Report on the Delhi Book Fair, 1999

A few years ago I turned 50 and asked myself, "How will I spend the next half of my life. What is important to me? What have I learned? Who or what are my teachers?" The Urantia Book is in the top of the tier. I made a decision to get involved in the "Urantia Movement", to be a friend to all and to be useful. When I heard about the Delhi Book Fair, I was intuitively drawn to attend. I had been to India many times. India is a spiritual home to me where it is easy to remember and to constantly worship the Beloved.

I flew from Moscow to India to represent Urantia Foundation at the Delhi Book Fair, which took place from August 12-24, 1999. When I got off the plane at the New Delhi airport, tropical heat and moisture embraced me. I am back in India. I am in Mother India who constantly opens my heart to the Friend. I cleared customs, changed money-43 rupees to the dollar. This is good for exports and tourists. However, how do the common people fare? Can they still buy their daal and chaapatis? I walk outside the airport. Everyone wants to help me. "Taxi, sir? Hotel, sahib?" So many people, so few jobs. I decide to take the airport bus into town. I bring my bag on board and pile it on top of other bags, burlap sacks, cardboard boxes, and bundles of cloth. I sit down and open a window and wait. Twenty minutes later, the bus is ready to leave. They close the windows, collect the 30-rupee fare and turn on the air conditioning. This is India. The air-conditioning never works very well. The whole infrastructure is strained by one billion souls. We ride for a half-hour and come to Connaught Place, the main tourist area. Everyone wants to help me off the bus. I am a foreigner. Of course, they believe that I want to get off at the main tourist area. I manage to stay on the bus and ride to the New Delhi Railway Station, where I will meet Mark Bloomfield. Mark has been in India for a week placing The Urantia Book in libraries in the Delhi area. I have only spoken to him on the telephone.

At last, we arrive at the New Delhi Railway Station. I get off the bus. My senses are assaulted in every way. Magenta turbans, multi-colored saris-the colors are so bright, so rich. Did someone slip a psychedelic into my chai? Is that sitar music I hear in my head? The smells of incense, cooking oil, urine, curry powder, cow manure, diesel exhaust, and ????. There is a pulsing energy of people-a swarm, a giant beehive of humanity. The trucks, buses, three wheelers, rickshaws, cars, handcarts and people move in semi-organized chaos. There are porters grabbing at my bag. I am inundated by horns, people jabbering, peddlers crying their wares. "Chaii, Chaiii, Chaiiii". "Taxi, sir?" "Rickshaw, sahib?" "Best hotel, swami."

I decide I will plunge in all the way. I take a bicycle rickshaw. This is a tricycle pedaled by one man with an open bench seat in the back. I put my bag in the sling behind me. I wrap the strap through my arm. I have already made my first mistake. I did not bargain on the fare. I do not want to make a second mistake and lose my bag. He pedals over the flyway, what we would call an overpass. He seems to be pedaling for a long time. What kind of place is this? I sit in back and a man with pipe- stem legs, who weighs little more than half my weight, sweats and pedals me to my destination. I am bigger and stronger than he is. Duty, as Lord Krishna taught Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita: it is my duty to ride and his duty to pedal. We have gone a long way. I thought Kailash Guesthouse (where Mark is staying) was right by the railway station. Oh, I see. We are going to the other side of the station to the main bazaar road-Pahar Gang.

We stop in front of a moldy, dirty building. I ask how much?"60 rupees." I offer 40, and we settle on 50 rupees. It is my duty to pay what is asked. I did not set the price beforehand. I pay too much, but this is my initiation-I have landed. It is little more than a dollar, but is more than a day's wage for a laborer.

There is a grate above the door-which is the only source of air-no windows and a bed. There is just enough space to stand up. I do not think I can stay here, but for 150 rupees, I can store my luggage, change my clothes and go look for another hotel. I later found out that Mark was paying 110 rupees for a smaller room. I now see how Mark is able to distribute books to libraries all over India for a few dollars a day-second class trains and third class hotels. I give them my passport; they do piles of paperwork. This is India; they learned bureaucracy from the British. I look through the hotel registry to find Mark's room number, then look at the grate above his door. The light is off, so I will come back later.

