Hridayananda Dasa Goswami (born November 5, 1948) is a senior religious leader of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (commonly known as Hare Krishnas or ISKCON) and one of the most prominent disciples of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Hridayananda Goswami is an initiating guru within ISKCON and has served as a member of the Governing Body Commission. He has a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard University, and is the author of numerous studies on Vaishnava philosophy. According to Larry Shinn, Hridayananda Goswami is "famous for his acerbic wit and sermonizing". He's been described as one of the best preachers in ISKCON.
Hridayananda Dasa Goswami was born as Howard J. Resnick. He joined ISKCON in 1969 as a student at University of California at Berkeley and was initiated in Los Angeles, California, on February 8, 1970 as a disciple of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. In 1972, he accepted the renounced order of life (sannyasa), and in 1974 he was named a member of the Governing Body Commission of ISKCON with responsibility for overseeing the Hare Krishna Movement in Florida and Latin America. Under his leadership, ISKCON in Brazil and other Latin American countries experienced a period of growth and expansion. Many new ISKCON temples were opened in the capitals and other major cities.
After the death of Prabhupada in November 1977, Hridayananda Dasa Goswami, as well as ten other prominent disciples, became initiating gurus within ISKCON. Hridayananda Dasa Goswami also completed Prabhupada’s translation and commentary of the Bhagavata Purana, an important classic of Vedic literature. His literary projects have since been a modern spiritual novel and the adaptation of the famous Indian epic, the Mahabharata, into a historical novel.