Interview by Joshua Greene      

Q: What motivated you to write this memoir?

Radhanath Swami: For many years friends and well-wishers asked me to write this memoir because they heard me tell stories from time to time. But I always resisted because I felt it would be an act of arrogance to write a story about myself. But then something happened that changed my mind.

My very dear friend Bhakti Tirtha was brought up in the ghettos of Cleveland in the ‘50s and ‘60s and rose up to be a Princeton graduate and religious leader of the Bhakti movement and traveled around the world. Such people as Muhammed Ali, Nelson Mandela, Alice Coltrane were taking guidance from him. He wrote many books. He called me to his bedside in Pennsylvania in the last stages of cancer. I went just to offer my love and respect to him. At that time he said something that really changed my life. He said, “I want to die in your arms. Please stay with me.”

I spent the next eight weeks at his side, discussing spiritual inspirational subjects. And one day he looked at me with very deep concern in his eyes. He took my hand and said, “Why are you hesitating to write this memoir that everyone has asked for?” I expressed my heart. “Is it not an act of arrogance to write about myself?” He said, “This is not your story. This is the story of a young man who was called to try to find the same truths that everyone is searching for in this world. If your story can help other people on their spiritual path, then it would be arrogance not to write it.” Then he took my hand and said, “Please promise me, on my deathbed, that you will write this book.”

Just a few days later, surrounded by hundreds of loving well-wishers and followers, His Holiness Bhakti Tirtha passed away from this world. In honor of his love and friendship I have written this book, “The Journey Home.”

 

Q: What is it that you would like people to take away from reading your memoir?

Radhanath Swami: I hope that when people read this book that they may be inspired to seek deeper into the experiences of life that really have value. So often we get caught up with superficialities that our life loses deep and fulfilling meaning. But to find meaning in our life, a life that helps us to develop character, meaning, and ultimately love for God—if in some small way “The Journey Home” can help anyone from any religion or background to ask the questions, “What is the most meaningful purpose of life?” then I’ll be satisfied that my service has some merit.

Q: Why did you take such a dangerous journey to India when you were only seventeen?

Radhanath Swami: I was raised in the 1960s in America, in a time of much social and ideological rebellion. At that time there were serious questions in my heart that I felt needed to be addressed. Why is there hatred, cruelty, war? Why so much selfishness and greed? There must be a deeper, higher purpose in life. In the beginning through political reform I participated in the civil rights movement of Dr. Martin Luther King and in demonstrations against the Vietnam War. I entered into the counter-culture of the ‘60s, but in my own evolution of consciousness I came to the conclusion that real solutions have to be found within oneself.

If we don’t transform our own values, then we can’t really do anything substantial in this world. So myself and my friend Gary traveled to different parts of the world to study different points of view and different types of life. Gradually there was a calling in my heart that led me deeper into a spiritual search, until on an island in Greece on a mountaintop I was praying and meditating and I heard a voice that changed the entire course of my life.

It said, “Go to India.” I left my friend Gary, I left my comfortable cave and began to hitchhike from Greece to India. I had no money. That calling, even though I knew it was going to put me into hardships and risks, was so loud there was nothing that could stop me from following that call.

I knew that it would break my parents’ heart that I wasn’t going to come home from the two months of my Europe vacation. But I felt it was really something I had to do in life. Now, when a person really has nothing and puts oneself in mysterious places, it is unbelievable what can happen. In my journey across the Middle East and throughout India I was putting my life in the hands of God. Many dangers, many threats to my life, diseases, and many of the most incredible mystical moments as well.

I was just trying to follow my call. I felt like a leaf floating in the waves in the current of destiny. Wherever it led me, I accepted. And beautiful things can be discovered in life when we let go of our own ego. I think it is a truth of life that when a person really sincerely focuses on a goal, with an open heart, then magical things take place.

