• About Indradyumna Swami

My Journey

H.H. Indradyumna Swami was born on May 20th, 1949 in Palo-Alto (California, USA).

Leaving aside his university studies at an early age, Indradyumna Swami devoted himself to the search for spiritual knowledge. He finally reached his goal in 1970, when he discovered the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in Detroit, Michigan. After several months of associating with devotees, he joined the temple on East Jefferson near the center of the city.

Within a week of joining, he began participating in and even leading harinam (congregational chanting of the Lord’s Holy Names) and book distribution parties. That same year, Indradyumna Swami met his eternal spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acarya of the International Society for Krsna Consciousness, and received both harinam and brahminical initiation from him.

Following the instruction of his spiritual master to “preach boldy and have faith in the holy names,” Indradyumna Swami left the USA in 1971 (only a year after joining) and headed for Europe where he would assist devotees in opening new centers.

Srila Prabhupada’s desire was that noble and educated men should dedicate there lives to spreading Krishna consciousness all over the world. In order to fulfill this desire of his spiritual master, Indradyumna Swami took sanyassa (renounced order of life) in 1979, at the age of 29. In 1983, he served as temple president for a few years at the New Mayapur Project in France.

Since 1986, Indradyumna Swami has been traveling and spreading the message of Krishna Consciousness throughout the world in countries such as the USA, Poland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hungary, Ukraine, Russia and South America. He is well-known as one of ISKCON’s most active preachers.

A shining example of his large-scale preaching is the traveling Festival of India tour which he organizes every year in Poland. These festivals attract thousands of people, who learn about and relish the nectar of Krsna Consciousness through music, dance, drama, spiritual discussion, and prasadam (food that is first offered to the Lord).

Since 1995, Indradyumna Swami has been writing his Diary of a Traveling Monk, which describes many of his adventures and realizations while continuously traveling.

  • Srila Prabhupada

About my Spiritual Teacher

Indrayumna Swami is a disciple of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977), affectionately known as Srila Prabhupada by his followers.

Srila Prabhupada’s spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur, was the leading proponent of Krishna consciousness in India during the early part of the twentieth century. He specifically taught the philosophy of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the divine avatar who revived Krishna-bhakti all over India in the 1500s. When Srila Bhaktisiddhanta first met the young man later known as Srila Prabhupada – in Calcutta in 1922 – he urged him to preach Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s message of Krishna consciousness throughout the English-speaking world. He also told him, “If you ever get money, print books.”

After forty years of struggling within India to carry out his guru’s order, while maintaining family and business responsibilities, Srila Prabhupada boarded a steamship bound from Calcutta to New York City in 1965. At age sixty-nine, with forty rupees and a trunk of his Bhagavatam commentaries – the first ever in English – his aim was to introduce “India’s message of peace and goodwill” to the western world. During the last twelve years of his life, Srila Prabhupada would inspire thousands of Westerners and Indians to devote their lives to Krishna consciousness, launching one of the fastest-growing spiritual movements in the history of the world.

Srila Prabhupada’s most significant contribution, however, is his books. Highly respected by the academic community for their authoritativeness, depth and clarity, they are used as standard textbooks in numerous universities. His writings have been translated into more than eighty languages.

With the help of his students, he founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). ISKCON is popularly known as the “Hare Krishna” movement, due to its members’ widespread practice of chanting the Hare Krishna mantra in public. Srila Prabhupada intended ISKCON to facilitate the association and education of bhakti-yoga practitioners, and his followers continue to spread that mission.