Kirtanananda Swami - Keith Becomes Kirtanananda

Keith Becomes Kirtanananda

In June 1966, after returning from India, Ham met the Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava guru A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (then known simply as "Swamiji" to his disciples), the founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), more popularly known in the West as the Hare Krishnas. After attending Bhagavad-gita classes at the modest storefront temple at 26 Second Avenue in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Ham accepted Swamiji as his spiritual master, receiving initiation as "Kirtanananda Dasa" ("the servant of one who takes pleasure in kirtan") on September 23, 1966. Swamiji sometimes called him "Kitchen-ananda" because of his cooking expertise. Howard Wheeler was initiated two weeks earlier on September 9, 1966 and received the name "Hayagriva Dasa".

Kirtanananda was among the first of Swamiji's western disciples to shave his head (apart from the sikha), don robes (traditional Bengali Vaishnava clothing consists of dhoti and kurta), and move into the temple. In March 1967, on the order of Swamiji, Kirtanananda and Janus Dambergs (Janardana Dasa), a French-speaking university student, established the Montreal Hare Krishna temple. On August 28, 1967, while travelling with Swamiji in India, Kirtanananda Dasa became Prabhupada's first disciple to be initiated into the Vaishnava order of renunciation (sannyasa: a lifelong vow of celibacy in mind, word and body), and received the name Kirtanananda Swami. Within weeks, however, he returned to New York City against Prabhupada's wishes and attempted to add esoteric cultural elements of Christianity to Prabhupada's devotional bhakti system. Other disciples of Prabhupada saw this as a takeover attempt. In letters from India, Prabhupada soundly chastised him and banned him from preaching in ISKCON temples.