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In 1970, at the age of only nineteen, Radhanath Swami left his home in America seeking adventure and spiritual knowledge. After trekking across Europe for months, he reached his long hoped for destination: India. After living there for many years as a sadhu or wandering monk, he returned to America in order to share the sacred knowledge and wisdom he had learned from the many holy men and women he had met there. It was an extraordinary choice, given what he had survived to get there: a journey filled with bizarre characters, mystical experiences, and dangerous adventures. The story is recounted in his recently published memoir The Journey Home (San Rafael, CA: Mandala Publishing, 2009). Reviewers have called Radhanath's saga "at once an engaging yarn, a love story, and the evocation of a transcendent paradise in all its savagery, solitude, and splendor.
Radhanath Swami emerged from his years of travel wanting to explain for others the beauty and rewards of a life devoted to God, and therein lay a dilemma. His many followers and friends describe him as completely selfless and consequently unwilling to take credit for his work and restless when a spotlight is focused on him. By choosing A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (1896-1977), a spiritual activist, as his guru (after declining offers of initiation from several tyagis or renunciants in the Himalayas), Radhanath Swami cast his fate to the wind, cut his matted locks, and entered back into the society.
Faith
Knowing the Inconceivable Through Faith SB-05.16.08
Self of Ilavrta varsha and extending from east to west are three great mountains named from north to south- Nishadha, Hemakuta and Himalaya, each of them is 10,000 yojanas (80,000 miles), they mark the boundaries of three varshas named Hari varsha, Kim purusha varsha and Bharat varsha. In the same way, west and east of Ilavrta varsha are two great mountains, Malyavan and Gandhamarna, respectively. These two mountains which are 2000 yojanas (16,000 miles) high, extent as far as Neela mountain in the north and Nishadha in the south. They indicate the borders of Ilavrta varsha and also the varshas known as ketu mala and Bhadrasva.
Purport By His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta swami Prabhupada.
Faith is the substance of bhakti
Srimad Bhagavatam Class by
HH Radhanath Swami Maharaj
05th September 2009
SB 8.3.12
(Word to word transcription)
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TEXT 8.3.12
namaù çäntäya ghoräya
müòhäya guëa-dharmiëe
nirviçeñäya sämyäya
namo jïäna-ghanäya ca
SYNONYMS
namaù—all obeisances; çäntäya—unto Him who is above all material qualities and completely peaceful, or unto Väsudeva, the Supersoul in every living entity; ghoräya—unto the fierce forms of the Lord like Jämadagnya and Nåsiàhadeva; müòhäya—the form of the Lord as an animal, such as the boar; guëa-dharmiëe—who accepts different qualities within the material world; nirviçeñäya—who is without material qualities, being fully spiritual; sämyäya—Lord Buddha, the form of nirväëa, wherein the material qualities stop; namaù—I offer my respectful obeisances; jïäna-ghanäya—who is knowledge or the impersonal Brahman; ca—also.