Hari-śauri dāsa was born in England on November 17th, 1950. In May 1971 he emigrated to Australia where, on the second day of arrival, he met the members of the newly-emerging Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. He was duly accepted as an initiated disciple by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda on April 9th, 1972 in Sydney. 

In August of 1975 he moved to the newly-opened ISKCON Krishna-Balaram temple in Vṛndāvana, India, where he served as temple commander. In November of the same year, he joined Śrīla Prabhupāda’s personal entourage, remaining as His Divine Grace’s servant for sixteen months.  

In March of 1977 Śrīla Prabhupāda appointed him ISKCON’s Governing Body Commissioner for Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, a service he performed for over seven years. During that period he oversaw the growth of the ISKCON society in the South Seas from four temples and āśramas, to seventeen, including four farming communities, two schools and several restaurants. He was also instrumental in establishing branches of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust in Australia and Indonesia. 

In 1986 he began the work of transforming the diary he kept while traveling with Śrīla Prabhupāda into a multi-volume set entitled Transcendental Diary.  

In 1990 he moved to America and worked as publisher for Back to Godhead magazine, the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement’s spiritual periodical, for a year. 

In 1996 he became a resident of ISKCON’s world headquarters at Mayapur, WB India, with his wife Śītala dāsī and daughter Rasarāṇī, where he continues to reside to the present day (2012). He is the current co-ordinator for exhibits for the Mayapur Temple of the Vedic Planetarium. He is also the Co-founder and Director of the Bhaktivedanta Research Centre in Kolkata.