THE ANTI-ISKCON TIME MACHINE

If you suddenly had access to a time machine, where would you go? What would you do? I know I speak for many readers of my blogs when I say that I would go back to the first time I encountered the ISKCON (Hare Krishna) devotees and observe one of them preaching to a much younger version of myself. To see my face--I was just 14!--glowing with hope and wonder as I was subjected to a carefully scripted indoctrination process would be heart-breaking. Still, I know I (from the future) would never hesitate to confront the devotee and demolish each and every of the Hare Krishna cult’s repugnant and laughable beliefs.That would have been true enlightenment!I only wish someone had had the courage and knowledge to warn me and so many others. Today, that is my mission.



My blogs exist to supply the information the cult leaves out of their so-called preaching and to empower each and every one of you in the here and now.  If you hesitate, the friends or relatives you might otherwise have rescued from these pseudo-Hindu fanatics will waste their lives chasing laughable delusions and eventually find themselves wishing but unable to undo the past. Behind the promises of easy attainment of heavenly reward lies a trash heap of bigotry and pseudo-scientific nonsense most newcomers are kept from encountering until it is too late.

It has been a lonely road writing these essays for my blog during the past eleven years, but the thousands of readers from all over the world who visit it each month have convinced me that my task is worthy. I know these essays have changed lives and saved many families from losing a son or daughter to a cult that will alienate them. If I have helped save even one person from such a fate, my life is a success, no matter how much I have personally suffered.

Finally, a word for those who have escaped from ISKCON or another cult and find yourselves struggling to make up for lost time with family and friends. The time for apologies or trying to ingratiate yourselves with people who might have given up on you years ago is over. Stop blaming yourselves or beating yourselves up for having wasting so many precious years. Youthful idealism is not a crime. Waking up from your delusions is a personal victory, one you will savor more and more as time goes on. Instead of lamenting, re-discover your unique talents and regain your self-esteem by making a MISSION of your own design and one you feel restores your place in the universe. If no one else believes in you, I do.

  

* SEE: https:///2015/08/new-rape-and-insults-wife-abuse-iskcon.html.

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

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.

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

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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