NITyaananda Gauraanga Hare Krishna NAAma BhaktI (NITAAI) Yoga

His Holiness Tridandi Bhikshu Bhaktiratna Sadhu
Swami Gaurangapada's Biography and Pranama Mantra



nama om gaurangapadaya nitai-presthaya bhutale;
shrimate bhaktiratna sadhu iti namine.

"I offer my humble obeisances unto His Holiness Tridandi Bhikshu Shrila Bhaktiratna Sadhu Swami Gaurangapada, who is very dear to Lord Shri Nityananda Prabhu, having taken shelter at Lord Shri Gauranga Mahaprabhu's lotus feet."

gauranga-nama-dhama-bhakta-lila pracharine;
nityananda-gauranga-nama-sahitya vitarine.

"He is instrumental in preaching, spreading and distributing the glories of the Holy Names, Pastimes, Associates and Abodes of the Supreme Lords Nityananda Gauranga and the distribution of the ebooks and paperbooks of Their glories."

His Holiness Tridandi Bhikshu Shrila Bhaktiratna Sadhu Swami Gaurangapada appeared in Ahemdabad Gujarat, India on the 22nd of November 1971 in a Gujarati (audicha-sahasra) brahmana family.

From childhood he had an intense spiritual inclination which was nurtured by his very pious and noble parents by the regular and daily recitation of kirtans and bhajans of Lord Krishna. He would go into a blissful devotional trance when his mother would sing the Holy Names of Lord Krishna daily or when listening to kirtana tapes in the mornings and evenings while his father would shed tears for the Lord for hours at a stretch.

From the very childhood, he was very attached to hearing the eight classic verses of Shri Shikshashtakam personally composed by the Supreme Lord Gauranga Mahaprabhu. In this way he felt great attraction to Lord Gauranga from the beginning which ultimately fructified and blossomed when he read Shri Chaitanya Charitamrita of Shrila Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami translated by Shrila Prabhupada in the central library of his University, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

Internally he would always feel something missing in the worship of Lord Krishna and chanting of Krishna's Name till he realized after reading the Bengali version of Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura's classic Shri Navadvipa Dhama Mahatmya that it was actually the causeless mercy of the Holy Names of Lord Gauranga and Lord Nityananda that is sorely missing in this world.

Whenever he used to get some time, he was spontaneously inclined to hear and sing songs in the glorification of the Lord. Sometimes he used to feel so blissful while chanting that he used to close the doors and dance ecstatically in kirtana alone by leaping high in the air while singing "bodo sukher khobor gai".

The system of offering food to Lord Krishna and worship of Shri Tulasi Devi was practiced in his home. From his childhood, Swami Gaurangapada was naturally averse to even touching the slow intoxicants like tea etc.

Non-vegetarian food was a totally unheard and unseen thing for him. Once when he was chronically ill, the doctor prescribed egg yoke as a medicine. His parents very reluctantly seeing no other way out brought egg in the home. He started crying just by smelling it and when it was touched to his lips, he developed severe red allergic rashes all over his body. So his parents stopped immediately and decided never ever to to even consider doing it again.

He studied in a English Convent school because Lord Gauranga had His own plans for him and had chosen him to spread the glories of His Name and Gauranga Dharma by writing books in the English language. He was an exceptional student very quick at grasping what was being taught and then beautifully expressing it in his own words which highly impressed his teachers both in school and college.

Though diligently discharging his duties as a student, he was all the time internally feeling intense apathy to the exclusive pursuit of only materialistic knowledge. He felt that material advancement without spiritual awakening ends up in only making an ass out of the soul and furthur degrading the soul in the 8.4 million species life.

While studying at school and university, he used to keep himself totally aloof from various arrangements of sense-gratification and social programs and was internally determined to remain celibate throughout his life and dedicate his whole life as an offering to spread the Holy Names of Nityananda, Gauranga and Hare Krishna for the benefit of the suffering humanity.

During his school and college days he visited many hundreds of Holy Places of Vedic pilgrimage in India from Himalayas to Kanyakumari and Dvaraka to Puri along with his father. Due to these intense travels, he developed more and more detachment from the material world and attachment to lead a saintly monastic life of constantly chanting and preaching the Holy Names of God.

To fully concentrate on chanting and reading Shrimad Bhagavatam, Swami Gaurangapada used to go to his village of Prempur in Gujarat, India and spend some weeks in deep contemplation in the three big estates and farms inherited by his father from the grand parents.

Since he was exceptionally intelligent, he wrote the exams and got selected to the most prestigious University of India, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) which accepts the most intelligent [around] 10,000 students in India every year. It has 5 branches in India and the IIT graduates have great international demand since they are the cream of India's material knowledge and intelligence.

