In many ways, the test that one takes to enter ISKCON is no less complex than preparing for the LSATs or the MCATs. Aspirants listen to lectures on podcasts, wake up as early as 4 a.m. to finish their chores and dutifully follow all the instructions. They, however, are not preparing for higher education, but for what they see as a higher religious calling: membership in the International Society of Krishna Consciousness [ISKCON], better known as the Hare Krishna.
Annamarie and Ginamarie Russo, 25-year-old identical twins are currently preparing for this test and they say “they hope to make themselves capable for it sometime in the near future.” “We read books, we follow the observances and we’re hoping to become fit for initiation soon,” says Ginamarie. They say it’s all about finding the God they can connect with… And the God they can connect with is in a Hare Krishna temple in Brooklyn called the Radha Govinda Mandir.
Being from India, I had heard of Hare Krishna before. In India they are known for their grand temples, and beautiful deities and also for having many foreign devotees. It is a particularly westernized brand of Hinduism. I wanted to understand what drew Catholic women like the Russo sisters and others to Hinduism, the faith that I grew up with. I decided to spend a day among the Hare Krishna at this temple in Brooklyn at the corner of Schermerhorn and Hoyt Streets.
There are a few more hours till the sun rises, a few more hours till the city awakes and gets ready for a new day. But, on this corner, the streets are already abuzz with people emerging from the subway and entering the temple.
Inside, preparations are under way for the first ritual of the day. Starting at 4.30 a.m., people begin arriving at the main worship room.
The setting is no less than that of an Indian royal palace. The temple is equipped with a fully functional kitchen, a library, a bookstore, around 10 offices and the worship room where the deities are placed and the rituals and lectures are conducted. From a huge chandelier in the worship room to hardwood floors, there’s everything in this room to make it a palatial setting for the idols of God.
People come here to seek inner peace, to look for answers to their spiritual questions, to search for their self-identity and hope to find the answers in religion. The Hare Krishna movement constitutes a network of Hindu temples worldwide, practicing a subculture of Hinduism known as Vaishnava philosophy. Vaishnavism is a subculture of Hinduism and it deals with the worship of Lord Vishnu or his reincarnations like Lord Krishna.
Amid the plethora of Hindu temples in New York and across America, the Hare Krishnas have carved a niche of their own.
The Hare Krishna movement outside of India began in the early 1960s. It was during the Vietnam War, a time of unrest and poverty. This was also the time when America witnessed the blossoming of the counter-culture, one of whose attributes was an embrace of Eastern religions. In response to this enthusiasm,Srila Prabhupada, a spiritual leader in India, was told by his guru to go to the West and spread the message of Krishna consciousness as explained in the Bhagwata Geeta, the key philosophical scripture of Hinduism. Krishna consciousness refers to the practice of Vaishnavism and the worship of Lord Krishna.
According to the movement’s historic manual, in 1965, Srila Prabhupada reached Boston by freighter, carrying $7 and a trunk of books about Krishna. For the first year, he took shelter in the homes of sympathizers and gave lectures and workshops on Krishna consciousness at yoga studios, YMCAs and artist’s lofts.
On days when Prabhupada was not giving lectures, he would sit with a mridanga (a small Indian bongo-like drum), under a tree in a public park and chant the holy name of Krishna. This is one of the various forms of worshipping God in Hindusim. Often, people would join in the chanting and the kirtan (musical chanting sessions) would go on for a long time. In 1966, Prabhupada went to New York and settled in Manhattan’s East Village, which had become a center for alternate lifestyles. He started weekly lectures on the Bhagawad Geeta along with kirtan sessions in Tompkins Square Park. That same year, he incorporated the Hare Krishna movement in New York City. His dream then was to establish several centers throughout the world.
The lectures and the kirtans attracted a lot of attention. Many young Americans joined the Hare Krishnas in large numbers for these music and dance sessions. Visitors were hosted by Prabhupada who treated them to vegetarian food or prasad which he himself cooked. The flower children of the 60’s found the combination of music, food and philosophy an enticing attraction to Eastern spirituality. Many embraced the movement. Among the converts were celebrities such as George Harrison of the Beatles, who even recorded an album for the Hare Krishnas.
Today, the movement has come a long way, as evinced by the number of people who turned up at the early morning ritual known as the mangala aarti. Worship is held five times a day. At each ritual the idols of Lord Krishna and Radha are placed behind a curtain on an elevated dais and the curtain opens for the devotees to pray to the deities. During the mangala aarti the curtains are pulled open and all the devotees kneel on the ground and bow their heads in front of the elevated stage. Then they stand, hold their hands high and intone “hare Krishna” and “hari bol” meaning praise be upon the lord. The priest, standing behind the curtains, next to the deities, conducts the worship service which lasts for 30 minutes, while the devotees gaze at the idols and sing with the music playing in the background.
