Gaura Nitai installation in Melbourne

Dvaipayana Dasa: In 1975, the Gaura Nitai Deity installation in the Melbourne temple. So as I explained, the Melbourne temple before that was a very small terrace house. You know, if I saw it today, I couldn’t believe how small it was, because in that tiny room we had the most ecstatic kirtanas, squashed in like sardines. So, by this time Madhuvisa was the GBC, he was a very inspiring, fantastic inspiring kirtana leader. And with a lot of trouble he had gone to buy a big block of land with an old building on it, a couple of old heritage buildings on it. And one of them was made in to a temple room downstairs and upstairs was a brahmacari room. There was other house which we named Prabhupada house and we made Prabhupada’s room on the first floor of that house.

So Prabhupada came to install big brass Gaura Nitai Deities. At that time it  was the biggest brass Deities that had been made in Navadvipa, they were about 600 pounds/ 600 kilos, and about this high (gestures). And as usual, devotees used to work so hard to go on the schedule to get something ready when Prabhupada is coming. 

We were working so hard to get the temple ready, but... we tried to delay Prabhupada a few days or about a week. Look at Prabhupada’s program: he went up to Perth, there was no temple there. He went to Perth.

A couple of devotees were going to go to Sydney temple and look after the Sydney temple when Prabhupada came to Melbourne, because Prabhupada wasn’t going to Sydney. So couple of those devotees went to Perth to be with Prabhupada. They rented a house for him. And this was the delay so we could get the temple ready when Prabhupada came here.