B. H. Mangal Maharaj My Spiritual Master

His Divine Grace Tridandi Gosvami Bhakti Hirday Mangalniloy Maharaj was the longtime secretary of the Sri Chaitanya Gaudiya Math of India and so much more. He was born Madan Mohan Chandra on January 31, 1928, in Anandapur (Midnapur), West Bengal. After graduating first from university in 1949 he took up a career as a high school teacher. Madan, inwardly yearned to embrace a genuine spiritual process culminating in meeting his guru, Bhakti Dayita Gosvami Maharaj Of the Sri Chaitanya Gaudiya Math at the Kumba Mela, Hardwar. Entering the monastic order at the age of twenty one Mangal Niloy Brahmachari, as he was known, undertook Devotion Yoga (Bhakti). Several years later, he was accepted into the sanyasi order by Bhakti Promode Puri Gosvami Maharaj. From that day Maharaj traveled the world preaching the gospel of Krishna and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

A longtime friend and confidant of ISKCON founder A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, in 1966 Maharaj were asked by the leader to join him in the States to become president of what the world knows as the Hare Krishna Movement. Unfortunately, Maharaj could not accompany the Swami and had to wait some years before finally reaching America.

In 1980 while on one of his many preaching tours of North America Maharaja met the struggling young writer, Geoffrey Giuliano in Toronto at the temple of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Two years later Giuliano was given initiation along with his wife Brenda and the names Jagannatha Dasa and Vrndarani Devi. From 1986 to 2004 Maharaj presided over a large rural ashram, goshalla (cow protection facility), and international media center overseen by his disciples in Lockport, New York. Until his death in Vrndavana, India the fully self-realized master continued to teach the philosophy of God consciousness freely around the globe.