THE ORIGINAL ISKCON POLICY ON CHEATING DONORS

Nothing is more dispiriting and disgusting than realizing you have donated money to an unworthy cause or to an organization you find to be dishonest.It is an assault on your principles as much as it is a form of outright theft.Rather than merely fuming and cursing yourself for being such a fool, it is far better to confront the thieves and, if at all possible,to get your money back. If this fails, it behooves you to warn others about the people who have robbed you under the pretense of philanthropy.

Cults as well as established religions often evade criticism for spending enormous sums of money on temples, churches, and other major building projects by also creating various “ feed the poor” programs. Such emotional appeals are classic examples of the diversionary tactics used by con artists everywhere. What better example can there be than the two massive ISKCON temple building projects currently underway in India, the $45 million Vrindavan Chandrodaya Mandir and the $60 million Temple of the Vedic Planetarium in the town of Mayapur in Bengal. These temples--the first, at 210 meters high, will reportedly be the tallest temple in the world and the second, with a dome 113 meters high and a massive footprint--are being erected by Bangalore-ISKCON led by its president Madhu Pandit Das and the GBC-governed ISKCON, respectively.

Both camps are bitter doctrinal and legal adversaries. Their battle to outperform each other is clearly reflected in the extravagant nature of these projects. Each camp also has its own food relief program, the best-known of which is the Bangalore-based Akshaya Patra and the other, ISKCON Food Relief, both serving mid-day meals to Indian school children. Despite the vermin and lizards that are discovered in these foodstuffs with alarming frequency, these ISKCON-sponsored programs do serve meals to needy children.

Unfortunately, they also serve to detract donors and prospective donors from learning the truth about the cult’s beliefs and mission. Without further ado, I wish to present the following quotation from a letter dated 31 Dec. 1972, from the founder/acharya of the Hare Krishna movement, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, to his disciple Bali Mardana Goswami, which precisely describes the guru's policy on collecting donations:

Your mentioning Bangladesh feeding of refugees, of course we are feeding sometimes the local inhabitants, up to 1,000 persons on some occasions, but there is no organized program of feeding the refugees at Mayapur. In fact, so far I have seen, all the refugees from Nadia District have gone back to Bangladesh,there are no more refugee camps. So it will not be the truth to say to people like that, but I have no objection if they give more hearing by such thing. Let them say, who will check us? We may tell any damn thing to induce people to give us money on Krsna's behalf, that is not the point.The point is that by saying lies, the less advanced neophyte devotees may become entangled or disturbed in their minds by it. Of course by their collecting more money and giving to Krsna, He will relieve them of all anxiety of telling lies. But not everyone is able to catch the big fish without themselves becoming wet. 

Moreover, on the same date he wrote to Sankarasana Das that "so the idea is not what you say, so much as how you say it."  How disgusting and evil! To claim that one becomes an advanced devotee by becoming a suave liar and that Krishna will actually aid them in this practice is simply insane. Sad to say, the import of these blatantly unethical statements was not lost on the swami's disciples and that understanding has laid the groundwork for ISKCON's subsequent fundraising practices. If the foundation of your so-called religious principles is based on lies, the temples you build on top of it--however grand and imposing--are indeed monuments to dead ideas. Shame on both ISKCON camps for perpetuating this nonsense! It was one thing during the swami's lifetime to fool hippies and counter-culture discontents outside of India, but today the vast majority of donors are born Hindus, both Indian and nonresident Indian.

To add insult to injury, ISKCON treats donors and prospective donors alike as cash cows by carefully cultivating them via lavish programs and events that both flatter them and appeal to their cultural interests. The cult's ludicrous beliefs--in particular its so-called "Vedic Science," which both temples mentioned above intend to lavishly depict and celebrate--are carefully concealed, a practice that the swami used to ensnare his Western disciples (he called it "gradually revealing the truth"). His followers have perpetuated this pattern of deception and use it to this day to ensnare donors and devotees alike. It is my mission to remedy this situation.

New Posting! Don't miss: https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-note-to-my-readers-voice-crying-in.html.

See also: https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com. 

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No part of this essay can be reproduced in any medium without the express written consent of the author.

SAFFRON ROBES & ROLE PLAYING: THE ISKCON CULT IN HINDU DISGUISE

HARE KRISHNA DEVOTEES, NYC.

Although many years ago I was one of them, today whenever I see a non-Indian Hare Krishna devotee walking down the street clad in a sari, it fills me with a profound sense of disquiet. Something is clearly wrong. On the other hand, to see a Hindu woman outside of India wearing a sari in any setting--professional or just shopping with her family--seems absolutely normal. 

When I was a child, my mother always described Indians as Hindus and never failed to mention how both their men and women are intelligent and good-looking. It is also worth mentioning that these observations went hand-in-hand with the high esteem she held for Hindu philosophy, which she attributed to the radio lectures by Jiddu Krishnamurti she listened to as a child.

I learned first-hand just why the identity of Indians is intertwined with Hinduism when I visited the pilgrimage town of Vrindavan in the early 70's (shortly after the arranged disaster of a marriage to an Indian I discuss elsewhere in this blog). We had just finished visiting the "old" Govindaji temple and the newer version when I spotted an much larger, really gorgeous one nearby. Apparently a sign warning non-Hindus not to enter was posted outside, but my husband told me to cover my face with my sari with only my eyes showing.  

Well, as you can imagine, the gatekeepers saw my white skin and forbade my entrance. What is more, they  started shouting (in Hindi), "the English, the English," to my considerable amusement and surprise. Since I had just learned that the top floors of the old Govindaji temple had been razed on the orders of the infamous  Mughal tyrant, Aurangzeb, they might as well have been shouting, "the Muslims, the Muslims." However, my impression of these old, unhealed traumas seemed to make their pride in the survival of their Hindu heritage that much stronger.

Unfortunately, with the rise of the New Age infatuation with exoticism of all kinds, many Indian swamis eager to manipulate the gullible crept in and used marketing tactics to their advantage. Based on my own experience, the following sums up one of the worst offenders:

When A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada  took it upon himself to export Gaudiya (Bengali) Vaishnavism to the West in 1966, he also repeatedly denounced Hinduism. Instead, he preached that the bhakti-yoga practice consisting of chanting, deity worship, and literal scripture readings was the only path to Sanatan Dharma. To his American and European followers, it was also presented as an easy way to self-realization.



In fact, as the notorious history of the Hare Krishna cult has amply demonstrated, it was nothing but a cheap imitation. Consequently, it bred a host of contemptuous, ignorant cowards among the American followers of the Swami's Hare Krishna movement, many of whom survive to this day, using propaganda, violence, and subterfuge in their "devotional" conquests.

Moreover, despite the popularity of Yoga and Meditation world-wide, their practice does not make the beneficiaries of these ancient disciplines Hindus. Why, then, do the members of the  Hare Krishna (ISKCON) claim that their bhakti-yoga practice is an exception? Using the example of the Gaudiya Vaishnava saint Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu as proof that non-caste Hindus can study Vedanta and become brahmins by virtue of their chanting the Hare Krishna mantra proves nothing.

Far worse, it treats Bhakti-Yoga as a kind of Hindu magic: simply chant the Maha Mantra, eat food offered to the Radha Krishna deity, and you too can become better than a brahmin or an Indian who by birth is a Hindu?

EASTERN CULTS AS INCUBATORS OF EXTREMISM: THE HARE KRISHNA MOVEMENT

ISKCON Founder A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami on Killing Non-Believers:

Practically speaking, Vaishnavas are killers. . . It is not that because Mohammed used a sword, we also must use a sword, No! --we can use a Gun. We will ask-...You like Krishna?? No--Booom..You like Krishna? No--Booom. We can use everything for Krishna, we can use the ATOM BOMB FOR KRISHNA!! We have to kill this civilization of mudhas [fools] . . .those who are mudhas, we have to kill them. This is our business. Kill all the mudhas. . . Not now but later when we are more powerful.

