Auspicious Beginning

by Anita dasi

Aksaya Tritiya is an auspicious day to begin something. We didn’t exactly leave on this day, but we did make the rounds to many deities in Vrndavan on Chandan-yatra and offered prayers that we could be instruments of Srila Gurudeva and Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu on our three week long book distribution trip.

On Chandan-yatra the deities in Vrndavan are covered with the cooling sandalwood paste. This is Sri Gopinatha from Gopinatha Bhavan.


Some felt the deities at Imlitala temple had the best chandan-yatra decoration with Krsna’s flower chudder.

I think they reciprocated by sending some expert last minute advice. We left the next morning first to Delhi in a shared taxi with Rasanda prabhu. He was on his way to his preaching trip in Australia and New Zealand. He offered many wonderful pointers about how to preach in India, the importance of using stories to illustrate points, the need to be ready to back up your points with shastra, how Hindi kirtan is a must in North India. He had Kunja dasi get out the mrdanga and start singing, and told us its a very good technique to pause while leading a bhajan and explain the meaning. He asked us if we could tell the history of the song Bhajahu re mana. I knew enough to make a fool of myself. He sighed and said we have lots to learn, but we are babies and we just have to start somewhere.

In Delhi, we were dropped in Connaught Place where the bus to Manali leaves from. Well, actually the bus left from the other side of the road. By the time we crossed the road with our (you have to hum the tune to the Twelve Days of Christmas):

Five boxes of books
Four Takura-ji
Three rollies
Two computer bags
One mrdanga

we were drenched in our own sweat – its around 45 degree Celsius or over 110 Fahrenheit these days in Vrndavan and Delhi. Is it a coincidence that we chose this time of year to distribute books in the hill stations of the Himalayas? Well I never claimed to be doing pure bhakti. But we did figure we could be of more use distributing books to the hoards escaping the heat rather than sweltering in Vrndavan. Its hard to believe we were so hot when now I am sitting in a wool sweater, socks, hat and chudder sipping tea.

After a night writhing in a bus seat we reached Manali around 9 am. It was pouring rain. We transferred all our luggage (remember the song) to under a tarp. Then we hired a car to take us the few kilometers to Vashist. This is the where Lord Rama’s guru Vashist Rsi had his ashram. Our god-sister Jagat-mohini didi helped us immensely by arranging a room here. Originally the idea to come to Manli came in February when we were distributing books for Siva Ratri. Someone in our group distributed some books to a nice man named Syam and his friend. They came and visited the temple later that evening. When we were talking to him he invited us to come to Manali. We had been in touch every week or two since then planning our visit. But the last 10 days I could not reach him. Perhaps he lost this phone, perhaps business called him away and he did not want to rescind the invitation, we may never know. Anyway, Krsna can be quite crooked in His arrangements and we are here now.

Yesterday, between the pouring rain and exhaustion from the overnight bus journey we mostly rested. Around 5 Karuna-mayi dasi went out to get some supplies. She has very little experience distributing books and was nervous if she would be able to do it. She came back from the shop and said, “I need some books, the shop keeper wants some.” We sent her off with 5 books, a variety of Hindi and English. We all giggled when she came home with none. She had been so nervous, and here she was the first one to distribute books, five at that, and without even trying. It was a sweet reminder that we are just instruments.