About ISKCON AustinKrishna Consciousness

Welcome to our website. We are the ISKCON Austin Hare Krishna center, the Austin, Texas, USA branch of ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. ISKCON is a worldwide organization of over 650 temples and centers that was started in New York City in 1966. Globally we are endeavoring to bring to planet earth a new age of unparalleled peace and prosperity for all. And locally we are dedicated to making Austin a spiritual city where everyone lives in perfect peace and harmony by making Krishna or God the center of their lives.

ISKCON is popularly known as the Hare Krishna Movement. This is a movement with historical roots going back at least 5,000 years ago to the time when Lord Sri Krishna was present on the planet in India and spoke the now famous Bhagavad-gita to his beloved friend Arjuna.

In the later part of the 15th century, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu revitalized the bhakti tradition by introducing an expansive spiritual movement that swept India. Central to this renaissance was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's emphasis on the chanting of Lord Krishna's holy names. Underlying the practice was a profound, rational, and intellectually comprehensive theology. ISKCON is a continuation of the movement that Sri Chaitanya revitalized.

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) is widely regarded as the world's foremost teacher of bhakti-yoga to the Western world. Born Abhay Charan De in Calcutta, a meeting with the spiritual leader Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati set the course of his life — he was asked to bring the teachings of Krishna to the English-speaking world, a request he wouldn't fulfill until the age of seventy.

In 1965 he boarded a cargo ship bound for New York with just seven dollars and a crate of translated scriptures. After surviving two heart attacks at sea, he arrived in Brooklyn and began teaching the Bhagavad-gita from a Bowery loft and leading kirtan in Tompkins Square Park. In July 1966, he founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

Over the next eleven years he circled the globe fourteen times, establishing temples, rural communities, and educational institutions on six continents, and authored more than seventy books — including Bhagavad-gita As It Is, still the standard translation used in ISKCON temples today. He passed away in Vrindavana, India, in 1977, leaving behind a movement that continues to grow worldwide.