Dalai Lama
His Holiness Radhanath Swami is a Vaishnava guru and a religious leader for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). He is a member of the Governing Body Commission (GBC) of ISKCON and is one of the main sources of inspiration for the practitioners and projects of ISKCON Chowpatty. For the past four decades, Radhanath Swami has carefully nurtured the devotees and guided the developments of Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Temple (ISKCON Chowpatty) to transform the once makeshift Krishna temple at Girgaum Chowpatty in 1988, into a thriving community of thousands of devotees spread all across the globe.
HIS JOURNEY
Radhanath Swami was born December 7, 1950 in Chicago(IL), America. At the age of 19, he left his home in America seeking adventure and spiritual knowledge. He began traveling through Europe and the Middle-East, eventually settling for over a year in the Himalayas. There he learned about many Indian religions and practiced most of them for at least the period of time in which he was invited to overlook traditions and hear from Gurus. In 1971, he met His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada during the ISKCON Cross Maidan festival at Mumbai. Eventually, he dedicated his life for serving Srila Prabhupada, joining the ISKCON New Vrindaban farm community in West Virginia in July 1972. There he accepted initiation from Srila Prabhupada, in February of 1973. He futher accepted the sannyasa order of life in 1982. Since then Radhanath Swami has been traveling extensively all over the world preaching Gaudiya Vaishnavism, initiating disciples, delivering talks and inspiring all around him. Personally, he is a staunch practitioner of the bhakti-yoga tradition for the last 50 years, helping individuals find greater inner fulfilment through the process of loving devotional service to Sri Krishna.
A BUILDER OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNITIES
IMBUING FAMILY SPIRIT
Radhanath Swami has always emphasized upon the spirit of coming together for spiritual practices as the glue which holds a community together. The Radha Gopinath community stands for the principle of unity in diversity where everyone comes together irrespective of whether they are rich or poor, erudite scholars or illiterate farmers, brahmacharis (full time monks) or the grhasthas (congregation). He says, “The principle for any spiritual community is that we are not an institution but a family; the institution is important but it has the essential service of facilitating love and trust because ultimately, we are a family.”
EMBEDDING CARE
Care has always been the essential focus of Radhanath Swami. He has always emphasized that devotees support, encourage, and inspire one another in a way that they will be enthused to grow spiritually through every stage of their life. Radhanath Swami says, “The leaders should feel the responsibility to make sure that everyone in the community is happy and fulfilled at every stage of their lives. This should take priority over what has to be done today. What has to be done today is a serious concern, but even more serious is to think what needs to be done to keep each member inspired, enlivened, and spiritually strong.”
THE BALANCING ACT
Only those who are deep in tradition can innovate without diluting the essence. Tradition brings substance and innovation brings relevance. Radhanath Swami is known for balancing and harmonizing apparent contradictions, differences of opinions, working styles etc. Radhanath Swami mystically harmonizes and brings together people from a wide variety of backgrounds. In his own words – “As long as we allow false ego to rise in our hearts, we stand alone in this world and the temptations, fears of this world will overwhelm us. Therefore, we really need to harmonize our differences; only then nothing can break us.”
HIS BOOKS
THE JOURNEY HOME : AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN AMERICAN SWAMI
Within this extraordinary memoir, Radhanath Swami weaves a colorful tapestry of adventure, mysticism, and love. Readers follow Richard Slavin from the suburbs of Chicago to the caves of the Himalayas as he transforms from young seeker to renowned spiritual guide.
The Journey Home is an intimate account of the steps to self awareness and a penetrating glimpse into the heart of mystic traditions and the challenges that all souls must face on the road to inner harmony and a union with the Divine.
Through near-death encounters, apprenticeships with advanced yogis, and years of travel along the pilgrim’s path, Radhanath Swami eventually reaches the inner sanctum of India’s mystic culture and finds the love he has been seeking. It is a tale told with rare candor, immersing the reader in a journey that is at once engaging, humorous, and heartwarming.
THE JOURNEY WITHIN : EXPLORING THE PATH OF BHAKTI
In this long-awaited follow-up to his international bestseller, The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami, renowned spiritual leader and social activist, Radhanath Swami, shares intimate stories from his decades of experience as a guru of Bhakti-Yoga.
His teachings illustrate the basic tenants of this ancient philosophy. With illuminating references to Western religions and ideologies, The Journey Within invites readers from all backgrounds to discover the simple truths that unite us.
The Journey Within was awarded the coveted New York Times Best Seller under the “Religion, Spirituality and Faith” category. The New York Times Best Seller award is an authoritatively ranked list of books sold in the United States, sorted by format and genre.
Radhanath Swami’s second book also won the 29th The Independent Book Publishers Association’s (IBPA) Benjamin Franklin Gold Award in the “Body, Mind & Spirit” category.
SHARING COMPASSION
Radhanath Swami’s life has been a journey directed by compassion. Whether it is lecturing at the House of Commons in British Parliament, Google HQ, Apple HQ or helping the sick/ elderly/ underprivileged children/ tribal women etc. by providing healthcare, food and other basic amenities; being an instrument of compassion of God has been the guiding force of Radhanath Swami’s life. It’s not just wisdom that makes Radhanath Swami a brilliant spiritual teacher; it’s his deep compassion that makes him so. Driven by that compassion, he orchestrates the flow of wisdom in a way that benefits the society optimally.
In spite of his many responsibilities, he also travels widely, teaching Eastern philosophy and spiritually throughout Europe, Asia, and America. He has been featured as a guest speaker in universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia and Stanford, and in corporations such as HSBC, Microsoft, Facebook, Starbucks HQ, Google, Intel and Oracle, to name a few.
Radhanath Swami’s work as a social activist has led him to meet and discuss the message of compassion with some of the great leaders of the world:
Mother Teresa
Narendra Modi
Shri Pranab Mukherjee
David Cameron
Barack Obama
Russel Brand
RADHANATH SWAMI VIDEOS
QUOTES BY RADHANATH SWAMI
In the sea of material nature, just below the surface of apparent pleasure, swim all sorts of jellyfish with stinging tentacles.
Every moment is perfect and sacred and a divine power has engineered it in some imperceptible way and woven it into our intricate tapestry of life for our spiritual progress.
If we can sacrifice even a part of our lives to show compassion to others, we enrich ourselves.
Root cause of all environmental pollution is pollution within the ecology of the human heart.
As faith deepens, we look for a deeper exchange of love with God.
Grace is essential. That time the infinite allows the finite to know him.
A narrow mind will call a pebble a mountain but a broad mind will see a pebble for what it really is.
Choosing a devotional life is declaring one’s independence from maya.
The surface of a river changes with every breeze but if we dive deep enough below the waters’ surface, we’ll find a place of calm.
To apply balance between justice and compassion requires spiritual maturity and attention to the particulars of the situation.
Spiritual sound is the most effective way to awaken divine consciousness.
If we do not actively invest in our spiritual growth, quality of life remains shallow.
Distractions can invite us to spend a moment with them and take us for a long ride.
The supreme sculptor is helping us to chip away everything that obscures our inner self.
For the imperishable soul, this lifetime is just a single pencil point in a long line of many lifetimes.
Faith is not religion it is what you trust with your conscience, intelligence and heart.
Replace behaviors that impede growth with behaviors that nourish it and the flower of self-realization will bloom.
See adversity not as a consequence of a cruel purposeless universe but as an opportunity to offer selfless love.
Harder the conflict, more glorious the triumph.
In spiritual life, as in war we stand against the tyranny of material conditioning on the battlefield of the mind.
