The Hare Krishna Movement

“If Prabhupada wants me to drive faster, I will drive faster.”

A story told by Sri Nathji Prabhu

Sri Nathji: The twenty-eighth of September 1977 was a very sad day. At about 4:30 in the morning I got a phone call from Giriraj Swami. Crying, he said, “I want you to bring your big Dodge car.” I had a huge American car with a back seat long enough to lie down in.Giriraj Swami said, “Prabhupada wants to leave his body.” I said, “What?” I had never heard anybody say that someone “wanted to leave his body.”

“What do you mean, ‘Prabhupada wants to leave his body?’ Where does he want to leave his body?”

He said, “He wants to go to Vrindavan, and he’s leaving his body. He’s going away, and we have to take him to the train station.” By that time Prabhupada hadn’t eaten for nearly six months. He was living only on juice and charanamrita, and his body was depleted.

He had hardly any muscles, and his veins were pressing on his bones. It was very painful to see him. Here was the person with whom I had fought and argued.

Here was the person who was such a fine debater that he was like a lion. He could defeat anyone philosophically.

But that morning, when I saw how very thin Prabhupada was, it reminded me of Krishna’s description in the Bhagavad-gita of a person withdrawing himself like a tortoise withdraws himself within his shell.

So in Bombay, on the twenty-eighth of September 1977, Srila Prabhupada decided to leave, and for the first time I cleaned my car.