I believe that magic is the grace of God, who can empower, perfect and nourish us to overcome all obstacles and find a great treasure within our own hearts. And when we find that treasure in our own hearts, then we have something very valuable and very beautiful to share with others.

Q: The Sixties were an exciting era. What was it like traveling across Europe then?

Radhanath Swami: Gary and I departed from America by taking a flight on Icelandic Airlines. If I remember it was about $65. We flew to Iceland then to Luxembourg. We had a friend Frank who was our beneficiary. He had money, we had no money. He promised to support us through our journey. But the first day in Luxembourg he was robbed and that very day he went back to America. So Gary and I were on our own to learn to live in foreign countries.

Our only way for survival was to make friends with people and gain their trust and try to give our affection and friendship. Often in return we received their friendship and affection, and that was all we needed. At one time we had no money and wanted to go to Crete from Athens. We gave blood in a blood bank in Athens. In those days it was extremely painful. So in the blood bank we were holding our arms waiting for our payment and we noticed there was a guitar player from France and a violin player from Switzerland, and I played the harmonica.

So we decided to form a band. And we went out into the streets. Gary was our percussion by shaking a hat with some coins in it. We became quite popular on the streets of Athens, Greece—except the police did not enjoy our performance. They brought us to the police station and confiscated whatever they could find and told us to never do it again. At that time with whatever little we did hide from the police we took a little boat to the island of Crete. And that’s where the calling to travel to India came into my life.

Q: “The Journey Home” reveals some terrifying moments in that overland travel to India. Why do you think you had to go through so many obstacles on your path to God?

Radhanath Swami: Obstacles are great stepping stones, to prepare us and purify us to make progress toward our goal. This holds especially true in spiritual life. But when obstacles come, especially those that are beyond our control, it helps us to deeply take shelter of a power and a grace beyond our own. Otherwise, the tendency is to become very lukewarm in our spiritual life.

Difficulties, obstacles provide us an opportunity to either give up, find some other alternative, or to go very, very deep, to really take shelter of God on our spiritual paths. Also, those difficulties help us to appreciate the value of what we are striving for on the path of grace, the path of enlightenment.

Q: Were you unhappy with being raised Jewish? Why did you decide to adapt to what most people would call Hinduism?

Radhanath Swami: At that time in my life I had a burning desire to understand truth, to understand who I am, and to understand God. If we look for a purpose, we find a purpose even in the most unlikely places. At that time in my life, I really wanted to know who I was. I wanted to find answers to questions that were so prominent throughout the society. I wanted to know God, to understand how I could love God, how I could become an instrument of God’s compassion in my own life.

That desire burned in me so intensely that it literally evaporated all of my other ideas about what I wanted to do in my life, and it set my feet on that path. My realization at that time was: “There must be an essence within every great religion or spiritual path that has come.” I took note of so much irreligion in the name of religion: hatred on a path that is meant to cultivate love; bigotry and discrimination on paths that are meant to make us forgiving and compassionate. I saw hypocrisy and contradictions, but I had a deep faith that in the original teachings of all these great traditions there was the same essence, the same ultimate goal.

Not to be a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian or a Jew or a Jain or a Parsi, but to love God and to be an instrument of that love in our life—and to have good character. And the more I saw the problems, the more I really, really wanted to find the essence. So I studied Christianity, I studied Judaism and later in the Middle East I was studying Islam, and I was studying different branches of Buddhism and Hinduism. I wanted to find that essence.

So I began to study various spiritual traditions, and I found universal truths there. And for me it wasn’t a matter of converting from one religion to another. For me it was a matter of becoming religious—of becoming actually spiritual. I wasn’t looking to become this religion or that religion. I was looking to love God and to find a path that would inspire me to love God. When I discovered this path of Bhakti, I found something that philosophically was inclusive, to encompass all the great spiritual teachings and paths that I had encountered in my search.

Q: What is Bhakti and what is that you found in Bhakti?

