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Radhantha Swami's early years in ] were spent largely as a ] (temple ]) at ]. After eight years of working as a priest and looking after the temple ] he was then given the task of working as a spiritual teacher in the local colleges and universities in mid western America. He was famous for his vegetarian cooking workshops, philosophical discourses, and musical ] performances. He received ] initiation in ] thus dedicated more of his time to traveling and preaching. His schedule is rigorous as his life's work is based around giving public lectures, supporting, teaching and inspiring other devotees within the movement. Radhantha Swami's early years in ] were spent largely as a ] (temple ]) at ]. After eight years of working as a priest and looking after the temple ] he was then given the task of working as a spiritual teacher in the local colleges and universities in mid western America. He was famous for his vegetarian cooking workshops, philosophical discourses, and musical ] performances. He received ] initiation in ] thus dedicated more of his time to traveling and preaching. His schedule is rigorous as his life's work is based around giving public lectures, supporting, teaching and inspiring other devotees within the movement.


Radhanath Swami is now trying to improve his public image where he was accussed of being an alleged murder conspirator in the New Vrindavan trials. With the publishing of his autobiography The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami, Radhanath Swami has taken to the International public stage. Prior to the release of his book, Radhanath Swami had a no-publish policy on the internet wishing to remain humble and to avoid inciting criticizm. Along with his increased fame has also come negative propaganda by hecklers. The most URGENT matter is to address one particular article entitled "Radhanath Swami - Murder Conspirator" which features prominently when people search for "Radhanath Swami" on Google. Every time someone reads this article it cuts their faith in Radhanath Swami's character, and hampers his ability to serve them. To provide an accurate perspective of Radhanath Swami for those inspired by him his disciples have launched a series of websites with his support and blessings. Volunteers are being recruited to clink these link to increase their prominence in Google searches. Please help if you can! Radhanath Swami is now trying to improve his public image where he was accussed of being an alleged murder conspirator in the New Vrindavan trials. With the publishing of his autobiography The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami, Radhanath Swami has taken to the International public stage. Prior to the release of his book, Radhanath Swami had a no-publish policy on the internet wishing to remain humble and to avoid inciting criticizm. Along with his increased fame has also come negative propaganda by hecklers. The most URGENT matter is to address one particular article entitled "Radhanath Swami - Murder Conspirator" which features prominently when people search for "Radhanath Swami" on Google. Every time someone reads this article it cuts their faith in Radhanath Swami's character, and hampers his ability to serve them. To provide an accurate perspective of Radhanath Swami for those inspired by him his disciples have launched a series of websites with his support and blessings. Volunteers are being recruited to click these link to increase their prominence in Google searches. Please help if you can!


==Radha Gopinath temple== ==Radha Gopinath temple==

Revision as of 17:23, 5 March 2010

Radhanath Swami
Personal life
Other namesRichard Slavin
Religious life
ReligionGaudiya Vaishnavism, Hinduism
InitiationDiksa–1973, Sannyasa–1982
Senior posting
PostInitiating Guru, Sannyasi, Member of the Governing Body Commission
Websitehttp://www.radhanathswami.com
Radhanath Swami Singing

Radhanath Swami (born December 7, 1951) is a Gaudiya Vaishnava swami and a religious leader for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). He works largely from Mumbai in India and also travels extensively throughout Europe and America. He has been instrumental in the founding of the Mumbai Bhaktivedanta hospital and is well known throughout ISKCON for establishing and maintaining the highly successful Radha Gopinath Temple project and ashram in Chowpatty. He's an initiating guru and a member of the Governing Body Commission of ISKCON.

Biography

Born in America as Richard Slavin, Radhanath Swami studied a number of religious paths such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam during a quest for spiritual truth. At the age of 19 he expanded his field of exploration by spreading out geographically in search of a religion that encompassed the eternal aspect of all religions. 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. Much of this time he spent devoted to the tradition of Shaivism and was living as a renunciate Shaivite in India when he first met with Krishna devotees near Delhi. He was forced to leave a train at Vrindavana due to the train breaking down which happened to be the day of Janmashtami (Krishna's 'birthday'). Through contact with the devotees in Vrindavan, Radhanath Swami began to focus exclusively on his spiritual path in Krishna Consciousness. In 1971 Radhanath Swami came observed A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada during the ISKCON Cross Maidan festival in Mumbai. After leaving India, Radhanath Swami returned to the United States where he joined the New Vrindaban ISKCON farm community in West Virginia during July 1972. There he accepted initiation during February of 1973. This is a story of many intricacies all to be read about in his autobiography, The Journey Home.

Radhantha Swami's early years in ISKCON were spent largely as a pujari (temple priest) at New Vrindavan. After eight years of working as a priest and looking after the temple cows he was then given the task of working as a spiritual teacher in the local colleges and universities in mid western America. He was famous for his vegetarian cooking workshops, philosophical discourses, and musical kirtan performances. He received sanyasa initiation in 1982 thus dedicated more of his time to traveling and preaching. His schedule is rigorous as his life's work is based around giving public lectures, supporting, teaching and inspiring other devotees within the movement.

Radhanath Swami is now trying to improve his public image where he was accussed of being an alleged murder conspirator in the New Vrindavan trials. With the publishing of his autobiography The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami, Radhanath Swami has taken to the International public stage. Prior to the release of his book, Radhanath Swami had a no-publish policy on the internet wishing to remain humble and to avoid inciting criticizm. Along with his increased fame has also come negative propaganda by hecklers. The most URGENT matter is to address one particular article entitled "Radhanath Swami - Murder Conspirator" which features prominently when people search for "Radhanath Swami" on Google. Every time someone reads this article it cuts their faith in Radhanath Swami's character, and hampers his ability to serve them. To provide an accurate perspective of Radhanath Swami for those inspired by him his disciples have launched a series of websites with his support and blessings. Volunteers are being recruited to click these link to increase their prominence in Google searches. Please help if you can!