 Morning Walk, Vrindavan: 15 March 1974. 

To my readers: if you are new to this blog or one of my regulars, it is almost certain that you or a member of your family has been manipulated at some time by the tactics of the Hare Krishna cultists. It is also safe to assume that you wonder how the Islamic terrorists ravaging the Middle East attract so many youthful followers despite their death-loving ideology. In fact, you already know why and how such quasi-religious cults operate based on your experience within ISKCON. Now is the time to retrieve this knowledge out of the dustbin of the past and put it to practical use. 

INTRODUCTION

Why is the sight of a youth being recruited on the street by a member of ISIS so eerily familiar? That describes my feelings exactly as I recently saw a video clip from Australia of one of these fanatics in action. The pattern is unmistakable: the target is approached by a person whose appearance and fervor declare an allegiance to a call to arms that transcends the rule of law and any obligations to family or the homeland. This call to brotherhood—complete with handshakes and hugs--is nothing more than an invitation to join a gang whose core ideology and practices reveal that it is really nothing more than a cult. Worse, the signs pointing to cults as incubators of extremism have been glaringly obvious in the West for more than 40 years.

Now that youths from these countries are joining ISIS in droves, the news is rife with accounts about how they should be punished upon their return and thus prevented from importing terrorism back to their homelands. Such policies are necessary, of course, but they are also politically expedient smokescreens for an inconvenient truth: some of our young adults are ignorant, lazy parasites eager to secure an easy future for themselves at any cost to others.

Those of us with years of experience in ISKCON should use the valuable insights we possess to teach such would-be miscreants how to avoid the cult indoctrination process altogether. They might have mutated over two generations, but the diseases afflicting both cultists and terrorists have one symptom in common: at their core they are cults of personality with only a thin veneer of religiosity. 

Before I continue with my essay, I would like to thank two great souls--each in their own way the pride of India--who have inspired and instructed me in various ways. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar for his inspiring critique of the caste system, Annihilation of Caste and for his incomplete gem, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Ancient India. The life and teachings of Swami Vivekananda have also illuminated my solitary path in many ways and for that I am deeply grateful.

ISIS: OLD WHINE IN NEW BOTTLES 

How does an otherwise unremarkable young man, usually from a working class family, turn into a hero- worshiping jihadist? At first glance, it appears that the new recruit has been illuminated by a sudden blast of piety: he becomes immersed in studying the Koran and quits drinking, whoring, and drug taking. So far, so good. However, when he travels to meet with his ISIS brothers, the pious cloud disperses, revealing just another gangster with a penchant for murder, rape, and pillaging. Instead of teaching its new recruits to assume responsibility for their own actions, terrorists preach a doctrine of victimization by Western culture and add to it a criminal sense of entitlement. In practice, it is a license for seeking out non-Islamic minorities and using them as scapegoats for their ill-conceived rage and insecurities.

Most recently, Graeme Wood, in his now famous article, "What ISIS Really Wants," has traced the impetus for its followers' practices to a literalist, millenarian interpretation of the Koran. These practices include eliminating any Muslim who does not subscribe to the Islamic State's reactionary, simplistic world view. Muslims who depart from what Wood calls a "seventh-century legal environment" are infidels who must die, whereas all others must be subjugated, acknowledge the supremacy of ISIS, and pay fines to ensure their continued existence. Bernard Haykel (whose authority on ISIS Wood cites many times in his article) adds elsewhere that the Islamic State's back-to-basics mentality sidesteps a tradition of diverse, learned Islamic interpretation that spans more than a thousand years. The reason for this pitiful state of affairs, according to R. Rumi of the Hudson Institute, is "the weakened state" of that tradition today stemming from the Islamist misuse of ideology in the pursuit of their political aspirations.

One of the most persistent fallacies plaguing religious fundamentalists of all denominations is the idea that scriptures are products of divine inspiration, usually originating from oral recitations of great antiquity that were codified by one or more holy scribes who tradition holds merely functioned as mouthpieces of a prophet. Modern scholarship avails itself of textual, archaeological and linguistic research to provide a more historically accurate picture of how scriptures developed, but the fanatics bent on insisting that everyone read with the literalism of small children need to offer incentives to their would-be followers that appear to put them on a fast track to enjoying adult goods and services they have done absolutely nothing to legitimately acquire.

The reformation Islam needs at a minimum is therefore two-fold: its members must repair its image world-wide, beginning with condemning the terrorist model of rape and plunder as economic and political suicide; in addition,private and public educational institutions must endeavor to create an atmosphere where Islamic interpretation is encouraged and its scholars protected. Needless to say, implementing these changes will entail considerable risk since it requires freedom of speech and other individual liberties that gangs such as ISIS and the Taliban have systemically denied to all in their reach in their frenzied race to oblivion.

Moreover, the naked opportunism that characterizes ISIS--for all of its appeal to a medieval Prophet-centered worldview--is expressed using methods that are quite technologically adept. It is as if their black-clad followers have emerged out of an Islamic-themed version of the Call of Duty video game, smartphones and computers at hand, using the latest social media to urge the gullible to regress to a tribalist existence filled with mayhem and slaughter. Unfortunately, but for a change of religion and attire, the practices now associated with ISIS have been used repeatedly by any number of cults that began to infiltrate American and European society beginning in the counter-culture ("Hippie/New Age") era of the mid 1960's and continuing to the present. What follows will establish beyond a reasonable doubt that religious fanaticism, much like an antibiotic-resistant plague, is capable of adapting to find better ways of breaking down the resistance of its hosts. 

CULTS OF PERSONALITY

Who can forget the first time you set eyes on your guru and felt your heart leap in the presence of what you believed was a direct conduit to the spiritual realm? Surely his Vedic wisdom--the glory of Eastern spirituality--far surpassed the inferior Abrahamic religions. It all seemed somehow miraculous: the ecstatic mantra chanting and dancing, together with the immediate acceptance by the devotees in the temple, seemed to transport you to another sphere of existence, one in which the rules of your former life need no longer apply. What if your new life required you to sleep on the floor, rise at 4:00 in the morning to worship brass and marble deities, and then spend the rest of the day on the street or at airports hawking books you hardly read yourself? What if your guru--despite all scientific evidence to the contrary--insists that the "infallible" Vedic cosmology locates the Sun closer to the Earth than the Moon and states that this planet itself is a disk supported in the heavens by four elephants?

Similarly, if you are a newly-hatched terrorist prowling about Syria or Iraq looking for anyone your self-appointed Caliph deems an apostate, what will you do when these so-called apostates beat your forces into submission? Whether you are committed to following an ISKCON guru or waving a black ISIS flag, sacrificing your rational faculties for an obvious ruse also means that you have unnecessarily sacrificed your humanity. Such a deluded state of mind and the actions necessary to sustain it typically require the new adherents' adoption by a leader or guru, who, together with his other followers, convinces them that salvation is to be found in retreating to another time and place where they are de facto reborn with new ethnicities and allegiances. ISIS, for example, is fiercely determined to build an Islamic society based on a seventh-century model derived from a literal reading of the Holy Koran. It is as if they are time travelers from the past who are given falsified passports that they somehow believe render them fully-functional members of a divinely inspired people destined to drive out infidels and subjugate all others.

Wresting these lost souls from their delusions and bringing them back to reality will prove to be a challenge, as families and friends of cult members learned back in the hippie era. Their ideological grandchildren--both the Hindu would-be cultists and the Islamic terrorist imports from the West--cannot be saved until they learn to recognize the dangers of literal scriptural readings (especially in regard to apocalyptic themes) and begin to think for themselves.