Radhanath Swami: I found a beautiful, personal conception of God that charmed my heart. I wanted to give my life that. By giving my life to that I felt I was giving my life to the essence of every great spiritual path. Bhakti means the path of unconditional love and devotion to God and to all living beings. Because all living beings are part of God. In the Bible it is said that the first and great commandment is to love God with all your heart and mind and soul. And if we do that, if we understand our personal relationship with the Supreme Divinity and the sweetness and beauty of God, then naturally we will love our neighbor as ourselves because we will see the presence of God in every living being. Every living being is a child of God.

And we will see everyone as our neighbor. You cannot love God and not love every living being. It is the essence of Hindu, of Islam, of Judaism, of Christianity. It is the essence of Buddhism, of all great spiritual paths, according to my discovery.

Q: When you first went to India, the police wouldn’t let you into the country. Then recently you were received by the President. Can you tell us about that and what your thoughts were at that moment?

Radhanath Swami: Earlier this year in January 2010, I was invited to meet with the President of India Pratibha Patel, and as I was being escorted by top security officials through the beautiful, ornate corridors of the presidential palace, I began to reflect about the first day I came to the border of India. I was all alone in December 1970. I had traveled overland—actually I hitchhiked through London, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. It took about six months. I had practically no money at all—in the end, nothing. And many near death experiences, diseases—but finally the land of my dream, India, was steps away. I was dreaming of the sages and the yogis and the lamas in the holy places that I was about to see.

I gave my passport to the immigration agent, and she asked how much money I had. I only had a few cents. She rejected my entry. “We have enough beggars in India. Go back to where you came. You are denied.” I pleaded, I begged, but she became more adamant and more angry as I presented my desperation. I pleaded and I pleaded and I pleaded, and she sent me away, sometimes at the gunpoint of her security officers.

I sat under a little tree praying to God, feeling so desperate. I couldn’t go back into Pakistan because my visa was only one entry. I couldn’t get into India. I was in this no-man’s land between two enemy nations. For six hours I sat under a tree and again and again pleaded with the officer and again and again I was rejected.

Finally, around sunset the immigration agents changed, and a Sikh gentleman took charge. I approached him and pleaded with him, but he said “I have already been warned that you are a nuisance. Go back—or show me two hundred dollars minimum.” I began to cry. Really I was crying. I was desperate. “I traveled six months to get here. I’m covered with dust. I have nothing. But I have a longing to meet your people, to learn about your culture, your teachings and the heritage of your country. Please, just give me a chance and I promise some day I will try to do something good for your people.”

He looked at me in the eyes and said, “Sometimes a man must follow his heart. I’ve been ordered not to let you in, but I’m going to give you the chance you are praying for.” And he stamped my passport. And then he put his hand on my head and said, “Welcome to India.”

I walked, and I was in this very isolated countryside. The sun had set and it had become dark. I was walking through some agricultural fields. I didn’t know anyone in India. I had no money. I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t know anything. But I felt so at home and so grateful. These thoughts were going through my mind as I was walking through the presidential corridors, thinking “What a change. I was rejected at gunpoint by the security guards at the border of India. Now it is exactly forty years later, and I’m being escorted to see the president by her top security officials.”

When I arrived in the president’s office, Her Excellency Mrs Patel was standing with her hands folded to greet me and with a basket of fruit. When I told this story to my father he said, “This is really a story of rags to riches.” But I was thinking, actually I’m a Swami so I still wearing something that is really like rags. And I still have no property, no bank account, not a penny to my name. So I have no riches. But then I thought deeper, that one grain of spiritual truth has greater value than all the things in the universal creation.

Q: So you made good on that promise you made to the border guard?

