Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept our obeisances. All glories to you.
Among the many projects you established in ISKCON, we know how book publication and
distribution is close to your heart. You expressed on multiple occasions that transcendental book
distribution can bring about the desired revolution in the impious lives of a misdirected civiliza-
tion. Every year, devotees from all over the world try their best to please you by distributing as
many books as possible.
Last year, in 2024, your dear disciple Gopal Krishna Goswami Mahārāja left this world to join
you in your service. He was the one who pioneered book distribution in India on a mass level.
He had truly imbibed your spirit of book distribution, and he pushed for it wherever he went,
encouraging devotees to “double it,” just as you would do.
At ISKCON Chowpatty, Radhanath Swami Mahārāja felt that to honor such a tireless warrior,
we should do something extraordinary. He said that the best way to please you, Śrīla Prabhupāda,
would be to glorify his sincere followers like Gopal Krishna Goswami Mahārāja, and the best way
to glorify Gopal Krishna Goswami Mahārāja is to accomplish big results in book distribution. He
told us that we should double last year’s score, and then he said we should come first in the entire
world during this year’s book marathon.
All these years, ISKCON Chowpatty never came first in the book marathon. We always stood
far behind the top book distribution temples of the world, so we wondered how we could ever
come first in the marathon? It would take a herculean effort.
Radhanath Swami Mahārāja himself led the endeavor by rallying the entire congregation to
put in their best efforts at distributing the maximum number of books. He fervently appealed to
the entire community to sacrifice all their comforts and other services and focus entirely on this
service for the one month of the marathon. He constantly called the temple leaders and got the
updates about the latest scores.
We also invited many other senior leaders to give inspirational talks to our community, and
that helped. Knowing that our community was trying their best to glorify such a stalwart devotee
like Gopal Krishna Goswami Mahārāja, everyone was deeply touched, and they showered their
blessings upon us.
The result was we were able to achieve the unthinkable result: we distributed more than
600,000 books and stood first in the entire world. Again, it was proved that the most ordinary can
achieve extraordinary results if we try to honor great Vaiṣṇavas. We are convinced that we were
able to achieve this result only by your blessings coming to us through your sincere followers.
We hope and pray that we continue to remain the recipients of such divine blessings so we can
continue our service in your divine mission.
Your servants,
The devotees at ISKCON Chowpatty

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