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I would like to facilitate Prabhupada's coming to Australia and I heard you need $3,000

Caru das: We had this letter from Karandhar in Los Angeles that Prabhupada is traveling and everyone should invite him to their temple, and Karandhar said, "Of course, he won't go, but it's the etiquette for the disciple to invite the guru to visit the temple." So I was absolutely sure that while Prabhupada might travel to Europe or something, one or two temples, he wasn't going to go around the world, what to speak of come to Australia. So I wrote him the letter, the form letter. I put in every persuasive argument and every embellishment and I said, "We're just dying for you to come here," fully confident that that would never happen.

And, gosh, two or three weeks later they said, "Prabhupada is in India, they're having a big program in Bombay at the Cross Maidan," and that he wanted to come to Australia right afterwards, "please send tickets for three people." We were stunned. We never thought that Prabhupada would come to Australia. And as far as three tickets for three people, our income was $100 a week, maybe that was a good week going out and selling Back To Godheads. Where are we doing to come up with $3,000? So we put up one of those thermometers on the board for fundraising and, lo and behold, there was a devotee there and he came up to me one day and he said, "I would like to facilitate Prabhupada's coming to Australia and I heard you need $3,000," and he'd just sold a house. So I got the tickets for Prabhupada, and he came to Australia. He came with Vegavan and Padmavati, who had just been married, and he came with the Deities, Radha-Gopinath, that had been used at that Cross Maidan pandal. Vegavan sat on the plane with the Deities in his lap.



Reference: Following Srila Prabhupada-A Chronological Series by Caru Dasa