Hridaya Caitanya Dasa


Hridaya Chaitanya Dasa, also known as Herman Janssens, is temple president of Radhadesh, leader and Governing Body Commissioner for Belgian ISKCON, Co-GBC for the Benelux, and a member of the "Executive Committee of the ISKCON GBC Society". He and his wife are disciples of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami. Belgian by origin he has joined the Hare Krishna community of Amsterdam in 1980 at the age of thirty after leaving a teaching job. Hridaya Caitanya is the GBC since 2002. More recently he became the current Euro-GBC for Benelux. He is part of the Durbuy community of Radhadesh from 1980. In 1986 he became temple president of the largest Belgian centre which includes a traditional bakery, an Indian boutique, a cafeteria, a vegetarian restaurant, Gopinatha's Garden, and, as from July 2002, a guest house. Bhaktivedanta College is part of the same campus. The official name of Radhadesh is Maison d'hôtes Radhadesh and it is a prominent ISKCON facility with a conference room and educational courses. The Radhadesh is the most important temple in the Benelux and second prominent temple of European ISKCON. The tours in and around the castle form one of the most important sources of income of his project. One of the most attractive features of his temple is that educational seminars are held there making it a Vaishnava education centre of Europe. From 2008 he has taken up service of an administrator/manager with a responsibility of coordinating the task force in regard to the ISKCON Dole project.