SP meeting with Krishna das Babaji Maharaj

Radhanath Swami: During the afternoons, Prabhupada would give darshan and the devotees were sent out to do harinam sankirtan. During that time, I had the great fortune of sitting in the room and attending all of his darshans each day. They were very intimate. Brijbasis would come, his old friends, godbrothers would come, Goswamis would come, sometimes guests would come, and Prabhupada would just sometimes speak to them very informally, sometimes he would preach to them very strongly, and sometimes he just had loving conversations. I'll never forget when Krishna das Babaji Maharaj came to see Prabhupada. I happened to be walking down the street one day, and I met Krishna das Babaji Maharaj and told him I was going to see Srila Prabhupada. And very eager, he said, "I will go with you, I want to see Swami Maharaj." He called him Swami Maharaj.

When we came, there was a guard who was one of the more senior devotees. He was standing at the stairways guarding who was coming up to the darshan. And, of course, he welcomed me to come up because he knew that Prabhupada was favorable to me attending the darshans each night. But when he saw Krishna das Babaji Maharaj, he stopped him. He said, "Who are you?" And when he was introduced as Prabhupada's godbrother, he said, "No, no, you cannot go." So Babaji Maharaj wanted to go anyway and he wanted to stop him. And I told that devotee, "Please ask Prabhupada. He's one of the most beloved devotees of Vrindavan, especially in Gaudiya Maths." And a messenger came back and said, "Yes, Prabhupada immediately wants to see him."

So we went up together and Srila Prabhupada, when he saw Babaji Maharaj, he was sitting behind a little desk and there was maybe about six or seven people that he was talking to in the room. Prabhupada got up and they embraced, and they were just laughing and talking in Bengali. Prabhupada brought Babaji Maharaj to sit next to him behind the desk, and the whole time they were just laughing and talking and looking at each other with so much affection. And the six or seven people who were there were completely forgotten so they left, and I just sat there just watching this interaction.

I couldn't understand a word of it because they were speaking Bengali language, but I learned so much, not by their language but just by seeing the genuine love that these two great personalities had for each other and the intimate relationship they shared. And they were constantly saying Hare Krishna and laughing. I understood then that this is the goal of life, to have this type of love with Vaisnavas in sharing the mission of the spiritual master and pure love for Radha and Krishna. I think they were together for probably almost 45 minutes to an hour, and then Prabhupada made sure Babaji Maharaj got nice prasad.