Even after getting entrance into the most reputed University in India for the Master of Science Integrated Degree in Chemistry which included comprehensive training in all the engineering fields and which had very lucrative and promising occupational prospects abroad, Swami Gaurangapada requested his parents to allow him to retire with some land and a cow in the village so that he can peacefully practice spiritual life instead of getting entangled further in the rat race of this material world. But his parents wanted him to join IIT and so he conceded to their desire.

He started preaching about God right from the time he entered into IIT. Ultimately the culmination of his intense spiritual quest from childhood was reached by the causeless mercy of Their Lordships Nityananda and Gauranga when he came across the 17 golden volumes of Shri Chaitanya Charitamrita of Shrila Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami translated by Shrila Swami Prabhupada in the philosophical section of the IIT Central Library.

Shri Chaitanya Charitamrita is the topmost and deepest spiritual literature in creation and Swami Gaurangapada immersed himself day and night for two years with the greatest relish and completed reading it five times simultaneously learning the Bengali alphabet. His knowledge of Sanskrit is also spontaneous proving that he has been well-versed with the language for many past lives. While eating or sleeping or walking or talking, he could only think of Lord Gauranga Mahaprabhu's pastimes which he had read in Shri Chaitanya Charitamrita. He recollects those as very blissfull and sweet moments of his life when his relationship with Lord Gauranga Mahaprabhu became more and more fixed and condensed simply by reading Shri Chaitanya Charitamrita even though he was in the University. At that time he was chanting the Names of Nityananda and Gauranga along with 32 rounds of the Hare Krishna Mahamantra.

Thus Swami Gaurangapada effortlessly and spontaneously accepted Their Lordships Nityananda and Gauranga as the Supreme Personalities of Godhead, surrendered totally at Their lotus feet and decided to give himself fully to the topmost mission of spreading Their Names and Pastimes in this world. This is the real fruit of reading Shri Chaitanya Charitamrita, Shri Chaitanya Bhagavata and Shri Navadvipa Dhaama Mahaatmya.

After completing his 5-year course and obtaining his degree, he joined the International Society of Krsna Consciousness founded by Shrila Swami Prabhupada and served as a brahmacari leader in book-distribution from the beginning. He excelled in this service. His most cherished moments were when he could single-handedly distribute 600 Gujarati Chaitanya Charitamrita sets (of 12 volumes) in a week, 3500 Bhagavad Gita As It Is in Marathi in one day in Pandharpur etc. He was the number two in bookset distribution in the world for a few years.

He was later put in charge of publishing, designing, marketing etc. of Shrila Swami Prabhupada's books as the production manager of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, which is the largest publisher of Vedic books throughout the world. He served in this position for more than 5 years. Due to his sincere and untiring efforts, the Vedic book production almost tripled in three years and BBT India became the largest publisher of Vedic books in the world in English as well as other languages.

Meanwhile he utilized his spare time in deeply studying the books and teachings of Shrila Prabhupada and later those of the previous acharyas, the associates of Lord Gauranga Mahaprabhu. He is greatly respected as a powerful speaker on the science and philosophy of Gauranga Krsna consciousness in English, Hindi and Gujarati. He was also one of the top-rated favorite speakers on the Aatma serial on Sony Telivision which was being broadcasted all over the world.

He deeply meditated on Shrila Prabhupada's instructions for accepting the sannyasa order of life for the purpose of widely preaching Gaura Krishna consciousness. Thus by the kind and most merciful arrangement of Lord Nityananda and the blessings and recommendation of his most merciful Gurudeva His Divine Grace Shrila Bhaktishastri Parampada Maharaja (1902-2004, godbrother of Shrila Swami Prabhupada and direct disciple of Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Saravati Thakura Prabhupada), he accepted the sannyasa order of life from Shrila Tridandi Swami Bhakti Kumud Santa Goswami Maharaja, who is more than 80 years in the renounced order, and a godbrother of his own Gurudeva and Shrila Swami Prabhupada and the direct disciple of Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Saravati Thakura Prabhupada. Shrila Bhakti Kumuda Santa Goswami gave him the sannyasa name Tridandi Bhikshu Bhaktiratna Sadhu. He is now known as Swami Gaurangapada in short.

He received the blessings of both his diksha-guru and sannyasa-guru to preach the message and pastimes of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as per the instructions of Shrila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (his pre-eminent shiksha-guru), Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada (his parama-guru in his shiksha as well as diksha connection) and Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura (his most respectable and worshipable ishta guru).

