After encountering, in 1974, the disciples of the one who would become his spiritual master, Śrīla B.A. Tapasvi Mahārāja renounced everything and, in the same year, moved to… …to live in the Krishna temple in Geneva. Shortly afterward, Gurudeva met His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swāmī Śrīla Prabhupāda and was deeply struck by the one who was the first to spread Vaiṣṇavism in the West.
“When I met the devotees, I considered myself the luckiest person in the world. They radiated such profound joy that I had never seen in anyone else. I understood that this joy reflected a higher inner state,” he stated in a recent interview.
The spiritual master of Śrīla Gurudeva, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swāmī Prabhupāda (1896–1977), known as Śrīla Prabhupāda, moved to the United States in September 1965, alone and without financial resources, traveling for weeks on a cargo ship and risking his life multiple times due to heart attacks. With him, he carried little more than a bag containing several volumes of sacred texts he had translated into English, a photo of his own spiritual master, and a few cooking utensils.
In the twelve years between his arrival and his departure from this world, Śrīla Prabhupāda translated, commented on, and widely distributed all the most important sacred texts of Vedic culture, including the Bhagavad-gītā, the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. He founded the spiritual movement ISKCON — the International Society for Krishna Consciousness — through which he established over a hundred temples and centers for the propagation of Krishna bhakti across five continents. It was during one of his many travels that our Gurudeva met him.
In 1977, Śrīla Gurudeva, who at that time bore the spiritual name Śrī Gopīkānta dāsa, decided to return to… …Croatia, to Zagreb, where, despite the communist regime, he began diligently preaching the teachings of Śrīla Prabhupāda, printing and distributing books that spread the principles of bhakti-yoga. He was well aware that his spiritual master, Śrīla Prabhupāda, was deeply committed to ensuring that Krishna consciousness was spread even in communist countries. This was one of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s main preaching objectives at the time, to the extent that he declared that whoever preached in communist countries would receive his mercy ten times more.
In the late 1990s, Śrīla B.A. Tapasvi Mahārāja began following another great spiritual master, His Divine Grace Śrīla Bhakti Vaibhava Puri Gosvāmī Mahārāja, throughout Europe and later in India. His Divine Grace Puri Gosvāmī Mahārāja, a godbrother of Śrīla Prabhupāda from the same devotional tradition—the Brahmā-Mādhva-Gauḍīya sampradāya—bestowed upon him the order of tridandi sannyāsī on January 6, 2006.
By accepting this order, he formally renounced all aspects of material life, vowing to live solely in service to the Supreme Lord.
His Divine Grace Bhakti Vaibhava Puri Gosvāmī Mahārāja (1913–2009), after obtaining a degree as an Ayurvedic doctor, felt that his true mission was to serve the Supreme Lord and dedicated his entire life to this purpose. He carried out his service in India, where he established and supported several temples and āśramas with his spiritual strength.
In the late 1990s, some European devotees invited him to come and preach in the West. Śrīla Puri Gosvāmī Mahārāja undertook his first worldwide preaching tour at the age of 84. “Bhakti is the answer to the deepest inner quest. Religion can change—Christians can become Muslims, Muslims can become Catholics—but bhakti is beyond this world. It is an internal flow of the soul, a flow between the individual being and the Supreme Soul. When one finds this flow, this exchange, this divine love, this activity that brings such deep satisfaction, then one can truly know happiness, fulfillment, and inner joy,” said Śrīla B.A. Tapasvi Mahārāja in a recent interview.
Śrīla B.A. Tapasvi Mahārāja continues his preaching activities with great dedication, especially in Italy, Croatia, Switzerland, France, and India, with an ever-growing number of disciples who love him, among other things, for his boundless kindness and spiritual strength.
