[6] Jay shaved his head, received the spiritual name Jayadvaita Dasa, and began to study the teachings of Krishna.

[6] Although before joining ISKCON Jayadvaita attended some college classes at Carnegie Institute of Technology, "he is in the most general sense self-educated and taught himself everything he needed to know in order to become a literary editor".

In 1985 and 1986, he spent a year and a half traveling with a party of pilgrims on padayatra, a journey on foot, through various states of India, stopping in a different town or village every night.

He later served as editor for a three-volume translation and commentary for Brihad-bhagavatamrita, a sixteenth-century Sanskrit philosophical and devotional work.

[14] Jayadvaita Swami has also been involved in debates with the proponents of the "ritvik" doctrine, an unusual notion about discipular succession he regards as contrary both to tradition and to Srila Prabhupada's teachings.