We look at two, three, four, five, six hotels, but none of them is quite right. We finally go to a hotel on a side street. The owner is doing his puja, his ritual worship. He is sitting at the front counter in the lobby of his hotel, chanting, waving incense-and for a moment we are in the temple, God's house. In front of him he worships a picture of his Ishwara Devata, the individual manifestation of God, the individual Deity that is his personal God. To him this is not a picture; this is God present.

In this case it is Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth and prosperity, the consort of Lord Vishnu, who came out of the Milk Ocean when it was churned by the Gods and demons. She represents divine wealth and Atma-Vidya (Atma: Thought Adjuster; Vidya: Knowledge) as well as all Beauty, Light and Splendor. We wait for him to finish. This feels right. One of his boys takes me up and shows me several rooms. Ah, this one is perfect: marble floors, clean, windows that open onto a quiet street, air-conditioner, and my own water heater for my bathroom. This will be my home for twelve days. God's home, God's work.

The boys bring up my luggage. I take a shower and change into my white Kutras. These are what we might call pajamas in America. The Hindi word "pajamas" came to the west via the British Raj. I tell the motorized rickshaw driver that I want to go to Pragati Maidan. He says no problem. "60 rupees." The meter is never used. You either know the price or you pay too much! I am not sure what the fare should be, so I shake my head and walk away. Immediately, he says "50." I say "30." No, he wants 50. I walk away again. "40, 40, sir." Okay, this is probably too much, but I need to go. Later in the week as I take this trip every day, I find that the price is 30 rupees. The rickshaw wallahs know that I know. We vibe each other, feel each other. I become local-"Indianized"-and the bargaining is very quick. This can be an exhausting part of India-the constant bargaining. How would Master Jesus handle it? How to be gracious and graceful and pay a fair price? After being in India a while, a rupee begins to seem like a dollar, but it is only a few cents. Gracious and graceful is a good mantra.

Pragati Maidan is a large development of the Indian government. It is part theme park, part emporium for various Indian states, and part exhibition halls for book fairs and similar events. I walk into the book fair, and thank God it is air-conditioned with air-conditioning that actually works. Almost immediately, I see three circles and a sign that says, "Urantia Foundation, Chicago U.S.A." In addition, below that, a sign says "The Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man" in English script and Sanskrit. Sanskrit is the language of pandits and scholars, mantras and slokas. Sanskrit is not really a living language, but many Hindi words are identical. Our banner is readable for most Indians in the New Delhi area.

I meet up with my compatriots with whom I will be staffing this 10-foot by 10-foot booth for the next 12 days. Mark Bloomfield is an Englishman-tall, thin, high energy, in his 30s. He is extremely enthusiastic, passionate, quick to speak, and devoted to the spreading of The Urantia Book. Mark came early to India, dealt with customs to import the books and related materials. This is no small task, given India's bureaucracy. Mark also set up the booth, rented chairs and tables, and paid for some of the expenses from his own pocket. Mark did the all the work to get the booth ready for the show. Mark lives in England half the year and has made his living teaching hang-gliding and ultra-light flying. He has had other exciting jobs, such as working in an open-pit gold mine in Australia, where he poured liquid explosives with a cement truck.

Paul Premsagar and I became acquainted at various Urantia conferences. He is a retired physician and a native of India who has lived in the United States for the last 35 years. Paul has a warm smile that lights up his whole face. There is a feeling of peacefulness in his presence. Paul is a welcome and calming influence to Mark's and my enthusiastic extroversion.

I am a semi-retired businessman from Hawaii and San Francisco. I am in my 50s and have studied Yoga and Indian philosophy, Sufism, and Buddhism for many years. This is my fourth trip to India. Much of my time has been spent in the South. When I have visited temples in the South, they require bare feet and bare chests, or entry is denied. In other words: "shirt and shoes, no service"!!! The life there is more traditional and my white kutras, mala and sandals are normal. This type of event [the book fair] attracted the upper class and emerging Indian middle class. The men were mostly dressed in western clothes: slacks, dress shirts, and shoes. The women wore everything from jeans and western dresses to saris to Punjabi-type pantsuits. My dress was an ironic contrast-a westerner in traditional Indian clothes among Indian men in western dress.