Radhanath Swami: Over the years I have tried to honor that promise to the immigration agent to do good to the people of India. We started some ashrams, some temples. At this time with the encouragement of the Indian government our ashram is feeding some 260,000 children in the slum schools every day. We have a hospital. We do a lot of charitable eye camps and other such medical work. We have an orphanage and we teach value education in various public schools. And we have many spiritual programs to uplift people’s consciousness and teach them spiritual values and help them on the path to love of God. I’m trying, but I do not feel I could ever come close to repaying the great gifts my guru and the saintly people of India have given to me.

Q: And what is that you learned when you finally got to travel through India?

Radhanath Swami: My spiritual teacher Srila Prabhupada and many of the great teachers throughout history have taught us that pure love of God and genuine compassion for all living beings is dormant within the heart of all of us. It is our spiritual essence. The body and the mind are temporary, they are always changing. But the atma, the soul, is eternal. It is sat-chit-ananda, full of knowledge and full of bliss. And that bliss is the bliss of feeling the inconceivable, unlimited love of God and reciprocating by offering our love to God.

That love for God, that compassion for all living beings is like a seed within our heart. And every great spiritual process is to cultivate and water that seed. Activities that create weeds around that seed, activities that impede the growth of that seed, we are taught to avoid as far as possible. That meaning immorality, arrogance, violence to other living beings, unnecessary greed, illicit activities that are harmful to ourselves and others—if we avoid those things, by experience higher pleasures, spiritual pleasures that invigorate our minds and enlighten our souls, then that seed grows into a beautiful flower: the flower of pure spiritual love, of Bhakti. And that is the fulfillment and pleasure that every living being is looking for.

The most fundamental need of every living being is to love and be loved. And that need finds its perfection in the love between God and ourselves and in the love between the pure spirit in others and ourselves. And really that is the greatest need in the whole world.

Q: This incredible adventure must have taken a toll on your parents.

Radhanath Swami: When my father was expecting me back to return to college in September 1970, and then in October he got a letter from Iran that I was hitchhiking to India in search of enlightenment, my mother and my father’s hearts were broken. By the way, there was no return address on the envelope. They were helpless in communicating their feelings to me. But as I traveled through the Middle East and then living as a sadhu in the Himalayan Mountains of India, living on riverbanks and in caves and jungles, I really had no address where they could write back. A long time passed. Every now and then I sent them letters just to assure them I was alive and remembering them. It hurt me to hurt them. But I really did believe that if I dedicated myself to a spiritual cause, to the cause of God, then everything would be compensated in due course of time.

And by God’s grace it was. Gradually as my mother and father recognized what I believed and was trying to accomplish in my life, they became not only happy but proud. They came to India three times and were crying in joy every day. And today many of my father’s best friends are devotees from India and the West. And when my mother passed away, my whole family decided “Let us cremate her and give her ashes.” They gave them to me to bring to India because they felt she was so proud and happy over what I was doing in India that that’s where she’d want her ashes to be spread.

Q: It’s nice to know that you can be a swami and also remain the son of your parents.

Radhanath Swami: That feeling in my heart was extremely fulfilling, that my parents and my brothers who loved me so much could feel so nice about my dedication to Bhakti or God. My mother and father had to adjust to me coming home an ascetic monk from a tradition they had no conception of—and at the same time I had to open my heart to their position, which was very, very different, apparently very materialistic, or so I was thinking. But because there was affection they really tried to understand me and adjust. And I really tried to understand them and adjust. And something wonderful happened. I realized that for any relationship to develop in this world there must be forgiveness, there must be patience and tolerance, there must be a certain selflessness of adjusting to show respect and honor to each other.

And we always showed respect and honor to each other, despite our differences and in due course of time we both deeply appreciated and loved each other on a level higher than ever before. And in doing so, I didn’t have to compromise my beliefs or values of monastic life. No matter how spiritual we are, we should never give up our humanness, our kindness or compassion or our appreciation for what others have done for us or are doing for us.

Q: What happened to your friend Gary? You and he started out together on this spiritual journey.

