The Inter­na­tional Soci­ety for Krishna Con­scious­ness (ISKCON) was estab­lished in 1966 by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhak­tivedanta Swami Prab­hu­pada (Srila Prab­hu­pada). ISKCON has since devel­oped into a world­wide con­fed­er­a­tion of over 10,000 res­i­dent devo­tees and over 1,000,000 con­gre­ga­tional mem­bers worldwide.

Bet­ter known as the Hare Krishna move­ment, ISKCON is com­prised of more than 350 cen­tres, 60 rural com­mu­ni­ties, 50 schools and 60 restau­rants world­wide.
The mis­sion of this non­sec­tar­ian, monothe­is­tic move­ment is to pro­mote the well being of soci­ety by teach­ing the sci­ence of Krishna con­scious­ness accord­ing to Bhagavad-gita and other ancient scrip­tures.
Srila Prab­hu­pada gave a clear mis­sion state­ment for ISKCON which is out­lined in the fol­low­ing seven points.

The Seven Pur­poses of ISKCON

  1. To sys­tem­at­i­cally prop­a­gate spir­i­tual knowl­edge to soci­ety at large and to edu­cate all peo­ple in the tech­niques of spir­i­tual life in order to check the imbal­ance of val­ues in life and to achieve real unity and peace in the world.
  2. To prop­a­gate a con­scious­ness of Krishna (God), as it is revealed in the great scrip­tures of India, Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam.
  3. To bring the mem­bers of the Soci­ety together with each other and nearer to Krishna, the prime entity, thus devel­op­ing the idea within the mem­bers, and human­ity at large, that each soul is part and par­cel of the qual­ity of God­head (Krishna).
  4. To teach and encour­age the sankir­tana move­ment, con­gre­ga­tional chant­ing of the holy name of God, as revealed in the teach­ings of Lord Sri Cai­tanya Mahaprabhu.
  5. To erect for the mem­bers and for soci­ety at large a holy place of tran­scen­den­tal pas­times ded­i­cated to the per­son­al­ity of Krishna.
  6. To bring the mem­bers closer together for the pur­pose of teach­ing a sim­pler, more nat­ural way of life.
  7. With a view towards achiev­ing the afore­men­tioned pur­poses, to pub­lish and dis­trib­ute peri­od­i­cals, mag­a­zines, books and other writings.

ISKCON’s Struc­ture

Com­mu­ni­ties

Most ISKCON mem­bers prac­tise Krishna con­scious­ness in their homes and live and work in the gen­eral com­mu­nity. They also con­gre­gate in tem­ples for worship.

Most temple-based mem­bers are in train­ing, or serve as clergy engaged in min­is­te­r­ial and mis­sion­ary work. Some mem­bers also help main­tain ISKCON rural com­mu­ni­ties through­out the world.
Gov­ern­ing Body Com­mis­sion (GBC).

In 1970 Srila Prab­hu­pada formed a Gov­ern­ing Body Com­mis­sion (GBC) to help man­age an expand­ing ISKCON. Before Srila Prab­hu­pada passed away in 1977, he requested that exec­u­tive author­ity for ISKCON be passed to this Com­mis­sion. The GBC decides ISKCON’s major strate­gies and guide­lines by demo­c­ra­tic vot­ing and in con­sul­ta­tion with Tem­ple Pres­i­dents and other leaders.