Happy Jack Yoga Podcast

Kaustubha Das serves as Senior Educator at The Bhakti Center in New York City and Co-host of Wisdom of the Sages, a daily podcast that has reached #1 in Religion and Spirituality on Apple Podcasts. Renowned for his approachable and insightful teaching style, he makes the deep wisdom of yoga philosophy accessible and relevant to modern seekers. From the age of 21 to 34, Kaustubha lived as a Vaishna...

Ghanashyam Das is an ordained Vaisnava Priest and Hospice Chaplain at Community Hospice  and Palliative Care in Gainesville, FL. He lived for 11 years as a brahmacari monk in New York City at the Bhakti Center before transitioning to the Hospital setting and becoming a professional spiritual care provider. At New York Presbyterian Hospital he worked conjointly with the Pastoral Care Departmen...

Jiva Gwen Hammond was born and raised in New York City and now lives in Germany. Clean and sober for 35 years, she has been a Bhakti yogi for the past eight years.  She founded the Bhakti Recovery Group and the newly established Jagai Madhai Foundation, building a worldwide community of over 200 people with more than 18 online meetings a week.  Through retreats, workshops, and outreach,...

Bhaktimarga Swami, born in Chatham, Ontario, Canada, is also known as The Walking Monk for having trekked four times across Canada.  Keeping with the spirit of pilgrimage, he also crossed the USA, Israel, Ireland, Guyana, Trinidad, Mauritius, and the Fiji Islands.  Documentation of his Canadian walks is found in two films: The Longest Road, by the National Film Board of Canada, and Walki...

Please meet Shyamasundar Das.  A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada changed the world.  When he came to America from India in 1965, few Westerners knew the deep spiritual truths behind ancient Vedic philosophy and culture. Within a decade, most humans on the planet had heard the Hare Krishna mantra. Shyamasundar das (Sam Speerstra) was one of Bhaktivedanta Swami’s earliest disciples, help...

Dr. Yogrishi Vishvketu is a world-renowned Yoga teacher trainer celebrating over 25 years of offering spiritual guidance. He has empowered more than 7,000 yoga teachers globally and founded two transformative Ashrams in Northern India—the Anand Prakash Yoga Ashram + Retreat Center and the Akhanda Sri Jungle Yoga Ashram + Retreat Center—dedicated to nurturing authentic yogic well-being and sustaina...

Dayal Gauranga has been on a spiritual journey leading kirtans and teaching spiritual wisdom for more than 20 years.  At 18 years old, he became a monk and dedicated himself to a life of inner study, reflection, and service.   One year later he made his first trip to India and has since traveled back numerous times throughout the subcontinent, as well as to countries and communities...

Venkata Bhatta Das (Dr. Vineet Chander) was born and raised in New York City and discovered the path of Krishna Bhakti in his youth, initially through the devotional community called New Vrindaban.  An initiated student of His Holiness Radhanath Swami for more than two decades, he is now a sought-after speaker and teacher in his own right. He is particularly known for his ability to infuse an...

Atreya Rishi Das (Marz Attar) Born in Iran 1942 Harvard Business School 1965 Met devotees 1968 ISKCON member 1970-1987 Former ISKCON GBC member Opened temple in Tehran, Iran Practicing Sufi Activist Dear friend  Title of Session: Living the Life of Bhakti in this Domain of Separation Teachers/books recommended by Atreya Rishi Das: A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada Shaikh Sidi Mohammad al Ja...

Anuttama Dasa is the Minister of Communications for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). He has also served as a member of ISKCON’s Governing Body Commission (GBC) since 1999 and was its chairman in 2014-2015. Anuttama Dasa was initiated into the Gaudiya Vaishnava sampradaya by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in 1976 in Vrindavana, India. He currently...

Please enjoy this conversation with Dr Sandhya Subramanian, B.D.S Dental surgery, MS Psychotherapy and Counselling, aka Sita Devi Dasi Sita. Sita is a qualified dentist but very passionate about also working for the Environment and Youth and Women. She started the Bhaktivedanta Hospital Youth Foundation, under which she conducted an AIDS awareness counselling program for youth based on the culture...

Chaitanya Charan Das: Mentor. Monk. Speaker. Spiritual teacher for nearly 30 years in the bhakti-yoga tradition through its modern-day expression, ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) Author of 30 books that explain the relevance of Vedic wisdom texts including the Bhagavad-gita and the Ramayana Author of the world’s only daily blog on the Bhagavad-gita, gitadaily.com, where he...

