The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), known colloquially as the Hare Krishna movement, is a Gaudiya Vaishnava Hindu religious organization. It was founded on 13 July 1966 in New York City by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Its main headquarters is located today in West Bengal, India.
Jayapataka Swami ; born on April 9, 1949) is a Vaishnava swami and a religious leader for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). He is a senior disciple of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. In 2004 he was one of the initiating spiritual masters,, a member of the Governing Body Commission (GBC), and a divisional trustee for the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (BBT). He is one of the senior-most sannyasis in the Hare Krishna movement.
Satsvarupa das Goswami is a senior disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), better known in the West as the Hare Krishna movement. Serving as a writer, poet, and artist, Satsvarupa dasa Goswami is the author of Bhaktivedanta Swami's authorized biography, Srila Prabhupada-lilamrta. After Prabhupada's death, Satsvarupa dasa Goswami was one of the eleven disciples selected to initiate future disciples. Satsvarupa dasa Goswami is one of the first few Westerners ordained by Bhaktivedanta Swami in September 1966. He is a Vaishnava writer, poet, and lecturer, who published over a hundred books including poems, memoirs, essays, novels, and studies based on the Vaishnava scriptures.
Bhakti Tirtha Swami, previously called John Favors and Toshombe Abdul and also known by the honorific Krishnapada, was a guru and governing body commissioner of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. He was the highest-ranking African American in ISKCON.
Ravindra Svarupa Dasa is a religious studies scholar and a Hare Krishna religious leader. He was initiated by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in 1971. He has been a member of ISKCON's Governing Body Commission since 1987, Chairman of that Commission's North American GBC Continental Committee, is the president of ISKCON of Philadelphia, and an ISKCON Guru. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Religion from Temple University and a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. He has written extensively on Vaishnava philosophy and used his education to further the discourse of Gaudiya Vaishnava Theology within the context of ISKCON. He is the author of Encounter with the Lord of the Universe: Collected Essays 1978-1983. He also is featured on Shelter's Attaining the Supreme, where he gives a lecture on a hidden track.
Bhakti Chaitanya Swami is a Gaudiya Vaishnava swami and a religious leader of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. He is a member of its Governing Body Commission and is the leader of ISKCON in South Africa, the Baltic states and Russia.
Bhakti Charu Swami was an Indian spiritual leader of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). He was also a disciple of ISKCON's founder A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
Kirtanananda Swami, also known as Bhaktipada, was a Gaudiya Vaishnava guru and the co-founder of New Vrindaban, a Hare Krishna community in Marshall County, West Virginia, where he served as spiritual leader from 1968 until 1994.
Ramesvara Das, formerly Ramesvara Swami, was one of the leading disciples of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and formerly a guru within the International Society of Krishna Consciousness.
Harikesa Das, formerly known as Harikesa Swami and by the honorific Vishnupada, born Robert Campagnola, was one of the leading disciples of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and a guru within the International Society of Krishna Consciousness. He left ISKCON in 1998.
Hansadutta Das, formerly Hansadutta Swami, born 27 May 1941 in Braunschweig, Germany, died 25 April 2020 in California, was a Gaudiya Vaishnava spiritual leader. An early member of, and later guru in, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), he was one of the senior disciples of ISKCON founder A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
Jayatirtha Das, formerly Jayatirtha Swami was one of the leading disciples of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and a guru within the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Born James Edward Immel and also known as Bhakti Vijaya Acharya and Tirthapada, Jayatirtha was appointed a life trustee of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust by his guru, Prabhupada, who also placed him in the managerial post of the fledgling Spiritual Sky company. Under Jayatirtha's able management the company became a multimillion-dollar concern and the Wall Street Journal covered the company's success with a front-page article.
Romapada Swami is a Vaishnava sannyasi, initiating guru and is currently on leave as a governing body commissioner of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
Giriraj Swami is an initiating guru in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and a disciple of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder-acharya of ISKCON.
An ISKCON guru is a person who is permitted to initiate disciples into the International Society for Krishna Consciousness system. The guru system has undergone several changes and reform since its beginnings in the 1960s. Upanayana as a traditional "sacred thread ceremony" of the Gayatri Mantra, commonly known Hindu Samskara, is complemented by Pancaratric mantras of the Gaudiya Vaishnava sampradaya and follows the principal initial nama initiation ceremony, referred to respectively as brahmana diksa and Hari nama diksa.
Malati Dasi is a senior spiritual leader of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Born in Vallejo, California, she was part of the hippie movement before becoming an initiated disciple of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in 1967. In the same year, she and her husband, Shyamasundar Das, helped Mukunda Das organize the Mantra-Rock Dance, a countercultural musical event held at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco; the dance was a fundraiser for ISKCON's first center on the west coast of the US.
Tamal Krishna Goswami, born Thomas G. Herzig in New York City, New York, United States, served on the International Society for Krishna Consciousness's Governing Body Commission from its inception in 1970. He completed a bachelor's degree in religious studies at Southern Methodist University.
Kailasa Candra Dasa, also known as J. K. Goodwin, is an American Gaudiya Vaishnava teacher, sidereal astrologer and author with a small number of students. In 1972, he joined the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in Madison, Wisconsin. After the passing of ISKCON founder A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, he opposed ISKCON's "zonal acharyas", beginning in 1978 and 1979. He is co-founder of the Vaishnava Foundation, a nonprofit organization incorporated under the name Metamorphosis League for Monastic Studies. He works out of the United States. He continues to oppose what he sees as the deviations that emerged within ISKCON after the demise of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
The ISKCON Revival Movement (IRM) was formed as a pressure group in 2000 to revive and reform ISKCON on the basis of the directives for succession given by Srila Prabhupada, the founder of ISKCON. IRM opposes both the zonal guru system and its replacement multiple-guru system as unauthorized innovations.