Hridayananda Goswami

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Hridayananda dasa Goswami (b. November 5, 1948) is an American spiritual leader of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

Born Howard J. Resnick in Los Angeles, California, on February 8, 1970 he was initiated as a disciple of Srila Prabhupada. In 1972, he accepted the renounced order of life (sannyasa), and in 1974 he was named a member of the Governing Body Commission with responsibility for overseeing the Krishna Consciousness Movement in Latin America.

Before his death in November of 1977, Srila Prabhupada asked Hridayananda das Goswami, as well as ten other prominent disciples, to initiate disciples within ISKCON in order to give continuity to the disciplic succession starting with Krishna. He was also asked to complete Srila Prabhupada’s translation and commentary of the Srimad Bhagavatam, an important classic of Vedic literature. Since the completing of this work, his literary project has since been the adaptation of the famous Indian epic, the Mahabharata, into a historical novel. He has also been awarded a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and has written many theological articles to date. He is a powerful orator in both English and Spanish and also a scholar in Sanskrit.