SOPHISTRY AND SCAPEGOATING 

Perhaps the most effective means of brainwashing the followers of either a cult or a terrorist gang is the use of violent propaganda lifted from religious texts that are both taken in a literal sense and presented as the bedrock of an ancient social order. To new adherents searching for a rapid-fire means to enlightenment, the ardent, blind faith in a few lines of a holy book taken out of context often seems like an easy way to feign knowledge of a scripture they lack the erudition and the inclination to study and read at greater length. In most cases, however, they slavishly follow and disseminate their leaders' commentaries on scripture without reading the original for themselves and seeking to educate themselves beyond what is strictly allowed by the cult. The following examples of scripture and commentary from sacred texts of Hinduism and Islam show what mischief can arise when they are taken literally:

Founder/Acharya of the Hare Krishna movement, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada:

Arjuna was a great Vaishnava, and he was killing. Bhima was a great Vaishnava, and he was killing. Dhruva Maharaja was a Vaishnava, and he was killing. Parikshit Maharaja was killing. Prahlada Maharaja was killing. Rama was killing. Krishna was killing. Practically speaking, Vaishnavas are killers. . . It is not that because Mohammed used a sword, we also must use a sword, No! --we can use a Gun. We will ask-...You like Krishna??No--Booom..You like Krishna? No--Booom. We can use everything for Krishna, we can use the ATOM BOMB FOR KRISHNA!!We have to kill this civilization of mudhas [fools] . . .those who are mudhas, we have to kill them. This is our business. Kill all the mudhas. . . Not now but later when we are more powerful. 

 Morning Walk, Vrindavan: 15 March 1974. 

Whatever Muhammad said that is authority. That we accept. We accept Muhammad as the representative of God. Whatever he says, we accept; that's all. What you mean, that is your business. But he is the authority; he said, This is the name of God. You chant, you pray. "Allah of God." That's all. This is authority. 

Room conversation. Tehran: 14 March 1975. 

Manu Samhita (Oxford Edition):

Drinking (spirituous liquor), associating with wicked people, separating from the husband, rambling abroad, sleeping (at unseasonable hours), and dwelling in other men's houses, are the six causes of the ruin of women. Women do not care for beauty, nor is their attention fixed on age; (thinking), '(it is enough that) he is a man,' they give themselves to the handsome and to the ugly.Through their passion for men, through their mutable temper, through their natural heartlessness, they become disloyal towards their husbands, however carefully they may be guarded in this (world).Knowing their disposition, which the Lord of creatures laid in them at the creation, to be such, (every) man should most strenuously exert himself to guard them.(When creating them) Manu allotted to women (a love of their)bed, (of their) seat and (of) ornament, impure desires, wrath, dishonesty, malice, and bad conduct. 9: 13-17. 

A man, aged thirty years, shall marry a maiden of twelve who pleases him, or a man of twenty-four a girl eight years of age; if (the performance of) his duties would (otherwise) be impeded, (he must marry) sooner. 9: 94. 

 Holy Quran:

And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing . . .But if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah and worship is for Allah alone.I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them. 8:12. 

 The "kill the mudhas" bluster A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada engaged in during the last years of his life shows how role-playing is an intrinsic part of the cult leadership mentality. Another is the practice of demonizing your real or imagined opponents and both exaggerating the threat they pose to you as well as your reaction to it. The fools our guru advocated killing would include anyone not a Krishna devotee, yet when he went to Tehran to preach, his absolutism shifted to relativism--"we accept Muhammad as the representative of God"--an obvious attempt to disarm his hosts. He would also use this trick on Christians and Jews: he claimed that Jesus was an avatar of Vishnu and praised Jewish intelligence on various occasions (many of his early American disciples were Jewish) and then praised Hilter and Lenin at unguarded moments or in private correspondence.

Similarly, the Swami insisted that the (Laws of Manu) is "the law book for the entire human society"iii but departed from its treatment of castes as hereditary, claiming that by chanting the Hare Krishna mantra and "by accepting regulative principles, even Westerners (mlecchas and yavanas) become brahmanas"iv Regardless of what the Bengali reformer and Vaishnava saint Chaitanya Mahaprabhu advocated, to regard the chaturvarna (four castes) system as anything but hereditary and rigidly hierarchical is to deny the scriptural foundations on which they rest and the fanatical way they have been maintained in the past and most certainly in the present. In her introduction to B.R. Ambedkar's, Annihilation of Caste, Arundhati Roy observes that unlike "contemporary abominations like apartheid, racism, sexism, economic imperialism and religious fundamentalism," the caste system gets a relatively free ride from international criticism The West's continuing flirtation with Eastern mysticism and exoticism in general might be a mitigating factor, but when a prominent organization of British Hindus can flatly state that "any form of discrimination is frowned upon by Hindu Dharma," it is clear to anyone even dimly aware of the caste-related violence that continues to roil India, that something more than mere denial is afoot. Of course, those of you who were ISKCON devotees are well aware of the kind of "Brahmins" our guru managed to create was as notorious in its own way as the abuses hereditary Brahmins and other upper caste Hindus heap upon the Dalits. These Hare Krishna brahmins were, in dress, laughable imitations of Gaudiya Vaishnavas in tilok and saffron garb, obsessed with controlling their sankirtan-funded temples and, after our guru's demise in 1977, a bunch of power-hungry businessmen fighting for guruship,embroiling themselves in various territorial squabbles.

PROPAGANDA BREEDS PARASITES 

 When a political party wishes to hide inconvenient news from the voting public, it will sanitize, expurgate,and sugarcoat as it sees fit and voila! Propaganda is born, an evil with more heads than the demon Ravana. Although it is an insult to reason, propaganda carries an emotional charge that causes the gullible to attach themselves to it like flies to honey. In turn, these human flies become carriers of the propaganda virus and act like parasites in spreading delusions saturated with emotional content. I remember chanting and dancing with other Hare Krishna devotees, awash in our exoticism-intoxication, only to discover in short order that our guru was far more interested in our selling his books. Sure enough, soon "sankirtan" no longer meant congregational chanting, it meant "hitting the street" and making nuisances of ourselves in airports. Our budding piety and enthusiasm became the tool of another person's desire to perpetuate himself.

This pattern also applies to religious-terrorist groups such as ISIS and the Taliban. Everyone knows, for example, that the puppet-masters without whose ideological and financial support terrorists could not survive would themselves be munching dates and fighting petty tribal skirmishes if not for the immense revenue stream flowing from their nationalized oil fields. The rise of tightly organized terrorist groups openly sponsored by either Saudi Arabia or Iran shows how "geography is destiny" insofar as their funding is concerned. As for their gun-toting pawns, they are fools to think that their economic and educational impotence can be cured by dressing like an assassin out of a video game and roving about butchering innocents. Until and unless they stop living off the largesse of others, they will find themselves unable to afford the typical appliances--not even a lowly microwave oven--they will need if they are to attempt to bribe a poor family to allow them to marry one of their daughters.

Similarly, cults, whether they are outgrowths of established religions or simply the product of a fevered imagination, survive by attaching themselves to productive individuals and draining their funds with the tenacity of leeches. Thus fattened, they invest these "contributions" in lavish temples, restaurants, and various elaborate functions, all of which serve to stuff their coffers to the bursting point. Your actual religious beliefs might be absurd and laughable, but if you open a nice vegetarian restaurant and flatter your patrons, who cares? ISKCON, in addition, has gotten into the practice of giving its temples names (e.g., ISKCON Cultural Center) in an effort to seek legitimacy and broader social acceptance by the Hindu community. So, on the one hand, you have pious Hindus making large pledges to support ISKCON and Akshaya Patra food for school children programs, while the history of the catastrophe its founder's single-minded focus on selling his books visited upon the children of his disciples has been conveniently swept into the dustbin of the cult's early history. What is the likely outcome when a parasite encourages others to become parasites? Ask any of the innocent Indian school children who have been fed vermin-infested dal and roti mid-day meals by ISKCON food relief and the better-known Akshaya Patra! It is maddening even to think of such indignities visiting the recipients of an act of charity, which, for many, is indignity enough.

