ISKON Hearts

Vraja-lila began her practice of Bhakti Yoga in 1979 at the 55^th Street Temple in New York City. Shortly after, upon meeting her spiritual teacher HH Bhakti-tirtha Swami, she was requested to travel and assist in the development of spiritual communities in West Africa.

She was the first woman from the West to live in West Africa for almost 10 years as a pioneer and spiritual leader. She has also helped to develop spiritual centers in Belize.

Upon returning to the United States, she assisted her spiritual teacher with co-developing The Institute for Applied Spiritual Technology.

In 2001, she was hired by an International Organization to teach Conflict Education and Mediation to NGO’s in a transitional government.

Vrajalila served as co-president of Gita Nagari for 10 years with her husband

Vrajalila served as a member of the GBC Devotee Care Committee and assisted with co-authoring the manual for the GBC Devotee Care Course in Sri Dham Mayapur.

She taught Bhakti-shastri at the VIHE (Vaishnava Institute for Higher Education)

Vrajalila teaches and leads workshops on Vaishnava Spiritual Technologies, Conflict Transformation, Compassionate Communication globally.

Currently she is teaching Bhagavad-Gita and Compassionate Communication online globally.

She presently serves on a global counseling initiative (Grihastha Vision Team) that serves married couples as well as individuals in relationships of all types. Supporting couples to increase communication skills and live according to shared values in Krsna Consciousness.

She and her husband served as the primary caregivers for her spiritual teacher, who left his body from melanoma cancer.

She is currently serving  as the Executive Director for The Institute for Applied Spiritual Technology (IFAST) nationally and globally.

She and her husband are presently living in the  Gita Nagari Eco Farm Community, where they have resided since 1995.

She is certified in Conflict Resolution, Mediation, Non-Violent Communication, Lewistown Hospital Pa. Hospice Care, Vaisnava Hospice Care, member of the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors.

Mahatma das was born in Los Angeles, California in 1950. In 1969, at the age of 19, he first met Srila Prabhupada through The Bhagavad Gita As It Is, and then later that year met Srila Prabhupada personally in Los Angeles. In January of 1970 he moved into the temple in Berkeley, California and shortly after received first and second initiation.

He went on to do a variety of services including book distribution, sankirtan leader, temple president, college preaching, congregational development, and various educational projects. This has culminated in the work he does today developing workshops, social media, online courses and books both for devotees as well as the general public through his company Sattva  [www.thesattvaway.com]. He practically shows the many ways that Krishna consciousness offers solutions to today’s challenges and writes and teaches in a way that resonates with devotees and people in general by helping them see life as a spiritual practice

Mahatma Prabhu is well known in ISKCON for his recorded and live music, most notably his recording of Brahma Samhita, but also for his workshops on such essential topics as Japa, Forgiveness, Humility, Vows and Marriage.

He is now based in Alachua, Florida he lives with his wife Jahnava and daughter Brajasundari, and travels about four months a year.

Rev. Rambhoru Brinkmann, M.Div., BCC, ACPE Certified Educator

1974 – Initiated by ISKCON Founder; AC Bhaktivedanta Swami

• 2010 – present –  Director of St. Camillus Center for Spiritual Care: Urban Interfaith Chaplaincy Clinical Pastoral Education program
• 08-30-2019 – present – Director/Founder – ISKCON Karuna Care Education [www.karunacare.iskcon.org]

Ecclesiastical Endorsement:

International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) – Ordination: 1974. Endorsement: 2007.

Professional Certifications:

• 2008 – Professional Chaplain Board Certification by Association of Professional Chaplains (2008)
• 2015 – Certified ACPE Certified Educator (www.acpe.edu)

Education:

• 2008 – Graduated – Master Degree in Patient Counseling, Virginia Commonwealth University.
• 2015 – Jain International Summer School. Scholarship to study Jainism in India.
• 08/16/2004 –05/15/2005 – Phd. Coursework in Philosophy of Religion. 

Claremont Graduate School of   Religion, Claremont, CA

• 2004 – graduated – M.Div. Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, CA
• 1999 – Graduated – BA in Religious/Women Studies minor; Guilford College, NC

Additional Certifications_and/or Qualifications:

• 2005 Certified Requester for Organ/Tissue Donation: Yuma, AZ
• 2005 Guided Imagery Introductory Certification
• 2006-2007 Healing Touch Certification (Levels 1-4), Richmond, VA and Pennsylvania
• 2008 Board Certified with Association of Professional Chaplains (APC) in Richmond, VA.
• 2008 Therapeutic Harpist 
• 2016 Grief Recovery Specialist Certification. Grief Recovery Institute. Sherman Oaks, CA
• 2016 Grief Support Group Facilitator Certification. Our House Grief Support House. CA.
• 2016 Beyond Loss, Inc Grief Support Group Certification – Trauma, Suicide, Children. Glendale Adventist.
• 2017 Red Cross Disaster Spiritual Care Training and certification.

Additional Pastoral Care Experience:

• 01/03/1974 – 1990 – International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Bhakti Yoga Vaishnava tradition), Heidelberg, Germany, Switzerland, Dublin, Ireland and Belfast, North Ireland; Vaishnava Missionary, Religious Educator, Pastoral Care of Congregation. Pastor’s wife and assistant to Pastor.
• 1990 – 1997 – Vrindavan, India, Krishna Balaram ISKCON Temple, Vrindavan, India. Missionary activities throughout India: Religious Education (Vaishnavism); Pastoral Counseling; Ritual Worship.
• 1997 – 1999 – Mayapur Chandradoya Mandir, Navadvip, West Bengal, ISKCON International School teacher of ESL, Social Studies, Student Counseling, Comparative Religion and Vedic Cooking.

