Hare Krishna Movement Research Articles

‘Interfaith dialogue’ as a form of opposition of ‘minority religions’ to governmental pressure in Russia

Russian governmental policy toward non-traditional religious groups, especially so-called New Religious Movements (NRMs), is discriminatory. Despite Russia’s formal secularity, the government strongly supports the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), a position which results in various limitations on many other religious groups. As a result, legal actions have been initiated against new religious groups, for example the Bhagavad Gita trial in Tomsk, Siberia, and the designation of the literature of the Jehovah’s Witnesses as ‘extremist’. However, pressure by the government can sometimes lead to the development of spontaneous interreligious oppositional associations. One important example is the ‘interfaith dialogue’ in Tomsk, where local leaders or representatives of religious groups, such as the Episcopal, Jewish, and Latter-day Saints (Mormon) churches as well as the Hare Krishna movement, unorthodox Buddhist groups, and local pagan movements, united to oppose governmental and ROC efforts to disband a Hare Krishna group in the Tomsk area. This research note presents results of a case study, which involved participant observation, of the phenomenon of oppositional interfaith dialogue in Tomsk in the period 2011–2014. I discuss factors that influenced its appearance, its relationship with the local government, and the methods of cooperation between the different religious groups within this association and offer some theoretical interpretations of these developments. The results of this case study illustrate new and important modern relationships between minority religions and the government in Russia.

Union of the Lover and the Loved: A Study of Krishna Consciousness in Pratibha Ray's Yajnaseni

Union of the Lover and the Loved: A Study of Krishna Consciousness in Pratibha Ray's Yajnaseni

VAISHNAVISM, ANTIEVOLUTIONISM, AND AMBIGUITIES: REVISITING ISKCON'S DARWIN‐SKEPTICISM

AbstractThe International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), commonly known as the Hare Krishna Movement, has disseminated a flurry of antievolutionist media since its inception in 1966. Such communications frequently co‐opt arguments employed by Christian creationists and Intelligent Design theorists. At the same time, however, there are indications that a scattering of ISKCON publications have articulated relatively ambiguous, less oppositional statements about evolutionary theory. This article reconsiders ISKCON's Darwin‐skepticism by appraising recent, largely unexamined Hare Krishna publications, as well as responses to evolutionary theory expressed by ISKCON's founder, A. C. Bhaktivedanta, and his immediate Vaishnava forerunners. The analysis reveals that, although the majority of contemporary ISKCON materials are vehemently opposed to evolution, some leading voices demonstrate less combative, cautiously accommodating stances. These cases are suggestive of complexities in ISKCON's responses to evolution, both past and present, which are not necessarily encapsulated in the terms Vedic creationism or antievolutionism.

Ezekiel in the Snow

Ezekiel in the Snow Maisie Mattia (bio) I do not want god to take the form of a mortal man, and that's the truth. Whenever god makes an entrance you know it's not just because he was stopping in. You know it's the end when he comes. I don't want it to end. I don't want to watch doves fall from the trees and blueberries burst into flame. But then again I wasn't the sort to wake my mother in the middle of the night and say I saw an angel and I killed it because it wouldn't tell me where god was. That was him, Ezekiel. Of all names. Mother named him Ezekiel and me she called Elizabeth. Elizabeth Anne, for god's sake, and my brother after a prophet. Mother said he was touched and I said you just wait. Said maybe he'll turn out a preacher and I said maybe he'll wander the desert naked. Mother coddled him all his life on the off chance. I wasn't right about the desert. Ezekiel in the snow is more surprise to me than all the rest of it. I will never forget when he said and here's his feathers, and by god there were feathers. Mother had no idea where he got them, no one was missing a chicken. Ezekiel in the snow. Me driving to him now because of all the rest of it. Some sort of prophet he is. Some sort of dreams he must be having. Driving past the dead lakes and the geese singing like cursed prima donnas. Ezekiel, come warm your hands with me. Ezekiel, tell me a story. Ezekiel, that was no angel. Now he is blind for everything but dreams. Digging for opals, he said. Called Mother from a pay phone. Opals, my god. And in the snow. ________ "No," said the man in the yellow vest. His beard was white as bloodroot. On the bar, a stack of flea-bitten books, about orchids no less. "Seen no one," he said. Then he patted the pocket of his vest, fingered its yellow velvet flap, and removed a small bundle of bird bones. "Except you and everyone with a front porch." Out of the barroom dark limped a greyhound, one eye half-curdled, the other already spoiled. Her teeth, too, were nowhere near a quorum. But her fur was different, some cousin of [End Page 164] mother-of-pearl, almost silver, lilac. "Only dog named in the Bible," he said. She licked from the man's palm with a thin, eloquent tongue, slowly, from what nearly seemed a sense of delicacy, and then disappeared into the dark, to seek from the bones whatever memory of marrow remained. "That makes dogs only one less than the angels." The man removed a jaundiced handkerchief from the opposite pocket to wipe his hands. There was soil in his nails to which he did not attend. His skin was tan as dry tobacco. But he had no beer, only the books. When he leaned close, his breath smelled of wet moss. "What kind of man are you looking for?" I don't know, I said. I hadn't seen Ezekiel for three years. Some sort of prophet, I said. Who knows why. But I trust a man in a yellow vest to have seen a prophet if there is one to be seen. ________ I went back to my motel, in the style of a Spanish mission: rosy adobe, line of weathered beams. Built by someone who mistook snow for sand, seems to me. Color-blind maybe, or just dreaming of summer. Past the cast-iron gate, bars tipped in lily florets: a gravel courtyard for cars. A yellowed flyer taped to my door claims some circus caravan is on the edge of town, in the pine wood. For who, in February? Hare Krishnas, if they ever drifted this far. Or lumberjacks, by happenstance. Glazed aqua tiles for the floor. Pitch blue under the bed, the table, the curtains. Potpourri somewhere. Made the whole room reek of honeysuckle. Ezekiel used to clip it from the vine...

