ISKCON society is based on selling Bhagavata?

[krsna]

BOOK DISTRIBUTION IS NOT MUNDANE BUSINESS

 

Sri Srimad Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja

 

Devotee: It is often said that one should not make a business out of the Bhagavatam. If materialistic persons heard that, they could easily look at us and say this whole ISKCON society is based on selling Bhagavata. It seems we are contradictory to our own preaching.

 

Gour Govinda Swami: Devotees sell the Bhagavata book and there by they give opportunity to people to serve Krishna or serve a pure devotee, vaisnava. They take money from people in exchange for the Bhagavatam and they utilize that money in the service of guru, vaisnava and Krishna, and not for their sense gratification.

 

Such devotees are not vyavasayas, businessmen. But Bhagavata–vyavasayas, so-called pandits who speak on the Bhagavata for money, and who upon obtaining that money use it for sense gratification — they are doing sinful ac-tivity. Devotees never do that. Their selling the Bhagavatam is not a profession, a business. They are distributing mercy.

 

My Guru Maharaja Srila Prabhupada said, “If someone simply gives money and takes Bhagavata, even if he never reads it, if he just keeps it in his house, then he gets benefit, because Bhagavata is non-different from Krishna — krsna tulya bhagavata.”

 

Krishna and His vani are non-different. So if he keeps Krishna in his house, then the day will come when his son, or his son’s son, will read it and get benefit. This is not business. We are not doing business. We are distributing mercy. They cannot understand, so they say like that.

 

Devotee: What about the situation where oneis a grhastha? If he goes out and sells Bhagavata or Krishna consciousness literatures to support this family, is that the same? Is that cheating?

 

Gour Govinda Swami: You should understand. A devotee, a vaisnava, if he is a family man, his family is not an ordinary family. All of the members of his family are vaisnavas. All of the relationships among them — husband and wife, father and son, friend and friend, master and servant — must be based on a relationship with Krishna. This is a vaisnava family, sadhu-samsara. Thereby he shows the public how to have a Krishna conscious household life and not a materialistic or illusory family life. Krsnera-samsara, and not mayara-samsara. So that grhastha-vaisnava, householder devotee, must do some business for the service of Krishna or the maintenance of the devotees of Krishna. It is not for his sense gratification. This is a grhasta vaisnava. He is not an ordinary householder. He is vaisnava.

 

Devotee: As long as he is following the principles.

Gour Govinda Swami: Yes. He never does anything for his own sense gratification. He does everything for the gratification of the senses of Krishna. He is a vaisnava, but general people cannot understand it. In order to teach them, a vaisnava becomes a grhastha. By doing so, he shows how to maintain a family inKrishna consciousness. He shows how to make all the members of the family krsna-bhaktas, how to serve Krishna. In other words, how to have Krishna conscious family life, krsn samsara.“You have been doing maya' samsara, but nowdo krsna-samsara.” Therefore, a sadhu becomesa grhastha to teach this thing.

 

— Lecture, Bhubaneswar, 23 September 1989.