Little do they know that the carnival-like atmosphere of many of the temple programs is simply a means to direct attention away from the cult's ludicrous and contrived beliefs, what to speak of the abuses their internal hierarchical systems heap upon strict followers and dissidents alike. Chief among these beliefs is their insistence on perpetuating their guru's claim that he was the first Indian guru to bring the true wisdom of the Vedas to the West and that his translation of and commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita are uniquely authoritative. To believe these claims, one would have to be both gullible and suffering from a severe case of historical amnesia. In fact, by his own admission, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada never read the Vedas and openly plagiarized the translation of the text of the Bhagavad-Gita from the Gita Press edition.

Today, the miasma of deception to which we once succumbed has long since dissipated, having taken with it our youthful idealism and in too many cases, the best years of our lives. Despite losing these years, many of us have triumphed over great adversity to raise our children, obtain stable employment, and, in many cases put ourselves through college and even graduate school. Life does indeed find a way. For others, adapting to society after spending years and sometimes decades in the alternate universe of a repressive and sadistic cult has been a never-ending struggle. The years spent with the Hare Krishna cult (or any other similar pseudo-religious group) inevitably will have a formative effect on one's life. So the interest in what the cult is currently doing to ensnare newcomers and keep its current members docile and deluded does resurface, often with alarming results.

Imagine my horror in this regard, to learn that my guru--whose "four regulative principles" observed rigorously by his initiated disciples contained a ban on any form of tobacco--used snuff (powdered tobacco) to stay awake when he was working on his commentary of the Srimad Bhagavatam. This revelation hit me hard, bringing back memories of my habit of fiercely defending my guru when anyone would dare criticize him. I had no idea that we had been duped by a public relations scheme, any more than the lost souls who are streaming from all over the world to join the jihadists in the Middle East and now, parts of North Africa, eager to regress morally and intellectually in a tribalist quest for ill-gotten gains. Add to this the role of social media in disseminating a stream of half-truths and wild distortions to those without the education and common sense to separate fact from fiction and you have a toxic brew for which few antidotes exist. However, we must try.

I submit that the antidote is education, beginning in elementary school where both boys and girls learn to compare and contrast the religious beliefs and associated cultural practices of major world religions. Teachers should be recruited, as they are in Finland and South Korea, from the top 10% of the college classes and be compensated generously. Students should progressively learn rhetoric and the fundamentals of argumentative reasoning. The basis of such education is to teach students--boys and girls--to develop their reasoning powers and intellectual prowess. A youth who has learned to recognize the ideological maneuvers of cults can easily demolish them and actually point out their deficiencies to the slack-jawed cultist who is trying to recruit him or her. But what about the unemployed youths who turn to cults the same way many of their friends turn to gangs? This is an issue too many choose to side-step, focusing instead on methods of deterrence and profiling.

The answer is again to be found in the Nordic and South Korean models of education, where it is recognized that not all students are college-bound, and educated accordingly. Many of the social problems in the ghetto-like housing developments in the outskirts of major European and North American cities could be vastly diminished if youths starting high school entered apprenticeship programs where they learn a trade from mature professionals in various fields. Part of the job description for these educators involves encouraging and nurturing the talents of their young charges, many of whom lack a stable father figure at home. Believe me, if a young man or woman has the social and technical skills to earn a living upon graduating from high school, they will almost certainly look at gangs and cult recruiters as nothing more than a bunch of losers and parasites.

Most of all, our children must be taught an unwavering respect for the integrity and fundamental human rights of the individual. This must include freedom to pursue one's own interests and happiness without degrading or enslaving another regardless of religious or cultural precedent. Freedom of speech, including the right (as in this essay and others in this blog) to present opposing arguments and share one's personal experiences in order to help secure the rights of others and embolden them to seek redress as necessary and in a lawful manner. Finally, we should keep in mind Swami Vivekananda's exhortation that we: 

Do not believe in a thing because you have read about it in a book. Do not believe in a thing because another man has said it was true. Do not believe in words because they are hallowed by tradition. Find out the truth for yourself. Reason it out. That is realization.

 i. http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980. ii ii.http://www.hudson.org/research/11172-the-prospects-for-reform-in-islam iii Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, 3.21 purport. iv Srimad Bhagavatam 6.5.39 "Purport" by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. v http://hfb.org.uk. "Caste within the Single Equality Bill 2010." vi Swami Nikhilananda. Vivekananda: a Biography. NY: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1953.

 All rights reserved. No part of this essay can be reproduced in any medium without the express written consent of the author.

MISSION STATEMENT

Enlightening readers about the beliefs and practices of the Hare Krishna (ISKCON) cult is the sole purpose of this blog and its companion, The ISKCON Cult Unveiled, at https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com. Many of the essays I have written over the past ten years deal with controversial issues and others deal with basic philosophical concerns.

Like most cults, ISKCON is two-faced: it has a private side that it reveals to its adherents and another is reserved for the public. Exposing the truth about both aspects of the Hare Krishna movement is vital for a number of reasons that I will summarize shortly. Before I continue, however, let me introduce myself.

Back in 1967, my sister and I (we were 16 and 14 years old, respectively) saw a group of Hare Krishna devotees dancing and singing at one of the famous Central Park “Be-In” hippie events in the “Summer of Love.” One of the devotees approached me and invited me to the group’s “love feast” that they held every Sunday. (For more details about our actual visit, please see my blog essay, https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2010/07/reductive-thinking-and-cult-propaganda.html) I began high school that September and in December, my sister and I were initiated by the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (also called “Srila Prabhupada”). My initiated name was Ekayani and my sister’s became Indira.

Ekayani “married” at 17 years old!

Our guru had come to New York only the year before, so I became at that time both one of the earliest and youngest initiated devotees. We certainly were sincere and stalwart devotees, going to school during the week and worshipping our deities at home and living for the weekends when we would take the subway train to the temple and help prepare the Sunday love feast. We also carefully read all of the scriptures our guru translated (or so we thought) and for which he also prepared commentaries (“purports”), such as The Bhagavad-Gita As It Is and the multi-volume Srimad Bhagavatam (Bhagwat Purana). We also created oil paintings of various scenes in the Krishna legend in our spare time.

After two years, my elder sister married a devotee and moved to St. Louis to start a temple there. Her loss left me to pursue my devotional service in near total isolation, but I persevered. Tragically, just after I graduated from high school, I was told by my sister, her husband, and Srila Prabhupada’s personal secretary that our guru had ordered me to marry one Gopal Krishna dasa, an Indian (now the guru Gopal Krishna Goswami) then living at the Montreal temple. I was only 17 years old and a virgin. (As it turns out, Srila Prabhupada told me himself that he had never given such an order.) For me, that horrific event ended the honeymoon phase of my involvement with the Hare Krishna movement.

But I digress. I do, however, want to make it perfectly clear that I knew the founder-acharya of the Hare Krishna movement personally (in fact, he never failed to greet me whenever we met, even when there was a crowd of other devotees present). I also wrote many letters to him, all of which he answered, sometimes at length (see one very influential photocopy of one at the end of this blog page). Critics of my views, all absolute strangers who never met me or my guru, think their fanatic adherence to his now-thoroughly discredited views entitles them to diagnose me as an insane person and recommend that I seek professional help. Such persons are themselves delusional and, should they ever find the fortitude to reject the nonsensical beliefs they slavishly follow, will find themselves on a therapist’s coach for years to come.

It is a daunting task to summarize the truly bizarre beliefs that our guru held and that he insisted we accept without any investigation on our part. As I and many others have written elsewhere, the problem seems to have its source in his belief that Gaudiya (Bengali) Vaishnavism is the ultimate expression of devotion to Lord Krishna, despite the fact that the philosophy of the character of Bhagwan Sri Krishna in the Gita and the Indian folk stories about the antics of Krishna and his cowherd gopis cannot be compared. He also held that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, a Bengali Krishna enthusiast, was an incarnation of both Radha and Krishna together, ignoring the obvious: read the Chaitanya Charitamrita and a picture emerges of a cross-dressing Brahmin whose ”devotional” proclivities are better left unstated.

