Sripada Hridayananda Babaji Maharaja was born in Radha-kunda and has been a pujari for 78 years. He lives next to the Radha-Damodar Temple. When, at the beginning of an interview, Babaji Maharaja was asked if he knew Srila Prabhupada, he began to cry. He said, “Never have I seen anyone do sadhana as he did. I have lived all my life in Vraja, and I have never seen anyone like him. Prabhupada did many arduous things. He worked very hard there at the Radha-Damodar Temple. At that time it was austere, undeveloped, and very muddy and dirty, with no facilities.
“Many years later, when I heard that it was actually he who had been chosen by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to spread the Hare Krishna maha-mantra around the world, I was not surprised. Prabhupada spread this Krishna consciousness by the mercy of Rupa Gosvami. Prabhupada used to pray to Rupa Gosvami, ‘You please give me your mercy.’ And then he got that mercy. I know this because I saw some things he did at the Radha-Damodar Temple. My room is still located in the same place as it was then, in 1964 or ’65. Many times in the middle of the night, at midnight or 1 or 2 in the morning, I would hear a voice crying from inside the courtyard near Rupa Gosvami’s samadhi-mandir. That voice was calling out and crying, but I did not know what it was, because I was trying to take rest. But one night, on the full moon, I heard that voice again, so I climbed up to the roof of our house and looked down into the Radha-Damodar courtyard. I saw something very amazing. Srila Prabhupada was sweeping the courtyard of Rupa Gosvami’s samadhi. He was bending down with a small broom, and as he swept the ground by the samadhi, he was crying out, ‘He Rupa! He Sanatana! He Gurudeva! Please give me your mercy. Without your mercy, I cannot do anything. Give me the mercy. Give me the strength that I may fulfill your orders.’ Then I realized that it was he who almost every night was calling out as he was sweeping like this.”
Hare Krishna.
Source: https://girirajswami.com/blog/?p=19080
Comments