Fotos de vijay
Festival of Inspiration
BIOGRAPHY OF HIS HOLINESS MAHAVISHNU SWAMI
Mahavishnu Swami appeared in this world on 10 February 1945, in Birmingham, UK. This date falls on the trayodasi between Isvara Puri's Disappearance Day and Shivaratri by the Vedic calender.
Brought up by apparently loving but misguided intellectual meat eating parents in a middle-class English family, from a young age he always felt a misfit and was looking for clues as to what and who he really was. He dabbled and improvised on the family piano and could pick up most tunes by ear fairly quickly. He also admired and aspired to follow Lord Jesus who had sacrificed his life to preach about his Father in heaven. In youth and childhood a lot of the time he absorbed himself in his own world observing the natural wonders he saw in the lives of his many pets including especially moths and butterflies, bugs, ants, fishes, frogs, newts, snakes, lizards, rabbits, a chicken and of course Sophie, the family cat, whom he would often torment. Following his elder brother's example he tried using an air gun in the back garden and immediately shot a poor sparrow and seeing it fluttering to its death he threw down the gun and vowed to never shoot ever again.
As he grew older, he questioned more and more, "What's the point? Of going to school? Working? Raising a family?" His final conclusion was "It's all a waste of time!" which worried his parents.
He entered the Bath Academy of Art at age 19, and graduated with honours in Fine Arts despite producing the strangest modern art anyone had seen. As a typical rebellious hippie he still felt there had to be more to life, some higher reason for living than kow-towing to the establishment values in mainstream society. He read extensively and tried following different philosophies whilst indulging in mind-expanding psychedelics and unfortunate love affairs which ended in separation and mental confusion.
In the early 1970's through his friends and praying in utter desperation he eventually came into contact with Krishna Consciousness. When he read The Back to Godhead Magazine, the Bhagavad-Gita and Nectar of Devotion, he found that he began to find answers to all the questions he had ever had.
He reluctantly started chanting and gradually became more attracted to the Holy Name - "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare." He began to understand, "I am not this body. I need to return to my eternal constitutional position through the recommended process of Krishna Consciousness if I really want to be happy."
In 1971 he became a full-time temple renunciate and the same year he was initiated by his spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada at the Radha Krishna temple in Bury Place, London. Srila Prabhupada was on a quest to spread ancient Krishna Conscious teachings to the west, as well as to re-establish faith in the ancient Vedas in India. He requested all his disciples to assist in this mission.
Mahavishnu Das Brahmacary participated enthusiastically in Prabhupada's s mission in the UK helping to distribute Prabhupada's books and open temples in London, Manchester and Edinburgh as well as helping to setup Rathayatra festivals. Srila Prabhupada was quite pleased with his efforts.
In 1976 he first visited India and traveled extensively throughout India with the BBT Library party for 20 months till Prabhupada's departure from this world in 1977. After Prabhupada's departure the BBT party was disbanded and trying to recover from jaundice and dysentery he was taken by his old devotee friend Prabhavisnu Das to help him start up the Kathmandu centre in the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal. Over the following years despite various trials , tribulations and mistakes, in a good team spirit, temples were opened in cities in the Indian States of Bihar and UP like Patna, Allahabad and Varanasi. Under the guidance of HH Prabhavisnu Swami he also traveled widely in the world to raise funds to build temples in Bangladesh and Nepal, including the beautiful Rupa-Sanatana Temple in Jessore, Swamibagh in Dhaka, and the Sri Radha-Govindahari temple in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Encouraged by his godbrothers in 1984 he accepted the sannyasa order of life from his senior Godbrother HH Jayapataka Swami Maharaja. Sannyasa means being a completely renounced monk whose duty it is to travel and preach. He is still supposed to be the ISKCON Regional Secretary for Nepal and Bihar and is happy to serve under HH Prabhavisnu Swami and HH Jayapataka Swami's who are his GBCs in Nepal and East India.
In 1990 he accepted his first disciple as Srila Prabhupada had wanted his followers to also guide and initiate others in Krishna Consciousness .He took up this task in the spirit of being one of Prabhupada's "monitor" gurus. Now he has initiated over a 100 disciples.
Since the turn of the century, he has enjoyed participating with the East African festival Tour first started by the late Tribhuvanth Das who was his first siksa guru in London. He has also been excited with his adventures in places where devotees never visited before especially in DR Congo, Rwanda, Burindi and Brazaville Congo. He will soon be heading a party in search of the last living dinasaurs in the vast swamps of Brazaville Congo.The dinasaurs will take prasadam and disprove Darwin's theory forever. Some of his western disciples tried to assist Maharaja in his difficult task of opening a Krishna Conscious school in Accra, Ghana, which is now still being run by local Ghanaian devotees. Because of his devoted Congolese disciple Bal Nitai das and others like Rama Gaur Das, Krishna Consciousness is now gradually spreading all over DR Congo, and is also taking root in Ethiopia. He enjoys taking bath in all the African rivers hoping to avoid the crocodiles wherever possible. Whenever possible he travels with Captain Parasuram das of Food For All, London, on home made rafts down the white water rapids of the Yamuna and Ganga Rivers distributing books, prasadam and the Holy names. Unfortunately recently the raft overturned and he lost both his glasses and decorated hat. If his hat is sighted please report it to the webmaster immediately.
Now championing the long neglected African people's rights to receive Krishna consciousness he has become gratefully involved with the newly constituted African Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (ABBT) and the first translations of Prabhupada's books are going ahead in African languages like Lingwala (Congo), Luganda,(Uganda), Kinyarwanda (Rwanda), Kinyancole (Uganda), Kiswahili (Tanzania), Luo (Kenya) and others.
Although he is supposed to be above the modes of nature he regrets he is still struggling with his dirty heart although his determination to spread Krishna consciousness remains undaunted in spite of all odds against him. Therefore he often impulsively puts his big foot into things and has to be forgiven by his authorities who sometimes see him as a liability to ISKCON. But he knows that with Krishna's presence in the form of the Holy Names anything is possible.
(see Bhagavad Gita Ch 3:31 and purport)
He still regularly visits his "home" country, England and other European countries like Italy and Croatia, and sometimes takes part in the "December Book Marathon" there - to assist in distributing Srila Prabhupada's books . He was recently inspired to spend some of his family inheritance in helping setting up No 1 Temple Street in Brighton which is a haven for a community of musical truth seekers headed by his inspired disciple Dina Dayadra Das. He loves to take part in all the music festivals in the UK like the Glastonbury, Big Green and Stonehenge.
He enjoys playing his decorated accordian and wearing hats which remind everyone of Krishna and make them smile. He generally attends the Navadvipa Mandal Parikrama in India and has attended 31 Mayapur festivals to date. He has been asked to play his accordian by governement officials in many of the world's capitals airports including Heathrow UK during a bomb scare. Under the guidance of film producer Mathi Alagan he is now desperately hoping to one day complete a filmscript for a hopefully amazing blockbuster feature film called "City of Nine Gates" which by Krishna's Grace should convey the message of Krishna consciousness to the world in an exciting and entertaining way. He dreams of becoming a famous much loved personality on TV, screen and radio so that he can tell everyone about Lord Jagannath, Lord Chaitanya, Sri Sri Radha Krishna , Giri Govardhan and Srila Prabhupada. Unfortunately for all his health is still not too bad and his dream could possibly come true when his body is 4 score and ten. Sri Harinam Sankirtan Ki Jaya!
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