I am very skeptical about the origins of the Hare Krishna movement.

The story of AC Bhaktivedanta Swami travelling to America from India in 1965 with nothing but a couple of books and $12 and ending up opening over 100 temples travelling the world several times and effectively establishing a whole new religion (in the West at least) arouses the skeptic in me.

To take a look at the culture of America at the time this was an extremely opportune moment, and I have read that he had studied the hippie culture. Early ISKCON deliberately set out to appeal to those who used mind altering substances, particularly LSD which was very popular at the time.

According to ISKCON's own publication Chant and Be Happy there were promotions of "Get High With Krishna" and Allen Ginsberg (an extremely popular poet of the day and advocate of LSD use) was recruited to lecture on the neccessity of chanting Hare Krishna while 'coming down' to centre the consciousness and avoid freaking out.

ISKCON was always shamelessly collecting money and their followers still maintain a stigma for being pushy about getting donations and the also shameless courting of celebrities and media.

Moon hoax theories persist to this day and apparently Bhaktivedanta spoke out about this at the time saying that man did not land on the moon - I wonder if it is possible to find out how much publicity and followers that bought in?

What has gone on there- child molestation, murder, embezzlement, sexual abuse, high divorce rate etc. Apparently there is about a 50% drop out rate of devotees. At the highest level there remains controversy over who is in charge, all but one of the original 'successor gurus' or 'appointed secretaries' depending which side you are on are considered to be fallen and ISKCON has spawned many gurus who were initiated disciples of Bhaktivedanta, which appears to have some form of spiritual credibility until you realise he initiated just about anyone who asked and had thousands of disciples.

I have yet to find any sugguestion that Bhaktivedanta was anything but the amazing spiritual figure that history remembers him as being, but there is quite a lack of in-depth non-ISKCON biographical information available too.

I just find it very hard to accept that a religion so full of evil and corrupt behaviour and contradictions left and right started out legitimately and the story that one man could achieve all this on the level.

Prabhupada believed (as a Vaisnava fundamentalist), and taught, that the sun is closer to the earth than is the moon (congruent with the teaching of Vedic cosmology), and that space travel, much less actually walking on another planet or a satellite of some planet is impossible, as these are the abodes of the demigods and other transcendental beings. If you don't believe me, then look it up for yourself in the Gita and in Easy Journey to Other Planets. He also prophesied that by the late twentieth century, or early twenty-first (I forget the precise date but it's in Prabhupada-lila) that the environment would be so ruined that humanity would be living underground, and consequently would rarely venture to the surface. One of the first times I sat with the Krishnas to seriously discuss their philosophy they made it clear right from the get-go that the moon landing was a myth. This sounded absurd, that anybody could believe that. They also believe that the spiritual world where Krishna lives
is exactly the opposite of the material world in all respects, including morally. Therefore, that which for us in this world would be sinful and degrading, for Krishna in the Goloka planets are glorified spiritual pastimes. They believe (as it is written in the Bhagavatam) that Krishna never enjoys his food more than when it is stolen. They call Krishna "the most expert cheat." Prabhupada was a good-naturted but naive old man who planted a bad seed in soil unsuitable to propogate it, and out of that seed grew what we now call ISKCON. The hippies expoited him, not the other way around. Think about it: Krishna was the perfect alternative god for the sixties: he has long hair, plays the flute, hangs out with beautiful, naked young women, and is eternally young. Krishna is the ultimate hippie!

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emntk
The story of AC Bhaktivedanta Swami travelling to America from India in 1965 with nothing but a couple of books and $12 and ending up opening over 100 temples travelling the world several times and effectively establishing a whole new religion (in the West at least) arouses the skeptic in me.... I have yet to find any sugguestion that Bhaktivedanta was anything but the amazing spiritual figure that history remembers him as being, but there is quite a lack of in-depth non-ISKCON biographical information available too.... I just find it very hard to accept that a religion so full of evil and corrupt behaviour and contradictions left and right started out legitimately and the story that one man could achieve all this on the level.

Some parts of the standard Bhaktivedanta hagiography told by his followers are quite easy to confirm. Other parts are harder, and there are a few often-suppressed details that give helpful context.