Bhanu Nandini felt an inner calling for self-realization and radically transformed her life at the age of 21. In search of the essence and true identity, she discovered the path of Bhakti Yoga in 2005 and has since lived, learned, and served in various ashrams. Her practice centers on worship, meditation, mantra chanting, and kirtan. She is deeply drawn to the power of pilgrimage, spending two mon...

Gauranga Das is a Btech graduate from IIT Bombay and the Director of Govardhan Ecovillage, a United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) award-winning eco-village community accredited by multiple UN bodies.  He is a great chef who has set up mega kitchens and personally cooked over 3.5 million meals. During the recent Kumbha mela event, he and his team cooked over 5 million meals and se...

Edwin Bryant received his Ph. D in Indic languages and Cultures from Columbia University. He taught Hinduism at Harvard University for three years, and is presently the professor of Hinduism at Rutgers University where he teaches courses on Hindu philosophy and religion. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, published eight books, and authored a number of articles on the earliest origin...

Shaunaka Rishi Das is the Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, a position he has held since the Centre’s foundation in 1997. He is a lecturer, a broadcaster, and Hindu Chaplain to Oxford University. His interests include education, comparative theology, communication, and leadership. He is a member of The Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, convened in 2013 by the...

Jess is a Doctoral Student at Boston College working in Comparative Theology and Comparative Religion, particularly between the Hindu and Christian traditions. His current research focuses on theological resonances between Vaishnava Bhakti practices and those found within the realm of Christianity. Further specialty includes 20th Century Hinduism, North American Hinduism, and work with Hindi and S...

Raghunath Cappo was a singer, song writer for two influential punk alternative bands in the 80s and 90s. His lyrics propounded clean living, positive thinking, animal rights, and eastern spirituality that changed the trajectory of tens of thousands of fans internationally. He lived in a Krishna bhakti ashram for 6.5 years, went on to become an international yoga teacher and now is the host of the...

Rajeev Srivastava has over 35 years of global operating and investing experience in the U.S., Asia, and Europe. Prior to the merger of Basil Partners and Capital Square Partners, Rajeev founded Basil Partners as a family office in 2008, which invested in the IT/ITES sector and then raised a 171M institutional fund in 2018. In 2022, Basil Partners merged with Capital Square Partners to raise a 700M...

Dhanya Rico holds a Master’s degree in Counselor Education and a Specialist’s degree in Couples and Family therapy. She aims to help individuals and relationships thrive by incorporating deep spiritual principles into the therapeutic experience. In addition to traditional modalities, Dhanya is passionate about developing therapeutic tools that incorporate Bhakti principles and practices to reconne...

Radheshyam Das is a distinguished spiritual leader, educator, and author. An alumnus of IIT Mumbai, he graduated at the top of his class with an M.Tech degree. After working as a senior research fellow and as a mechanical engineer, he embraced monastic life in 1994, dedicating himself as a full-time brahmachari monk. In 1995, he was assigned to ISKCON Pune, where he has served as the Temple Presid...

Krishna Kshetra Swami – teacher, writer, and traveller – is a disciple of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). He has served as a missionary, temple priest (pujari), and counselor for bhakti-yoga practitioners from the time of his formal initiation in 1972. In 2004, after eight years of university stu...

Śamyāprāsa Dāsa (“Shamya”) has practiced bhakti since 2009, took vows as an initiated devotee in 2013, and served as a brahmachari monk between 2014 and 2021. During that time, he studied the Bhakti scriptures in Sanskrit and Bengali, distributed Bhakti, and trained as a spiritual teacher. He currently leads classes on practicing Bhakti and workshops on kirtan, etc. He also works one-on-one to hel...

Pallavi has been practicing Bhakti Yoga for the past two years and is currently serving at Govardhan Ecovillage as a Sustainability Educator in the Sustainability Department. She is a certified Yoga teacher and comes with 11+ years of experience working as an IT professional at Infosys. Alongside her corporate career, Pallavi has been actively involved in various social and environmental projects,...

Bali Rico is a multi-instrumentalist, author, lyricist and academic. He is one of the co-founders of the international Kirtan group Mayapuris. Born in the U.S. to Colombian parents, he and his younger brother Kish spent their formative years living in ashrams in the sacred land of Mayapur, West Bengal, learning the traditions and music of ancient India. Bali's mridanga playing is fiery and unique,...