How could I, a woman who, after leaving ISKCON after wasting 13 years of life there, manage to earn a B.A. and M.A. while raising my son alone and working a demanding, full-time job (I have worked for a total of 33 years), if, as Srila Prabhupada insisted, women have half the brains of men and (I quote) “there is no very great scientist, mathematician, philosopher among woman.” In these and other laughably ignorant comments about so-called Vedic science— coming from a one-time chemist who, by his own admission, never read the Vedas—A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami proved that he lacked the authority by education and common sense to represent the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita to the West. How could we naively sit by and listen to this man state that the moon is farther away than the sun and the astronauts could never have gone to the moon since it is a “heavenly” planet and they never worshipped the moon-god Chandra in the first place?

Rather than continuing to hide their fundamental beliefs under a cloak of secrecy, ISKCON leaders and members should adopt a full disclosure policy immediately. Your lives--your souls--deserve no less. We  are all reminded from the lethal building collapses in the news that to live in a building with a faulty foundation is to court disaster.

Before ending, I want to restate that my writings are intended solely to educate and inform. Furthermore, I strongly believe in freedom of religion, but still insist that children, who, as the gurukula tragedy taught the public are helpless in such an irrational and abusive world view, are educated in public or private schools with a state-approved curriculum. I also despise and disavow any kind of discriminatory views, whether they concern women, ethnic groups of any kind, races, or religion. Lastly, I want to make it clear that the views expressed in this blog are mine alone and that I labor on them without assistance and have never received any financial help of any kind to support my efforts.

Just out! Please see: https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-note-to-my-readers-voice-crying-in.html

Select Essays on Various Topics in This Blog

Abuse of the Legacy of Ramakrishna Paramhamsa and Swami Vivekananda:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2012/09/standing-on-shoulders-of-giants.html

ISKCON Pretends to be an Ambassador of India's Cultural Heritage:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2011/10/iskcon-cultural-center-hoax.html

Using the Bhagavad-Gita to Advance ISKCON's Ambitions in Russia:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2012/03/gita-and-russia-another-iskcon-public.html

Female Infanticide and Selective Abortion:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2012/01/sequin-for-mr-al-zahrani-very-short.html

Evils of Arranged Marriage and Treatment of Widows in India:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2010/03/widows-and-child-brides-no-more.html

Child Abuse in ISKCON and Organized Religion:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2011/08/sex-abuse-claiments-win-big-justice-at.html

Link between Cultural Intrusions in Russia and Terrorism:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2011/01/islamic-tribalism-converts-and-terror.html

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SELF-DIAGNOSIS & THE GURU SYNDROME

If a beggar clad in a saffron robe knocked on your door demanding entry with a sob story about how the food another family fed him gave him a heart attack, would you admit him or direct him to the nearest pharmacy to buy a bottle of antacids? I know what I would do. Hypochondriacs at least do not intend to commit fraud by their habits of self-diagnosis, but the wandering sannyasi clearly does.

This type of emotional appeal to decent people is a favorite tactic of con artists everywhere. The modus operandi is simplicity itself: pose as a representative of a recognized charity or religious order and pull the heart-strings of the target with stories of your selfless devotion to your noble cause and the poverty you have endured in its pursuit. If you are lucky, your target will confide in you and he will receive from you a solemn promise that you will keep any information he divulges strictly confidential. However,  this business is nothing more than an attempt to blackmail a trusting soul. Better be prepared:  once the ruse is discovered, all hell will break loose.

These Indian Wizards of Oz will continue to practice their ruses in the West as long as gullible truth-seekers look to them for easy and exotic pathways to the truth. Legions of such fools have wasted their lives pursuing these illusions, and more seem to come out of nowhere bent on the same foolishness. We are all familiar with the claims of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi camp in the sixties that he could teach them “yogic flying,” which turned out to be nothing more than a matter of a guy in a lotus position jumping up and down on a foam mattress. Wildly exaggerated claims abound; for example, followers of Sri Chinmoy claim that “he has written 1,200 books, 62,000 poems, and 14,000 songs.” What is beyond dispute is that these gurus are two-legged myth-making machines and two-faced liars. Osho Rajneesh gained considerable infamy for calling his disciples “sannyasins” and then encouraging them to satisfy their sexual urges like a bunch of frenzied animals in heat. Secretive illicit sexual connections were widely reported of Sri Chinmoy, and more recently, have characterized the sexual proclivities of the youthful guru Nithyananda.

In the case of the founder of the Hare Krishna movement, his self-diagnosis of the “heart attack” he suffered on the Jaladuta (the ship that he took to travel to the U.S. in 1965 with just a few dollars in his pocket) has become the stuff of legend. Trouble is, the extreme distress some travelers experience due to bad food and turbulence is often mistaken for a heart attack, but it is usually just a severe case of acid reflux. You simply do not suffer a heart attack at an advanced age and get up and walk off the ship with your little suitcase. It might be hard to digest, but it’s the truth.

For a new, related essay, please go to:

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2015/08/new-eastern-cults-as-incubators-of.html

Also see:

http://www.behind-the-tm-facade.org/Transcendental_Meditation-myths.htm.
.
http://www.salon.com/1999/10/20/osho/.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/57807/cult-preying-feeding-anxieties.html.

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STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

As I sat in the train this morning looking for the few remaining swans that float in pairs in the wetlands just off the Hudson River, I felt a pang in my heart. Such loyalty and grace! If time is a stern teacher, one of its hardest lessons is that these qualities--so natural in these creatures—are one of mankind’s rarest and most transient possessions. Too many people we believe are worthy of our deepest regard abuse our trust and often in ways that can only disgust and disappoint. Among the worst of these are people in high leadership positions who base their claims of authority on the spotless reputation of their predecessors. Unfortunately for these charlatans (in politics, religions, etc.), when they fall, their so-called authoritative claims collapse like a deck of cards. What their followers once took for a swan is in fact more akin to a vulture. When one hears of these betrayals of faith, it is consoling to remember the few genuine paramahamsas who emerge from the mists of time more gracious and loyal than the swans after which they are named. At moments like this, their memory is balm to the wounded soul who might imagine himself as one of the swans’ offspring that awkwardly paddle along in the wake of their majestic parents.

Swami Vivekananda

Great souls, moreover, are as likely to appear as leaders in science and the arts as they do in religion or philosophy. Gifted with the legendary discriminatory powers of the paramahamsas (“great swans”) of Hindu legend, these men and women of genius instinctively seek out the essential and categorically reject false or interpolated “facts” in any field of endeavor. This quality is not simply a product of innate intelligence, but is carefully honed using an educational model based on the scientific method of inquiry. Although the phenomena studied can vary widely, the procedure is the same: data needs to be collected carefully using observation and experimentation, and conclusions can be reached only after testing one’s hypothesis under a rigid control model. Terminology must also be clear and the methodology used must be clear enough to be reproduced by one’s peers. In the end, the conclusion must be a logical consequence of the hypothesis. Poets and artists use a similar method in that they must closely observe phenomena and proceed with their interpretation with as much craft as imagination. One of the best examples of this marriage of skill and artistic expression is the aptly-named Sundarakanda of the Valmiki’s Ramayana.

In religion, the stakes are much higher and for good reason: spirituality is a quality shared by humanity in general and the yearning for transcendence is universal. Our conscience is an innate quality born of our unique cerebral capabilities, the byproduct of which is our capability to see ourselves objectively. For some, this leads to the impression that we are embodied spirits. Those of us who share this belief that we are souls sent here on a mission by our Creator find our consciences guided by His presence, be it the Paramatma or the Holy Spirit. These shared agreements notwithstanding, the notion that the Hindu religion is a primitive, barbaric faith peopled by idol worshippers of every description dominated Western views of the subcontinent until the late 19th century. If not for the courageous efforts of the great Bengali Hindu reformers, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and his disciple, Swami Vivekananda, this view might very well have remained unchallenged to this day.

