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"I think you are also interested in revolution. We are interested in revolution also. But we are interested in revolution that will help people to feel peace themselves, whether they are communists or Marxists or whatever it is you like. We are trying to help people attain happiness because they are...."

This comment of Madhudvisa's triggered the largest vocal protest yet. The commotion rose to a climax as students all over the hall began to shout together, and it appeared that there was no possibility of any peaceful philosophical discussion.

The devotees' greatest concern now was how to get Prabhupada out of the hall unharmed. Prabhupada rose from his vyasasana and the devotees slipped on his shoes. Madhudvisa asked Ugrasrava to get the car and then accompanied by his disciples, Srila Prabhupada left by a side exit.

It had been raining. Some devotees paid full prostrated obeisances in the mud and Srila Prabhupada smiled. A large crowd of students had gathered outside the door as Srila Prabhupada emerged, but he entered his waiting car without incident. As he rode slowly through a cluster of students, a girl kicked at the car with her booted foot. And as the devotees were getting in their van, students threw stones. Finally, as the devotees drove off the campus, they had to pass under an elevated walkway where some waiting students threw black paint down onto the vans.

Srila Prabhupada's engagement at La Trobe University was like a repeat of an unpleasant incident with radical students at La Salle Pleyel in Paris. That had also been a large free-admission audience of students, and that too had ended in a similarly chaotic fashion.

Therefore Prabhupada had doubted the value of explaining philosophy to such a large audience, especially those who knew nothing of the traditions and etiquette of spiritual life. Now it was confirmed. Riding in his car back to Brighton, Srila Prabhupada was mostly silent, but he appeared disgusted. "From now on," he said, "anytime I'm going to lecture, you must charge at least $5 apiece for people to come in. No more open lectures."

He told the story of how the Himalayan Mountains once gave birth: when the word spread that the huge mountain range of world fame was about to produce offspring, hundreds of people came and gathered at its foothills. The crowds waited in anticipation. Finally, they saw hundreds of rats running out from the mountains. "In the same way," he said, "universities are big, grand arrangements, but are simply breeding grounds for rats."

As a consequence of the disastrous event at La Trobe University, an engagement booked for that evening at Ormond College, a residential institution affiliated with Melbourne University, was cancelled. The La Trobe University lecture was Srila Prabhupada's last public speaking engagement in Australia.


- From "The Great Transcendental Adventure" by HG Kurma Prabhu