It was something mystical - First Ratha-yatra in New York

Nartaka Gopala Dasi: The last time that I saw Prabhupada, or physical presence on the planet would have been in the same year '76, but it's Ratha-yatra in New York. It was the last Ratha-yatra that Prabhupada ever attended and it was the first Ratha-yatra in New York. Like Prabhupada said it's in the biggest street, was down Fifth Avenue, which is in New York City, it's the biggest street. The biggest street in the biggest city in the biggest country in the world, you know, so it was right down Fifth Avenue.

It was something mystical, the way that we even got the permit because they weren't giving any permits for any groups to hold any festival, to close down Fifth Avenue. Because when you have a festival, you have to close the traffic off, and there's for miles, you know. It takes a lot of manpower there to police there, and they weren't giving anymore permits.

Somehow, our Godbrother Tosana Krishna went in there to see the city manager of New York of Manhattan. First of all, he couldn't even... the secretary didn't want to let him in. Somehow he got in to see the man, and he told him, "We have this festival, it's going to be Ratha-yatra," and he just explained it to him. It was just something mystical. The man said, "This is impossible, we can't give out any more permits," he said, "I don't know why I'm doing this but I'm gonna let you do it." And he's tying up the paper.

We started out and coming down Fifth Avenue. Prabhupada wasn't there at the beginning and all of a sudden... I was just chanting in front of Subadhra Devi's chariot. They had three chariots, very big chariots. All of a sudden, I just looked down the chariots behind me. The chariot behind me is Subadhra Devi. I looked over down the side street and I saw Prabhupada walking. So Prabhupada walked down and Prabhupada got right up on Subadhra Devi's chariot.

Also Jayananda Prabhu, this was the last Ratha-yatra that he did. He was sick and he passed away even before Prabhupada passed. So it was a wonderful, amazing experience. That was the last time that I saw Prabhupada in his physical manifestation. We always have to remember that, even Prabhupada said, "My Guru Maharaja never left me, not even for a moment." So Prabhupada is always with us, that's the way I feel so now.