He was walking at the head of the procession
Kalakantha das : There was a parade. We had quite an elaborate procession through the streets of Vrindavan. There was an elephant, there was a shenai band, and all the devotees doing kirtan. It was quite a commotion with all of this procession going through. Prabhupada seemed to be very beaming and happy. He was walking at the head of the procession, which, now that I think of it, it must have been quite funny for the people who knew him from before and here he is with an elephant, a shenai band and all these Western disciples walking through the streets where he had walked so many times as a sadhu. We walked quite a ways. It seemed like a very, very long walk through the city.
Vishalini dasi: The procession, it was like something out of the Bhagavatam. Decorated cows and bulls, brass bands, drums, kirtan parties, thousands of people. Residents came out of their homes, their businesses as Prabhupada walked by, offering him water, flowers and similar gifts. I remember that day I heard that Prabhupada wasn't well. The devotees wanted him to sit on a palanquin, it was a very long procession, but he refused. He walked the whole way.
Kesava Bharati Goswami: They had a rath because that's the tradition. There's a rath and the spiritual master rides on the rath, and then there's a procession. There were hundreds of devotees, and at one point Prabhupada decided he wanted to get off the rath and walk with us. So when he did that, everyone wanted to come and touch Prabhupada's feet at the same time, especially the Indian-bodied people who had come to the festival. So immediately I think it was Tamal Krishna Maharaj, he was there he organized us into human chains. We locked arms on either side of Prabhupada. So we went along the procession like that, keeping people from crushing Prabhupada. During that procession, at times we would be farther away from Prabhupada and at times we would be closer to Prabhupada. The farther away you got from Prabhupada, it was like being in a hurricane, it was just chaos. And as we came closer to Prabhupada, it got calmer and calmer and calmer until when we were right next to Prabhupada, it was like we were in the eye of a hurricane. It was so calm and serene, and Prabhupada was emanating this ecstasy. It was a very stark realization of the consciousness that the empowered pure devotee had. He could change the atmosphere, not just in a room where everything was organized perfectly, but he could change the atmosphere anywhere.
Reference: Following Srila Prabhupada-A Chronological Series by Kalakanta Dasa
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