Bhaktivedanta was a near-penniless mendicant when he arranged for free passage on a ship to the USA. The historian Klaus Klostermaier has written about meeting Bhaktivedanta in Vrindaban in the early 1960s. Bhaktivedanta came from a fairly wealthy familly, and was a fairly wealthy businessman in the 1930s and 1940s (he worked as a chemist), but he did abandon that wealth after some business reversals, and he became a mendicant monk in the 1950s.

Although he was initiated into the Gaudiya Matha spiritual lineage, he was not one of his guru's "senior disciples" -- and he spent very little time before age 60 living in Gaudiya Matha temples in India. Even after age 60, he lived away from his lineage's temples more than he lived in them. As a result, many others in his lineage perceive that he made innovations which rendered his ISKCON movement inauthentic. These innovations range from a few matters of theology, to some matters of conduct (e.g. his willingness to let his "monastic" disciples get deeply involved in money-making and money-collecting to a degree considered unseemly by his Godbrothers in India).

In his personal life, he was clearly not a charlatan on the order of a Sai Baba or a Rajneesh. However, he did use snuff (tobacco), and he took to wearing expensive Rolex watches after his disciples offered them as gifts. Some of his fellow Gaudiya Matha monks in India took these as signs that he was not a very advanced devotee -- but while they may have said he was not qualified to be a guru, they rarely said he was an outright charlatan or a nondevotee.

It has been documented that Bhaktivedanta knew about child abuse and drug smuggling going on within ISKCON, and that he on more than one occasion told his disciples to handle these problems internally rather than take them to the police. There is no record of him supporting drug smuggling or child abuse -- indeed, he spoke out against these practices -- but some consider him grievously culpable because his "keep it internal" policy allowed some criminals' activities to continue unchecked.

People often fail to realize just how uninvolved, in one sense, Bhaktivedanta was with ISKCON after 1970. He wanted to publish English-language books, and he was grateful that his disciples' fund-raising made this possible. But because he preferred to spend the largest portion of his time on his translating, he relied on corrupt disciples to serve as the managers of what became a multi-million-dollar movement. Could that be called criminal negligence? Perhaps.

Did Bhaktivedanta deliberately come to the USA to convert the hippies? Evidence suggests that he did not. One of his Godbrothers had gone to the USA a couple of times to raise funds for his own literary and academic pursuits, and it appears that Bhaktivedanta's original impetus was similar. At first, he stayed in Pennsylvania with the son of a man who had donated generously to his publishing in India. Bhaktivedanta hoped that wealthy Americans could fund his book publication. Initially, he tried to meet with the same "upscale" audiences that associated with established groups like the Ramakrishna Mission in the USA, but he failed to interest them. Only after he had failed to reach the wealthy who could support his publishing did he find his audience among the hippies. Ironically, the sheer number of hippies attracted to his message gave him far better financial support than the "wealthy" Ramakrishna Mission ever had in the USA. But even from the earliest days, Bhaktivedanta was primarily interested in his translation work, and he entrusted the preaching mission to his disciples. Since they were hippies and recent drug users, they reached that audience and spoke their language. Some of those early supporters turned out to be drug dealers, and as their devotion grew they sought to impress their guru and support his movement by giving him their drug profits. ISKCON gained far more money from a few drug dealers than from all the airport solicitors combined.

Was Bhaktivedanta a charlatan or a calculated opportunist? It appears not. Rather, he was a successful businessman on the fringe of his guru's organization, who became a monk after his business failed, and who then took advantage of wealthy Westerners to fund his ambitious plans for publishing English-language texts from his spiritual tradition. He had great success, but in the process alienated himself from most of his Godbrothers because of his personal choices (e.g. snuff use, displaying some personal wealth though a renunciant). Ironically, after his movement became hugely successful in India, many of his Godbrothers who had formerly opposed him started to praise him, and many have wondered whether they did so in a cynical attempt to get some of ISKCON's riches for themselves.

Thanks very much for all that, very interesting. Some accounts say that he even sufferred two heart attacks on the voyage to America, but I have not noticed this detail in any ISKCON bios available on-line.

I have just started reading this book about ISKCON "Monkey On A Stick" -Murder Madness and the Hare Krishnas, which was written by two journalists and has been published free on-line -

[www.harekrsna.org]

I also came across this link which seems to me to be a good summary for anyone who like myself wants to do a little research into the corruption of ISKCON. It does show that quite a lot went on while Bhaktivedanta was still alive. Just a quick glance though reveals some very suprising goings on and horrible abuses and deaths.

