From The Beatles to Elvis Presley, these musical devotees have brushed with fame: meet the Hare Krishnas of Hong Kong
A recent Hong Kong visit by a senior member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness gives Kylie Knott an insight into the spiritual organisation
With a famous DJ as a father, and a grandfather who worked as a missionary in Africa, it’s not surprising Govinda Swami chose a path that balances music with religion.
“My dad was a disc jockey in Tennessee. He was Elvis’ first producer and managed him for a while,” he says matter-of-factly about his father Bob Neal’s relationship with the rock ’n’ roll star. Music producer Neal also helped launch the careers of Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. “Elvis often visited the house; he would babysit me. He called me ‘younger brother Sean’.”
Today, Sean Neal is better known as Govinda Swami and is a senior member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), founded in 1966 in New York by Srila Prabhupada.
He joined in 1971 and his devotion to the movement has taken the 64-year-old around the world, including to Hong Kong, where last month he held kirtans – a form of devotional chanting – at ISKCON’s temple in Tsim Sha Tsui.
First introduced to Hong Kong in 1972, the movement was officially registered here in 1981.