As a student of religion who spent her teenage years and most of her young adulthood as a disciple of the Gaudiya Vaishnava guru, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, it never fails to amaze me how he reviled the fellow Indian mystics who not only introduced Hinduism to the West. Moreover, if not for their combined efforts, the receptivity of his ideas to these foreigners would have been virtually nil. In other words, my guru stood on the shoulders of the giants of modern Hinduism and had the temerity to declare that he and the cult peopled by his mostly-Western followers superseded all of them. If not for the obfuscation and outright lies that the ISKCON/Hare Krishna movement has perpetrated on a sizable portion of the Hindu public in India and abroad, I would never have spent so much time expounding on how Bhaktivedanta Swami dismissed the legacy of such great Indian patriots as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, and Maharshi Dayananda Saraswati. However, the truth must be told and I hope that my words reach their intended audience.

To begin this section of my essay, there is no better introduction than the great speech Swami Vivekananda gave as a delegate to the 1893 Parliament of the World’s religions in Chicago, beginning with the famous “Brothers and Sisters of America”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxUzKoIt5aM . This electrifying performance, while it obviously thrilled the audience, must have reached the heavens, where I hope it was received with great satisfaction by Vivekenanda’s guru, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (who attained mahasamadhi in 1886). What praise can be sufficient for such a guru and disciple? Vivekenanda’s bold assertion of interfaith communality had a solid comparative basis inasmuch as he was a profoundly learned man—truly a prodigy—whose accomplishments included, in addition to a deep knowledge of Sanskrit scripture, a wide-ranging study of Western philosophers from David Hume to Charles Darwin. That is, he was a student of Western skepticism and proceeded as a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa armed with a thorough understanding of philosophy both from religious and agnostic viewpoints. His advancement of the term that “all religions are pathways to God” was therefore not simply a matter of blind faith, but also an understanding based on study, observation, and the development of a terminology based on a widely-understood knowledge base. In other words, to the extent possible, Vivekenanda’s understanding of comparative religion had a scientific basis. Nevertheless, Vivekananda, was, as the philosopher William James called him, “the paragon of Vedantists.” His appreciation of other faiths never led him to waver in his own staunch Hinduism.

How appalling, therefore, to learn that the Hare Krishna guru, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, who, as I have stated, could never have attained an iota of his preaching success in America and abroad but for the great Indian pioneers who cleared the path before him, openly insulted them. For example, he dismissed the Ramakrishna Mission as “simply bogus propaganda” and its founder, Swami Vivekenanda, as a “rascal, claiming that he had “ruined the Vedic culture.” He was so incensed at the thought that his godbrother, Bon Maharaj, had been influenced by Vivekenanda that he claimed that their guru, Srila Bhaktisiddanta Maharaja, called Bon Maharaj a “black gorilla.” This fear of competition from even his own godbrothers led Bhaktivedanta Swami to issue a letter (dated 3 September, 1975) forbidding his disciples from having any dealings with any of them. Similarly, he dismissed the Arya Samaj founded by Maharshi Dayananda Saraswati, claiming in 1971 that “the Arya Samaj movement started in India but it is now dead and gone” and that “the atheistic Arya Samaj does not believe in the Bhagavad Gita.” The latter assertion is utter nonsense: of the 21 Shastras accepted by the Arya Samaj, the Mahabharata is one of them. As for the statement that this world-wide movement with 10 million followers was in 1971 “dead and gone,” all I can say that some comments are too ridiculous to deserve any kind of serious response.

Maharshi Dayananda Saraswati

It is fitting to conclude this essay by praising a few of Maharshi Dayananda Saraswati’s beliefs that are exemplary regardless of one’ s religion or nationality. The first is the preference he gave to “Nyaya,” or logic in one’s life, be it interpretation of scripture or life in general. The second is his admonition that we should think for ourselves and understand that in the search for knowledge, trial and error is inevitable. He was a reformer in the best sense of the term. His unrelenting push for Swadeshi in India had a major role in the successful fight for independence and the freedom fighters of the Arya Samaj gave their lives to the struggle in disproportionately large numbers. In comparison, the members of the ISKCON/Hare Krishna temples spend most of their donated income building ornate temples filled with idols that they dress in a manner reminiscent of the most garishly-costumed Bollywood stars imaginable. Nearby are lotus-shaped asanas for their gurus, many of which are better suited for the circus. Indeed, the entire operation of the ISKCON empire rests upon a shaky foundation of a multitude of scams meant to hoodwink donors and others of their money (including illegal land-selling scams in India), guru and idol worship, and blind adherence to their ill-informed, pseudo-Hindu doctrines. Disillusioning their members privately and chastising them publicly would be far more effective than sending these cultists donations that they cannot be trusted to use for philanthropic purposes.

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A FOOL'S PARADISE

If a fool is born every minute, it is just as tragic that their foolishness survives their childhoods. Gullible people are emotionally needy, usually in response to abuse and neglect in the early years. Betrayed and lonely, they seek those who value their services and reward their loyalty. Cults, gangs, and other sociopaths commonly take advantage of these wounded personalities. Whether they use the guises of enlightenment or rebellion against authority to dupe their followers, they are doubly criminal: they use lost souls to commit crimes and rob them of their souls in the process.

As I write in my newly-updated website, iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com, another development in this soul-destruction business has firmly taken root in the practices of the ISKCON or Hare Krishna cult. No longer characterized by ex-hippies and similar types in America and Europe, today the supporters of this proto-Hindu group are primarily Indian in origin.

 Respect for tradition and generosity characterize this large, educated, and prosperous group. However, they have been as just duped as the earlier followers who joined ISKCON in the decades after its founder-acharya, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, took his ideas to New York City in 1966. Unknown to the sincere Indians who, under the mistaken impression that these ISKCON temples are genuinely Hindu, these temples are edifices built on repugnant and anti-intellectual principles. My new essay, “ISKCON and Pederasty, Part Two” will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that what I speak is the truth.

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THE GITA AND RUSSIA: ANOTHER ISKCON PUBLIC RELATIONS SCAM

The Indian and Russian people have been the victims of a public relations scam orchestrated by a sect masquerading as Hindus. Known as ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) and for their street chanting and opulent temples both in India and in the West, this sect/cult is controlled by swamis who see nothing wrong with meddling in Indian politics as a means to legitimize their operations. Their recent alliance with the VHP (Vishnu Hindu Parishad, a fundamentalist Indian movement) regarding the alleged “banning” of the Bhagavad Gita in Russia illustrates this point. This tempest-in-a-teapot is nothing more than a transparent ploy on the part of ISKCON to abuse Hindu religious sentiment and thereby force the authorities in Moscow and Tomsk to agree to their temple and community building demands.

• Far from banning the Gita: in Tomsk, Russia, the court order filed on 30 June, 2011, only concerned part of the translation by ISKCON’s founder, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. Although this action was supposedly taken at the behest of the local Russian Orthodox Church, the real factor is believed to be a ban the same year of an ISKCON community in that region and also the matter of governmental opposition to erection of a large temple in Moscow. Why did a small part of a translation of a Hindu scripture catch the attention of the authorities in Tomsk at this particular juncture of events? And why did ISKCON try its best to use this minor issue to turn Indian legislators against Russia, one of its most steadfast allies? Instead of encouraging all parties to consider the evidence like rational human beings, the ISKCON leaders exploited the sentiments of Hindus in a ploy to turn them into an angry, seething mob.

• A letter dated 1 November 2011 written by Gopal Krishna Goswami (ISKCON “governing body commissioner” for much of Russia and India) and addressed to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s principal secretary and a copy of which was sent to Sonia Gandhi and External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, repeated the court’s assessment by a panel of experts that “Krishna is evil and not compatible with Christian values.” Why this claim was made and what passages in the Gita might have instigated this assessment are never referred to; indeed, the ISKCON public relations machine took this claim and used it to inflame anti-Russian sentiment by Hindus over the world by treating this court order as a wholesale war on Hinduism by the Russian government.