Radhanath Swami: Gary and I set out on this journey with a common goal: to find a lifestyle we could live that would make the most compassionate difference in the world. And the book “Journey Home” explains our relationship. But there was a gap of about 18 years when we never saw each other. And when we did meet in a most miraculous way, not planned by either of us, I was a swami living in India teaching people about spiritual values, and he was a bodybuilder who was a physical trainer in a gym in Malibu California. When we first met we had apprehensions: What do we have in common now?

But as we sat and discussed our lives and all the different changes and turns that it took, we realized that that same essential spirit was there in both of us, and we remained through all these changes best of friends.

One day Gary said to me, “Swami, how can we possibly still be friends? My life is dedicated to teaching people that if they have strong and beautiful bodies they will be happy, and your life is dedicated to teaching people they are not the body, they are eternal souls and should seek the happiness beyond physical pleasure, of the love of the soul.” I remember smiling at Gary and I said to him, “My guru Srila Prabhupada taught that the body is a temple of God. So you teach people how to take nice care of their temple, to keep it healthy and clean, and I’ll teach them what to do inside the temple. In this way we can be a team.” And since then we’ve been a team.

Whenever I’m in Malibu I stay with him, and he comes to India every year and stays with me.

Q: What does the title “Journey Home” mean? Where is home?

Radhanath Swami: The title “Journey Home” came from these thoughts: Home is where we find comfort, relief from the troubles of the world. Home is where we find shelter and family and relationships and love. We all need home. The home that we’re all looking for is the home within our heart. When we find peace, love and fulfillment within our own hearts, then we can feel home in any situation, anywhere. And if we do not find that within our own hearts, we can’t really experience home anywhere within this world.

When we find God within our heart and we find home in that love, then we can see that every living being is part of our family and we’re always home. The spiritual path is our journey home.

Q: Why do so many people seem to regard religion as the enemy of progressive human culture?

Radhanath Swami: There is a Sanskrit word saragrahi, which means one who seeks the essence in every situation. If we have an honest and sincere desire to grow in our character, in our devotion, our enlightenment, then we will always find the way to do so.

For those teachers who are honest and pure and true in what they teach and how they live, we can gain great inspiration and great knowledge and wisdom. But when we see there is hypocrisy or contradiction between what a person teaches and the real purpose of the message, there is also much to learn from that: to learn what we should be on guard against, to see how even religious leaders fall into pitfalls, the same essential as for all of us in different ways, and how we should be on guard and careful to protect ourselves from those pitfalls. We can learn and acquire great wisdom from properly applying spiritual truths to the mistakes of others, both today and throughout history. And those lessons are essential.

Q: You met a number of famous spiritual leaders on your travels. Who were they, and are there impressions that have stayed with you from those meetings?

Radhanath Swami: I was 19 years old when I arrived at the border of India, and during those years of traveling the Himalayas and the plains of the subcontinent, I met with the Dalai Lama of Tibet and was deeply nourished by his compassion for his people, his humor and his dedication to his cause even in the face at that time of death threats. And I found the obstacles that came before him only enriched his power to be an instrument of his mission in this world because he never gave up. Mother Theresa in the ghettos of Calcutta—how she was seeing her beloved Jesus even in the poorest and most downtrodden of people and giving her life and soul to uplifting them physically, emotionally and spiritually. Anandamayi Ma was like a mother to me. Neem Keroli Baba, his joyfulness, his enthusiasm to give God’s love and to serve others and to inspire that in his followers through the chanting of God’s names and various other outreach activities…

Swami Rama, Swami Muktananda, J. Krishnamurti, Buddhist lamas, Satyanarayan Goenka-ji of Vipassana meditation teaching, and many, many more, some famous, some unknown. I met with Swami Satchidananda and BKS Iyengar, Muslim saints, Christian saints, Jewish enlightened leaders. And I felt they had all given me such precious gifts. And in Vrindavan, the holy place of devotion to Lord Krishna, I met His Divine Srila Prabhupada. And in him I found a connection and an inspiration. In his teachings I found a wisdom that included all that I had learned from these other teachers.

