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Discussion: What are Hare Krishnas
> Subject: Discussion: What are Hare Krishnas
> From: betul@astro.ocis.temple.edu (Rajiv Pant ( Betul ))
> I have some idea about Hare Krishas, but would like to know who exactly
> they are and what do they preach.
The best source is http://www.webcom.com/~ara -- this is the home page
of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the worldwide Hare
Krishna movement.
> I had heard about Hare Krishnaa
> movements in USA and UK when I was in India, but I just had a faint mental
> image of "white foreigners" dressed up in clothes from Vrindawan.
Yeah, that's a common image among Indians. Actually, even in Vrindavan
-- when you get to the Mathura train station, if you ask a rickshaw
driver to take you to "Krishna-Balaram mandir", he'll stare at you
blankly; if you say "ISKCON mandir", he might know what you're talking
about; but if you say "Angrejiwalla mandir", he'll immediately take you
to the right place. Same with the busses, when they get to that stop,
the conductor says "Angreji mandir, Angrejiwalla mandir". But actually,
there's a lot of Blacks, Hispanics, Orientals, Whites, and Indians (in
fact, mostly Indians) involved with ISKCON. The ISKCON temple in Bombay
regularly gets 600,000 visitors on Janmastami, and the ISKCON headquarters
in Mayapur (150 km away from Calcutta) may pull in 1 million visitors on
Gaura Purnima (aka Holi).
> I
> thought it was sometimes just a fad, and sometimes these people were
> interested in the Hindu lifestyle and culture.
Sometimes it is just a fad, but many are genuinely interested.
> I thought many of them also
> had plans of retiring in an (often their own) ashram in the Himalayan
> region.
Yeah, this probably doesn't accurately represent ISKCON. When Srila
Prabhupada founded ISKCON, he wanted a dynamic troupe of preachers and
book distributors. Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition recognizes 2 types of
devotees: ghosti-anandis (whose service centers around preaching) and
bhajan-anandis (who don't preach, but perfect their sadhana and engage
in their personal relational service to Krishna). ISKCON is meant for
ghosti-anandis. When Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was present 500 years ago, He
declared that a great general (senapati) bhakta would come and spread
the message to every town and village in the world, and many believe
that Srila Prabhupada is that senapati. He is a perfect devotee of the
Lord, and his whole time was spent in service, either translation,
preaching, planning temples, etc. He never claims to be the Lord; in
fact, he loudly declares "I am not God, you are not God, we are all
_servants_ of God". He left this planet Nov 1977; next year (1996)
will mark his Centennial, and everyone in ISKCON is planning to
celebrate.
In fact, "he went to the Himalayas" is often used in ISKCON as a euphemism
for "he left ISKCON" -- the two are basically incompatible. Some
ISKCON members do retire to Vrindavan or Mayapur, though, where they
engage in devotional service and associate with devotees.
> In general, I thought these were nice, peaceful, philosophical
> people interested in the heritage of our country. We did have foreigners
> visit our house in the Hills who showed interest in the ancient
> traditions, culture and knowlede and our family always took delight in
> talking to them.
This seems accurate.
> After I came here, I saw people paint a slightly different picture. I
Yeah, there are a lot of "anti-cultists" in the US, and they've spread a lot
of rumors. My suggestion is to ignore them. Chanakya Pandit says that those
who have no potency of their own usually burn with envy at the achievements
of others, so that's their problem.
> Particularily, in real life as well as on the
> net, I heard a lot of negative things about them -- drugs, cult, try to
> convert everyone ... etc.
Anyone who was involved with drugs or guns had either been kicked out
of ISKCON previously or just after their criminal acts. One example is
New Vrindavan -- they are a farm in West Virginia. They had been
kicked out of ISKCON for questionable activities in 1986; they
continued their questionable activities for about 8 years, and are now
trying to reintegrate into ISKCON and following ISKCON's regulations,
which are
1) no meat-eating (and no fish, no eggs, etc)
2) no sex outside of marriage, and only for procreation
3) no gambling
4) no drugs (and no alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, Coke, etc)
There is also one positive regulation -- chant the names of the Lord
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Initiated devotees must pledge to chant this mantra 16 times around a
japa-mala of 108 beads. This takes about 2 hours a day. Many devotees
live in the temple, but many more have their own private homes with (in
the US) 2 cars in the driveway, a white picket fence, and 2.2 kids.
