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Prabhupada began to sing and then he froze

Sravanananda Dasa: In Mayapur, I can't remember what year, it could have been '75 or even '76, but I do remember clearly, that we would always wait for Srila Prabhupada coming down the road in the car, we'd greet him on Bhaktisiddhanta Road and we would accompany him with a large kirtana around his car and bring him to the Mayapur temple.

So that day, it was quite sunny and Prabhupada's car stopped outside the Mayapur temple. He came in with a raging kirtana. He sat on his vyasasana and he just started to sing jaya radha-madhava. Only a few words came out. All of a sudden, the temple room became kind of darkish, almost as though clouds had come over. I still remember that - the light had changed very drastically in the temple room. Prabhupada began to sing and just stopped… as though he froze, and began to say, again it's a long time 40 years that, "In your previous lives," again this is something really hard to validate but other devotees have validated, "in your previous lives, you are all previously associates with Lord Chaitanya and you have come to help me, in this, spreading of this movement. Actually, I'm just appointed as captain of the ship. You were all doing so much for Lord Chaitanya."

This is the gist of it. Everybody was cringing because none of us thought of ourselves as anything, so nobody took it seriously, meaning, Prabhupada was serious, we couldn't take it seriously because we all knew how fallen we were and Prabhupada went into ecstasy. It was as though every devotee in the room felt this pulsing kind of pervasive, ecstatic energy. With mundane words, it's all (unclear). It appeared as though Prabhupada may have changed colors a little bit too - maybe a darker color, ashen color. He was in ecstasy and devotees just froze. I remember looking to a devotee to the side of me and he was like, "Yeah, I'm feeling it too."

We… nobody wanted it to end - it was like being in Goloka Vrindavana with Srila Prabhupada and never wanting this experience, feeling to end. I know that's how I felt; I could have been there all day long. And all of a sudden Hamsaduta - I don't know if it was 10 seconds, 20 seconds, or two minutes - started to… begin chanting. And I was very upset that it broke the whole spiritual mood. I don't know what the point of it was, I just know that it never should have ended. Srila Prabhupada, on his own, would have ended it. Then the kirtana started and then Srila Prabhupada slowly came to be more, how could I say - present. We continued chanting and then, I think, Prabhupada may have gotten up and left. I don't think he even had the class.

I can't remember again, so… I remember it was ecstatic and we never wanted it to end. We all talked about it and then I heard later that maybe Harikesa or Hamsaduta went to Prabhupada and said to Prabhupada, "Prabhupada if this happens again, what should we do? Is this correct?" And Prabhupada said, "Yes. But doesn't happen that often, does it?"



Reference: SPF Interviews