The Reform Movement & The 50-Men Committee with Hridyananda Das Goswami & Brahma Tirtha Das
GBC SPT welcomes you to join the ninth episode of GBC History series. This series is to encourage devotees to ask any questions pertaining to the GBC body, its conception to inception to execution. This week we have the honor to hear from Hridyananda Das Goswami and Brahma Tirtha Das in conversation with Kaunteya Das.
About Hridayananda das Goswami
As one of the most senior and respected spiritual leaders of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), Hridayananda das Goswami (Howard J. Resnick, Ph.D.) is an early pioneer and renowned teacher of bhakti yoga in the Western world. At the forefront of contemporary religious dialogue, he is celebrated for his unique ability to adapt the wisdom of ancient Indian philosophy into teachings that are comprehensible for Western audiences. H.D. Goswami (born November 5, 1948) grew up in Los Angeles, California and began his studies at the University of California, Berkeley where he participated in the political and cultural movements of the late sixties. In 1969, after attending a campus lecture delivered by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the Founder-Acharya of ISKCON, he began studying the philosophical literature of Prabhupada’s movement, and in September 1969, took up the monastic practice of bhakti-yoga in the Prabhupada’s Berkeley ISKCON center. In 1970, he was formally initiated into the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. During the next four years, he served as president of bhakti-yoga centers in Gainesville, Florida and Houston, and lectured on university campuses throughout North America. In 1974, Prabhupada asked him to assume responsibility for Latin America and in the next several years, he opened dozens of bhakti-yoga centers in over a dozen countries, and organized the leading publishing house of Indian spiritual literature in Spanish and Portuguese. In 1982, he took responsibility for ISKCON’s many centers in Florida, and in 1987 in Italy and Greece. Around this time, together with a team he formed, he completed Prabhupada’s epic translation and commentary on the Bhāgavata-purāṇa.
Meanwhile, H.D.Goswami had returned to the University of California in 1991 as a student of World Religions. After graduating, he continued his studies at Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. in Sanskrit & Indian Studies in 1996. Having published articles with Harvard University Press, University of California Press, and Columbia University Press, he recently published his dissertation as the ninety-first volume of the prestigious Harvard Oriental Series. He has taught at the Graduate Theological Union and the University of Florida, and lectured at many dozens of universities in North and South America, Europe, and India. Fluent in seven languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, and Sanskrit), Resnick recently completed the literal translation of his popular Complete Guide to the Bhagavad-gītā with Literal Translation, and published Quest for Justice, an explanation of the epic Mahā-bhārata. He is now currently working on a trilogy of the Mahā-bhārata.
Around 2013, he founded Krishna West to help facilitate ISKCON’s outreach to Western audiences. Krishna West now has centers throughout the world.
Brahma Tirtha Prabhu is a board member at Krishna House, a senior disciple of Srila Prabhupada, a professional mediator, and an advisor for the EPA, and the director of the City of Gainesville Planning Board. His initial conversations with Srila Prabhupada were recorded and later published in a book entitled Perfect Questions, Perfect Answers.