[surrealist.org]

:?: I have not gotten a really good idea yet just how prominent or influential Krishna philosophy was to pop culture during the sixties and seventies. With regard to the moon hoax I have been interested in this for a number of years just for how curious it is but I have never seen it traced back to any specific source other than Bhaktivedanta. Is it conceivable that he started the whole ball rolling? Does anyone know of any contemporary accounts which have recorded the Hare Krishnas place in the culture of the day?

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emntk
Moon hoax theories persist to this day and apparently Bhaktivedanta spoke out about this at the time saying that man did not land on the moon - I wonder if it is possible to find out how much publicity and followers that bought in?

Some believe the whole moon landing was a complete fabrication and filmed in a studio. But I think A.C. Bhaktivedenta's explanation was that the Apollo spacecraft had landed on a planet called "Rahu"

RAHU was a demon who challenged the demigods and his head was cut off and placed into orbit. Whenever there is an eclipse, it is explained as Rahu attacking the Sun (solar eclipse) or attacking the Moon (lunar eclipse). So in some way, Rahu is connected with the lunar orbit.

According to Vedic scripture the Moon is a heavenly planet where one of their days is equal to four of our weeks (true). It is supposed to be inhabited by demigods who live in a heavenly type situation, and hence cannot be achieved by space rockets, but only achieved by good works (karma)...

Although these things may sound a bit mythological, I suppose the devotees can believe them, thinking that there is something mystical that cannot be seen with our earthly eyes...

However, there are other statements in the Vedas that are much less easily believed, for example that the Universe is 200,000 yohanas in size (one yohana = 8 miles) so that would put the size of the universe as less than 2 million miles. (The sun is calculated by "material scientists" to be 93 million miles away and the other stars are calculated to be many many billions of billions of billions of miles away). Indeed, it seems as though this statement was made by someone who considered the 5 miles to the nearest village as like an astronomical distance, as he had to probably walk it in bare feet!!!!

I am just remembering all these things from way back in the past, so anyone is welcome to correct me if I am mistaken in this :)

Here is a link to a transcript of a lecture Prabhupada gave in which he describes life on the sun, the moon, and the planets, as well as the yogic process by which one can travel to those bodies. It was given in London in 1973.

[science.krishna.org]

Further, I seem to think that in the purport to Chapter 10, verse 21 of the original, unabridged Gita Prabhupada wrote that there is just one sun in this universe, and that the light we see from the stars at night (the light material scientists suppose is emanating from these many thousands of suns more distant than our sun) is actually the light of the one sun reflecting off of the surfaces of the innumerable heavenly planets. This purport is not in the online versions of Gita As-It-Is, having obviously been edited out in these abridgements. Try and find an older copy of the Gita, or one of the "Original 1972 Edition" copies. These are replete with Prabhupada's fanciful Vedic Cosmology. And if you want to see something [i:6382ceb462]truly[/i:6382ceb462] weird, read the 5th Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam. Reading that stuff was one of the impetus for my washing my hands of Vaisnavism. Canto 5 is truly bizarre. Well, I guess that I'm being
punished for all of the karma I've accumulated over all of these lifetimes and so can't understand the Bhagavatam. My mind has been blinded. Yeah, right.

Check [i:e6488f2858]that [/i:e6488f2858] out. Especially Chapter 26. Really weird stuff, by any standard. Read on, from chapter 26, texts 20-40. Yes, this is actual [i:e6488f2858]scripture[/i:e6488f2858] to these folks!

Text 20:

Or any person, both man or woman, who in this life approaches an unsuitable desirous one for sexual intercourse will in his afterlife be beaten by whips and forced to embrace a very hot iron image to the form of a man being a woman or the form of a woman being a man. [: Taptasûrmi, the hell of 'the red hot iron statue']

A man or woman who indulges in sexual intercourse with an unworthy member of the opposite sex is punished after death by the assistants of Yamarâja in the hell known as Taptasûrmi. There such men and women are beaten with whips. The man is forced to embrace a red-hot iron form of a woman, and the woman is forced to embrace a similar form of a man. Such is the punishment for illicit sex.

