Kirtanananda swami biography sample paper
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Turning Our Love Toward Krsna by Kirtanananda Swami
Editor's note: In June of 1972, after a Sunday love feast at the Los Angeles Temple, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada was scheduled to give an address to his disciples. While the disciples awaited the arrival of Srila Prabhupada in the sanctuary, one of Srila Prabhupada's earliest disciples, Kirtanananda Svami, delivered the following talk. It is followed by Srila Prabhupada's address.
I have no qualification to stand before you tonight and present myself as a teacher. I am not a teacher, but am simply here to relate what I have heard, what I have known through my association with a pure devotee of the Lord. We have learned from reading Srimad-Bhagavatam that the process for receiving spiritual knowledge is simply this: somehow or other, by some circumstance or good fortune, or by some past deed we have committed perhaps even by accident, we must attain the association of a pure devotee of the Lord. By such transcendental association, we get a chance to hear. If we take up that hearing process seriously, we have a chance to perfect our lives. This is a fact. We can actually see this demonstrated simply by looking around. Six months ago, where were these young people, who
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Kirtanananda Swami: Pioneer for a Spiritual Community
The spiritual leader of New Vrindaban
talks of palaces, people, and pure devotion to God.
Prabhupada’s Palace is the inspiration of His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami, one of Srila Prabhupada’s first and most intimate disciples. It was he who started the New Vrindaban farm community in 1968, and he who guided the devotees at every step of the seven-year Palace project. Here are his answers to some questions concerning Prabhupada’s Palace and the future of New Vrindaban.
BACK TO GODHEAD: Now that you’ve completed Prabhupada’s Palace, how will you further develop New Vrindaban?
Kirtanananda Swami: In a letter Srila Prabhupada wrote to me in 1974 or ’75, he told me to develop New Vrindaban like Tirupati in south India. But at that time I didn’t know anything about Tirupati; I’d never been there. Last fall I visited the place, which is a whole city located on top of a mountain. It is centered on the temple of Venkatesvara [a form of Krsna] and provides food and shelter for millions of pilgrims who come each year. There are thousands and thousands of cabins and dormitories, all provided for the pilgrims according to their means.
Srila Prabhupada wanted