{"id":88429,"date":"2020-08-16T09:14:02","date_gmt":"2020-08-16T07:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=88429"},"modified":"2020-08-16T13:06:59","modified_gmt":"2020-08-16T11:06:59","slug":"people-behind-the-policies-with-anuttama-das-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=88429","title":{"rendered":"People Behind the Policies with Anuttama Das (video)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/fGBqmOV.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We are pleased to have Anuttama Das for our &#8220;Ask a GBC&#8221; series. Here is an amazing opportunity to meet and hear from the people who are behind the policies in ISKCON and ask questions as he is being interviewed by Gopal Bhatta Das.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<center><\/p>\n<h3>Click below to start the player<\/h3>\n<p><\/center><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fgbcspt%2Fvideos%2F375370236784163%2F&#038;show_text=0&#038;width=560\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" allowFullScreen=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>About Anuttama Das<br \/>\nAs a college student in Political Science and Social Science at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan, USA, Anuttama Dasa began to search for answers to the most important questions in life. After exploring varied spiritual traditions ranging from Zen Buddhism to Methodism, he decided to pledge himself to a life of serious spiritual practice and entered the ISKCON Ashrama in Denver, Colorado in 1975.<br \/>\nRemaining at first a skeptic, Anuttama vowed after his first night at the Temple that he would not return to the previous lifestyle he\u2019d found unfulfilling and would only leave the Ashrama if he found a better path to God. Anuttama was formally initiated into the Vaishnava order by ISKCON\u2019s Founder-Acarya, Srila Prabhupada, in Vrindavan, India in 1976, and has remained committed to the discipline of Bhakti-yoga ever since.<br \/>\nAnuttama soon became leader of the Men\u2019s Ashrama community in Denver, and he became President of the Denver Temple in 1983. Under his supervision, Hare Krishna Food for Life was established in Denver and was distributing 10,000 free meals to the needy and homeless each month; ISKCON Colorado hosted the expansive annual Festival of India; and the Temple participated in major Denver events such as the St. Patrick\u2019s Day Parade with an entry of a locally built, traditional 40\u2032 high Rathayatra Cart. Anuttama also oversaw the opening of Govinda\u2019s Buffet, which offered sanctified vegetarian food to congregational members, neighbors, and officials from nearby local government and hospital offices.<br \/>\nAnuttama Dasa joined the ISKCON Governing Body Commission (GBC) in 2000 and served as its Chairman in 2014-2015. Today his zonal assignments include Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Illinois, Missouri, and co-GBC in West Virginia and eastern Pennsylvania. He enacts his leadership goals globally by teaching seminars including: \u201cISKCON\u2019s Leadership and Management,\u201d \u201cISKCON Communications Course,\u201d \u201cThe Guru Seminar,\u201d and the \u201cISKCON Disciples Course,\u201d all of which he helped co-author with teams of other senior Vaishnavas.<br \/>\nBesides his GBC duties, Anuttama has served as ISKCON\u2019s International Director of Communications for twenty years. He is a regular contributor and senior editor for ISKCON News and has authored articles for the ISKCON Communications Journal and several interfaith publications outside of ISKCON. Anuttama has been interviewed by multiple media outlets including BBC, Fox News, ABC, Larry King Live, and the Washington Post.<br \/>\nAnuttama is active in several religious freedom initiatives and leads ISKCON in networking with government and non-government organizations in Washington, D.C., as well as interfacing with the United Nations in New York. Anuttama is also a Board Member of the Religion Communicators Council and Religions for Peace USA, as well as an Advisor to the Religious Freedom Institute. He also co-founded the annual Vaishnava-Christian Dialogues (USA and India) and Vaishnava-Muslim Dialogue (USA).<br \/>\nAnuttama and his wife, Rukmini Devi Dasi, live in Silver Spring, Maryland, near their son Gauravani, daughter-in-law Vrinda, and three grandchildren. They attend the local ISKCON temple in Potomac, Maryland.<br \/>\n\u201cISKCON and the Vaishnava tradition have great gifts to share. I have faith that as ISKCON devotees become more and more qualified to follow and represent Srila Prabhupada and Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the great culture of Bhakti that they brought to the world will have many tangible and long lasting positive effects.\u201d \u2013Anuttama Dasa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/5hvdFSa.jpg \"\/><strong>By the ISKCON GBC Strategic Planning Team<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> We are pleased to have Anuttama Das for our &#8220;Ask a GBC&#8221; series. Here is an amazing opportunity to meet and hear from the people who are behind the policies in ISKCON and ask questions as he is being interviewed by Gopal Bhatta Das.  <!--more--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88429"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88449,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88429\/revisions\/88449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}