From Kamala Sita dasi – Germany, Goloka Dhama

Dearest Srila Gurudeva
Please accept my humble obeisances to your lotus feet. All glories to you, all glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Last year I wrote to you about my thoughts on vani and the different fathers I had in my life. I wrote that I had three fathers: you, Kadamba Kanana Swami and my biological father. Since then, both my dad and Kadamba Kanana Swami have left their bodies.
The passing away of my father on 19 December 2022 has been the most profound experience of my life thus far, even more so than my wedding. So, this year I would like to dedicate my offering to you by telling you how much your love and respect for my father had helped him during his life up to the end.
My relationship with you started many years ago with a letter describing my life and especially my family. In 2012, when I had asked you if I could become your disciple, you had given me one of your Traveling Monk diaries with a message to my dad that expressed your respect and appreciation for him. At my initiation you also made sure to meet him personally before the ceremony. My father told me afterwards that if he did become a full-on devotee that he would want you as his spiritual master. Such is the power of your association, to awaken the love and devotion in the heart of a stubborn-as-mule, ex-security police officer.
On 8 September 2021, his birthday, he got the news that there was nothing the doctors could do for him anymore. He then wrote you a letter expressing his confusion and grief. In your unfathomable mercy you wrote back encouraging him to now focus on his spiritual development and chanting. Those words were what inspired him to really do it. He had my mother make him a bead bag out of an old camouflage shirt and they started chanting together, one round, two rounds, however many he could manage. He told me one day that he had chanted 20 rounds that day. He was filled with wonder and gratitude because chanting had taken away his fear and even made him feel happy.
You also wrote in your letter that I had shared with my father the philosophical truths of Krishna consciousness like “we are not the body.” That statement impressed on me my vital role as guide during his last days.
He absolutely loved listening to your Vrindavana classes. He often called me to tell me that I should listen to one or the other class. I think The Hidden Pastimes of Govindaji were some of his favourites.
Despite the obvious spiritual progress, he still fought tooth and nail against death almost until the very end. He refused to stay in bed and wanted to get up every 10 to 20 minutes all day and all night. Most probably because the doctors had told him that not getting out of bed was the penultimate stage before “going to Heaven”. It was painful to watch his decline. My mother, brother and I all realised the end was very near and that we had to get him spiritually focused again.
Two days before he left, he was again fighting with me to get out of bed, but he could hardly stay upright. I had to hold him up. He became very irritated and started calling loudly to my brother and mother to come and get him out of bed. I used the opportunity to tell him that he should not call to us for help anymore but to Krishna. We could help him physically still, I said, and would do so up to the end, but his end was near, and he had to ask Krishna for help.
I can honestly say that it was only through your mercy and strength that I could speak so straight to my dad. I put as much love and sincerity into my words, and they hit home. He said that I was right, and he started calling loudly to Krishna then and there, “Krishna! Help me, help me! Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!” I cannot remember whether he managed a full mantra, but his calling was deeply sincere. Tears flowed from my eyes, because in my heart I knew that I was witnessing the mercy of Guru and Gauranga at work, right before my eyes.
I called out to my family to come and help, because my father was too heavy for me to hold upright alone. It was due to the extreme stiffness of his muscles and the water retention in his legs and belly. They all came, including my aunt who was visiting at the time. We all prayed together and chanted together for a while, until he fell asleep.
That seemed to be the turning point for him. He was no longer fighting. Later that evening he called us together again to pray as a family. He prayed to Jesus and thanked him for his grace and mercy. And my mom, brother and I prayed to Krishna. I imagine that his prayer reached Krishna all the same. That night he said to my mother, “We are going back to Krishna, right? You promised, so, we must go back.”
By the next day, Sunday, he had pretty much lost consciousness. By this time there had been a constant kirtan playing in the background for a few days. By Monday evening we were counting the hours. My mother and I were with him at the end. We were washing him when I saw that his eyes were wide open, and the colour of his skin had become suddenly sickly yellow. It was again by the grace of Supersoul, the guru within the heart, that I saw it in time. The end was so quick that we might have missed it.
We immediately started chanting loudly for him together with the kirtan in the background. I think his pacemaker tried one last time to revive him, because he briefly got a pinched expression on his face, but after that he just took a few more calm breaths and then was gone. My mother lightly put her fingers on his neck until the pulse stopped beating. He hadn’t struggled for breath; he had no fearful expression on his face. It was no longer a fight. He left at peace with us, with himself and with Krishna.
Srila Gurudeva, if you had not encouraged him to chant at the end, I doubt if he would have done it otherwise. It was by your mercy that he did. Of that I am convinced. My father was a man of many stories and you had walked the last few miles with him telling him stories of Krishna and Vrindavana, and so you had kept your promise to him to stay in touch until the end.
I am filled with a depth of gratitude that is difficult to express. My faith in your guidance and the mercy of the process of Krishna consciousness have increased exponentially. Srila Gurudeva, I bow down at your feet and I thank you from the bottom of my heart and soul for the love and respect you have shown to my dad and for your endless, untiring endeavour to connect us and the world with Krishna. I know my dad was only my dad for this life, but without his unconditional love and support, I would never have had the courage to take up the process of Krishna consciousness. And without your unconditional love, he would never have take such big steps toward Krishna at the end.
My heart is filled with love and at peace that you watch over me and are forever with me, no matter our physical distance. I pray for your mercy and the strength to not do anything to put spiritual distance between us.
With love and gratitude,
Your servant and daughter, Kamala-sita dasi