Суд над Бхагавад-гитой / Attempt to ban Bhagavad-gita

A Taste of Salted Bread

by Sarvabhavana Dasa

The following excerpts are from Sarvabhavana Dasa’s book Salted Bread, which focuses on how he and his friend Sachisuta Dasa served Lord Krishna and spread His teachings in the Soviet Union. The book emphasizes Sachisuta’s dedication and subsequent imprisonment. These excerpts, drawn from most of the chapters in Salted Bread, were selected by BTG Associate Editor Urmila Devi Dasi, who edited the book.

The Beginning
I had a very ordinary childhood in Armenia, growing up just like anyone else. My greatest fortune in childhood was to have one very good, close friend I called Sako. We had been vegetarians since fifteen years of age. My fondest dream was to one day take a bath in the sacred Ganges River, visit all the ancient temples, and climb the Himalayan Mountains to meet the great yogis there.

Entering the Spiritual World
My friend Senik took me to the Hare Krishna Yerevan center after I got out of the army. I found that I was also singing and clapping my hands with the devotees. I was thinking that it would never end. The cymbals and drums were so harmonious that I felt as if I were in heaven! Everyone in the room was swaying back and forth like waves in an ocean of bliss. Some devotees kept bringing trays of food and ringing tiny bells; they were offering the food to Krishna. Soon I noticed that the fruits I brought were also offered at the altar, and I looked round me to see if anyone else noticed that those were the fruits I had brought.

I do not know how it happened, but I started to lead the singing. What finally forced me to stop was when the police, the KGB, were trying break the door down. Some devotees were running from one room to another and hiding the books, typewriters, and other items.

After some time, the devotees decided to open the door. Five angry men practically flew in and started to scream orders. They started to search everywhere and anywhere; I did not understand what they were looking for so eagerly.

They started to register everyone’s names and check their documents. After everything cooled down, the devotees started to serve the sanctified food, prasadam, as if nothing had happened just five minutes ago.

“I’m sorry about last night,” a devotee told me the next morning. “Did the KGB write down your name?”

“Yes, they did.”

“So, that means you are already one of us. You are a Hare Krishna devotee!”

“I don't mind,” I said.

All the devotees, including myself, started to laugh softly.

Right Time for Decision, and On the Way to Krishna
As soon as I entered the doorway of my home after my return journey, I found that the KGB had come and searched our house. Soon, Sako and then I moved into the Yeravan center.

My New Lifestyle
Sako encouraged me to distribute books. So, I tried it. The first time in my life I offered a book to a young university student, he took it happily. But the second man read a little bit and then threw it in my face. He told me the Hare Krishnas are crazy and one of his relatives had taken to Krishna consciousness.

He shouted, “And he is a totally crazy man—he is not eating meat, eggs, and fish, not even alcohol! What kind of madness is that? God created everything for us to enjoy, and this stupid guy is saying that he cannot eat with his friends!”

I felt miffed but did not lose my enthusiasm from the first man, and I continued to distribute more.

The only problem I had now was that I did not want the police to disturb my parents, but it was practically impossible because my name and address were already on the blacklist. Two or three months after I moved into the temple, I heard that police were starting to arrest devotees and put them in jail in Russia.

Everyone became tigers—starting to print and distribute even more fliers and books. One day after distribution, all the devotees looked as if they were celebrating something. We quickly went inside and saw the Russian Bhagavad-gita and Coming Back in Armenian.

I asked our leader, Sannyasa Dasa, if I could look at them, but he told me, “They should be used as originals from which to print more. So it is better if we do not touch them and possibly leave any fingerprints on the pages or pictures.”

In a few weeks, Sannyasa brought us the first printed pages of the Gita. After that he taught us how to fold, and we all sat down to fold all the pages in order to make a book. We applied glue to the side of the set of pages, pressed it into the cover, and placed it under some heavy suitcases next to the heater so that it would dry quickly. After it was dried, Sannyasa marked it with a pencil cutting line. He then started to cut the extra papers with a razor blade and metal ruler.

Soon our first handmade book was ready. One devotee wanted to open and read from it, but another grabbed it from his hand and told him that we have to first offer it to guru and Krishna, then only could we see it ourselves. So after placing it on the altar, we started an ecstatic and unusual kirtana. At that time I didn’t realize the full significance of what was going on in that little room on the ninth floor and what a very special sacrifice I was participating in. After many years, I understood that we were actually founding a powerful mission in the U.S.S.R. I did not know at that time that these books would make a revolution and that after only ten to fifteen years there would be hundreds of temples and thousands of Krishna devotees in the Soviet Union just because of these small handmade books.

My First Arrest
Soon, Sannyasa filled a room full of printed pages of Bhagavad-gita, and everybody was busy folding them and turning them into hundreds of bound copies of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings. It was ecstatic to see how our first book came out of that room and was sold right across the street. Sannyasa was telling us that we should all learn each step of the operation perfectly so that if one devotee was not there, the others could do his part. He meant that if one devotee got arrested, then the others could carry on. We were trying not to speak too much about this subject, but at the same time, it was impossible to avoid it. Almost every day the police would catch some devotees, beat them up, take all the books, and then free them after hours or days.

No one said it, but everyone was thinking that he or she might be the next one to be arrested.

I was thinking in that way also: “What if they catch me? What am I going to do? What will I tell them?”

When I first started distributing books, I would sometimes be brought to meet people who were re-typing the books with carbon paper to make four copies. They would be doing this in a secret room because in Armenia you could not own a typewriter or a photocopier openly unless you had a special permit, which was not easy to obtain. And they were typing very slowly with one or two fingers.

When I asked them what they were doing, they would say, “So many people asked me if they could borrow this book, but I didn’t want to lend it out because who knows when I would get it back. So, I am making four copies.”

I would say, “Why didn’t you just ask for more?”

Their jaw would drop, and they would say, “There’s more?” as if they never thought that there would be more.

We started to send books to Russia by post. For some time it worked out well, until the KGB found out about it. They made a new rule that a package of more than a certain size and weight was subject to inspection.

Then we started to smuggle books out of Armenia in trucks. We contacted people who brought goods to Armenia and took other materials back to Russia. They knew how to hide our boxes in the front of the truck behind other goods.

One morning after breakfast, I accidentally offered a book to a man on the street who happened to be a KGB agent. He started to ask many more questions, which made me feel that something was fishy, but I did not know what to do.

He took out his police identification and said, “Place your hands behind your back and follow me.”

This was the first time that I was made to walk with my hands behind my back. I had only seen this kind of imposition in the movies, and just a year before I would never have believed that one day I would be treated in that way, too.

I started to chant the maha-mantra in my mind while walking through the police station. I could hear someone screaming. One of the policemen was very fat and ugly; another one was skinny and smiling at me. That is usually the tactic of the police; later on I became very familiar with it. One is beating you up, and another one is gently asking questions.
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