The experience and testimonies of devotees selling Srila Prabhupada’s books
describe a special taste, distinct from the happiness young men might
ordinarily experience by stumbling upon a sales technique and finding
themselves on the verge of making a lot of money. The difference is that the
devotees’ book distribution, being devotional service to Krsna, produces an
ecstasy that is transcendental, an ecstasy far beyond even the greatest
material happiness.
Ordinary business and the business of selling Krsna conscious literature are
as different as material life from spiritual life. And anyone observing
spiritual life from the material point of view will not understand it.
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati has compared such empirical attempts to understand
the ecstasy of Krsna consciousness with attempts to taste honey by licking
the outside of the bottle.
The young men and women beginning to distribute books in America knew that
Srila Prabhupada, by giving them Krsna consciousness, had saved them from
hellish life, and they wanted to help him give Krsna consciousness to
others. And such preaching, by distributing his books, was ecstasy,
spiritual ecstasy.
(from Srila Prabhupada lilamrta: Please Distribute Books)
