GBC SPT welcomes you to join the fifth episode of our 5-week series on the GBC History. This series is to encourage devotees to ask any questions pertaining to the GBC body, its conception to inception to execution.
This is a specially exciting series as we welcome Hari Sauri Das, who lived through the Zonal Acarya days of ISKCON being a GBC and will share with us his first hand experiences during that era.
About Hari Sauri Das
Hari Sauri was born in England on November 17th 1950. In May 1971, he emigrated to Australia where, on the second day of his arrival, he met the members of the newly emerging Krishna Consciousness movement. He was duly accepted as an initiated disciple by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada on April 9th, 1972 in Sydney.
In August 1975, he moved to the newly opened ISKCON Krishna Balaram temple in Vrindavan U.P. India, where he served as temple commander. In November of the same year, he joined A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada’s personal entourage, remaining as His Divine Grace’s servant for 16 months. In March of 1977, Srila Prabhupada appointed him ISKCON’s Governing Body Commissioner for Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, a service he performed for over 7 years. During that period, he oversaw the growth of the ISKCON society in the South Seas from 4 temple and ashrams, to 17, including 4 farming communities, 2 schools and several restaurants. He was also instrumental in establishing branches of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust in Australia and Indonesia.
In 1986, he began the work of transforming the diary he kept while traveling with Srila Prabhupada into a book, or rather a series of books. In 1990, he moved to America and worked as publisher for Back To Godhead magazine, the Krishna consciousness movement’s spiritual periodical, for a year.
He lives at ISKCON World Head Quarters, in Mayapur West Bengal, India, near Kolkata, with his wife and daughter where he continues to publish his memories of being with Srila Prabhupada. He is currently the director of the Bhaktivedanta Research Center in Kolkata an academic resource of Gaudiya Vaisnavism and an archive library of ancient vaisnava text. These ancient texts are being both digitized and preserved in the original state.
1 июл 2021