This music is a Sanskrit prayer recorded by George Harrison, whose involvement in the organization is just one of the chapters in the movement’s history. And the temple walls are a witness to this record.
They hold pictures from the early 60’s to the present that tell the story. There are pictures of Harrison playing music for large crowds of devotees, pictures of Srila Prabhupada giving lectures to several people in a small room, pictures of the first temple in the east village and many more.
In the 1960’s, ISKCON became a cult movement in America and the Hare Krishnas were seen everywhere from the subways to the airports to the city streets. Sometimes selling books, sometimes, distributing free food and often just singing or dancing to the songs of god on the streets. This movement, very popular with the counter-culture and among musicians, came under greater scrutiny in the late 70s after its founder, Prabhupada, died and the baton was passed to new leaders.
According to a report published in The New York Times, on June 18, 1983, a jury ordered ISKCON to pay over $32 million dollars to a family from California after they pressed charges against ISKCON, accusing the organization of ‘”brainwashing’’ one of their family members, Miss George at the Lauguna beach temple. There were also some controversies where Indian Hindu temple trusts criticized ISKCON for insulting Hinduism and manipulating its concepts for the West. ISKCON has since tried to take one thing at a time. It has sought to explain its activities to the wider public, and has published considerable literature, explaining and clarifying its rules and practices. The main life of Hare Krishna can now be found in the temples, like the one in Brooklyn. Today, ISKCON has five centers in New York, over 35 in the United States, and more than 400 centers throughout the world.
At this temple in Brooklyn, when the curtains close after the half-hour early morning service, preparations begin for the next worship which will begin at 7.15 a.m. The idols will be dressed in new clothes and a detailed worship ritual will be held. While the priests start preparing for the next service, the devotees find places in corners of the worship hall and finish their daily quota of chanting. Typically, a devoted Hare Krishna chants 16 rounds of a chanting bead chain every day and chanting is one of the most important practices prescribed for the devotees. “It is one of the biggest messages of the Hare Krishna movement,’’ says Carl Edward Querrard, one of the worshipers. Every devotee who comes here has a story of how he was introduced to the movement, and how he feels about Krishna consciousness and Hinduism. There are no barriers as people from different countries, faiths and cultures come here and embrace this faith.
Querrard, a 40-year-old, Dominican, goes by his new name after initiation – Sudharshan Chakra Das. He visits the Brooklyn temple regularly and has his unique initiation story. He says he knew about the Hare Krishnas before, but came to appreciate it only after he started reading the movement’s literature. He recalls his first experience dating back to 1986 where he was stopped at an airport in the Dominican Republic by a Hare Krishna. He says: “When the devotee approached me, first I was agitated but I stopped because he was very humble. He said, ‘please, I have something for you’ and he showed me a copy of Sri Isopanishad, which is the most transcendental treatise of a devotee speaking about the Lord. I ended up taking the book and over a few years, I read the book over and over again.” Querrard says that book was his first introduction to Krishna consciousness. After a few years, he settled down in New York and started visiting the Brooklyn temple regularly. He has been an active part of this movement for over 20 years and is trying his best to spread the word of the movement to others. Asked why this was not a religion but a movement, he says, “We don’t have a religion, we have a movement because this is alive and it’s moving into the future. The movement is preaching all the ways of devotional service: its book distribution, its chanting, simple clothes, simple food, simple activities everyday but high thinking that would blow the mind of others. This is what Krishna consciousness is about. It’s not a cult. It’s a culture. The culture of Krishna, the culture of seeing the world and everything in it the way Krishna would want us to see it.”
The simplicity and concepts of life which Querrard refers to can certainly be seen in the devotees who come to worship. There are more people at the 7:15 am worship than there were at the earlier service. One priest performs the worship while the devotees sway to the music of the chants coming from the unison singing of the holy names. The curtain opens again at 9 and then later at noon.
Since this was a Sunday, it was a special festive day of the week. Sundays are usually the days of the vegetarian feast dinner. They are usually the days maximum devotees pour in from across the city to listen to the lectures, to sing and dance together to the glory of God.
After a three-hour break in the afternoon, starting at 1, worship resumes at 4:15. Devotees come and go with their families and loved ones. Kids run around the temple and women and men sit with their groups of friends talking about their lives and sharing their spiritual experiences.
