Radha Kund, 2018.03.06 (VT): Radha Kund is full of fascinating devotees; people who have given up worldly life to spend all their time absorbed in meditation on Shri Radha and Krishna’s pastimes. Even among the exalted sants and sadhus of Radha Kund, Shri Anant Das Babaji stands out.
Pandit Anant Das Babaji is the Mahant of Radhakund and one of the most respected scholars in the Gaudiya Sampraday today. As well as doing daily Radha Kund parikrama at such an advanced age, Anant Das Babaji is renowned for his translations and commentaries on around 60 important scriptures.
Every evening before sunset, Anant Das Babaji sets out to do Radha Kund parikrama. He has spent most of his life in this way – writing, teaching and serving deities throughout the day, and walking around Radha Kund in the evening. After living in Braj for 70 years, Babaji appears completely in tune with the divine spiritual energy of Radha Kund.
Maharaj was born in Jharkhand in 1927. In his youth, he lived and worked as a teacher and had a wife and children, before leaving it all behind to live as a renunciate. He met his Guru, Shri Kunjabihari Das Babaji Maharaj, in 1950, but it was several years before the Master allowed him to return to Radha Kund and reside there permanently.
Over the next several decades, Maharaj underwent a deep study of the Gaudiya scriptures and devoted himself to intense spiritual practices. Later, under his Guru’s guidance, he began to write commentaries on the Gaudiya scriptures. Maharaj is the current Mahant (abbot or spiritual leader) of Radha Kund, and has thousands of disciples from all over India and abroad. As Mahant, the gaddi or spiritual seat he occupies is that of Shri Raghunath Das Goswami.
Through Babaji’s discourses, translations, and by his mercy, the glories of Radha Kund and the six Goswamis are revealed, with the special flavor of his Guru Parampara’s mood.
As can be expected at such an advanced age, it is not easy for Babaji to move around physically, but he is not about to let such difficulties stop him from having darshan of his beloved Shri Radha Kund.
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