Q: What was it particularly about Prabhupada that convinced you this person would be your teacher?

Radhanath Swami: His intoxicated love for the sweetness and the beauty of God, and most of all his deep compassion for all living beings. In my own life, his presence invoked a desire to unconditionally to be an instrument of God’s compassion in my life. So I accepted his path, the path of devotion to Krishna. The path of Bhakti. And I accepted him as my guru, my spiritual teacher. I am still trying to share the precious gifts that he gave me and all of these other great saints, what they have given me, through the Journey Home book and any other way I can in my life.

Q: Why Krishna? Doesn’t giving oneself to a particular deity mean excluding other religions or forms of worship?

Radhanath Swami: In the Bhagavad Gita it is said yada-yada hy dharmasya-glanir bhavati bharata abhytanam adharmasya tadatmanam srijyami aham. The Absolute Truth or God descends into this world in many ways and forms throughout the history of the universes. And it is not that one is the true God and one is not the true God. There is one true God—but that one true God can manifest in many ways within this world. So according to the Vedic scriptures—Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavatam—Krishna means “the all-attractive one.”

One time I met a preacher of another religion who condemned me to go to hell forever because I believed in a false God. I said, “How do you I believe in a false God?” He said, “Because Krishna is a false God.” I asked him, “Do you know what Krishna means?” He said, “No.” I said, “Let me ask you a question. Is your God all-beautiful?” He said yes. “Does your God have infinite knowledge and strength? Is he the proprietor of everything that exists? Is he the all-attractive object of everyone’s love? ” He said yes. “Well, Krishna means the all-attractive object of everyone’s love. So if yes, then your God is Krishna too. Krishna is not a sectarian name. God has eternal form: he is simultaneously all-pervading and also has divine form. According to the Vedas Krishna is the eternal form of God, who reciprocates our love in a personal way. If we love Krishna or if we really love whatever revelation of God we have in our religion, then we will appreciate and love all the other manifestations God has presented to other people.

Q: Over the years, you and your supporters have initiated some highly regarded community service projects in India. How did they come about?

Radhanath Swami: We were teaching courses in value education in the schools in Mumbai, and on one occasion an official for the government approached us and appealed that we feed the children in the slum schools. We found this was one of the greatest problems in all of India, that children due to a lack of nourishment, a lack of food, were really hungry. In the slum schools because of their hunger they couldn’t concentrate. So rather than sit in school suffering, they would rather drop out and become beggars. But in much of Mumbai, the mafia has turfs and if you want to be a beggar anywhere, it is likely you will have to work under a mafia boss…

…where they take much of anything you get, and in many ways you come under their control. Otherwise, many of the young people will go to work as child labor, where they are treated cruelly. But if they had the food and nourishment, they would stay in school and get proper education and find a real career and purpose for life.

So we began in a small way, cooking very nutritious, balanced and tasty meals for the children in some ghetto schools. The word spreads and soon the principals and teachers from other schools were asking please would you feed our children too. And today we’re feeding about 260,000 children in the slum schools every day.

And actually it is an honor that we get to serve. It is not that we are giving to them, but we are being allowed to be instruments of God grace to help his children. And it is a beautiful experience, more beautiful than any amount of profits we could gain for ourselves. The pleasure of selfless giving is so much deeper and more fulfilling than just getting something for ourselves.

Q: You also run a highly acclaimed hospital in Mumbai. How did that come about?

Radhanath Swami: We were giving lectures in some of the medical colleges in Bombay and quite a few of the medical students became followers of our Bhakti path and became members of our congregation. Gradually we encouraged them to get their specialty degrees and they had their practices, young women and young men. And the idea came, why not work together and have our own hospital. So Bhaktivedanta hospital, which is in memory of our guru A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who taught us the spirit of compassion and love for God, we started the hospital and the purpose of the hospital is to heal the body, the mind, and the soul.

