Rtadhvaja Swami

Rtadhvaja Swami was born and raised in a rural farming community in North Dakota, U.S.A. His first encounter with the devotees was in 1972, when some of the Radha Damodara Traveling Sankirtana Party came to his house and asked if they could take some flowers from his front yard. It was a few years later, in 1975, that he first came upon Srila Prabhupada's books, started chanting, visited a temple, and became a part of the Hare Krishna movement. He received initiation from Srila Prabhupada in June 1977 in Gainesville, Florida. His service attitude caught the eye of Hridayananda Maharaja, and he was asked to become Maharaja's traveling servant and secretary. He accepted the renounced order of life in Mayapura on Gaura Purnima 1985. Maharaja has been spending all of his time in the United States, traveling between Florida, Tennessee and Texas.