At 7 in the evenings, the Bhagawad Geeta lectures begin. These are held in the temple hall. All the devotees sit with crossed legs, centered around the speaker, a guru, who reads out from the holy books and explains their meaning by giving examples. The audience listens to the guru carefully and absorbs the lessons. The Geeta sessions are usually followed by kirtans. The Russo sisters, sitting directly in front of the deity, put away their notepads and bags and join the devotees in dancing.
Born into a Roman Catholic family, they say they grew up going to church with their mother. But their spiritual quest led them to Hare Krishna. “We could connect to Krishna, we could connect to the deity. There were so many questions and confusions we had in our lives and all the questions were answered by Srila Prabhupada’s books.” The Russo sisters are regular visitors to the Brooklyn temple and they love talking with each other about Krishna and his teachings. Actresses by profession, these sisters are dedicated to Krishna consciousness and observe all the rules laid out by the organization, as they aspire to apply for initiation. Among these rules are a vegetarian diet, abstinence from alcohol and caffeine, a regular routine of chanting, association with other devotees and regular reading of the Hare Krishna literature, which consists mainly of books like the Bhagawad Geeta. The Russo sisters have acted together in various movies and television shows. They have also joined each other in their search for God, and share a common dream to get initiated sometime soon.
The most important part of the initiation process is to choose a guru from the movement who will accept and approve of you as his disciple. The Russo sisters say they are making themselves “spiritually worthy of becoming the disciples of a guru” and are preparing themselves for what is going to be a “beautiful beginning to a spiritual journey after the initiation.”
Initiation as a procedure is elaborately defined in the movement’s scriptures and there are various experts within the organization who explain the concepts clearly. To begin with, the distinctions between Hinduism and Vaishnavism as Krishna consciousness should be clear.
Among the things that the Russo sisters learned at the Brooklyn temple was that Hinduism is a generalized term used to describe Indian Vedic traditions of Vaishnavism or Shaivism. Vaishnavism can be described as a school of thought from the Hindu traditions that worships lord Vishnu or his incarnations like Ram or Krishna. The tradition in Vaishnavism, which is widely followed in the west is the Bhakti tradition which is a form of devotion involving the active participation of the devotee in the worship of the divine. The word Bhakti is usually used for love or devotion and Bhakti tradition believes that as long as the devotee has love for the Lord in his heart, there is no essential ritual or procedure of worship he must follow. This philosophy of the Bhakti tradition has been one of the key forces that attract people to Vaishnavism.
According to the Indian scriptures and Vaishnava beliefs, God reincarnates on earth time and again to guide human beings on attaining liberation from the constant cycle of birth and death, to attain salvation or moksha. According to Vaishnava beliefs the last reincarnation of Krishna, was in the form of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in Bengal in the 16th century where he spread the message of kirtan and chanting. This was the beginning of the Hare Krishna movement in India. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said that chanting the names of god would help people attain liberation, bring them close to the Lord and help them get rid of the miseries of life. This message was passed from one generation to another and from gurus to their disciples who would then become gurus to their disciples. Prabhupada was a disciple of Bhakti Vinod Thakur’s and he insisted the movement and the message needed to be spread globally. This is where the tradition comes from and this is why the emphasis is on chanting and singing and dancing to the names of the god.
Initiation means getting a step closer to the Lord, acquiring a new name and becoming responsible for observing the rules.
From the mid-60s, when the organization was founded, till today, its structure and culture have changed considerably. Joshua Greene, 65, joined the movement in 1966 when it was founded in New York. He recalls being initiated by Prabhupada, the founder, himself. He says, “I got my initiation within one week. It was the time of the hippies. It was a completely different era. All I had to do was to go to Prabhupada and tell him that I was interested in getting initiated. It was that simple.” However, he says that the procedure is not as simple any more. When the organization was founded, Prabhupada wanted to spread the philosophy and so the guidelines for initiating individuals in the Vaishnava faith were not so strict. However, Greene says that once initiated, Prabhupada made sure that the devotee followed the guidelines and walked on the path of true Vaishnava devotion or as it is called in Vaishnava philosophy- the Bhakti Marg or path. Greene notes that there is a considerable difference in the current procedure and the nuances of initiation from the days of his initiation.
An initiate not only has to modify his beliefs and his lifestyle but also has to take certain vows and take up a new name, or hari naam as it is referred to by the Hare Krishnas.
As the Hare Krishnas continue their activities, more and more people are getting interested in the Vaishnava and Bhakti marg philosophy. The more subtle approach of Hare Krishnas – taking their teaching off the streets and into the temples – has been a successful strategy. More people are joining this organization and aiming for initiation.