Radha Gopinath temple

Radha-Gopinath temple in Chowpatty, Mumbai

In later years Radhanath Swami has been essential for many highly successful Mumbai projects associated with Radha Gopinath Mandir in Chowpatty, which was founded in 1986 and joined ISKCON in 1994. The temple is named after the two main deities - Radha and Gopinatha (another name for Krishna, meaning 'lord of the gopis'), also Lalita and Vishaka, two prominent gopis of Vrindavan. There are also deities of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu & Nityananda, and Shrinathji alongside Radha Gopinath in the main temple room. The temple itself is primarily a preaching centre, focusing on the study of scriptures such as Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavata Purana. It is presently one of ISKCON's most internationally admired devotee communities and hosts an innovative mentor/counselor system which has now also been taken on elsewhere within the movement. It also houses a vegetarian restaurant named Govinda's. Radhanath Swami also has been instrumental in the founding of the Mumbai Bhaktivedanta hospital.

Relationship with Prabhupada

Radhanath Swami personally served Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada on a number of occasions during his visits to New Vrindavan when Radhanath Swami was living there as a brahmacari. On numerous occasions Prabhupada made the comment that "Radhanath makes the best sandesh" referring to the sweets which Radhanath Swami made personally with the purpose of being given to Prabhupada as prasadam.

The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami

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Radhanath Swami wrote his autobiography on the request of his friend and god-brother Bhakti Tirtha Swami who from his deathbed asked him to share his story. The book "The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami" is the story of how Radhanath Swami grew up in a Jewish family in Chicago, IL and through his journey of prayer was led through the 60's counter-culture movement in America into Europe, walking and hitch-hiking all the way through Europe to the Middle East and into India. Along the way he met many people who would share their wisdom with him, encouraging him on his search for the truth. He stayed with Yogis in Himalayan caves, in Buddhist Monasteries, Jewish Synagogues, and Christian Churches. He met many teachers and practitioners of spirituality and learned from them. The book details his adventures along the journey.

Francis Xavier Clooney in his review of the book notes "Like many a spiritual autobiography, the external events and details turn out to be the setting for the author’s inner quest. His journey is a humbling, learning to be poor, a series of tests that push the author toward living by faith alone. Like any pilgrim, he does not see all of this along the way, but in retrospect sees how he was being quietly, insistently drawn toward God all the time".

Radhanath Swami and Russell Brand

According to reports in the media, in the last few years Radhanath Swami has been providing spiritual guidance to the famous British stand-up comedian and actor Russell Brand. According to The Times report, after meeting with Radhanath Swami Russell Brand stated “He's a beautiful fellow. He's got the answer. I'm a spiritual gent and increasingly that's the level I want to vibrate on, were it not for my crazed lust for sex and glamour.” On another occasion The Times reports him saying “I met this swami, and I said, ‘I’m a bit ridden with egotism and ambition, I’m riddled with it, I’m alive with it, I’m crawling with the stuff.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry. It’s a gift from God. Use it in the service of God.’ Except he said Krishna, but I’m anglicising it to make it sound less oooooeeee. . .” In November 2008 Miranda Sawyer wrote in The Observer,

Anyhow, it turns out Russell's beliefs stem from Hare Krishna. He had an encounter with a swami in Soho Square and it spun his head around. Russell looked into the swami's eye and the world dissolved, and he became aware that everything is connected, atomically, and it's ludicrous to imagine we are separate from anything, when we are all just vibrations. 'I felt the absolute certainty that consciousness is in tune with enlightenment, and I could access it. In the same way I feel desire for a human, I felt desire for that; it was something that I wanted, and it kind of made me blush.'

Russell Brand made references to Radhanath Swami in several of his performances. Christine Spines writes in Entertainment Weekly: "Sure enough, an afternoon spent with Brand is nothing if not entertaining. One minute, he's proclaiming the joys of casual sex — Bloody hell, what else are you going to indulge in? — and the next, he's referencing a swami who taught him how to love himself".

Disciples in the media

See also

Footnotes

  1. List of Sannyasis in ISKCON April 2008 ISKCON Sannyasa Ministry, Retrieved on 2008-05-05
  2. ^ Russell Brand: I'm a spiritual gent with a crazed lust for glamour
  3. ^ Russell Brand seeking guidance from guru
  4. ^ Dwyer & Cole 2006, pp. 24–25 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFDwyerCole2006 (help)
  5. 2004, p. 204 harvnb error: no target: CITEREF2004 (help)
  6. Radhanatha Swami
  7. ^ Prof. Francis X. Clooney, S.J. "A Hare Krishna Swami Tells All". The National Catholic Weekly. www.americamagazine.org. Retrieved 2009-05-22.
  8. Cole, Richard; Dwyer, Graham (2007). The Hare Krishna Movement: Forty Years of Chant and Change. London: I. B. Tauris. pp. 24–25. ISBN 1-84511-407-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. Mandala Publishing
  10. Russell Brand is hot to trot
  11. Brand on the run
  12. Spines 2008
  13. ^ C4 Preachers To Be

References

External links

Modern Gaudiya Vaishnavas (1800s to date)
The 19th – early 20th century
Gaudiya Math
Governing Body Commission,
and other ISKCON Gurus
Other ISKCON Vaishnavas
(1966 to date)
Gaudiya Math lineage
Other lineages
Modern offshoots
*ISKCON guru
Former Gaudiya Math member
Former ISKCON member
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