• Facts: The Bhagavad Gita is a philosophical treatise composed between 200 BC and 200 CE; it consists of 700 verses in eighteen chapters and concerns the conversation between the warrior Arjuna and his charioteer, Lord Krishna (the incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu). It is itself a part of the great Indian epic poem, the Mahabharata. Although many scholars regard it as an allegory, the ISKCON movement takes it literally and places it as occurring approximately 5000 years ago. The translation by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami includes his commentaries after each verse. It is some of these commentaries that incited the court order last year in Tomsk, Russia.

Understanding the situation of Arjuna in the Gita is essential to understanding why the panel of experts cited by the court in Tomsk claimed that “Krishna is evil and not compatible with Christian values.” The action begins with Arjuna’s inaction, for, just as the great battle of Kurukshetra was about to begin, he had his chariot parked between the two parties, one of which consisted of his own tribe, the Pandavas, and the other of his 100 cousins, the Kauravas. In other words, this was a giant fratricidal war. Arjuna was simply overwhelmed with grief at the thought of slaying so many of his relatives and at this juncture Krishna advises him for much of the poem on his duties as a member of the kshatriya, or warrior caste. Among the most famous and, for our purposes, most relevant passages in the Gita occur in Chapter Two and are quoted below using the translation in question and a brief excerpt of the commentary on each verse by A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami:

• Chapter Two, Verse 26: “If, however, you think that the soul is perpetually born and always dies, still you still have no reason to lament, O mighty-armed.”

Commentary: “No one laments the loss of a certain bulk of chemicals and stops discharging his prescribed duties.”

• Chapter Two, Verse 27: “For one who has taken his birth, death is certain; and for one who is dead, birth is certain. Therefore, in the unavoidable discharge of your duty, you should not lament.”

Commentary: “Why should be afraid of or aggrieved at the death of his relatives since he was discharging his proper duty?”

The problem with these verses and their commentary from a Western point of view should be obvious: what philosophy Krishna is expounding here is based on reincarnation and the caste system. Although few would deny that the Indian caste system is a social abomination that has used and still uses the idea of birthright to elevate others while subjugating and degrading vast numbers of its people, the commentary goes further by treating the verses as examples of philosophical nihilism.

Today, reading these commentaries, I am reminded of Stalin’s famous observation that “a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” Indeed, the number of enemy combatants Arjuna reportedly killed during only day 14 of the 18-day war was 109,350. Of course, this is all fantasy out of an epic poem, but the point is clear if you are a follower of ISKCON and believe it to be literally true: mass slaughter is a great glory as long as you are doing your “proper duty.”

If that point of view is not evil, what is? How can grief at the loss of life during war be a sign of weakness and, worse, how can a human body be considered “a certain bulk of chemicals?” It seems that the Indian legislators who were whipped into a frenzy at the thought of a far-flung Russian community banning only one of the many translations of the Bhagavad Gita should have sat down and actually read the passages in question. However, like so many people who claim pride in their religion’s scriptures, few apparently took the time to actually read what they are defending.

Finally, I would like to close with a quotation from the 1 November, 2011 letter I referred to earlier in this essay: "We fear this unprecedented attack will trigger rampant bigotry and would unwittingly make it difficult for the Indian government to be seen fostering security, defence, political and economic ties with an intolerant and oppressive society."

Gopal Krishna Goswami need not fear any such reactions from either the Indian or Russian peoples regarding his guru’s commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita. Rather, what he and ISKCON should fear is that all this attention will lead many of those involved or appealed to in this case to actually read the passages in question and see for themselves what irrational, inhumane, and bigoted dogma they truly are. Banning is hardly needed; all the Russians need to do is insert a warning to each reader at the beginning of each book and be done with the whole business.

For more about ISKCON as an intolerant cult, please see the entries in this blog entitled, “Islamic Tribalism, Converts,and Terror: the Case of Russia," "The ISKCON Vedic Cultural Center Hoax," and also my website: https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com.

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THE ISKCON "VEDIC CULTURAL CENTER" HOAX

It is no secret that the Indian Cultural Society operating here in the U.S. and the venerable Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in India are Hindu in orientation, despite their purported mission to showcase and preserve Indian culture. The approximately 180 million Indian Muslims might have an issue with this and justifiably so. However, since Hinduism is the indigenous religion of the Indian sub-continent, the organizations representing Indian culture have wisely focused on the arts and community values, particularly in their outreach to the NRI (Non-Resident Indian) population. There is simply no comparable Indian Muslim counterpart to these types of organizations either in India or abroad and that fact brings me to the topic of this posting.

Here in New York City we have recently concluded our tenth commemoration of the terrorist attacks on September 11th. While at the time it was unavoidable given the circumstances, the mosques and religious schools attended by Muslims living in this country have been the subjects of intense scrutiny since then. No matter what the reason, alienating an immigrant group distinguished by its widely-admired work ethic and strong family values does not come without a price.

How foolish, then, is the ISKCON cult’s brazen co-opting of the “Indian Cultural Society” and "Vedic Cultural Society" labels to hoodwink Indians (both resident and non-resident) into spending their hard-earned cash to fund the spread of a belief system that most would find both repugnant and illogical. So, instead of the temple in question bearing the name of the resident deities (e.g.,“Sri Sri Radha Govinda Mandir”), you have the “ISKCON Hawaii Cultural Center,” or in Pune, India, the “New Vedic Cultural Center.” Unbelievably, in Almaty, Kazakhstan, ISKCON has established an “Indian Cultural Center” despite the fact the NRI population in the entire country is less than 1,500! How can it make any sense to try to convince the people of Kazakhstan that they need to emulate Indian cultural values?

The practice of changing the name of a controversial group to blend in with reputable organizations is a guerrilla warfare tactic that is commonly referred to as “hiding in plain sight.” It is a simple ruse that, among other things, helps the group in question to evade detection and evaluation by governmental agencies and the general public. In education, matters are as bad or worse. For example, ISKCON runs a “Vedic Cultural Center” in Sammamich, Washington, that contains a "planetarium" which is nothing more than a view of the universe from a profoundly anti-science Vaishnava perspective. Schools run by the Hare Krishna group world-wide share this fault of educating students to pass the government-administered tests while teaching them a view of the universe which adheres to a literal Vedic model which is primitive and, frankly, ridiculous. This view includes such howlers such as the belief that “Vedic” astronomy teaches us that the Earth is a disk supported by four elephants in space and that the moon is an inhabited “heavenly” planet.

Moreover, despite having spread these beliefs in the West, the founder of ISKCON, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, never regarded his organization as a form of Hinduism. I can tell you that this is true from my experience in the 13 years I spent in the Hare Krishna movement. In fact, the swami never observed the typical Hindu festivals of Holi or Deepavali in our temples and viewed the devotion many Hindus feel for Shiva, Ganesh, and Durga as mere demigod worship. I also know that he would have also regarded the re-naming of temples to blend into the Indian Cultural Center model with indignant anger and disbelief. Better stop all of this subversive business and admit that using all of this imitation and flattery to pick the pockets of sincere Indians yearning for a taste of the mother country is a cruel joke.

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NEW WEBSITE: "THE ISKCON CULT UNVEILED" IS ONLINE!!!

After more than a year in development, my new website, "The ISKCON Cult Unveiled" at https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com is finally online. It will definitively reveal, for once and for all, how an irrational, deadly idealogy subverts normal ties to family and country.

The evidence to support this claim will be directly taken from the letters and other published writings of the founder of the Hare Krishna cult, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ( also known as "Prabhupada"). For example, what follows is a transcription of an especially damning series of comments about this guru's views about women. (Please note: Trivikrama was a disciple of the swami and Dr. Patel was an early Indian admirer of the cult.)

