[srilaprabhupadanectar] Remembering Srila Prabhupada - Preaching at Melbourne Town Hall
Posted by dinesh
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From: krpamaya_gauranga@hotmail.com
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2011 20:00:20 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [srilaprabhupadanectar] Remembering Srila Prabhupada -
Preaching at Melbourne Town Hall
To: rememberingsrilaprabhupada@yahoogroups.com
Preaching at Melbourne Town Hall
The hall was now packed to capacity; close to 2,000 people had
responded favourably to the devotees' advertising. It was quite a
mixed audience: young men in denims, kaftans, tie-dyed shirts and
beads, girls in Indian cheesecloth skirts and crushed velvet jackets,
academics, students, housewives, men with shoulder-length hair and
polo-necked sweaters, and older Theosophical Society types.
The vast hall was quiet with expectation as Srila Prabhupada put on
his dark-rimmed spectacles and closed his eyes: "Munayah sadhu prsto
'ham bhavadbhir loka-mangalam, yat krtah krsna-samprasno yenatma
suprasidati."
Srila Prabhupada had chosen to speak from verse 5 of the Second
Chapter of the Srimad-Bhagavatam entitled "Divinity and Divine
Service". Suta Gosvami addresses the sages at Naimisaranya who have
assembled and questioned him on the Absolute Truth:
"O sages, I have been justly questioned by you. Your questions are
worthy because they relate to Lord Krsna and so are of relevance to
the world's welfare. Only questions of this sort are capable of
completely satisfying the self."
Srila Prabhupada's voice was loud and strong. He stressed that the
Krsna consciousness movement was not a new or concocted thing -- it
was very old and authorised.
Prabhupada detailed the fragile condition of human life and the
troubles of birth, death, disease and old age. "When we are within the
womb of our mother, it is a very precarious condition. Any medical man
knows this. We have to live there in this way, in a packed-up bag,
practically without any air. Just imagine, if at this present moment
you were put into an airtight condition, you would die within three
minutes or three seconds. But in the womb of our mother, we have to
live for a clear ten months or more in that airtight, packed-up
condition. Just imagine how much troublesome this is! That is
practical. We may have forgotten -- so many things we have forgotten,
but that does not mean that the trouble was not there.
"Similarly, at the time of death the miserable condition is so acute,
that we have to give up this body, and sometimes when a man becomes
very much upset, he commits suicide; he cuts his own throat. Why? He
cannot live in this body. Similarly, I, you, every one of us,
experience trouble at the time of birth and at the time of death. We
are living entities, living souls. Birth and death take place in this
body. Death means sleeping for seven months. That's all. That is
death. When this body is unfit for living, the soul gives up this
body, and by superior arrangement the soul is again put into the womb
of a particular type of mother, where the soul develops that
particular type of body. So it is a great science, how the living soul
comes in contact with this material body, and how he is transmigrating
from one body to another."
Our particular body, Srila Prabhupada explained, had been given to us
for our particular type of standard of living. "Just like you
Australians, you have been given a particular standard of living."
Prabhupada referred to the conversation he had just had in the car on
the way to the Town Hall. "I was just speaking to my students. You
have been given the chance of a particular high standard of living.
Similarly, in India or in Africa or anywhere, the living entity has
got a particular type of body, with its particular type of standard of
living. A tiger has also got a particular standard of living, and also
an elephant .. And also in the higher planets, there are higher
beings, they also have a higher standard of living, and a vast
duration of life. This information is there in the Vedic literatures."
----
Suddenly, the audience became restless. The devotees looked to see a
tall bearded man striding confidently down the aisle towards the
microphone. A familiar sight around Melbourne, he was dressed as
Merlin the Magician, complete with pointed black hat adorned with
silver moon and stars, leotards and a flowing black cape. It was The
Wizard!
A deregistered sociology student, and somewhat of a
despot-cum-lunatic, he had been proclaimed the official wizard of the
University of New South Wales. Specialising in clever public word
jugglery and buffoonery, he claimed to be researching "Tension
Resolution Through Absurd Behaviour". The devotees had encountered The
Wizard on numerous occasions ever since they arrived in Melbourne. He
had sometimes attempted to publicly humiliate them in the City Square.
Although basically harmless, they found him at best a nuisance -- and
often an annoying disturbance.
Now his brash, uninhibited behaviour had led him to approach Srila
Prabhupada. The devotees wondered how Prabhupada would deal with him.
True to form, The Wizard took the microphone and, much to the outrage
of older members of the audience and to the delight of his hippy
following, spoke out in his usual loud, affected voice: "I would like
to ask his Divine Grace a question, or I'd like to phrase my thinking
at the moment. I know that I am a FOOL and a RASCAL, but I am thinking
'Am I the centre of the universe?' I think that I AM the centre of the
universe! I think I must prove it some time next year .."
He rambled on pompously, his voice rising dramatically, until Hanuman
Prasada Goswami unceremoniously wrenched the microphone from his hand.
Srila Prabhupada turned to Syamasundara, "What is he saying?"
"He says he's the centre of the universe, Srila Prabhupada."
The hall was quiet. Prabhupada smiled and spoke calmly into the
microphone. "So, everyone is thinking like that. Everyone has the
concept that 'I am the supreme enjoyer and everything is there for my
pleasure'. So you are not different from anyone else .. Actually,
Krsna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and He is the centre of
the universe, so your imitation will not last long."
The audience laughed, then stood up and applauded -- a standing
ovation, accompanied by whistles and cheers. Srila Prabhupada had
exposed him as just another materialistic fool. The Wizard had met his
match!
Prabhupada indicated for a kirtana to begin and soon the hall was
transformed by the combined sound of hundreds of voices chanting Hare
Krsna. Never before in Melbourne had so many people come together in
one spot to chant. The combined sound was tumultuous. Nanda Kumara's
drum roared, and cymbals clashed like a runaway locomotive. Devotees
and guests alike danced on stage, in the aisles and dress circles,
losing themselves in the ecstasy of harinama. Towards the end of the
kirtana, someone started throwing laddhus off the stage. The crowd
went wild, leaping for the sweets. Even after Prabhupada left the
stage, the chanting continued for a considerable time.
- From "The Great Transcendental Adventure" by HG Kurma Prabhu
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Yours
Dinesh
We have to be ready to be changed by the Vaisnavas, by the directions of the Vaisnavas. We have to be ready to give up our own ways, our own ideas, and so on. We have to become soft.
When I speak about different levels of commitment to different levels of authorities, then I'm speaking about a matter of the heart. When it comes to our spiritual master, we must give our heart, and we must try, we must try cent percent. Although we will not make it, we must have a desire, and we must have that kind of commitment in our heart. With others, we may maintain a certain inner privacy, and yet co-operate in the social context.
The two hour procession of the London Ratha Yatra made its way from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square with hundreds of devotees pulling three chariots and chanting the Holy Names in ecstasy. Although the Ratha Yatra was on Nirjala Ekadasi, it turned out to be Jala Ekadasi because there was typical English rain. But it was much more than just water, as Maharaja said, it rained the inconceivable mercy of Their Lordships Jagannatha, Baladeva and Subadhra. Enjoy the pictures!
Maharaja's tour through Germany continued from Weimar to the small preaching temple in Leipzig. Here he stayed for approximately four days and apart from giving daily morning and evening classes, he continued to write his book. After Leipzig, he traveled to Berlin to give the Saturday feast lecture. It was a mellow program and the lecture focused on "how we treat temporary situations as permanent ones".
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