In the name of name of existence: Identity politics of the hare Krishna consciousness in Yogyakarta

<p class="Abstract">What does normal mean? Referring to its meaning, normality is connected to the acceptance of people. According to Charles Taylor, it’s about recognition. Certain people take the recognition for granted, while others need significant effort. In Indonesian context, there are some religions that need to do significant effort to be accepted as normal. The law on the official religions makes minority groups tends to adjust their beliefs to one of the official religion. This research is about the struggle of The Hare Krishna Community in Yogyakarta to be recognized. As a new religious movement that came to Indonesia in 1970s, in the middle of official religions in Indonesia, Hare Krishna community fights for their existence. This community did efforts for its acceptance within Balinese Hindu community and the society in general. They did three kinds of identity politics: the consolidation among them; the negotiation toward Balinese Hindu community; the union with society in general. By doing so, they need to negotiate their rites and some of their belief system to the official one. Since talking about the official religions is debatable, these efforts are also a part of looking forward for a more respectful society toward the minority. Their effort for the public recognition is a process of identity politics.<br></p>

Heresy in the Siberian way: publishing activities of non-traditional religions, sects, dogma in Siberia and the Far East (90s of the XX - 10s of the XXI centuries)

Since the early 1990s non-traditional religions were widespread in Siberia and the Far East, and across Russia, among which there was a large number of totalitarian sects and destructive cults. The reason for the phenomenal success of previously unknown religious and occult teachings has been the spiritual vacuum that occurred in the country after the Communist ideology fall. Most of the new denominations launched in Russia publishing, which by the second decade of the XXI century was carried on by several dozen communal or sectarian publishers. In Siberia and the Far East the most active sects in publishing were the following: Protestant Church of Christ, Baha'i Faith followers, Krishna consciousness regional societies (in particular, the residents of Vladivostok), «Pleiadinas» sects («Ascended Masters» teachings). These sectarian creeds nave been brought into the country, however, and nowadays pseudo-religious cults are created in Russia, which carry a large destructive potential for the Russian society and its cultural traditions. They are Neo-pagans, the Marian center and a number of sects, whose activities began in Siberia: All-Russian movement «To God’s Rule!», The Church of the Last Testament of Vissarion Christ, etc. These cults had in Siberia and the Far East extensive publishing practices editing books, brochures, magazines, newspapers. «Pleiadinas» sect organized in Siberia edition of the monthly magazine «World Channeling» (Novokuznetsk), created two publishing houses: «Star of Freedom» (Novosibirsk) and «SiriuS» (Omsk). The Marian center used printing district offices of Kemerovo region for its production activity. Neo-pagans had publishing houses «Asgard’», «Arcor» and «Russian Truth» in Omsk. The article analyzes all these publishing organizations’ products. The ruinous effects of sectarian publishing activities distribution in the Russian regions is obvious. Its effect reduction will depend on the speed of eliminating the crisis in the spiritual sphere of our society.