The balance of the body, mind and soul is what is required for real spiritual health. For holistic health it is required that we give health to the body, the mind and the soul. And for this purpose we started Bhaktivedanta hospital, named after our beloved guru ACBSP, who taught us to be instruments of compassion for the body, mind and soul.

The body through medicine, exercise—for that purpose we have allopathic, Ayurveda, naturopathic, and other various alternative medicines all working together. For the mind we have a spiritual care department which comes to encourage people, to give appreciation to people. Kindness and hospitality, appreciation and encouragement inspire the mind. And we also, according to a person’s affiliation, we try to elevate people with universal spiritual principles. In this way we find people can be really happy and really healthy. So it is a hospital for the body, mind and soul.

We do many charities, especially we have regular cataract eye camps because one of the causes of blindness in India is untreated cataracts. Poor people simply cannot afford it. So we do one eye camp every year about 700 cataract surgeries and all together several thousand every year. Also, the Bhaktivedanta Hospital does free treatment and gives free medical care in the slum schools in the area of the hospital. And a certain number of beds in the hospital are for charity, for people who can’t afford treatment.

Q: Can you describe some examples of emergency relief that the hospital has provided?

Radhanath Swami: Bhaktivedanta Hospital has helped with emergency problems. On several occasions when there were earthquakes and hundreds of people killed and thousands of people injured, they went in vans and spent sometimes weeks and weeks helping the people there. During some terrorist attacks in Bombay our hospital, all the halls, the rooms, the lobbies, were just filled with wounded people. Many people from our congregation volunteered to help the doctors and nurses deal with the situation.

During the tsunami some years ago also, Bhaktivedanta Hospital was there to help those people both physically emotionally and spiritually. And what we found is what people appreciated the most was the spiritual encouragement and wisdom they were receiving on how to deal with the losses of loved ones and with the injuries of their bodies.

Our spiritual care reaches out not only to the patients but to the relatives and friends of the patients who are so deeply affected by the trauma and tragedies that have come into their lives. And we have found that it had a great help physically and emotionally and spiritually to these people as well.

We have a hospice care hospital in Vrindaban. We are starting that hospice to help people to pass out of this world and into the next with dignity and love and care and a lot of spiritual and emotional support.

Q: You run an orphanage. How did that get started?

Radhanath Swami: During a disaster in Maharastra in the Mumbai area in the 19th century many children became orphans. And one Lady Northcote, who was the wife of a British Lord, started the Lady Northcote Hindu Orphanage. And over the years it was having difficulty, so they asked us to take full charge of the orphanage. Since about 1987 our ashram has taken the responsibility of the Lady Northcote Hindu Orphanage. There are about 50 children we take care of, and giving them a family of our whole congregation who take care of them, also providing a nice education. And many of these children, who came from severely downtrodden backgrounds, are professors in colleges, doctors—many of them work at Bhaktivedanta Hospital, receiving training and responsibilities. Many of them have gone back to the villages they came from and they are leaders of society.

Q: You chose to become a renunciant. Do you recommend the path of renunciation?

Radhanath Swami: Real spiritual life is not necessarily about changing our position in society. It is about transforming our hearts. One can be in business, in education, a mother or father, a farmer, a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, a politician. One can even be a swami. But when we overcome selfishness and learn the beauty and art of selflessness—seva or selfless service—spirituality is meant to transform arrogance into humility, greed into generosity, vengeance into forgiveness, hate into love, criticism into appreciation, hopeless into hopefulness—it is meant to transform us into becoming instruments of the inner peace that is in our heart with God.

That is real journey home. The journey of transformation, of understanding that there is a power beyond our own, the power of God that can enthuse us, inspire us and empower us to be real instruments of change.

Visit: www.radhanathswami.com

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