Made Us Love Him More
Pita Dasa: Prabhupada said, "I want to go to Govardhan." Everyone else said, Srila Prabhupada, we don't think that's a good idea. Prabhupada said, "In the Ramayana, Marici was given a choice. If he didn't become a deer and tempt Rama away from Sita, Ravana would kill him. And if he became a deer, Rama would kill him. So Marici told Ravana, 'Better to be killed by Rama.'" Prabhupada said, "Better to be killed by Rama, better to go to Govardhan. If I stay in this room, it's like being killed by Ravana." The devotees said, But Prabhupada, you can't go. The doctor said that if we carry you, you won't even make it to the gate. There was a 15-minute discussion about this around Prabhupada's bed and Prabhupada said, "You have to talk outside. It is too exhausting for me to hear this going on."
The devotees went to Prabhupada's garden and discussed his request for a long time. Hamsadutta and Lokanath, who went to get the bullock cart to carry Prabhupada, wanted to fulfill Prabhupada's desire. Tamal Krishna Maharaj did not want to take Prabhupada to Govardhan. The talk went on and on and on until the bullock cart came to the gate of the Krishna-Balaram Temple. It was dusk when we heard. The cart's here. It's time to move Prabhupada from the bed to the cart. Not only were we going to put Prabhupada on the cart, which would probably kill him, but also it was to be at night, even worse. We feared that Prabhupada would leave his body somewhere along the way. We all went into Prabhupada's room, myself included, went around his bed and said, Srila Prabhupada, please, please, don't make us put you on this cart. Prabhupada didn't say anything. We begged and begged him, we were crying. Prabhupada said, "If it worries you so much, I don't need to go." The whole anxiety level went from fifty thousand back to zero. We felt, Oh, now we can relax and the devotees started leaving Prabhupada's room.
When there weren't many people in the room, Tamal Krishna Goswami, who was very intimate with Prabhupada and who had gotten fried in this situation, went to Prabhupada and said, "Prabhupada, we can't understand why you insist on us taking you to Govardhan. We got so upset and worked up. We got this cart and brought it here and were so worried that if we put you on the cart you would die. The way you deal with us simply deepens our attachment every moment." Prabhupada said, "It is my duty." Tamal Krishna said, What ? Prabhupada said, "It is my duty to make you love me more." When Prabhupada said, "To make you love me more," whatever love I had for Prabhupada multiplied a thousand times. Prabhupada made us love him so much. If we were with Prabhupada, he increased whatever love we had for him, we became more and more loving toward him. His duty, he said, was to make us love him more. What a wonderful duty. We already loved Prabhupada, but he was getting us to love him more.
Reference: Memories Anecdotes of a Modern Day Saint - Volume 3 by Siddhanta Dasa
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