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When Prabhupada entered the temple room at 2.30pm, he smiled approvingly at the beauty of the Deities. He also noticed that since his last visit the marble and onyx floor had been polished to a mirror finish. Elegant gold leafing now adorned the Deity room gates and the wall separating the Deity room from the temple was now elaborately hand painted with various auspicious symbols, such as the conch, club, disc and lotus flower. Prabhupada noted that the time was late for a long talk, and that he wished to take his bath. He confirmed that he would be speaking that night in the temple.

"I'll not speak very much now, but this much I must express: my obligation that you are worshipping the Deities so nicely. That is my great happiness, and that is your happiness also. The more gloriously you worship the Deity, decorate the Deity as gorgeously as possible, the more gorgeous you will be. That is the secret. The materialistic, they are trying to dress themselves very gorgeously, and gradually their dress is being taken away by maya, and voluntarily they are becoming hippies. Because they did not try to dress Krsna, therefore maya is taking their dresses."

The secret of success, Prabhupada said, was appreciating that everything belongs to Krsna. "Simply you have to collect them and offer for the pleasure of Krsna. It doesn't matter what you are doing. You are a businessman, you are a lawyer, you are an engineer. The motto should be: 'Whatever I do, whatever I earn, it must be given to Krsna'. This is Krsna consciousness."

Prabhupada added that he had given "a glimpse of the Krsna consciousness movement" in the Western countries. Now it was up to his disciples to embrace it.

Srila Prabhupada left the temple room and went up to his quarters in the adjacent building. He told Hari-sauri that the worship in Melbourne temple was as good a standard as that offered in New York and Los Angeles. "Gaura-Nitai worship is so nice," he said, "that they can be worshiped merely by performing kirtana." Srila Prabhupada immediately took his massage in the centre of the large stately darsana room, with its polished parquetry flooring and elegant fittings. He then bathed, ate a late lunch, and finally retired to his bedroom for a short rest.


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