The Trip Unfolds - Siva Ratri in Haridwar 2011

I think the last few months have been a very emotional and intense for all of us. I have felt the need to be very gentile with myself and others as we attempt to process Srila Gurudeva entering nitya-lila. Many plans have been altered or canceled, but I kept feeling a nudging to come to Haridwar for Siva-ratri again. Partly out of my anxiety that the book worms could be slowly devouring all the jewel like books we stored in Haridwar, partly remembering last year’s bliss of standing with a crowd around you grabbing Siva Tattvas out of our hands, and partly a desire to find a connection with Srila Gurudeva through trying to serve his desire for book distribution I booked the tickets.

GVP Book Sponsorship recently printed many fliers in Hindi and English so that money is never an obstacle for anyone to come in contact with the soul piecing message of our guru-varga. But I admit that the night before we left, when I stared at the boxes of pamphlets needing to be folded my mind grumbled, “forget it, we don’t have time to fold them.” But out of duty I filled up a big box while Taruni dasi convinced me we can fold what we can on the train, though I was still grumpy because I prefer to distribute books on the train.

The next morning our party of six made our way to the Mathura train station.

Once we boarded the train and all our luggage and boxes of books we settled I pulled out the good news, “lets fold fliers!” As I began to pull out stacks of the A4 sheets that needed folding, Syamarani didi’s words, “you can have the new people you meet help” came to mind.So I just began passing out stack to the other people in our compartment. Yamuna dasi quickly folded them a sample, and with the simple exchange of the word “seva” they began folding – two, three, four people. Then the fellows in the next compartment came to see what we were doing, and when I offered them a stack to my delight they took it. Periodically they would hand us a bunch of folded fliers and I would smile and offer them another stack to work on. A few people came to their stop and had to go and few more came and wanted seva. In less then three hours all the fliers were miraculously folded. We let everyone who helped pick a small book in appreciation.