{"id":1593,"date":"2022-02-04T20:43:14","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T20:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/muralimohan-us.org\/?page_id=1593"},"modified":"2023-08-19T19:28:17","modified_gmt":"2023-08-19T19:28:17","slug":"about-author-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/muralimohan-us.org\/?page_id=1593","title":{"rendered":"About our Gurudev"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Meet Murali Mohan Maharaj<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The Man behind Krishna Consciousness movement in Russia (former USSR), acharya and founder of Sankirtana Corporation.<\/strong><\/p>

His fundamental vision is to offer the science of Hare Krishna maha mantra to every human being \u2013 a science that helps a person realize that he is not this body, that he is a soul and he can stop this cycle of birth, old age, disease, and death, and safely return home, to the spiritual world, to Krishna. From this vision stem a vast array of his projects and programs both in Russia and US, all towards the same goal: to plant a seed of bhakti in every human being, so that they stop suffering in this material world and become Krishna conscious, exuberant, and in harmony within themselves and the world.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Murali Mohan Maharaj (Mamu Thakur), born Mikhail Nikolaevich Shilov, appeared in Russia, in the city of Perm on May 11, 1949. His parents, seeking to develop their child’s talent, sent him to an art school, where he received many awards for his drawings and paintings.\u00a0In 1966, he graduated from high school specializing in an artistic career. After that, he worked as a designer of shop windows, then as a decorator at the Theater of the Young Spectator. From 1968 to 1970 he served in the army as an artist. Since 1970 he has been working at the Perm Academic Opera and Ballet Theater named after P.I. Tchaikovsky. In 1972 he entered the Mukhinskoye (Stieglitz) School in St. Petersburg for “interior”. He completed his artistic education at the Herzen Institute in the studio of M.A. Kaneev.\u00a0He collaborated with the largest record company in the USSR MELODIYA. He worked at various recreation centers, was the chief artist at the regional directorate of theatrical, sports and entertainment offices of Leningrad. In 1978 he became the Chairman of the Leningrad Committee of Book, Graphic and Poster Artists. He was engaged in the restoration of icons and participated in the AVANGARD movement. He painted portraits of famous writers, actors and scientists.\u00a0In the spring of 1980 he became acquainted with the teachings of Krishna consciousness. In the same year, he took initiation in ISKCON by a letter from Harikesha Swami and was given the name, Mamu Thakur.<\/p>

From 1980 to 1992-93, he traveled to more than a hundred cities in Russia and the countries of former USSR, preaching Krishna consciousness. For this – he was arrested several times and despite the danger, continued his mission. He conducted the first harinamas and sankirtanas, organized Vedic festivals, radhayatras and padayatras.\u00a0<\/p>

He registered more than 20 preaching centers “Sankirtana” in different cities of Russia. He marked the beginning of the first periodicals: “Sankirtana Vedomosti”, “Without Illusion”, “Sankirtana” and “Sankirtana Inform”.\u00a0In 1986-87 he organized the first Ashram of Hare Krishna in Leningrad. In 1988, he opened the first vegetarian caf\u00e9 in the city. In parallel with his preaching activities, Mamu Thakur did not give up painting, using his artistic gift in the service to Krishna. He created many paintings on Vaishnava topics, as well as portraits of Acharyas, often adding the Maha Mantra to his works.<\/p>

He painted the walls of houses of culture and cafes with scenes from life of Lord Chaitanya and Krishna. In Minsk, Izhevsk, Alma-Ata, Yekaterinburg and other cities, he organized several traveling exhibitions, inspiring many people to follow his example.\u00a0In Yekaterinburg, the cooperative “Sankirtana-Art” registered where artists devoted their work to scenes from Vaishnava sacred scriptures. In 1985, the Museum of “Religion and Atheism” of Leningrad acquired one of his paintings for its collection.<\/p>

In 1992, the leadership of ISKCON (GBC), recognizing the merits of Mama Thakur, sent him to India, Mayapur. Year 1993 began with the publication of his books, today there are more than forty of them. As a gifted artist, Mamu Thakur illustrates his books with colorful paintings and dynamic drawings that help to reveal the deep meanings of his literary works.<\/p>

Mamu Thakur’s books are simple and understandable, they set out the very essence of Vedic philosophy,\u00a0 true historical facts and a guide to dedicated service.\u00a0Arriving in America on New Year’s Eve 1994, at the invitation of GBC,Mamu Thakur preached to the Russian-speaking population in Chicago and New York. In the same year, he painted part of the wall of the Hare Krishna Temple in Brooklyn: the panel “Sankirtana Leela”. In the spring of 1994, his first exhibition was held in New York. In 1995, he painted several monumental panels for the ISKCON temple in Chicago. In 1997, he registered “Sankirtana Corporation” which is an educational organization.\u00a0In 2001, Mamu Thakur received Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja as his guru and received a new name, Murali Mohan. Since 2003 he begins to accept students. In 2005, the World Vaishnava Association – WVA – appoints Murali Mohan as Secretary for Russia. Currently, Murali Mohan Maharaj leads an active life as an Acharya, lectures in America and Russia, leads kirtans and harinamas. He writes and publishes his books, leads several rubrics of Russian-language publications in America. Over the past few years, his artworks have been exhibited in Minsk and St. Petersburg. Murali Mohan’s colorful and inspiring paintings do not leave\u00a0 hearts of the\u00a0 people untouched, opening to them the windows to the spiritual world.\u00a0Leading a life of a renounced monk, he spends all his income on serving Krishna. He owns nothing and does not depend on anything. Living only by preaching of the holy names, he devoted himself entirely to the Lotus feet of our Lord. Relentlessly leading an army of devotees, he brings them home to God.<\/p>

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Meet Murali Mohan Maharaj The Man behind Krishna Consciousness movement in Russia (former USSR), acharya and founder of Sankirtana Corporation. His fundamental vision is to offer the science of Hare Krishna maha mantra to every human being \u2013 a science that helps a person realize that he is not this body, that he is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":85,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"csbAdvScrollBarCursor":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1593","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/muralimohan-us.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/muralimohan-us.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/muralimohan-us.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muralimohan-us.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muralimohan-us.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1593"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/muralimohan-us.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10142,"href":"https:\/\/muralimohan-us.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1593\/revisions\/10142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muralimohan-us.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/muralimohan-us.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}