Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā
cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ
nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāminn iti nāmine
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
– I –
Śrīla Prabhupāda once said, “Impossible is a word in a fool’s dictionary.” As ISKCON’s global minister for book distribution, charged with carrying forward the mission that was dearest to his heart, I have found no better instruction for the work before us. We are not in the business of counting obstacles. We are in the business of assuming it can be done – and then doing it.
In December of 1969, Śrīla Prabhupāda descended into the basement pressroom of ISKCON Press in Boston – a former funeral home, unheated in winter – and stood before a large offset printing press. According to the eyewitness account of Patita Uddhāraṇa Dāsa, one of the press’s bookbinders who was present that day, Prabhupāda “affectionately pointed to the press machine and said, ‘This is my heart.’” When a devotee replied, “You are the heart of ISKCON, Prabhupāda,” he said simply: “And this is my heart.”
That press, in that cold basement, was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s heart. From that beginning – which the Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta, by Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami documents in full – the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust grew to become, as Patita Uddhāraṇa Dāsa records in his compilation This Is My Heart (Bhaktivedanta Archives, 2015), the world’s largest Indological publisher, distributing millions of books in over fifty languages. Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote in a letter preserved in the Līlāmṛta: “When one book is published, I think I have conquered an empire.” He conquered many empires. And he left the maps to us so that we could carry on his conquests.
The tip of the spear – the most penetrating aspect of our entire movement – has always been the literature and the act of distributing it. Śrīla Prabhupāda said plainly: “Producing and distributing books is our most important engagement. All other engagements culminate in this one end.” He called the printed book the bṛhat-mṛdaṅga – the great drum – whose sound travels farther than any kirtan party, into places no kirtan party can reach. In a 1973 letter he described our method in terms that leave no ambiguity: “Fight with Maya means to drop thousands and millions of books into the lap of the conditioned souls. Just like during wartime, the bombs are raining from the sky.”
– II –
Śrīla Prabhupāda did not theorize about covering the earth. He did it. He boarded the Jaladuta at age sixty-nine with some volumes of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the holy name, and the order of his spiritual master – and nothing else. He suffered two heart attacks on the crossing. He arrived without allies, without money, without a plan anyone else would have called realistic. And within twelve years he had founded over one hundred temples, produced over seventy volumes of Vedic literature, and established a global movement on six continents. He did not dwell on the impossibility of the task. His unwavering question was always: “How can I do this?” That question – surrendered, determined, forward-moving – is the question we inherit.
He also left us a principle by which to work: “If you are going to hunt, you should hunt for a rhinoceros. In that way, if you don’t succeed, everyone will say, ‘Oh, it couldn’t be done anyway.’ But if you do succeed, everyone will be amazed.” We are rhinoceros hunters. Our goals are large by design, because large goals develop large capacity, and because Lord Caitanya’s mission is not a modest one. Pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi grāma sarvatra pracāra haibe more nāma – “In every town and village, the chanting of My name will be heard.” Every town. Every village. Every language. We take this instruction literally, because Śrīla Prabhupāda took it literally.
The Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi-līlā 9.29, purport) gives us our operating principle in one sentence: “The only purpose of the preachers of the saṅkīrtana movement must be to go on preaching without restriction.” No restriction. Not considering who is fit or unfit. Not waiting for perfect conditions. Not keeping a list of why it cannot be done – because what is illegal in this ministry is keeping such a list. We go on. We assume it can be done. And then we do it.
– III –
The vision driving this ministry is what we call the One World Team: a global saṅkīrtana community in which every region of the world works together, shares best practices, and moves toward a common goal. The principle is simple – when we work as one, we do better than when we work alone. A rising tide lifts all boats. Where attention goes, energy flows. And when the entire world gives its attention to the distribution of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books together, the results are not merely additive. They are exponential.
Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu is described in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Madhya-līlā 2.81) as the greatest spiritual capitalist, possessing the touchstone of love of God and distributing it without discrimination to anyone who comes. He does not ask whether the recipient is qualified. He gives. Our ministry takes its operating mood from Him: liberal, prolific, cooperative, and utterly confident in what we are distributing. As Nārada Muni confirms in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.5.11), this literature causes a viplava – a revolution – in the consciousness of anyone who encounters it. We are not selling a mundane product. We are delivering a cure. The only question is how many people we can reach.
Śrīla Prabhupāda saw the Sherwin-Williams paint logo – a can of paint pouring over the globe with the motto “Cover the Earth” – and said that should be our motto too. It is. The ministry’s work is to cover this earth, systematically and without restriction, using every language, every channel, every method available, cooperating across all regions as one world team, with the confidence that Lord Caitanya Himself is writing the checks. As we say in this ministry: Workarounds bring turnarounds. Your pledge is your wedge. And “touching the pavement” is enough to flip the switch.
– IV –
On this appearance day of Śrīla Prabhupāda, the ISKCON Ministry of Book Distribution is glad to report that the One World Team is working – and working well.
Since the launch of the Bhadra Campaign, the worldwide distribution of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam sets has grown from 7,007 sets in 2018 to 40,381 sets in 2025 – a 476 percent increase. Bhagavad-gītā As It Is has grown from 2.1 million copies in 2020 to 5.1 million copies in 2025 – a 143 percent increase. Overall BBT book distribution, as measured by the “World Sankirtan Newsletter,” has increased by 33 percent since 2018. Caitanya-caritāmṛta sets are on the rise as well.
These numbers tell a story. The focused, strategic, cooperative campaigns of the One World Team dramatically outperform uncoordinated individual effort. When regions share what works, when leaders set goals together and report to one another, when the entire global saṅkīrtana community moves in the same direction at the same time – the results reflect not just organizational efficiency but the direct reciprocation of Lord Caitanya, who, as Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī writes in the Laghu-bhāgavatāmṛta, makes everything possible for those who carry out His mission: “Nothing is impossible for the Lord, His dear devotees, His transcendental abode or His pastimes, for all these are inconceivably powerful.”
We are either improving or we are getting worse. Staying the same is not tenable. The numbers above represent thousands of devotees around the world who chose to improve – who caught their own Jaladuta, stepped aboard, and sailed. The ministry’s task going forward is to widen that fleet, to bring more regions and more communities into the One World Team, to set goals that are larger than last year’s, and to assume – always, without apology – that it can be done.
*
Śrīla Prabhupāda crossed an ocean alone and changed the world. He pointed to a printing press in a cold basement and called it his heart. He left us that heart, still beating, in every book his followers carry out the door.
The saṅkīrtana movement is not a monument to what Śrīla Prabhupāda accomplished. It is a living mission he placed in our hands and asked us to carry forward. The paramparā moves only when someone picks it up, and with heart, soul, and intelligence, carries it forward. On this most auspicious day of his divine appearance, the ISKCON Ministry of Book Distribution pledges to carry it: without restriction, without hesitation, as one world team, assuming always that it can be done.
All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda. Paraṁ vijayate śrī-kṛṣṇa-saṅkīrtanam.
Vaiśeṣika Dāsa
ISKCON Minister of Book Distribution