hinduwoman

Anyone knows what exactly do they believe? In India they have no great presence, and the vague impression is that they are not real hindus but simply a bunch of westerners who have been suckered into donating their money to a guru.

How exactly do they behave in the West?
Please no official websites. All I want to know is if anyone has personal experience with them.

Queen of Swords

I was preached at by a couple of young bald men who gave me a book to read, and this was when I was eighteen, so unfortunately I had neither the brains nor the balls to rip their story apart. I took the book, gave them fifty cents because I felt sorry for them and read the book at home.

The book had a long title that I don't remember, but its cover showed a picture of a blue man with four arms, one holding a flower, one with a flute, one with a little spinning star of some kind, perhaps a ninja weapon . I've forgotten what the fourth arm held. Anyway, the whole book was about Krishna and how to worship him. Believers are supposed to have a shrine to Krishna where they put fresh flowers every day and food is supposed to be offered to him as well. They are to say his name often in their chants, because when they do, it's as though Krishna was dancing on their tongues. There are certain dietary restrictions - no onions or garlic, because those inflame the passions, and inflammation of the passions is the worst thing that could happen to you. Sex is only supposed to be carried out once a month, for purposes of procreation only.

All in all, it struck me as extremely boring. I enjoy learning about Hinduism because it has so many different deities, including the kick-ass goddess Kali. This was all Krishna, Krishna, Krishna and I couldn't understand what the poor bald men saw in it.

And I gave them fifty cents for that book!

Eudaimonist

Yeah, some people believe those are aphrodisiacs.



And I thought the Catholic Church was bad.

There's no passion in their religion, so it is no surprise!

That sounds like all it was worth.

I'd pay pocket change to know some path in life was nonsense.

[ January 30, 2002: Message edited by: Eudaimonia ]</p>

Otis Spann's blues

Anyone knows what exactly do they believe? In India they have no great presence, and the vague impression is that they are not real hindus but simply a bunch of westerners who have been suckered into donating their money to a guru.


I don’t know what a real hindu is but they seem fairly closely related. I spent some time visiting a temple as I wanted to date a women would was trying to get me involved as she lived there. They were eastern fundamentalists. I don’t know how this relates to Hinduism but they believe that the process on incarnation is fueled buy the repetitious singing gods name mostly in public. Its witnessing in sari’s. The adherents were mostly younger 20 – 30 years old and the temple seemed to have a core of what I presumed to be Indians and a few older adherents. Not talk of money when I was there but temple wasn’t small.

Toto

<a href="http://surrealist.org/links/harekrishna.html" target="_blank">Hare Krishna Links: Everything you always wanted to know about the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and where to find it on the Internet</a>

I've known a few - they are Westerners trying to be Hindus. They are committed vegetarians and run some good restaurants, and some of them do yoga. But there have been some heavy scandals, and some big court judgments against them.

hinduwoman

well, apparently they don't much about hinduism it seems! I suppose it is just the attraction of not having to think any more.

SRWelch

The Krishna movement is largely defunct here in the US, due largely to a number of big, self-inflicted, scandals. Back in the '80s some of the officers of the ISKCON movement involved in the New Vrindivan temple (West Virginia) hatched a murder plot against some fellow members (it was a succession conflict, I believe) not long after ISKCON's founder "Sri" Prabhupada died. They were caught, the news was splashed all about the local press, and membership and donations dropped off dramatically. More recently, a $400 million class-actions lawsuit has been brought against ISKON by a number of people who had claim they had been physically and sexually abused at Krishna schools. It looks like 11 of the 50 remaining schools will have to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This will probably permenantly cripple the ISKCON movement in the US.

Would that we could be so lucky that the same would happen to the Catholic Church . . .

There have been a couple of other scandals involving, not ISKCON per se, but other psuedo-Hindu movements in the US. In the 1980s Bhaghwan Rajneesh was busted for tax evasion and corruption, and was extradited back to India; a few years ago some other group tried to poison the salad bars at fast-food chains in a small town (Texas? I can't remember) in order to effect the outcome of a local election. All in all, the usual mix of greed, corruption, and perversity.

I visited the New Vrindivan temple in West Virginia a few years ago, originally intended by "His Divine Grace" Prabhupada to be a huge flagship temple for the movement. This was in the 1970s or early '80s, I believe. At any rate, though the temple was rather impressive, one could see that it was in need of maintenance. Other than some very nice marble murtis (statues of dieties), the most expensive item there was probably the wax effigy (and creepingly realistic) of Prabhupada, sitting in meditation. It would have made Madame Tussaud jealous, if it wasn't in fact made by the Mme. Tussaud people.

Some of the local devotees admitted that they were short of money and that the community in general had gone to seed. Most of the devotees were, of course, Americans, with their bad pronunciation of Hindi or Sanskrit terms, and a superficial (or non-existant) understanding of the culture or country that created their adopted religion.

Another factor in the waning of ISKCON is the Supreme Court. In 1981 (452 US 640, "Heffron vs. ISKCON"), the Court held that the Krishnas proselytizing could be limited to "reasonable time, place, and manner," restricting in-your-face proselytizing. More importantly, a 1992 case (505 US 672, "Lee vs. ISKCON") held that airports are non-public, therefore the Krishnas could be barred from proselytizing there. As many of us probably remember, the airport was the Krishna's favorite locale for pushing their product. If anyone is interested in reading these cases, they can be found on <a href="http://www.megalaw.com," target="_blank">www.megalaw.com,</a> under the Federal Law/Supreme Court/Cases & Case Law Search section.

Too bad that India doesn't take note of cases like this, and do something to restrict the activities of Christian missionaries.

SRW

jess

anyone else remember the Opus comment (back when he was still a penguin who couldn't speak well) Prayer Pimples for Hairy Fishnuts?

I can't think of them as anything else.

Other than those scandles, all I remember of them are the jokes. I have not seen one or hung with one for years, although several were members of ARSA (alternitive religions student association) at UB when I was there.

Boro Nut

Well, sort of. I did once follow a large group of them around in London because I was interested to find out what it was all about, and I was intrigued that they were not actually dancing and singing like I expected they would. I assumed they were on their way somewhere like Trafalgar Square and were just saving their energy. I ended up at a toga party at a leukaemia clinic.

Boro Nut

Bree

Are all Hare Krishnas the "bad" kind - i.e. I read somewhere that their doctrine claims if men have sex with virgins (young girls) they can be saved yadda yadda yadda.

Is this true? My Jekyll is going to be engaging in a formal discussion with them in one of her classes and we would like to know if they're all creeps (thanks to their universal doctrine) or if it's just a small branch of them who believe that sexual acts with children are okay.