Shrila Bhaktiratna Sadhu Swami Gaurangapada is presently working on the translation of many books establishing the glories of the Holy Names and Pastimes of Lord Nityananda Gauranga and the Hare Krsna Mahamantra. He is also an initiating spiritual master and teacher of NITAAI Yoga i.e. Nityaananda Gauraanga Hare Krishna Naam Bhakti Yoga.

Along with these preaching activities, his main service and contribution to spreading the glories of Lord Nityananda-Gauranga will remain specifically through the profuse writing and publication of spiritual literature and videos on Their glories. Swami Gaurangapada considers his writing and video production service as his main service to Guru and Gauranga.

Bhaktiratna Sadhu Swami Gaurangapada feels pain and anxiety when he sees that the common people do not even have a slightest bit of information about the crest-jewel of all incarnations of God known as Shri Shri Nityananda Gauranga, Who advented specifically to deliver the most fallen people in this age of Kali. He feels his life is useless if he is not able to educate the people about the glories of chanting the Names and Pastimes of Lords Nityaananda Gauraanga along with the Hare Krishna Mahamantra.

This miserable condition of the conditioned souls arising out of ignorance about the most merciful incarnation Lord Nityaananda Gauraanga is intolerable to him. As Shrila Prabodhananda Sarasvati states: achaitanyam idam vishvam, yadi chaitanyam ishvaram. "As long as the whole world does not accept Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as the Supreme Personality of Godhead Lord Krishna Himself, it will remain simply as dead matter bereft of any consciousness (chaitanya)." Thus Swami Gaurangapada will be extremely grateful to those who will help him to spread the glories of Shri Shri Nityananda-Gauranga specifically by distributing the Holy Names of Nityananda and Gauranga alongwith the Mahamantra, Shri Navadvipa Dhaama Mahaatmya and Shri Chaitanya-Bhagavata (in various languages), Shri Chaitanya-Charitamrita and other books glorifying Lords Nityananda Gauranga along with Shrila Swami Prabhupada's books. This will be the greatest service one can render to Swami Gaurangapada's cause of spreading the glories of the Supreme Personalities of Godhead Shri Gauranga Mahaprabhu and Shri Nityananda Prabhu and establishing Them as God in this world.

Bhaktiratna Sadhu Swami Gaurangapada is constantly writing, translating ebooks or producing videos about the Name, Form, Glories, Pastimes, Abode and Associates of Lord Nityananda-Gauranga so that Lord Nityananda-Gauranga (hitherto unknown incarnation) will become famous in this world. He also travels widely to deliver NITAAI Yoga discourses, seminars, multimedia presentations, question answer sessions etc.

By the direct inspiration of Shrila Swami Prabhupada and the Acharyas, by the instructions, order and permission of his own Diksha Guru and by the direct inspiration from great chanters of the Gauraanga Mantra like Shrila Shivananda Sena and the Guru of all Gurus, Adi-Guru, Sakshat Mula-Sankarshana, origin of the spiritual and material worlds Lord Shri Nityananda Prabhu, Swami Gaurangapada has launched the widescale propogation of the process of the chanting of the five-syllable Haladhara Balarama Mantra 'Nityaananda' and the four-syllable Gaura Gopala Mantra 'Gauraanga' along with the Hare Krishna Mahamantra through the process of Nityananda Gauranga Mantra Ashraya and Diksha along with Hari Naama Diksha.

Due to the extreme mercy and compassion of Their Lordships Shri Shri Nityananda Gauranga,Their Lordships Shri Shri Shri Jagannatha Baladeva and Subhadra and Their devotees, Swami Gaurangapada now has his NITAAI Yoga Ashram in Shri Jagannatha Puri Dhama where the Supreme Personality of Godhead and all His Associates resided for 24 years. From the most auspicious Shri Puri Dhaama, he is now blissfully carrying out his primary service of composing and translating literature and publishing videos pertaining to the glories of the Holy Names and Pastimes of Their Lordships Shri Shri Nityananda Gauranga.

In his preaching activities, Swami Gaurangapada is basically interested in spreading the glories of Lords Nitaai Gaura's Holy Names far and wide not in constructing huge temples or properties or collecting funds etc. Thus, Swami Gaurangapada accepts only voluntary donations for maintainence and expansion of NITAAI Yoga preaching activities but tries to never ask personally any of his followers or disciples for funds as he is more interested in helping them in spiritual advancement. He is not interested in material opulence as that is anyway attained by our karma. He is peronsally always dependant on the Lord while remaining fully satisfied in chanting the Holy Names in Shri Jagannatha Puri Dhaama.

Always chant Nityananda; Gauranga; and Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.