Learning to Love Krishna: A Living Theology of Moral Emotions

ABSTRACTThis article explores what I describe as a living theology of moral emotions in the context of a multi-national community of ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) devotees in Mayapur, West Bengal. Against the backdrop of a rich history of moralisation of emotions, I outline how ISKCON’s philosophy has been informed by the context of its cross-cultural transmission to the West and back again to India. In particular, I focus on how devotees manage the seeming impossibility of the central spiritual goal of prema (‘pure love for Krishna’). Through a focus on moral narratives that cohere around understandings of emotion, I suggest that the careful aversion to displays, or indeed claims, of overt emotional experience in Mayapur is best understood by treating emotions as sites of moral self-cultivation. Whereas the anthropology of emotions has tended to privilege temporal episodes of rupture, I argue that more attention needs to be paid to how emotions are conceived and managed in the context of broader sustained projects of self-transformation.

Failing well

Since the early 1970s, the small town of Mayapur in West Bengal has been home to a multinational Gaudiya Vaishnava community of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) devotees, popularly known as the Hare Krishnas. Although the land of Mayapur is understood to be sacred and therefore conducive to spiritual life, devotees often struggle with the practices and prohibitions that are deemed indispensable for their salvation. They are also, however, both prone to and adept at articulating their inability to live up to the ideals of Krishna consciousness, so much so that narrating failure itself becomes a privileged mode of moral self-cultivation. Devotees inhabit the moral system not simply by conforming to a set of Vaishnava ideals but by articulating their failure to do so consistently within Vaishnava moral narratives that account for the aperture between precept and practice. In other words, they inhabit the moral system by failing well. This article contributes to recent debates in the ethical turn that center on the twin problems of identifying and locating ethics. I suggest that beyond a focus on virtue, the anthropology of ethics must also account for how people relate to vices, and how moral systems accommodate the problem of moral failure.

Food, faith, social service and institution building: the Annamrita programme of the Hare Krishna movement in India

ABSTRACTBased on fieldwork with the Annamrita programme, a food-based social service of ISKCON or the Hare Krishna movement in India, I look at the intricate connection between food, faith, social service and institution building. Formally known as the ISKCON Food Relief Foundation, the Annamrita programme has partnered with the government’s midday meal scheme for school children. From the point of view of sociology of food and sociology of religion, I propose that food is a cultural, moral and emotional investment for ISKCON. I describe how a faith-based social service through the instrument of food becomes a mode of bridging and institution building. The governmentality of this food service and the sacred public–private partnership is a specific kind of cultural and macroeconomic intervention in a resource-limited setting such as India. Camouflaged and embedded in this programme is an element of cultural hegemony and a Krishna consciousness-governed nationalism, with the ideas of the nation as a sacred land. Krishna is considered as the vanguard of sacralisation and the faith messages of ISKCON inevitably accompany the service package.

The Significance of the Hindu Doctrine of Ishtadeva for Understanding Religious Pluralism

