Lord Sri Krishna
Krishna means “the all-attractive one,” other names describe qualities He manifests in other forms, such as Narayana (shelter of all living beings), or Vishnu (maintainer of the universe).
Kṛṣṇa who is known as Govinda is the Supreme Godhead. He has an eternal blissful spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin and He is the prime cause of all causes. Śrī brahma-saṁhitā 5.1
Disciplic succession
Disciplic succession means passing on the transcendental knowledge coming from Lord Krishna as it is without any additions, deletions or alterations or interpretations. Accepting God’s word as is and following His instructions from the bonafide Spiritual masters who come in the line of disciplic succession is the core tenet of Vedic schools of thought.
Lord Chaitanya
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appeared as a devotee of Krishna in Mayapur, West Bengal, India in the late fifteenth century. He introduced sankirtan, widespread congregational chanting of the Supreme Person’s names, as the most effective means by which anyone can achieve spiritual perfection.
In His youth, Mahaprabhu started a Sanskrit academy in Navadvipa—one of India’s top centers of learning at the time—and earned a reputation as an excellent scholar. But at age twenty-four he renounced everything to travel the subcontinent, encouraging everyone he met to chant the Hare Krishna mantra.
Six Goswamis
Definition
*Sanskrit go = “senses,” swami = “master” ; Goswami means ‘master of the senses’
The prominent six Goswamis are: Rupa Goswami, Sanatana Goswami, Raghunatha Bhatta Goswami, Jiva Goswami, Gopala Bhatta Goswami and Raghunatha Dasa Goswami.
The Six Goswamis were a group of scholarly and ascetic devotees of Krishna who lived and wrote in India during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. They were the leading disciples of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
A number of the Goswamis came from aristocracy but left aside considerable wealth and influence to live as wandering mendicants, dedicating themselves to writing commentaries on the Vedas. They also uncovered many of the lost places of Krishna’s pastimes in Vrindavan, and established temples there that are visited to this day. Under Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s direction, they showed that the essence of all Vedic teachings is devotional service to God, bhakti-yoga . Their work largely forms the scriptural and philosophical basis of ISKCON, popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement.
Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Prabhupada
Prabhupada – ‘prabhu’ meaning ‘master’ and ‘pada’ meaning ‘feet’ – translated as ‘one at whose feet all the other masters sit’.
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada came to New York in 1965 and in twelve short years made the chanting of ‘Hare Krishna’ known throughout the world. He started a spiritual revolution wherein devotion, simplicity and compassion became the direction for living. Coming from a lineage of self-realised teachers, Srila Prabhupada gave a fearless exposition of devotional wisdom which had been kept locked within India for centuries.
His humility, modesty, meekness, truthfulness, unpretentiousness, honesty, frankness and transparency were inspiring qualities to his followers and harkened to a simpler lifestyle underpinned by a deep philosophy. ‘Simple living, high thinking’ became a motto of ISKCON. He promoted self-sufficient farm communities in which people would live and pursue their occupations according to their natural propensities while living God-centred lives.
Harvey Cox, one of America’s leading Christian theologians at that time, based at Harvard’s School of Divinity, said:
“…at a very advanced age, when most people would be resting on their laurels, Srila Prabhupada harkened to the mandate of his own spiritual teacher and set out on the difficult and demanding voyage to America. He is, of course, only one of thousands of teachers. But in another sense, he is one in a thousand, maybe one in a million.”