Morning Walk, 9 January, 1977, Mumbai

Prabhupada: I condemn everyone, that “You are all dogs and hogs.” And United Nations a pack of dogs barking. That’s a fact. And in Chicago I said, all women, “You cannot have freedom. You have got only thirty-four-ounce brain, and man has got sixty-four-ounce.” I told them. So I became a subject of very great criticism.

Trivikrama: Women’s liberation.

Prabhupada: I denied, “No, you cannot have.” I told them. One girl in the airship, she was seeing like (makes some gesture-laughter). I asked her, “Give me 7-Up.” “It is locked now.” So I frankly said that “No, no. You cannot have equal rights because your brain is thirty-four ounce.” Actually that’s a fact. Where is woman philosopher, mathematician, scientist? Not a single.

Dr. Patel: Apart from that, I mean, they are made for a particular mission.

Prabhupada: How they can have equal rights? Up to date in the history there is not a single woman who is a great scientist or great philosopher or great…

Dr. Patel: Madame Curie was a…

Prabhupada: All bogus. (laughter)

Dr. Patel: You are getting too harsh on them because…

Prabhupada: No, no. How can I give you equal rights, because your brain is less substance.

Dr. Patel: We cannot degrade our mothers that way.

Prabhupada: It is not degrading. It is accepting the actual fact.

These statements are outrageously ignorant and complacent, but, worse, were accepted by legions of Western ISKCON disciples who should have immediately corrected the swami with the truth. Brainwashing, however, had succeeded in perverting the minds and actions of many young people who simply wasted their lives (and ruined many others) in the pursuit of an exotic delusion.

Comments and explanations will be included, but the purpose of this new website is for the damning information to speak for itself. It will hide nothing and, as such, its contents will be sensationalist in the best sense of the term. For example:

• An original essay, "The Guru-Faking Business," which will offer an introduction and concise history of the descent of the ISKCON cult into the mire of criminal abuse;
• It will also guide the reader to easily obtainable sources where the Swami's support of racism, child abuse, and the mistreatment of women are unmistakeable;
• A handy resource for people to want to extricate a family member or friend from ISKCON (or any other cult) and need to familiarize themselves with the persuasive means that ensnare vulnerable souls.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

REDUCTIVE THINKING AND CULT PROPAGANDA: THE CASE OF ISKCON

Members of groups popularly identified as cults expend a great deal of energy attempting to deny that they are cults at all. Most often they claim the label is simply name-calling based on fear or outright discrimination. What we call begging they call “soliciting contributions,” whereas the love-bombing that alienates inquisitive youth from their families and friends is treated as a means of religious orientation similar to what a nun undergoes as a novice in a convent. In short, the tactics that cults employ for fundraising and indoctrination of new members might seem (at least superficially) to have parallels in the practices of organized mainstream religions. However, once you scratch the surface of the cult in question by examining its propaganda, you will find that what identifies it as a destructive pseudo-religion is not so much what its adherents do as the thinking behind their actions.

To illustrate my point, take my hand and descend with me into the vortex of the past, until you find yourself standing with me in spirit watching me as a 14 year- old girl accompanied by my 16 year-old sister as we approach the ISKCON temple at 26 Second Avenue in the East Village in New York’s Lower Eastside. It is a hot day in the summer of 1967 and we’re visiting the temple after having been informed of its existence at one of the Central Park “Be-In’s” we had attended a week earlier. What we find is a storefront plastered with images of the blue Hindu God Krishna and his retinue of cowherd girlfriends. Also prominent were photographs of an Indian Swami who strongly resembled the noted black actor Scatman Crothers. When we entered we saw rows of white men and women in saffron robes and saris with u-shaped chalk marks from their foreheads to their noses. They were sitting cross-legged on the floor with large metal plates of vegetarian food in front of them, which they were eating with their right hands only. We had stumbled upon one of their weekly love feasts! After standing in the doorway looking rather embarrassed, we were welcomed inside and promptly sat down to join the others and found the food to be quite good. As we left shortly thereafter, we were handed a couple of pamphlets and an issue of Back to Godhead magazine, which we were urged to read before we returned the following weekend. That, reader, is when the trouble started.

The pamphlet featured a story about an incident that occurred when the great Hindu space traveler-preacher Narada Muni visited the house of a pious man. He was depicted in the saffron robes of a celibate monk and held a pair of the small brass hand cymbals ubiquitous in Vaishnava (Hindus who worship the god Vishnu rather than the more typical Shiva) worship services. He related an anecdote in the life of a holy woman, who when importuned by a rich suitor, invited him to see her real beauty in a week. During this time she took a powerful laxative and stored her diarrhea in a number of jars (one would hope that they had tight lids!). When her suitor returned eager to see her “real beauty,” she directed him to her stool collection, telling him that it was where her former beauty resided, now that her purging had reduced her to a haggard, sunken-eyed shadow of her former self. One wonders how fast her suitor fled the scene, but, for us, it was a different matter.

We were simply mesmerized by the story, which seemed to us to have been a thunderbolt of truth Krishna had sent to illuminate our young minds. Imagine being pure spirit, always young and free of the ravages of age and disease! What we didn’t know was that we had been duped by one of the oldest and most effective of all brainwashing techniques cults utilize. As a form of argument, it is reductive thinking carried to an irrational extreme and is usually presented as a philosophical examination of a central human dilemma (such as the fleeting nature of physical beauty that Narada Muni treated in his story). It is then is subjected to what appears to be an objective analysis, but is in reality a withering rejection of human values that ends in rejecting the material world entirely. Furthermore, it treats this life as a trial the faithful must undergo in order to qualify for liberation from it and entrance into the spiritual realm. In practice, of course, it is a recipe for social alienation and psychological dysfunction. For those too weak to find a way out of its argumentative maze, it can be nothing more than a slow and acutely painful method of suicide.

First, let me begin by demolishing what masquerades as an objective analysis and forms the underpinning of Narada Muni’s argument. To the extent possible, I will cast it in the form of a syllogism so that its components (major premise, minor premise, and conclusion) are clear:

• The beauty we perceive in human beings ultimately turns into excrement;
• Beautiful women are human beings;
• Therefore, what makes women beautiful ultimately turns into excrement.

The basic flaw in the so-called logic of this argument should be obvious: it is a gross over-simplification based on extremely reductive thinking. For starters, the first premise is faulty because it ignores the fundamentality subjective nature of our perception of beauty, which is always based on a great deal more than mere appearance. In fact, one can argue that beauty as we perceive it is one of the most spiritual forms of appreciation we can have for another human being. Instead, the beauty=excrement analogy that underpins the major premise of Narada’s argument relies on the immature thinking of a young adolescent who, when just beginning to notice the opposite sex, claims that they are “gross” or fixates on some allegedly “disgusting” aspect of the object of their attraction. This nonsense is silly, of course, but it is just part of growing up. However, once the youth begins to appreciate the intelligence, wit, and other qualities that together can make even the less physically attractive seem beautiful, the youth has crossed from the doldrums of early adolescence into the bloom of a young adult. Unfortunately, in cultures where “child marriages” stunt the emotional development of both sexes, the squeamishness and disgust about sexuality that characterizes early adolescence becomes a permanent feature of their view of the relation between the sexes. Sorry to say, it’s a tragedy, not a state of transcendence that leads to such a reductive treatment of the nature of beauty.

Ultimately, the reductive thinking behind the story of the saintly girl leads to one inescapable conclusion: since the body is pure shit, ridding ourselves of it as soon as possible is something to strive for, even if, as we were advised at the temple, you should abide by Krishna’s instructions in the Bhagavad-Gita and not take any credit for the “fruit of your actions.” In other words, you should work like a automaton, and then, after spending your life chanting and hitting the road to dupe the public with a lot of inane propaganda, die, get cremated, and hope your soul returns to the land of ancient India that happens to be a big planet devoted to the adoration of a flute-playing cowherder and his girlfriends. What appeared to be a doctrine of bliss and contentment to two innocent teenage girls was in reality a cheap cover for a philosophy of renunciation that is a direct route to self-annihilation.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.