This is a funny thread. Sad thread. Horrid thread...
https://www.reddit.com/r/cults/comments/1h0db91/worth_reminding_people_about_tulsi_gabbards_ties/?chainedPosts=t3_t62wlzIf you read the comments, you will see people getting hung up in disbelief about the "eating Siddhswarupananda's toenails clipping/sand he walked on."
To whoever reads this:
Picture yourself a 10-year-old child sitting in a room about to eat some food with a group of fanatical Hare Krishna types. As you finish saying your eating prayer, a senior devotee walks around with a small folded paper or ziplock baggie with clippings of Butler's toenails, sand he walked on, hair clippings, pieces of fabric he wore/discarded, or dried leftovers of food from his plate. You are told that this is "MAHA," short for Mahaprashadam — extra special "mercy" from the guru. You are told to put your right hand out and bow your head in reverence as you receive these morsels of "mercy." You then quickly say "Jai!!!!" and bow down on the floor. You then put this "maha" on your food and eat up.
These were weekly occurrences. Even when I was in the Philippines (Butler's illegal boarding school for boys), my parents would send me "Maha" like this. You were told to put it on your food, but most of us just ate it as is.
The fact is these types of practices were common in the cult as well as ISKCON.
It is not uncommon to drink the "bath water" that washed your guru's feet or sprinkle it on food or on your head. The same goes for the water or milk/sugar that bathed the metal and plastic statues at the temple. Sometimes, this stuff sat in bowls for 2-3 days and was literally going off/rotting, and you still took sips of it in veneration.
We were raised to believe this stuff erased our sins from many lifetimes. We were told that chanting like a robot on little plastic or wooden beads over and over for hours, day in and day out, was somehow "purifying" us.
We bowed on the dirty floors with our full body and face touching the ground. We engaged in mindless rituals like "artik," wherein we waved around fire lamps, incense, shells, and fans towards little statues and believed that we were "worshipping" god. We spent our days dressing little statues in tiny clothes and putting food on little tiny plates and cups for them like we were playing with dolls.
Then, when all that nonsense was over, we lent our ears to long-winded lectures and stories/myths we were told were "real," and if we did not believe them, we were going to some evil hell in a lower planetary system where we'd have to endure some sort of macabre torture for lifetimes.
Devotees in these cults claim it's all just about chanting and dancing and hearing the amazing stories about god, etc.
That is as far from the truth as it can get.
Once you start to find all that stuff boring or frivolous, they make you go deeper down the rabbit hole. They tell you that all the chanting and dancing does not really work unless you "surrender" to the guru and become a disciple. So you start the groveling process of asking your guru for initiation. Butler was famous for refusing to initiate people and stringing them along for years. Do you know how maddening that is for a sincere follower? To be told that you are not really making any true advancement till you are a disciple. But your guru, usually with no explanation, will not initiate you.
So devotees would leave or try to get initiated by other gurus in the same religion. Of course, they were immediately told they were "offenders," that they would never make real progress, and that the only true guru was Butler. Excommunication ensued.
After years of this kind of emotional dance, you start to find out about the more "esoteric" and "secret" aspects of the beliefs in the cult. And like all cults, the deeper you go, the crazier the stakes get. You are told that the ultimate goal of what you have been doing for the past 20-40 years of your life is to hope against hope that god/guru reveals your "eternal identity" as a 12-year-old cowherd girl maidservant of Radha and Krishna. Lower levels include being a boyfriend cowherd boy, a parental figure, or simply a blade of grass or some bell hanging on a cow's neck... and you are meant to absorb all your mental concentration on this "form" fully and the "pastimes" — amounting to nothing more than some fantastical figment of your speculative imagination.
All this while you often sacrifice your family, friends, career, and sense of normalcy or sanity. This sort of crazed and fractured mental fantasy at this point has become your entire reality and what you actually consider as "absolute truth."
On another note —
ISKCON can't seem to shake the mess. Amongst the harassment and atrocities of Hindu (and other) minorities in Bangladesh, the focal story has become that of one "poor" Chinmoy Krishna Das, arrested by the Bangladesh government for sedition (also known as "starting trouble").
Who is the de facto ISKCON guru/saint/troublemaker who has his fanatical followers hoist saffron Hindutva Hindu nationalist agenda flags in the so-called name of crimes against Hindus?
Chinmoy Krishna Das, a prominent figure in ISKCON Bangladesh, faced accusations of
child abuse as part of an investigation by the ISKCON Child Protection Office. Allegations emerged in 2023 from several children, leading to a directive from the Child Protection Office prohibiting him from any interaction with minors under 18 years old. He was temporarily suspended from performing religious duties while an investigation was conducted. Due to non-compliance with the directives, Chinmoy Krishna Das was permanently expelled from ISKCON in 2024.Additionally, he has faced other controversies, including allegations of disrupting communal harmony and misusing his position within ISKCON.
The Bangladesh branch of ISKCON is known for chanting the Hindutva phrase "Jai Shri Ram." When in the history of ISKCON has it been a practice to chant "Jai Shri Ram"? Never. Just like in Butler's cult, we never once called ourselves "Hindus" until it became politically advantageous to cry "Hinduphobia" whenever people ask who Butler is and where all the money has gone.
So yeah, trouble follows this cult around. And rest assured, while "terrorist group" is a strong word, they absolutely attract a following of fanatics and fundamentalist dogmatic and agenda-based preaching. Far from being "non-sectarian," as they like to suggest, they are very much a sect and cult that seems to time and again attract the scum — and often, that scum somehow or other comfortably settles in top-tier positions of influence and followers. I'd argue dumb followers who are easy to manipulate, like authoritarian and dictator systems, and are a sheet away from Bhaktivedanta's rhetoric of:
Morning Walk, March 15, 1974, Vrndavana —
Prabhupada: "When it will teach military art, with tilaka, soldiers will, Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna (laughter). We want that. Marching with a military band, Hare Krsna. You maintain this idea. Is it not good?"
Hrdayananda: "Yes, Prabhupada."
Prabhupada: "When there will be a military march of Krsna conscious soldiers. Anyone who does not believe in Krsna, Blam! (laughter) Yes. The same process as the Mohammedans did, with a sword and Koran, we’ll have to do that. Do you believe in Krsna or not? No, sir. Blam! Finished." (laughter, Prabhupada laughs)
Madhudvisa: "Yes."
https://harekrishnatruthout.wordpress.com/category/indepedant-thought/RUN