John Yasenchak, Ed.D., LCPC, LADC is a contributing faculty in the School of Counseling, Walden University. Previously, he served as Assistant Professor for Graduate Counseling, Husson University, adjunct faculty at the University of Maine, and philosophy instructor at Loyola Baltimore. John has served as Clinical director for the Penobscot Nation, President of the Maine Counseling Association, and Chair of the North Atlantic Region American Counseling Association. He is currently on the editorial board of Counseling and Values (Association for Spirituality, Ethical, Religious and Values Issues in Counseling). John has been a practitioner and teacher of yoga for many years. He obtained his background in philosophy and theology while living in Western monastic communities as a young man.  He began his study of Srila Prabhupad’s  “Bhagavad-gita As It Is” in 2002.  John has studied with Bhaktivedanta College, Belgium, and the Oxford Hindu Studies Program. He offers workshops for counselors where he shares his love for counseling and the Bhagavad-gita. 

Loka devi dasi is a disciple of His Holiness Bhakti Tirtha Swami.  Trained as a lawyer, she served as an attorney and senior executive at the highest levels of the U.S. federal government.  She was the General Counsel of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, led a USAID democracy building initiative in Nigeria, and then was appointed as General Counsel for the Social Security Administration.  She subsequently served as Deputy Commissioner and Chief Administrative Appeals Judge in charge of Social Security’s disability hearings and appeals process.  She taught leadership and personal development at the U.S. Federal Executive Institute.  Her personal journey of spiritual discovery and growth created an interest in encouraging others in their own process of presence, purpose, and aliveness, and led her to train as a coach.  She is International Coach Federation accredited and holds coaching certifications from the Coaches Training Institute and the Strozzi Institute.  She currently serves as an executive and developmental coach to executives from U.S. and international government agencies, offers coaching to devotees, and mentors devotees who are part of ISKCON’s Krishna House in Gainesville.  She is part of ISKCON Resolve and provides mediation services, and serves on the Boards of IFAST, Hari-Nama Press, and Krishna House.  She and her two ratties, Cassie and Smidge (who hear the Holy Names every day), are registered pet therapy teams.  When appropriate as part of her coaching, she introduces the mutually beneficial human-animal bond to improve her clients’ presence and well-being.   Loka devi currently resides in Gainesville, FL.

Giri Govardhan das became interested in Krishna Consciousness in 1980 and joined the Detroit temple in 1992.

He later served in the Philadelphia temple and currently at in Potomac MD. Throughout the years he has basically done what was most needed at the time.  He has served as a Temple President, Head Pujari, Treasurer,  Board of Directors Member, bhakta leader,  pujari, CPT member, cook, etc.

Sukhavaha dasi was born and raised a Protestant minister’s daughter, counseling and assisting others was a household given. Inspired by her father, she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Social Welfare from Pennsylvania State University. At age 21, in 1975 she accepted initiation from His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada who gave her the name Sukhavaha devi dasi.  With her counseling skills coupled with spiritual knowledge, she was ordained an Interfaith Minister in January of 1992.

Sukhavaha dasi has been involved in number of social welfare projects across the globe including the Barsana Eye Camp and spiritual care department of Bhaktivedanta Hospital in Mumbai. She regularly leads discussions to various devotee communities on compassionate communication, emotional healing and building vibrant spiritual organizations.
    
Being trained in various modalities of coaching, she has been intently assisting devotees in emotional and spiritual healing and growth for well over a decade. Author of Revealing the Heart: The Practice of Compassion, she is dedicated to showing the profound, yet simple power of choosing our words carefully. 

She is a mother of three children and grandmother of three and lives 1 mile from Radha Vrindaban Candra’s temple in New Vrindaban. She is currently working on two new books, one on the mind, the false ego and the anarthas.

Vrindasundari devi dasi was born and raised in St. Louis, MO in a Catholic family, and met devotees in 2000 at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas where she was studying architecture.  She began seriously practicing Krishna consciousness in 2002 in the association of a small community of grhasta couples outside Lawrence, Kansas, and married Tusta Krsna das in 2004.  She graduated with a BA in Textile Design from KU and received a grant for further independent studies in natural dyes and natural dye processes from the Center for Craft Creativity & Design.  In 2009, she moved with her husband to Denver, Colorado to assist in management and oversight of ISKCON Denver temple.

In 2011, she received formal initiation from Radhanath Swami, and second initiation in 2014.  She completed Bhakti Shastri course with Bhaktivedanta College Online in 2013.

Services performed for the temple include overseeing the deity worship department, designing deities’ outfits, festival organization, college outreach, meeting with sevaka devotees one-on-one, and overall temple management.

She is a certified Transformative Coach through Satvatove Institute with whom she is currently studying and practicing for second level certification as a professional Transformative Coach.  She has been coaching clients one-on-one and in small groups for 4 years and is a course assistant in Satvatove’s online coach training programs.

She graduated from GBC College in 2021.

She has two children, ages 8 and 10, whom she homeschools.