We have books that have changed the world. We can name many others, but the fact is, books have been extant in human society for many years. When people decided to write, and they have been for generations—they would find any surface they could write on. In India, the chosen surface was palm leaves. Painstakingly, they would copy things onto these palm leaves using a stylus; they'd have to expose it to the sun so you get that darkened area. Isn't that beautiful handwriting? And how long would it take you to copy the Bhagavad Gita by hand? Audience: A year! That would take a while to generate enough to try to win the marathon for book distribution.

So other people realized, as technology advanced, that books could be printed. The first thing was the Gutenberg Press. That's not it. There was a Gutenberg Press. A man named Gutenberg invented it to spread the Bible. You can trace Christianity and see how it expanded through the distribution of the printed book. Then came other printing presses. This one is a replica. It's a picture of the kind of printing press that Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur brought to Calcutta and kept running 24/7, along with two others. They had them lined up near the altar because he kept them near the altar to show that they were also Deities.

Anybody here from Ohio? One, two. You know where these printing presses came from? Ohio is a good export state. These printing presses came from Ohio. He shipped them all the way to India. And Prabhupada had expressed to us, when he started his mission, that he was following the instruction of his spiritual master, whom he asked several times for direction about what kind of service he would like him to do. I'm wearing a wristband right now. It says, "If you ever get money, print books." Who said that? Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur. And where did he say it to our founder-acharya? At Radha Kund! At that sacred place of Radha Kund, our Prabhupada had asked Srila Bhakti Siddhanta, "What can I do?" And Srila Bhakti Siddhanta said that, "I've got this big temple, the Bhagbazar marble temple, and I wish now that I could take the marble from that temple, sell it, and print some books." Then he said, "If you ever get money, print books." Prabhupada said, "I took this from his mouth that he was very fond of books."

So when he began his campaign, he extended that same mood to all of us, and it remains. Now, I'm going to teach you a few points that have come by Krishna's mercy to the minds and hearts of devotees who have been distributing books for many years that will save you a lot of time and grief.

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Add to your wisdom literature collection:

https://iskconsv.com/book-store/

https://www.bbtacademic.com/books/

https://thefourquestionsbook.com/

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