The Significance of the Hindu Doctrine of Ishtadeva for Understanding Religious Pluralism Anantanand Rambachan (bio) ishtadeva; chosen or favorite God; plurality of names, images, and conceptions of God The World Council of Churches invited a number of guests of other faiths to participate in its Eighth Assembly, which took place in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1998. Our main participation was in the Padare (a Shona word for “meeting place”). These were workshop-like gatherings in which we addressed and discussed various themes. At one of the Padare sessions, with the intriguing title, “My God, Your God, Our God, No God,” Prof. Wesley Ariarajah, during the question time, asked me about the relevance of the Hindu doctrine of the “ishtadeva” for our understanding of religious pluralism. I cannot recall the brief answer that I gave to his question, but I remember not feeling contented with my response, and his question has remained with me ever since. The ishtadeva teaching plays an important role in most Hindu discussions of religious pluralism, and it is used as an interpretative lens for understanding religious differences. It may have significance, beyond the Hindu tradition, for our understanding of and response to religious pluralism. The nature and presuppositions of the doctrine of the ishtadeva are not usually critically assessed, and this may be a good opportunity to do this evaluation. To begin with the term itself, “ishtadeva” is Sanskrit for “chosen God.” Choice, of course, cannot be exercised when alternatives are absent. The ishtadeva doctrine is meaningful in the Indian context where religious pluralism has had a long history and where different God-forms were available for choosing. From among these, a person chooses one that becomes one’s ishtadeva. The most popular ishtadevas today include Shiva, Vishnu (especially [End Page 39] in one of Vishnu’s human incarnations such as Rama and Krishna), and the Mother Goddess in one of her many forms such as Kali or Durga. There is no doubt that, at various times in the history of Hinduism, the various ishtadevas were perceived as different and competing deities and their worshipers as rival communities. Many of the myths connected with Vishnu or Shiva seek to demonstrate the superior power of one over the other, and there are still particular traditions within Hinduism in which such rivalry persists, with one ishtadeva subordinated to another. The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, a modern Vaishnava movement, advocates the supremacy of Vishnu above all other deities. Although it may be impossible to trace the history of the ishtadeva doctrine, it appears to me that the doctrine is a response to sectarian rivalries about the true God. While one could subscribe to the doctrine of the ishtadeva, admit some kind of reality of other deities, and make all of them subordinate to one’s own, this would be contrary to the spirit that underlines the teaching about the ishtadeva. The ishtadeva doctrine developed in a context where different religious and cultural communities existed, each with its own distinctive images, doctrines, and ways of worshiping God. As these communities interacted and grew in awareness of each other, there was a movement from the more sectarian viewpoints that either accepted the reality of the other’s God and hierarchically subordinated it to one’s own or that understood one’s God as true and the other’s as false and nonexistent. The doctrine, in fact, suggests a rejection of the real existence of many Gods and the position that the absolute is One. At the same time, the doctrine presupposes that this One God is imagined, named, and worshiped in different ways and that human beings are choosing from among the many names and images of the One. Ariarajah, in his book, The Bible and People of Other Faiths, recounted a contemporary encounter and predicament that may replicate the ancient context in which the doctrine of the ishtadeva arose. Ariarajah, serving as a Christian pastor at that time in the town of Kandy in Sri Lanka, summarized his conversation with one of his students about her attendance at a Hindu festival on the university campus. “We usually do not go to the festival,” said the student, “because we do not...

Clothing as a Technology of Enchantment: Gaze and Glaze in Hindu Garments

This paper explores the effects and uses of shining garments in the contemporary Hindu group Iskcon (International Society for Krishna Consciousness). Shiny, decorative surfaces perform a paradoxical function in Iskcon's temple in Mayapur, India, and are worn both by deities and devotees in specific contexts. The importance of glaze can be understood through the centrality of gaze in Hindu worship, i.e., the magical efficacy of darshan where the devotee imbues the physical properties and qualities of the deity image through the tactility of sight. The luminous surfaces of shiny metal and plastic sequins, and gold and silver threads on the temple altar create an apotropaic barrier where clothing acts as a technology of enchantment (Gell 1998). Garment technology, as it is argued here, compels devotion through the juxtaposition of opposing emotions and forces.

Understanding God from the Indian Context in the 20th and 21st Centuries

Understanding God from the Indian Context in the 20th and 21st Centuries

From prayer beads to the mechanical counter

This paper compares the use of older and newer technologies in Hindu chanting through the example of Iskcon (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) devotees. Iskcon is global but has spiritual roots in West Bengal, India, and devotees try to connect with the deity Krishna through daily chanting. The use of prayer beads is compared to the mechanical counter, the haptics of chanting is linked to the co-ordination of mental and physical rhythms and the material affordances of the two devices are related to their respective effects. By analysing the views and practices of Indian and non-Indian devotees in different situations, technological changes are related to social changes and perceptions of time. Internal debates surrounding the use of the counter expose tensions between secular and sacred time, and indicate negotiations that accompany devotional performance within a contemporary landscape.

Expansión Hare Krishna en contextos de crisis: resignificando la movilización social desde una perspectiva religiosa en Chile

This paper focuses on the expansion of the Hare Krishna movement in Santiago, Chile, analysing mobilization discourse and mechanisms adopted in the face of the social upheavals of the new millennium. It seeks to understand not only recent internal transformation of the Hare Krishna movement, but also to identify social action strategies and independent policies concerning social issues in the public arena. We will analyse the active position the religious group has embraced in a context of growing social demands and how its actions are guided by the philosophical and spiritual conception of its doctrine.