The Book Fair was a typical trade show. It could have been anywhere in the world. There were booths in rows, aisles, and different rooms. The minimum booth size was about 3 meters by 3 meters (10 feet by 10 feet). There were more than a hundred booksellers, publishers, government organizations, and related companies, including two foreign publishers. Some of the bigger organizations had booths that were two, three, or even eight times larger than a standard booth.

The booth that exhibited The Urantia Book was in an excellent location. Of course, the three foreign organizations paid twice as much as the local Indian companies. All different types of people stopped by the booth, and many showed a keen interest and active curiosity in our booth and The Urantia Book. For the most part we spoke with men (reflecting Indian social customs) and most of them were Hindus and Sikhs (reflecting the religious demographics of Delhi). Some browsed, and most asked questions about the book and the organization that publishes the book. As foreigners and a foreign organization, we attracted a lot of attention. Every conceivable type of person asked a question or two, while some came by several times and engaged in conversations, discussions, and sharing that extended to a few hours. People were surprised that we only had one book. The price was also a shock because it is extremely expensive by Indian standards. The hard cover book might have been the most expensive book at the whole book fair. We explained that we were a not-for-profit organization, whose only purpose is to make the book available. We made clear that we had no political or religious agenda. When we gave them the website address and told them that the whole book was available on the World Wide Web, they realized that we truly represented a service organization.

We had some books that had been water-damaged during shipping, which we sold at a greatly reduced price. We sold all undamaged books at a reduced price to interested individuals. We gave many books away to extremely interested and curious people who could not afford to buy them. We followed our hearts and intuition. All the money that we collected was donated by Urantia Foundation for an "Eye Camp" that Mark organized. An "Eye Camp" uses a temporary location and volunteers to extract cataracts free of charge for the poor. The only cost is the intra-ocular lens and medical supplies at about 350 rupees ($9) per eye-a bargain to end blindness. The banner says the "Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man." No organization is mentioned on the banner. The Divine Healer gets the credit.

The three of us worked as a team so that we could all takes breaks, have lunch, rest, walk through the book fair, go shopping, or investigate Pragati Maidan. We soon fell into individual roles. Paul, the oldest of our team, was a moderating and calming influence. Originally from India, some of the countrymen of his birth felt more comfortable talking to him. Mark, the youngest, was the workhorse. He came the earliest, stayed the latest, and handled all of the administrative details. Mark was an enthusiastic greeter and a passionate advocate of the Urantia message. I met with the folks that wanted to have extended conversations. We moved to the back of the booth for these long, philosophical discussions and sharing of our life and Spirit experiences. Some of these evolved into mini-discussion groups involving several different people. Mostly I let the book speak for itself. I had these guests read directly from the book, and we had a mini-study group.

One extended conversation was with two men in their early twenties. They were law students and somewhat "nerdy." They wanted to debate and argue. They presented themselves as atheists. I said, "You are obviously very intelligent young men and as law students must have a highly developed sense of logic. Lawyers have to prove things based on evidence. How do you prove the nonexistence of something? What do you use for evidence? I am a witness to the existence of God, but I cannot offer proof, because God is Spirit." Ten minutes in this vein and they agreed that they were agnostics.

Then the hard work began. We talked for about three hours. The discussion ranged from the nature of evil and its cause, to the experience of reality within the mind of man. The Urantia Book answered many of their questions. I shared my experience of the Beloved, the Creator of Love and Compassion-the Absolute of Love, Beauty and Goodness. In the back of my mind I felt that the more they argued the more that they wanted to believe. (The argumentative defense of any proposition is inversely proportional to the truth contained [557:14].) Near the end they shared that they saw humans as vultures. I sensed that the poverty around them moved them greatly. There is a Darwinian struggle for survival in India. I also learned that they were the kids that were picked on in school. Finally they asked, "How can we talk to God like you do?" I said, "Find a quiet place in nature or in a bathroom, or car or anywhere. Let the mind be quiet." Then I knocked loudly three times on the table. I said, "Picture in your mind that you are knocking on God's Door. Before your hand touches His Door He will answer. Do this three different times over the course of a week or two." What happened to them? The Friend has opened the Door already and welcomed them to the wedding feast.