This procedure of initiation is a fairly detailed one. As explained in ISKON’s initiation manual, an individualmust follow a rigorous procedure and code of conduct under the surveillance and guidance of a guru for at least six months. Once he gets his guru’s approval, the aspirant must take a written examination containing questions from Vedic scriptures such as the Bhagwat Geeta, the Upanishads and other books on Vaishnavism published by ISKCON.
The first stage begins with the search for a guru. A recent initiate, 26-year-old Madhushree Das, elaborately explained the initiation procedure by recalling his journey. “The first stage,” said Madhushree Das, “was to find a suitable guru. It depends on who you can connect with and who you look up to at ISKCON. I found my guru during one of the temple festivals
ISKCON has a list of 68 gurus who can administer initiations. These gurus are qualified to give initiations, and all serve as priests in temples across the world. Hari Das says, “Once I chose my guru, I started interacting with him and he made sure that I was a vegetarian, didn’t drink any alcohol, tea or coffee, was following the rules and avoiding over-indulgence in any material activities. I also had to chant 16 rounds on the chanting beads every day and visit the temple regularly and participate in the activities. Once he got a confirmation from the temple I visited, he let me take the examination. The written examination had questions from religious scriptures and some questions were subjective which tested what level of spiritual understanding I had.”
Madhushree Das noted that the time gap between choosing his guru and receiving an initiation had been two years. A Roman Catholic from the Dominican Republic by birth, Madhushree Das says that he could relate more to Krishna as a godly figure, adding: “It was the beauty and the simplicity of the Bhakti tradition which brought me here. Everyone was very accepting and there’s love everywhere. Love for god, love for people.”
A veteran devotee Joshua Greene, who occasionally lectures on the bhagwant geeta at the Brooklyn temple, encourages conversations and interactions between the students. He says, “Being a disciple of Prabhupada himself, I try to follow his methodology to approach vaishnavism and to teach and discuss the geeta.”
Another devotee and a regular visitor to the Brooklyn temple,Vijay Rege, 50, has been a part of ISKCON since the early 90s. He is an expert on Indian religions and says that there are a couple of reasons why youthful Westerners become attracted to the movement. “ Firstly, it is the love for yoga, love for knowledge and a mere fascination which brings people to the temples. Usually people come here with their friends and the first thing they see is its color, dance, and hospitality. These are the things which represent Indian culture and so they are bound to be embedded within that organization.
“Once they start visiting the temple regularly, they start getting drawn to the philosophies of the -geeta and start reading and learning the scriptures.” Rege notes that even though this is a long and a slow process, initiates choose to see it through for the prestige associated with being a vaishvana as well as the intimate connection they come to feel with, Lord Krishna.
Conversations about belief and initiation are common within the organization, especially on Sundays. At around 9 p.m. the kitchen starts serving the specially prepared Sunday feast consisting of a four-course vegetarian meal prepared with Indian spices. The devotees sit in groups in the dining area and discuss their spirituality, their thoughts and ideas on the organization and their dreams of becoming initiated.
Annamarie Russo, shared one of her dreams after initiation. “I hope that the significant other that I find is someone from the ISKCON too, someone who keeps Krishna at the center of his life just like me,’’ she said.
There are many such people in this organization, who joined, embraced Krishna consciousness and dreamt of making it a family tradition. One such example is 65-year-old Adideva Das. An African-American, his name before initiation was Arthur Cuffee. He was introduced to the ISKCON by his wife who found spiritual solace in the organization in the late 60s when the movement was at its peak. He describes how the book Bhagwat Geeta, As It Is, written by Srila Prabhupad changed his life, answered many of his questions, and how the organization itself, was warm and welcoming. Today his two sons, two daughters, their spouses and their children are all Hare Krishnas. He says “I am blessed by Krishna. Being an African-American, I was worried that my children would choose the wrong path. In this city, one has to be careful. I was worried about my daughters and their safety too. But this organization gave me peace. It made me bring my kids up with good values and today they are all devotees of Krishna. They are all initiates and they are carrying the tradition into the future.” He says he is proud of his children and it’s not just his words that describe his children.
One of his daughters, Achyuta Gopi, 26, is one of the most active members of the youth wing at the Brooklyn temple who leads the devotees in musical celebration. After the last worship for the day ends at 9.30 p.m., she enters the temple with drums and song. The celebrants are mostly young people in their 20s and early 30s. The worship hall echoes with Achyuta’s voice as she sings for the Lord with everyone joining in. As the music becomes louder, some get up on the floor and start dancing to the glory of the Lord. Others just sit and clap, singing with closed eyes.
All the music is for the Lord.
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