Here's another good one, ISKCON:

Text 15:

And anyone who in his life for no reason deviates from the path laid out for him in the Vedas resorting to a system of his own making, is forced into Asi-patravana ['the razor-sharp forest'] where he is beaten with a whip so that sure of that he runs hither and tither having his body on both sides cut by the razor sharp edges of palm trees; he who killed his own religious principles will thus suffer the result of following an atheistic path and, in the greatest pain thinking 'Oh how lost I am!', fall down at every step having lost consciousness.

If a person deviates from the path of the Vedas in the absence of an emergency, the servants of Yamarâja put him into the hell called Asi-patravana, where they beat him with whips. When he runs hither and thither, fleeing from the extreme pain, on all sides he runs into palm trees with leaves like sharpened swords. Thus injured all over his body and fainting at every step, he cries out, "Oh, what shall I do now! How shall I be saved!" This is how one suffers who deviates from the accepted religious principles.

Chris scoffs at the Christian version of hell, burning fires and eternal damnation, but forgets that his own "spiritually elevated" version, is essentially the same miserable result.

Anyway, I remember reading that Rama was going to tell us more about the pop on top whose creepy face I have been looking at for years, now it turns out he is a failed businessman whose business went belly up in India, so he decided to trott off to the west as a monk and try his fortunes with the wealthy west and raise dollars from their pockets. Seems they were not so keen to cough up, but the druggies, hippies, and crims were. (He really wanted to spent all his time translating English (quite a careeer change from his erstwhile failed pharmeceutials business) but, why not try a new career, even late in life! History shows that his first helpers were homosexuals, the people who helped him to get a foot into the States. As always it is this group that have the most tolerance, while the rest of the witch hunters (christian, vaishnava, you name it, want to burn the witches and tar and feather the homos).But in fact it was the homos who gave pops an entrance into the USA through their kindness and benevolence. Later in the story his appointed disciples and followers moved onto raping, stealing, and managing organized crime). Also he was meant to be in direct conversation with God, but somehow God forget to tell him that 6 year old children were being sodomised in schools in India, spose they had more important things to discuss. Now that Chris is in direct conversation with God, maybe he could ask God a favour and let him know who all these disciples with big mouths are.

Rama, anymore info on his forward story, after his business failed in India.

I respect Rama's opinions more than anyone here, (but I really respect the moderators opinions as well, you can always trust a nerd :) for what Rama has to say, has the ring of truth and clarity. For instance that reference to the "retard accent" (exactly accurate observation of Rama as to the Australians) in that "Krishna hiding in the closet under the disguise of Ninjai set up", is precisely right and the sad story of how Rama missed out on the opportunity to fill up his "spiritual piggy bank".

Also any production or business set up whatever and wherever it may be has no production, ownership or creative credits revealeed anywhere, because they all have been put into the spiritual piggy bank of Chris.

In his meetings with Allen Ginsberg, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada set the example on how a Vaishnava should receive and interact with people who are openly homosexual. Allen Ginsberg was a famous poet from the “beat generation” of the 1950s. In 1956, he shocked America by publicly celebrating his homosexuality in the highly controversial book Howl.

Allen Ginsberg: Bhaktivedanta seemed to have no friends in America but was alone, totally alone, and gone somewhat like a lone hippie to the nearest refuge, the place where it was cheap enough to rent. On the night of the highly anticipated Mantra-Rock Dance, Srila Prabhupada arranges for Allen Ginsberg to open with a short introduction and then lead the kirtana. Prabhupada spoke, giving a brief history of the mantra. Then he looked over at Allen again: “You may chant.” Allen began playing his harmonium and chanting into the microphone, singing the tune he had brought from India.

Allen Ginsberg: We sang Hare Krsna all evening. It was absolutely great—an open thing. It was the height of the Haight-Ashbury spiritual enthusiasm. It was the first time that there had been a music scene in San Francisco where everybody could be part of it and participate. Everybody could sing and dance rather than listen to other people sing and dance.

Then Srila Prabhupada stood up, lifted his arms, and began to dance. He gestured for everyone to join him, and those who were still seated stood up and began dancing and chanting and swaying back and forth, following Prabhupada’s gentle dance.

Blind leading the blind ?

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TheTruthAsItIs
...... Also he was meant to be in direct conversation with God, but somehow God forget to tell him that 6 year old children were being sodomised in schools in India, spose they had more important things to discuss.

I think God had to rush back to his 16 thousand wives.

:?