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Sunday, 11 May 1975

Prabhupada had once said: "There are three things that keep me alive -- my walks, my massage and my medicine." Thus, even with no temple in Perth, Srila Prabhupada demonstrated his firm regularity by rising early and going on his daily morning walk. Prabhupada was not only regulated in his own service to Krsna, he rose early to regulate his men to do the same. He preached to his disciples at times convenient for their schedules. Even while in Perth, he arranged his transcendental activities not for discipline's own sake, but for optimum and constant service to Krsna, for spreading and solidifying his ISKCON movement in Australia.

Prabhupada took his morning walk on a secluded section of road sheltered behind the sand dunes at City Beach. As a car approached, Prabhupada asked, "Why are they coming here?" Amogha explained that they were coming to fish.

Prabhupada shook his head. "Wasting time. Finding out opportunity how to waste valuable time. The dog jumps over with four legs, and if a man can jump over with four wheels, then that is advancement. They have made this car, coming from miles away, but the business is the same as the seagulls -- fishing."

Prabhupada described a graphic analogy from the Srimad-Bhagavatam. "This material world," Prabhupada said, "is like a very big ocean. And the human form of body is like a very nice boat to cross over it. You are safe on the boat, but if you do not ply it properly, then you can fall out. At any moment the boat can merge into the water. Therefore you should be very cautious and careful."

Since having a boat was no assurance of success, Prabhupada explained, one needed a navigator to guide the boat to safety. "Guru, the spiritual master, is the captain of the ship, and the instructions of Krsna in the shape of sastra are the favourable winds."

The spiritual master, Prabhupada said, knew well how to adjust the sails to catch the winds and steer the boat to its destination -- the spiritual sky. "Then you are safe. Paras tasmat tu bhavo 'nyah 'vyakto 'vyaktat sanatanah -- that place, even after destruction of this whole material world, that is safe. So we have to go there, plying the boat."

If one did not take advantage of all the facilities offered by the human form to cross the ocean of nescience, Prabhupada concluded, "then he is certainly committing suicide".


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