Photo by Jan Jurman

    Darko Šobak (Darpa hārī dās)

    takes his birth in 1954 in Virovitica (Croatia). Not long after his second birthday he moves to Novi Travnik (Bosnia), where his father gets a job. In that small town he spends his boyhood and youth, accomplishing his primary and secondary education. When still in his Grammar-school he begins to write poems and he also becomes strongly attracted to philosophy, especially the Eastern one, which results in his beginning to practice haṭha-yoga, aṣṭāṅga-yoga, and later on bhakti-yoga as well. After his Grammar-school he enrols in the Department for English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Arts in Sarajevo, from which he graduates in 1979. In the next twelve years, he works as the English language interpreter in his home town. Then, in 1986 he becomes the member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), and in 1994 he leaves for Pula (Croatia) to serve as the Vaiṣṇava priest in the local Hare Krishna temple.

    There, after going on a pilgrimage to India three times, and after accepting the first (hari nāma) and the second (brāhmaṇa) initiation, he begins to write devotional poems with great vigour and enthusiasm, as well as to translate numerous books coming from the sphere of philosophy and devotion. And the result is – a long list of thirty five different titles. After several years of prolific writing and translating, and after his acceptance of the order of retired life (vānaprastha), he goes back to Novi Travnik, where he presently lives – worshiping his Deities of Krishna (Gaura-Nitāi), as well as the Deity of Nṛsimhadeva, still writing, studying Vaiṣṇava books and preaching occasionally the cult of devotional service to the Supreme Lord, Krishna.

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