The devotees relocated to a small square behind the Post Office, and were moved on again. In a battle of wits, the devotees moved onto the Post Office steps. Since it was not State property, they reasoned, the Victorian Police could not touch them there. But when Federal Police arrived, the devotees resolved that it was time to change their tactics. Although sitting down on an Indian rug with tamboura and harmonium was nice, they decided to take to the streets in procession more often.
Thus the police had inadvertently promoted the devotees to an even greater prominence as they did "the block" -- down Bourke Street, left into Elizabeth, left into Flinders and back into Swanston, all the while dancing and swaying to the "swami" step. But it was not the last they would hear from the police.
----
Denis Harrison, "Harry" to his friends, had taken advantage of the "Ten-Pound Passage" scheme, and migrated to Australia from northern England. He arrived in Sydney by boat in mid-May 1971, only a few days after Srila Prabhupada had departed there for Calcutta.
His views on life had been recently undergoing rapid changes, symptomised by a growing interest in yoga. On his very first day in Sydney, he encountered a chanting party of devotees on a busy downtown intersection. Instantly attracted to the chanting, he stood and watched as Vaibhavi approached with a Back to Godhead magazine and invited him to the Sunday love feast.
The lights changed, and Harry's friends crossed the road. "Coom on, Arry. Let's go! Let's go!" they admonished. Harry gave Vaibhavi forty cents and was quickly dragged off by his mates.
While staying in a migrant hostel, Harry flicked through the Back to Godhead magazine. The multi-coloured front cover displayed Krsna dancing rasa-lila with the gopis, the cowherd damsels of Vrndavana. Everything about the magazine was attractive, but try as he could, the Sanskrit words were all alien and impossible to pronounce, and so the articles remained unintelligible. Nevertheless, he kept it with him.
Harry never made it to the feast that Sunday, and a few days later he moved to Perth in Western Australia. After working for six months in a desolate mining camp in the Hamersley Ranges, Harry decided to return to Sydney to find real spiritual life. Stopping in Melbourne for a five-hour transit, Harry headed downtown and again encountered the devotees chanting in the City Square to the accompaniment of harmonium and guitar. Harry was exhilarated to meet the devotees again. His repeated readings of his only Back to Godhead magazine were yielding newer and newer realisations.
He approached Upananda, standing on the square, and holding a big stack of magazines. "Do you have anything there that tells me what is God?" said Harry eagerly.
Upananda was excited to meet such an enthusiastic soul and sold him the latest three Back to Godhead magazines, speaking to him for a few minutes and pointing out one article based on a lecture by Prabhupada that described the qualities of God.
Harry quickly set off to the bank of the nearby Yarra river, sat under a tree and read the lecture carefully. Prabhupada stressed that God was omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient and that God was a person -- and His name was Krsna. Harry felt a thrill as this truth struck him. "Of course! God's a person!" It had never occurred to him before. Harry set off for Sydney by train that night, determined to become a devotee.
- From "The Great Transcendental Adventure" by HG Kurma Prabhu
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