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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
His Grace Bhima Prabhu left his body.
\nA very sweet Aussie devotee from a family of devotees left his body today.
\nThis is from his sister:<\/p>\n
This morning at 4.30am, on Amalaki Ekadasi, His Grace Bhima Prabhu left his body. He was with his immediate family: his wife Subuji \u2013 his life partner since they were teenagers \u2013 and his children Lilamrita (who went to school here in Mayapur and Vrindavan), and his daughter Tilakini, who cared for him all through his illness since last year. The whole family \u2013 my mother and sisters, and my older brother, who most of you know, Ramanuja Prabhu \u2013 were due to land tomorrow, Monday. When my sister told me they were arriving Monday, I turned to my husband Jahnu Prabhu and said, \u201cBhima will leave his body this weekend, then. Before they arrive.\u201d And he did. This was his way: humble, no trouble to anyone. More than that, he was ready to go, and I know he didn\u2019t want the loving yet distracting presence of anyone but those he\u2019d spent his life with: his immediate family. They were a close, loving, supportive family of kind, sweet people, all so much a representative of Bhima\u2019s humble character and deep, constant devotional strength.<\/p>\n
After the note of his imminent passing was posted on the Mayapur Forum and fwd\u2019d by Radha Sundari Devi to the GBC conference, I began to receive streams of emails from so many: leaders telling me they would ask their yatra to pray for Bhima; individuals saying they were praying all through the day for him; others sending the most wonderful verses of Krishna\u2019s grace for one about to return to Him; so much love from the collective community of worldwide devotees.<\/p>\n
Bhima was moved to tears; he couldn\u2019t believe this was happening. When I\u2019d asked him a few days ago if he wanted me to come back, he said that what he wanted more than anything was to know someone was in the dhama praying for him. And so I desired to fulfil his request a thousandfold, and all of you did that. It moved him, and he asked his daughter, \u201cWho are these people I don\u2019t even know, praying for me\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
And then this morning Tilakini wrote and told me it was Amalaki Ekadasi, and she had read the meaning of this day after his passing; a long story but in the end a king is saved from death and when he wakes, he looks at all those who fought to save him and he asked, \u201cWho are all these people I don\u2019t know who fought for me?\u201d A voice says \u201cYou ask who has saved you? It is none other than the Supreme Personality of Godhead.\u201d<\/p>\n
So it is within the worldwide community of devotees. That everything comes together beyond any fathomable expectation is of such comfort; that we are all there for each other at the most important time in our lives is all that matters, it is, as Prabhupada taught us, our \u201cbirthright,\u201d to be able to depend on the mercy of the devotees.<\/p>\n
I know it is normal to hear only glorification of departed devotees. But ask anyone about Bhima Prabhu, and there was always only ever glorification. He was a kind and gentle person, a humble and consistent and deeply sincere man, and he never stopped serving. His life was a struggle, when the rest of the family lived comfortable material lives. We could never understand how, when he was the most obvious devotee in the family, how he had the hardest life\u2026just constant struggle and always only ever having \u201cjust enough\u201d to get through. Still his attachment to Srila Prabhupada never waned. He was a Prabhupada man through and through. I mentioned that Bhavananda (then) Maharaja had given him the name \u201cBhima\u201d for \u201cperforming Herculean tasks on sankirtan,\u201d but he also mentioned at the yajna that Bhima deserved this name for having to bear all through his life til now the most humble of names as his christened name, Neil: which sounds the same as \u201ckneel.\u201d As Bhavananda said, a \u201cmost humble name for a humble person.\u201d It made everyone in the yajna laugh (in Bhavananda\u2019s usual fashion), and today, on this auspicious day of his departure, we all understand, and have experienced this devotee of Herculean strength whose humility was equal to barely none.<\/p>\n
Bhima was moved by your care, your love and affection, your prayers. You hastened his journey back to Krishna, and I, and my 90 yr old mother, and Ramanuja, and my sisters, we are all indebted to you all for responding in such a gracious way. His last words were to his daughter: \u201cTell Ramanuja I\u2019m sorry I couldn\u2019t wait for him.\u201d Minutes later, he left.<\/p>\n
All glories to His Grace Bhima Prabhu!<\/p>\n
your humble servant
\nBraja Sevaki dd<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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<\/p>\n
His Grace Bhima Prabhu left his body.
\nA very sweet Aussie devotee from a family of devotees left his body today. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10650,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[152],"class_list":["post-72841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recent-media","tag-nectar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10650"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72841"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72843,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72841\/revisions\/72843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}