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Thursday, 22 April 1976

Prabhupada was happy to find that local devotees with a talent for gardening had planted 5,000 carnation plants in the temple gardens. He told the devotees that this was a practical way of utilising the grounds. In the afternoon, Srila Prabhupada met with three guests, Michael Gordon, Brian Singer and Doug Warbrick. Doug and Brian were the owners of Ripcurl, a surf clothing company in the beach-resort area of southern Victoria. Michael was the editor of Backdoor, a surfing magazine. All three were known to Ugrasrava, and other devotees who had been part of Melbourne's surfing scene.

Relaxing on his asana beneath the bay windows, Prabhupada patiently explained the very basics of spiritual life to the young men. Brian wondered if one had to visit the temple to become Krsna conscious.

"No," Prabhupada explained, "going to the temple is one of the means, but there are nine different processes, of which hearing about Krsna, sravanam, is the most important. Therefore these books are there, hearing and chanting. If you cannot read, I'll read, you hear. Or you will speak, I'll hear. These two processes are very important. Therefore we are presenting in the English language the subject matter of Krsna so elaborately. We have published 82 books like this."

Prabhupada picked up the Bhagavad-gita from his desk. "If you read one book, this is the preliminary study. Then if you read it with great attention, you become Krsna conscious immediately. Then you understand about Krsna from Srimad-Bhagavatam in 60 books, then you enjoy the transcendental pleasure in Caitanya-caritamrta in 17 books. So you cannot finish even within your life. So many books are there and you will forget reading other books."

Brian had, in fact, been reading some of Prabhupada's publications and had come with a few questions. Was there a difference, he asked, between the soul in a human and the soul in an animal? The difference, Prabhupada pointed out, was in the proportion of consciousness, which varied between species. He gave a simple example of a tree. "There's consciousness, but it is very, very covered. If you cut the tree, it does not protest, because the consciousness is not developed". Prabhupada gave another more practical example from his younger days.

"I have seen in children, surgical operation. They do not require anaesthetics. I remember, my eldest daughter, when she was a child, she had some boil here. So the doctor wanted to operate. So I asked him that "Apply anaesthetic ..?"

"No, no. They don't require." And so the doctor cut the boil and the child simply, 'ehhh, ehhh' -- no crying. I have seen it."

Prabhupada spent most of the amiable, hour-long conversation explaining in depth how the soul was different from the body. The primary education of spiritual life, he said, was to first understand yourself. Brian, who asked most of the questions, was in agreement with everything Prabhupada said.

The young men accepted generous plates of fruit prasadam before finally leaving Prabhupada's company.

Michael Gordon: Our motives were probably a little mixed in going to the temple that day. Mine were, anyway. But possibly my most basic curiosity was why the movement held such strong appeal for surfers, such as ourselves, whose lifestyles seemed to be totally contradictory to the rigid temple existence. There was a time, some years before, when the majority of the devotees in the Melbourne temple had surfing backgrounds.

We were all impressed with Prabhupada, especially the phenomenal number of hours he puts in each night into translating the Vedic scriptures. However, at the end of the conversation, I was still unable to see anything that surfers could relate to, until one of the devotees invited us to the chanting in the temple at seven o'clock.

The temple was packed with devotees; the chanting began slowly at first, then rose to a peak. The singing, the dancing, the music got faster and faster and the chanting got louder and louder. You could really forget yourself and flow with the sound of Krsna's names. By the time His Divine Grace came to give the night's lecture, our feeling of reticence had gone and we were feeling as much a part of it as everyone else.


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