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Hayagriva Swami
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Hayagriva Swami (September 2, 1940-August 31, 1989) author, poet, editor, English professor, and co-founder of the New Vrindaban Hare Krishna Community—was born Howard Morton Wheeler on September 2, 1940, in Pensacola, Florida, and was raised in Palm Beach, Florida. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1958-1961), The New York School for Social Research (B.A., 1963), and New York University (M.A., 1964). He taught English at Ohio State University from 1964 to 1965, and from 1968 to 1970. He also taught English at Luzerne County Community College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania from 1967 to 1968. Joining the Hare Krishnas During the early 1960s in New York City, Wheeler experimented with the mind-altering drug LSD and became interested in American Transcendentalism. He studied the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Hart Crane. During October 1965, he traveled to India with his college friend Keith Gordon Ham in search of a guru. Unsuccessful in their quest, they returned to New York after six months. While living as a beatnik in Manhattan's Lower East Side during the summer of 1966, Wheeler met the Bengali Gaudiya-Vaishnava guru A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami and became one of his first disciples. He was initiated into the sampradaya on Janmastami (September 9) 1966 at Swamiji's 26th Second Avenue temple and received the Sanskrit name Hayagriva Das (the servant of the God of knowledge and wisdom, the avatar of Vishnu with a human body and a horse's head who rescued the Vedas, brilliant white in color, with white garments and seated on a white lotus). Hayagriva became Swamiji's principle editor, and worked on Back to Godhead magazine, , The Nectar of Devotion, Srimad Bhagavatam and Chaitanya Charitamrita. During this time he set a high standard for all ISKCON Press and Bhaktivedanta Book Trust publications. Hayagriva was a gifted writer and editor; he wrote 42 articles and poems for Back to Godhead magazine, beginning with the first issue in 1966: Volume 1, Number 1. His last article published in BTG was in 1980. "Hayagriva Das was Prabhupada's first professor-disciple. Prabhupada used to call him 'Professor Howard Wheeler' even after Hayagriva received his spiritual name." In 1966, Hayagriva met and became friends with the beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who also chanted Hare Krishna and contributed toward the temple. The New Vrindaban community In 1968, Hayagriva served as co-founder of the New Vrindaban Community in Marshall County, West Virginia—along with his friend Keith Ham (who was initiated as Kirtanananda Das Brahmachari in 1966, and a year later as Kirtanananda Swami). On Christmas Day 1968, Hayagriva was married by Prabhupada to Shama Dasi (Cheryl Ann) in Los Angeles. In January, the newly married couple moved to New Vrindaban. Hayagriva established the ISKCON temple in Columbus, Ohio in 1969, where their first child, Samba, was born in 1970. Hayagriva simultaneously served as the New Vrindaban Temple President until 1972. In June 1970, Swami Prabhupada appointed Hayagriva as one of the twelve founding members of the ISKCON Governing Body Commission (GBC). During August 1970, Hayagriva was the principle defender of Prabhupada's movement during the great ISKCON crisis during the New Vrindaban Janmastami festival. "Hayagriva showed his true colors when he defended Prabhupada during the Great ISKCON Crisis during the New Vrindaban Janmastami Festival of 1970. Four newly-initiated ISKCON sannyasis began spouting mayavadi philosophy and confusing the devotees, but only Hayagriva, who had done the editing for Prabhupada's books, understood Vaishnava philosophy clearly enough to see the errors in the sanyasis' arguments, and he courageously attempted to defeat them by scripture and logic." One eyewitness reported: "The GBC kept meeting and discussing and trying to figure out what was going on. Because it felt really weird, really off, but nobody knew the philosophy well enough, except Hayagriva, who had done all the editing of the books. Rupanuga was baffled. Hayagriva was the only one who had them pegged. He was unequivocal." Service for the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust During the early 1970s, Hayagriva traveled with Prabhupada in America, Europe and India, and recorded hundreds of Prabhupada's lectures, which he compiled into small paperback books: The Perfection of Yoga, Beyond Birth and Death, On the Way to Krishna, The Path of Perfection, and others, which were published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (BBT). During the month of Kartik (October-November) 1972, he lived with Prabhupada at the Radha-Damodar Temple in Vrindaban, India. In 1976, in Hawaii and Los Angeles, his conversations with Prabhupada were recorded and later formed the basis of a major work in comparative philosophy: Dialectic Spiritualism: A Vedic View of Western Philosophy (Prabhupada Books: 1985). In 1985, Hayagriva's first book was published: The Hare Krishna Explosion: The Birth of Krishna Consciousness in America—1966-1969 (Palace Press: 1985), based on his personal diaries. In 1988, during the New Vrindaban "City of God" interfaith era, he wrote a poetic translation in English of the eight verses of the gurvastakam prayers by the 17th century Gaudiya-Vaishnava author and acharya Visvanatha Chakravarti, which was set to music and performed by choir, orchestra and congregation during more than 2,000 morning services at the New Vrindaban temple (until 1994). He also composed other poems which were set to music and sung by the Krishna Chorale. In 1979, Hayagriva's wife Shama filed for divorce, and later he was married to Purnamasi Dasi with whom he had a son and a daughter. Last days In March 1989, Hayagriva was diagnosed with cancer of the spine. Shortly before his death on August 31, 1989, he accepted the Vaishnava order of sannyasa from Kirtanananda Swami, and became known as Hayagriva Swami, although he would have preferred the title "babaji" instead of "swami," as at this time he was becoming more introspective than extroverted. His tomb is at the New Vrindaban Community. His last major work: Vrindaban Days: Memories of an Indian Holy Town, was based on his personal diaries from his 1972 month-long visit with Prabhupada at the Radha-Damodar Temple in Vrindaban, India. This book was published posthumously (Palace Publishing: 1990). On his deathbed, Hayagriva Swami humbly acknowledged that "I was touched by the hand of God!" Satyaraja Prabhu always appreciated the writings of Hayagriva Prabhu, especially his poems written in the early Back to Godheads. Over the years he had developed a friendship with Hayagriva and went to visit him in New Vrindaban when Hayagriva was dying of cancer. By the time Satyaraja visited him he was in a very painful condition. Due to cancer his spine had become almost like eggshells. Any movement was extremely painful. Hayagriva happily acknowledged Satyaraja's presence. To view his guest he slowly turned his head upward and to his right. With tears in his eyes, Hayagriva spoke slowly, with a voice filled with appreciation for his great fortune: "A seventy-year old aristocratic Bengali gentleman arrives in New York with a mission to print books in English, and who is the first person he meets? An English professor." Overwhelmed with the realization that he had been the object of inconceivable mercy, Hayagriva paused, and then, with a sense of drama and also with sincere conviction and deep emotion, expressed his heart: "I was touched by the hand of God!" Bibliography Books, Hayagriva as author: The Hare Krishna Explosion: The Birth of Krishna Consciousness in America—1966-1969 (Palace Press: 1985)
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