Why is the Hare Krishna (ISKCON)
sect so hell-bent on convincing the Indian public that they are genuine Hindus
while spending millions convincing non-Hindus that they are simply “peace and
love” yoga enthusiasts?
ISKCON spares no expense
in catering to wealthy Hindus as it strives to build its reputation as a
genuine branch of mainstream Hinduism. All of these efforts have one thing in
common: they are nothing more than self-serving propaganda. Money, as usual,
talks. If the cult builds another massive temple and continues its
well-publicized food relief programs in India, it expects the Hindu public
to follow its lead like a pack of blinkered horses.[i]
However, its sordid
past—including child abuse, scams to defraud the public, and its founder’s sexist
and racist statements—has proved difficult to hide.
In a desperate attempt to
replenish its dwindling numbers among non-Hindus in western countries, ISKCON
has revamped its old policy of withholding information about its real beliefs
and practices. Now the cult uses social media sites to ensnare new members by
positioning itself as another of the meditation and yoga groups offering
therapeutic emotional and health benefits. This watered-down appropriation of
Hindu religious practices reduces an ancient faith to another “feel-good”
experience much like meditation and hatha yoga have been served up to
non-Hindus everywhere.
Recently I discovered the
latest recruitment efforts by the Hare Krishna cult in the offerings of Meetup.com, a website that hosts
software by a multitude of personal and professional groups and caters to
adults seeking new friends with common interests. Nothing about the tactics
ISKCON uses to attract new members surprises me, but the sheer nonsense in the
groups I found was both sad and laughable. History does indeed repeat itself,
as anyone familiar with the hippie movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s can see in
the descriptions listed below:
- Enchant
Mantra Meditation/Vancover
- Sacred
Sounds Outside OM/Las Vegas “Tribe Kin”
- Living
Well, Being Well/El Paso, TX
- Vedic
Astrology, Karma, Dharma/North
In each case (and there are
many more of these ISKCON sponsored groups all over North America and Europe), it’s
clear that participants generally have no idea that the meetings they attend
are organized by the Hare Krishna cult, nor do they know anything about its
beliefs and history. Rather, as
anyone who looks at the photographs included in each meeting can see, ISKCON
has cleverly disguised itself as one of the multitude of yoga and meditation
practitioners familiar to the general public.[iii]
Back in the 1960’s when
ISKCON first attracted hippies to its outdoor kirtans and Sunday Feasts, the
main lure used to reel in unsuspecting recruits was a mixture of mantra
chanting and free vegetarian food, all of which supposedly granted the
practitioner easy and instant access to the Godhead.[iv]
Today, these
pleasure-seekers appear to have travelled in a time machine to the present,
mixing with a new generation of gullible souls eager to delve in whatever
variety of Eastern mysticism offers outsize benefits in proportion to the
effort involved.
Now it’s fashionable among
youth and their college professors to stridently endorse ecological concerns,
along with the usual calls for ending discrimination based on sex, race, and
gender. They are the tree-huggers of my generation on steroids. Science, in
their twisted worldview, takes a back seat to misplaced sentimentality.
Cults have long since
seized the opportunity to worm their way into this void, replacing scientific,
objective inquiry with so-called authoritative statements, all ultimately
non-refutable because of their ancient “Vedic” sources. So you have “Vedic
Astrology” instead of the science of astronomy and the fuzzy, warm-sounding
“Living well, Being Well.” Abusing the lonely souls who join Meetingup.com groups with a lot of
half-baked pseudo-Hindu mysticism is a familiar practice of the Hare Krishna
cultists.
For example, this past
summer, ISKCON entered a local festival in the New York City Metro Area City of
Newburgh, entitled “Colorfest,’ which in actuality mimics the Hindu festival of
Holi, this past spring celebrated by Hindus (and Sikhs also) world-wide on
March 2nd. Its association with the Krishna
legend is well-known, of course, and some describe it as “the Festival of Colors.”
However, ISKCON takes it entirely out of context, as you can see for yourself
with the psycho-babble title and activities of its program months after the
official Holi celebration:
http://www.newburghilluminatedfestival.com/colorfest.
“A Playful Festival to Strengthen Friends and Families with Happiness.” (Please note: this site has subsequently been shutdown.)
Pure, unadulterated
bullshit! “Strengthen Friends and
Families with Happiness”? What a nonsensical, illogical statement! If you or
anyone you know has actual experience with the Hare Krishna devotees, you know
that its mission is quite the opposite: while its members appear so welcoming
at first, before long they urge you to give your time and money to them, with
no consideration of how your actions affect your family and friends.
Worse, even the
“colorfest” title is an effort to hide its true identity within the many groups
in the U.S.
This pattern of initially
“love bombing” new recruits and then training them (by hours of chanting the
same mantra on prayer beads and singing it with others during morning and
evening services) to disassociate themselves from the “material world” or
“karmi life” is ISKCON’s variant of a practice followed by many cults
worldwide.[v]
In addition, let’s be
absolutely frank: how can tossing colored chalk at another person do anything
other than reduce an adult to the level of a toddler who plays in sand at a
neighborhood playground and tosses some of it at his or her playmates? Without
the cultural and religious significance Holi has to Hindus, the tossing of
colored chalk at a neighborhood festival or any other venue is an insulting,
irrational act of cultural appropriation. However, if you think that ISKCON
cannot degrade Hinduism any further, you are sadly mistaken. . .
[i] ISKCON
has worked overtime in the Europe and India positioning itself as Hindu
adherents of the Gaudiya Vaishnava sect. It founded the Hindu umbrella
organizations of Hindu Forum Britain
(http://www.hfb.org.uk) and Hindu Forum
Europe (http://hinduforum.eu) to convince
the academic and business communities of its authenticity as well as to advance
its Radha Krishna worship and philosophy.
[ii] Since
its founding in the mid-sixties, critics of the Hare Krishna/ISKCON cult have
produced a mountain of anecdotal evidence of its massive and persistence abuses
of its members, particularly women and children. Most of this abuse was and is
a by-product of the views of the founder of the cult, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada. My blog essays here and in its sister blog, https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com,
summarize much of this tragic history and contain verifiable documentation to
support my views. For starters, please visit: https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2015/08/new-eastern-cults-as-incubators-of.html
and https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2017/12/new-sex-starvd-idiots-slaves-how.html.
[iii] https://www.meetup.com/Newburgh-Yoga-Meetup/photos.
Nimai’s Bliss Kitchen 94 S. Robinson Avenue ,
Newburgh , NY 12550
[v] The term
“lovebombing” was invented by the followers of the Rev. Moon, also known as
“the Moonies.”
