribution as a problem, let us see book distribution as the solution, for indeed it is. We used to say in the sixties, "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem." And I see that is exactly true now in the Krishna consciousness movement. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. And everyone can be part of the solution, it is not at all difficult. We are dealing with this on various levels, but the purpose of this video is to get you out the door and onto the places where you can distribute books. You may distribute books on the street, you may distribute books on the parking lots, you may go to the malls, you may go wherever you like, in the shops, wherever you find your possibility to distribute. You may also go door to door, wherever people are. You should also bring some prasadam with you, that is very good. Every sankirtana devotee should have prasadam with him, and what he meets a nice person, a person who has taken books, is happy, is liking his association with devotees, you give him prasadam too, he will doubly love you for that. Every sankirtana devotee should bring prasadam with him. The Govinda's (sweet ball production) place in Abentheuer should be able to provide all the prasadam you need for just that very purpose.

Distribute books like mad, distribute prasadam to the nice people, get the names and addresses of these nice people and then you follow it up with those people. You call them up, you write them a letter. You make a program at their house. You don't expect that some office is going to do it. Maybe somebody will do it in an office. Generally they don't. Generally they don't care about these people, or they get moved to another occupation, or they can't do the job anyway, or whatever, and thus it is all ruined. You keep contact with these people. Maybe some central office can keep the data-base of all this, but you keep contact with these people, you preach to them. Then your preaching will have greater value. Many many things can be said, I don't know how much time I could take saying them all at this point, but all I could really say is, "Let'sdo it! Let us stop talking, let us stop thinking, let us stop lamenting, let's stop wondering." We know what to do. If you want to do it, you will do it. Where there is a will, there is a way. If you want to go out and distribute, if you want to arrange for book distribution, you will do it. Every leader knows how, it is not difficult. You just have to want to do it, and when you want to, you will. And it is not at all difficult, you just have to want to. You have to look in your heart and understand, "Do I really want to preach this Krishna consciousness movement? Or am I only interested really in making a nice living facility for myself, with some service to do, to justify my existence. In some palace, or empire of my own, that I control completely, so that no one else will get in my way, or disturb my way of life. Or do I want to preach?" Eating, sleeping, mating and defending can also be done in spiritual institutions. This is not what we want to do. But mainly that is what happens. Lethargy sets in, we don't want eating, sleeping, mating and defending. We want preaching. That is the point of this movement, what is the use of it otherwise? So please go on with your Krishna consciousness, try to make everything a great success and do not forget that preaching is the essence. Thank you very much, HareKrishna."