Radhanath Swami
Spiritual Leader at Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Temple.
Summary
In 1970, at the age of only nineteen, Radhanath Swami left his home in America seeking adventure and spiritual knowledge. After trekking across Europe for months, he reached his long hoped for destination: India. After living there for many years as a sadhu or wandering monk, he returned to America in order to share the sacred knowledge and wisdom he had learned from the many holy men and women he had met there. It was an extraordinary choice, given what he had survived to get there: a journey filled with bizarre characters, mystical experiences, and dangerous adventures. The story is recounted in his recently published memoir The Journey Home (San Rafael, CA: Mandala Publishing, 2009).
By choosing as his guru A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977), the spiritual leader who compassionately spread the wisdom and culture of bhakti all over the world, Radhanath Swami cast his fate to the wind, cut his matted locks, and entered back into society.
More than a symbolic gesture, these were first steps toward an active, engaged form of devotion. This contemporary strain of the Bhakti or devotional yoga tradition maintains that people who become aware of their spiritual identity share an imperative to reduce suffering in the world—a truth slowly revealed to him in the years prior to his formal initiation by other famous spiritual teachers he had met including the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Ananda Mayi Ma, Swami Satcidananda, and many more who make their appearances in The Journey Home.
Specialties
Radhanath Swami is a spiritual leader, author, and public speaker. A practitioner of bhakti-yoga for almost 40 years, he helps individuals find greater inner fulfillment through devotional service.
