A Change of Heart

Book-distribution nectar from Prthu Prabhu

Early one morning, I was distributing books, when suddenly a man with an iron rod appeared, threatening to kill me. So I ran over the street into a pharmacy. This guy was on my tail, chasing me around the tables, and all the ladies working there began to scream. I ran out onto the street chanting the Nrsimhadeva prayers.

All of a sudden, a gentleman with an umbrella and a briefcase appeared. He stopped the man who wanted to kill me by beating him with his umbrella. At that moment a police car came around the corner, so I waved to them to come and help. They jumped out of the car. "What's going on here?" they said.

I told them that this crazy guy wanted to kill me. "Well what do you expect?" they replied. "You are getting on everyone's nerves with your stupid books."

Then the gentleman who had saved me rebuked the policemen. "He's a peaceful monk," the gentleman said, "and this crazy guy here wanted to kill him."

The policemen then asked the crazy guy for his identification, but he refused to hand it over.

Now if there's anything the German police dislike, it's somebody refusing to respect their authority. "What do you mean you won't show us your identification?" they shouted.

When he still refused, the policemen tried to take it by force. The crazy guy tried to run away, but they ran after him, grabbed him, gave him a good beating with their rubber sticks, and then arrested him and drove off.

I turned around to thank the gentleman who had saved me but he had disappeared. As mysteriously as he had appeared, he had disappeared within a second. I continued to distribute books.

Suddenly, in a reflection in the window, I saw a pair of shoes that I now knew only too well. I turned around. It was the same crazy guy who had chased me this morning. This time there was no way to escape, as I was standing against a wall.

"This is it, Prthu," I thought. "Your life is finished." I sat down and started to chant, "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna..."

Then I heard somebody crying. As I looked up, the same guy who had wanted to kill me was standing there with tears in his eyes. "I'm so sorry," he said. "Now I see that you are a monk."

I immediately stood up. "No problem," I said. "You see, we have these books here."

I gave him one book, another book, and another book, until at the end he bought a whole stack of books. At that moment, the same policemen drove by and jumped out. "What's going on here?" they asked.

"He's just buying some books from me," I told them.

"Books? From you?" They couldn't believe it.

CHAKRA 7-Aug-98