Radhanath Swami

 

Radhanath Swami's Childhood Years 

 

Radhanath Swami as a kid was different from other children of his age. He had odd habits, and no one had any idea where they came from. For example, he would refuse to sit on chairs while eating, and would feel embarrassed at wearing new clothes or shoes. As a matter of fact, he would feel embarrassed at possessing anything better than others. “He would squeeze himself onto the floor of backseat whenever we had a new car”, remarks his father. He had his new pair of shoes scraped with a rock until they looked worn out. Once when his father took the whole family to dinner at the local country club, he disrupted everything by suddenly rushing from the table and out the door, because he couldn’t tolerate being served by a busboy who was a classmate of his. He was introspective, shy and often worried about the feelings of others. “In the innocence of childhood, I secretly prayed in my thoughts or whisper. I’d mostly pray in bed, until I fell asleep. When I prayed, I felt a sense of shelter, and that someone was listening to me. I believed that God heard me and was with me. Still, I had many questions about this diving being. Who is this being called God? I often wondered”, recalls Radhanath Swami in his autobiography, The Journey Home.

 

Radhanath Swami's Youth

As Richard Slavin reached his teenage years, he found the soul stirring music of those times very appealing to him. He had a greater hunger for spirituality now. Contemporary American figures such as Martin Luther King and events such as the Vietnam war fueled his inquiry. He began to question and search for a deeper meaning and fulfillment in life. In the process, as did many other young people of his times, he joined the counterculture hoping to find answers to his questions. Moving forward in his quest, he and a couple of his friends set out for an adventure to explore Europe, something that was to mark a new beginning in his life. They had planned to return back to the United States in matter of days, but Radhanath Swami and his friend Gary realized that they couldn’t turn back. They felt that they needed to explore more. It was the onset of an unprecedented hunger for exploring multitudes of cultures and their spiritual traditions, that eventually drove Radhanath Swami to India. With a fire of spiritual inquiry burning ferociously in his heart, he transformed into a wandering monk ,visiting holy sites and meeting saintly people to find out answers to his questions, before he finally discovers his most priced destination, and a new mission in life. Radhanath Swami records this incredible odyssey in his classical memoir, The Journey Home.

 

Radhanath Swami Today and his Contributions 

 

“Someday, I promise to do something good for your people”, Radhanath Swami had said to that Sikh immigration officer on the Indian border about 40 years back before he put his first step on the Indian soil. Over the years that he spent in India, Radhanath Swami has kept his words. He has been instrumental in the establishment of several spiritual centers in India, ashrams to cultivate pure living, and a hospital that treats patients with both conventional and alternative methods of medicine with the aim of giving better quality of life to the body, mind and soul. The hospital also reaches out with free medical camps in both the ordinary times and emergencies like terrorist acts, earthquakes, and tsunamis. The hospital also offers an annual eye camp in Vrindavan where six to seven hundred cataract surgeries are carried out each year. He also has developed schools for academic, moral and spiritual education, an orphanage for downtrodden children, a farm to demonstrate environmentally sustainable farming and cow protecting, as well as kitchesn that are currently feeding nutritious lunches to 150,000 undernourished children daily n schools in the slums. Considering the rise of immorality and sectarian hatred, in several primary and high schools Radhanath Swami has begun courses in value education to combine students from Hindu, “As I look back, I’m forever grateful for the journey I travelled and to all the people who helped me to grow on that way. Never could I have imaginied where the invisible had of destiny was leading me. Through it all, I have come to realize that if only we cling to our sacred ideals, not being diverted b either succeses or failures, we may find that amazing powers, beyond our own, are there to test us, protect us and empower us.”, concludes Radhanath Swami in The Journey Home.