Your doctor could be a Hare Krishna; your fellow engineer in the lab
could be one, as could the travel agent, jeweler, or drycleaner you
go to (I know Hare Krishna devotees in each of these positions; they're
quite common). Of course, the Hare Krishnas main reputation is for book
distribution, and there are many who follow that occupation, sometimes
staying at temples and distributing at local colleges & hotspots, other
times traveling in caravans representing the movement (devotees sometimes
follow popular music tours and set up booths there; like at Lollapalooza
and [earlier] at Grateful Dead tours), and other times doing it as
their business for maintaining their household.
As for being a cult, anyone is free to leave ISKCON at any time.
Something like 80 or 90% of people ever involved seriously with ISKCON
are no longer active members; but among those, 90% or more of them are
still favorable or very favorable to ISKCON. Many are coming back these
days after having left earlier. That is one of the main goals of Srila
Prabhupada Centennial, to bring back old members of the ISKCON
community.
Most of the psychologists who were praised by the anti-cult movement,
such as Margaret Singer, were discredited by their peer psychologists;
the tactics of the deprogrammers were ruled criminal, etc. in the US.
However, in many other countries (like Poland, Russia, etc, where
ISKCON is still new), the anticult patrol is already making some
headway. More often than not, though, the anticultists basically want
to stop anything that isn't mainstream Protestant Chrisitanity (or in
Poland's case, Catholicism; or in Russia's Orthodoxy) -- they even
go after other Christian groups like Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses.
The anti-cult agenda targets vegetarianism as "food deprivation",
chanting and meditation as "brainwashing", and a regulated lifestyle
as "loss of individuality".
> Could somebody please tell more about what the Hare Krishna movement
> really is about ? Is there one such movement or are there various such
> distinct movements ?
The Hare Krishna movement actually has its roots about 500 years ago in
parts of Bengal and Vrindavan. ISKCON stems from this heritage, and is
recognized as a legitimate representative of that Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition.
Other Vaisnava sects (such as the Sri Vaisnavas, Vallabhites, and Maadhvas)
also recognize ISKCON as a legitimate movement, and have been known to give
land grants to ISKCON and to allow non-Indian ISKCON members into some of
their temples where all other non-Indians are banned [I can only think
of 2 exceptions to that rule; one is Lord Ranganatha's temple in Vrindavan
(although the original Ranganatha temple in the South does allow ISKCON
devotees), and the other is Jagannatha Puri temple].
However, there are many other splinter groups that are often mistaken
for Hare Krishnas that are actually distinct groups with distinct
philosophies and lifestyles; they may chant the same mantra, but they
are not the same. For the most part, though, Hare Krishnas you
encounter will be members of ISKCON. For more on ISKCON, see
http://www.webcom.com/~ara . To see the Hare Krishna temple of Houston,
try http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~vijaypai/hou_hk
> Finally, do they consider themselves "Hindu", or related to "Ancient
> Indian Culture" in some ways ?
Srila Prabhupada very much aimed to establish Vedic culture everywhere.
In his commentaries and translations, he draws from a vast number of
previous acharyas, including Ramanujacharya, Sridhar Swami, Madhvacharya,
Baladeva Vidyabhusana, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta, Bhaktivinoda Thakur,
Jiva Goswami, and Rupa Goswami. His lengthy purports are, more often
than not, summaries of the comments of previous acharyas in the Gaudiya
Vaisnava line, along with excerpts from other Vaisnava lines, as well
as Srila Prabhupada's own notes. They are written in understandable,
yet eloquent, language. This is better explained in the Web page.
> Thanks,
> ______________________________________________________________
> Rajiv Pant (Betul) http://www.temple.edu/~betul
The president of the Philadelphia temple (Ravindra Svarupa das) is a PhD
from Temple University and was one of the first Hare Krishnas in the
West. You can find the address of the temple at
http://www.webcom.com/~ara/col/centers
Yours,
Vijay