Modes of institutionalization in the Hare Krishna movement

The purpose of this article is to consider the extent to which individuals are institutionalized by a religious tradition. I will base my discussion on Whitehouse’s theory of ‘modes of religiosity’ and a brief description of three life histories of Western individuals who joined the Hare Krishna movement (ISKCON). I shall attempt to analyze how they use their knowledge of this tradition to readjust and reinterpret their religious beliefs and practices from the perspective of a local and global mode of institutionalization. I shall also briefly discuss these institutional dynamics which, at the same time, create equality and alterity so that individuals can possess a sense of both religious identity and belonging to a religious community.

Modes of institutionalization in the Hare Krishna movement

The purpose of this article is to consider the extent to which individuals are institutionalized by a religious tradition. I will base my discussion on Whitehouse’s theory of ‘modes of religiosity’ and a brief description of three life histories of Western individuals who joined the Hare Krishna movement (ISKCON). I shall attempt to analyze how they use their knowledge of this tradition to readjust and reinterpret their religious beliefs and practices from the perspective of a local and global mode of institutionalization. I shall also briefly discuss these institutional dynamics which, at the same time, create equality and alterity so that individuals can possess a sense of both religious identity and belonging to a religious community.

История движения «Харе Кришна» в США и Великобритании через призму концепции Вебера-Трельча

История движения «Харе Кришна» в США и Великобритании через призму концепции Вебера-Трельча

Survival of the smallest: threat perceptions among religious minorities in Latvia and Lithuania

ABSTRACTWithin the international system, small states are expected to act a certain way vis-à-vis threats, regardless of whether the threats are objective or subjective. Does the same hold true for small non-state actors within a state? Can we expect size to be so significant as to determine how small non-states actors act? This article engages these questions by looking at four religious minority communities in Latvia and Lithuania: Hare Krishnas, Jews, Mormons, and Muslims. All four groups are demographically small and, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, all four have viewed their values and identities as threatened (though, to differing extents) by the governments, local populations, and societal organizations. Through a series of interviews, this article looks at these relations through the eyes of representatives from these four religious communities. Though all four communities see insecurity as a factor in their relations with others, the evidence suggests that size is less of a causal variable than expected.

Almost Heaven, West Virginia:

ABSTRACT In 1968, two years after A. C. Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada founded the Hare Krishna Movement, four of his followers set out for Moundsville, West Virginia, to establish New Vrindaban as an ideal, Vedic society organized around devotion to the Hindu deity Krishna. Bhaktivedanta and his devotees envisioned a self-sufficient agrarian society whose food and farming practices would be governed by devotional ritual practice. New Vrindaban was conceived as an experiment in creating a Vedic society in response to the perceived ills of the modern world. This experiment took place through a cultural critique instantiated by experimenting with alternate forms of social and material relations. Today New Vrindaban is a small but thriving community, and devotees still endeavor to achieve Bhaktivedanta's idealized Vedic society through food and farming. This article explores the role of food and farming in the International Society of Krishna Consciousness's Vedic utopia and the extent to which New Vrindaban has realized its utopian ideals.

How to Do Things with Sanskrit: Speech Act Theory and the Oral Performance of Sacred Texts

It is now half a century since J. L. Austin published his seminal workHow to Do Things with Words, in which he first articulated his theory of speech acts. Since thenhis core idea that verbal utterances convey more than what is simply implied by the words alone has become axiomatic. In this paperI will describe the use of Sanskrit verses in an oral tradition known in Hindi as aBhāgavata-kathā(“Divine narrative” or “Stories about God”)as practiced by teachers in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (iskcon)popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement. Verses drawn from the important Hindu texttheBhāgavata-purāṇaform a key component of these eventsyet few if any in the audience are able to understand them directly. As part of an ongoing inquiry into power and authority within a Hindu epistemeI use speech act theory to explore the function of these verses. Bhāgavata performances are compared with qur’anic recitation in the Comoros and the recitation of certain Buddhist texts in MustangNepal. I argue that Sanskrit verses in this event have what Austin terms “perlocutionary” significance: that isthey have a meaning and a function other than that conveyed by the words alone. They enable the exponent to demonstrate publicly his statusto establish his authorityand prove his direct access to the text. The performance of Sanskrit verseseven though it may be semantically inaccessible to the audiencevalidates the oral discourse by tying it directly back to the authority of the original source text. Herespeech act theory is applied not to the semantic content of the utterancebut to the choice of language in which the utterance is made.