Prabhupāda Departs

On 13th November in the night Srila Prabhupada asked me to cover his body by a blanket and to turn him to one side. After that he did not speak. At 3 o'clock in the morning my duty was over and I left Srila Prabhupada's room only to return back after a few hours the following morning. An Ayurvedic physician Mr. Damodara Shastri from Calcutta was attending to Prabhupada. He said that Srila Prabhupada was not passing water and if it was not removed, it will become poison. The Kaviraja therefore suggested that we must remove the water by a tube. Srila Prabhupada had made a will saying that his body should not be touched under any circumstances and so we did not know what to do. At that time most of the GBCs had already left for their respective zones and only about three or four of the GBCs were present in Vrndavana. We all had a meeting together and keeping Prabhupada's will in view we decided that we should not carry out any operation on Srila Prabhupada's body.

Slowly, the time passed. In the evening around four o'clock most of the devotees went to take prasadam, but, I did not go. At 7 o'clock everyone started returning to Srila Prabhupada's room. Since the room was very small, only a few could fit inside. Hamsadūta Maharaja was chanting kirtana. Around 7:15 pm, Prabhupada struggled to say 'Hare Krishna,' but it was audible. Srila Prabhupada had left the mortal world.

Narayana Maharaja came to pay his respects to Srila Prabhupada and we wanted to do Prabhupada's Samadhi in the night. But, several local residents insisted that they wanted to take darsana of Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada was dressed and taken around for a circumambulation of the Krishna Balarama temple. The whole night we were sitting around Srila Prabhupada and Srila Krsna dasa Babaji came and sang 'je anilo prema-dhana.' In the morning Srila Prabhupada was put into Samadhi.

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