Another question was "Is this Christianity?" We said, "No, the original teaching of Jesus is to know the One by faith; then, one is a member of the Family of Believers: the Satsanga, the Truth Seekers. The followers of Jesus were very enthusiastic about him and his life, and created Christianity-a religion about Jesus." The Indian people seem to know this. Their true religions embrace all teachers and Deities. They have no problem adding another teacher, prophet, God, Deity to their religion. It is this unique, all-embracing nature of Hinduism and of also the Sikh religion that makes India such fertile soil for the fifth epochal revelation. An amazing number of Indian people knew the difference between the religion of Jesus versus the religion about Jesus. They knew Him without being Christians. When the Portuguese explorers came to India at the end fifteenth century, they were miffed to find Christians who did not know the Pope.

We passed out many pamphlets containing excerpts and descriptions of the book. These were enthusiastically received. We passed out hundreds of sheets with the Web address, and a surprising number of people had access to the World Wide Web. They were enthusiastic about looking at the book on the Internet. Paul Premsagar reported that one young woman said, "I have been reading this book on the web and am fascinated by it. I cannot download the whole book." She bought a hard copy. Access to the web is charged by the minute and is relatively expensive by India standards. Many people have access at work.

The price of the book was a barrier. It was extremely expensive for most people. They just could not afford it. They asked that the book be printed in India, which could be done at an economical price. They also asked that the book be printed in sections so that they could buy the book piece by piece as they had the rupees to do so. There were some individuals who came to the booth several times. We had long and deep philosophical conversations. When there were questions, I encouraged the questioner to read aloud from the applicable sections of the book-in other words, let the book speak for itself. We had many of these informal study groups at the back of the booth. Some of these individuals volunteered to help us in the future. They wanted to know where our office was located and how they could contact us. They filled out cards, giving their names and addresses to Urantia Foundation. Some asked how they could get together in-groups to study the book and propagate the teachings. They seemed sincerely interested in helping us spread the fifth epochal revelation.

On the last day of the book fair, Paul left early to visit relatives in Hyderabad in the south of India. Mark and I continued on. I left my shoulder bag at the booth, and it was stolen while I was having lunch. The Muslims teach: "Trust in Allah and tie your camel." The Sufis teach: "Heart in the heavens and feet on the ground." My heart was in the heavens after twelve days of talking to people about our Heavenly Father. This was the first thing of mine that had been stolen in three trips to India. I knew that I should forgive the thief immediately, but I could not. I was angry. I prayed to learn how to forgive. I lost a small camera and a few other items and souvenirs that I had just purchased. However, most disappointing was the loss of the film that had pictures of the booth and some of the people who visited it. There was a young Sikh man that I had talked to several times over the course of the book fair and we had become friends. He told me a story about something that he had lost because of community strife. (Community in India means different castes and religious groups.) About seven years ago, Indira Gandhi's Sikh bodyguards assassinated her. In retribution, many Sikh men, women, and children lost their lives. My friend's whole garment business was burned to the ground. He lost everything except his life. He had been somewhat adrift since then, but was now putting his life on track. My little bag seemed puny in comparison. He put things in perspective for me, as friends do. I forgave the thief, but I still wish I had those pictures to share with you.

Paul Premsagar wrote: "A seed has been sown at the Delhi Book Fair and this will require some watering and nurturing to bear fruit. It is hoped that there will be future book fairs and The Urantia Book will be available throughout India and Southeast Asia." Thanks to Paul Premsagar whose description of the book fair was one of the sources used to write this article.

I hope that we will be able to attend more book fairs in India and eventually produce a high-quality, inexpensive Indian edition of The Urantia Book. There are plans to attend the Calcutta Book Fair from January 26 to February 6, 2000. The three of us have committed to attend this book fair and would welcome more help. There is discussion about attending the World Book Fair in Delhi in February of 2000. Contact Urantia Foundation if you would like to help with the booth at either of these fairs. If you would like to support Mark's placement of books in Indian and other Asian libraries or to support the "Eye Camps," contact the Foundation.

My Yoga teacher, Swami Satchidananda says Seva, Karma Yoga, Selfless Service, is the fastest Yoga-the fastest way to God. Imagine doing the best you can, with no way to fail-the results are His responsibility. Spending days talking to people about the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man is a transforming, awakening and enlightening experience.