Hari Sauri was born in England on November 17th 1950. In May 1971, he emigrated to Australia, where he met the members of the newly emerging Krishna Consciousness movement on the second day of his arrival. He was duly accepted as an initiated disciple by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in Sydney on April 9th, 1972.
In August 1975, he moved to the newly opened ISKCON Krishna Balarama temple in Vrndavan, U.P. India, where he served as temple commander. In November of the same year, he joined A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada’s personal entourage, remaining as His Divine Grace’s servant for 16 months. In March of 1977, Srila Prabhupada appointed him ISKCON’s Governing Body Commissioner for Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, a service he performed for over 7 years. During that period, he oversaw the growth of the ISKCON society in the South Seas from 4 temples and ashrams to 17, including 4 farming communities, 2 schools and several restaurants. He was also instrumental in establishing branches of the
Bhaktivedanta Book Trust in Australia and Indonesia.
In 1986, he began transforming the diary he kept while travelling with Srila Prabhupada into a book or a series of books. In 1990, he moved to America and worked for a year as a publisher for Back To Godhead magazine, the Krishna consciousness movement’s spiritual periodical.
He lives at ISKCON World Head Quarters, in Mayapur W.B. India, near Kolkata, with his wife and daughter, where he continues to publish his memories of being with Srila Prabhupada. He is currently the director of the Bhaktivedanta Research Center in Kolkata, an academic resource of Gaudiya Vaisnavism and an ancient Vaisnava text archive library. These ancient texts are being both digitized and preserved in their original state.
