Learning from the living tradition of bhakti

Bhakti-yoga is not learned from books alone. It is a living, breathing tradition passed from heart to heart in the Brahma-Madhva-Gauḍīya sampradāya — the disciplic succession coming down from Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, through the Six Gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana, to Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and, in our own time, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda, founder-ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).

To keep this thread alive, we regularly invite senior teachers to spend a few days or weeks with us. Their presence brings clarity, encouragement and the gentle correction that only a devotee further along the path can offer.

The word paramparā means "one after another" — a chain of teachers and students, unbroken over centuries, each one carefully preserving what he received. Our lineage traces from Śrī Kṛṣṇa Himself to Brahmā, then to the great ācāryas Madhva and Caitanya, and down through the Gauḍīya tradition of Vṛndāvana and Bengal.

Śrīla Prabhupāda brought this teaching to the West in 1965 and, in the eleven years that followed, founded 108 temples on six continents, translated more than sixty volumes of Vedic literature, and inspired a worldwide family of devotees. New Madhuvan is one small branch of that great tree.