Hari-śauri: This article explains that when he first appeared in public, he presented himself as a Hindu representative of Śaṅkarācārya's cult, but then later on he concocted this Transcendental Meditation, and then he presented it as a science so that he could get government grants to teach it in schools and things like this.
Rādhāvallabha: They have another guru here, Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh.
Prabhupāda: He has also come?
Rādhāvallabha: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: His group is big here. He's very popular in America.
Rādhāvallabha: Eighteen thousand disciples. He says, "It does not matter to whom one surrenders. The relevance is in the act of surrendering. But because the human mind sees things in terms of relationships, surrender to a guru is often useful. The guru is a step toward the impersonal divine, a step toward surrender to the existence."
Hari-śauri: He makes a comment about sannyāsa as well, I think.
Rādhāvallabha: He initiates sannyāsa, they call themselves neo-sannyāsa. "At initiation a sannyāsī receives a new name, an ochre robe and a mālā, a string of beads holding a locket that frames a photograph of Bhagwan."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Bhagwan Rajneesh, not Bhagavān.
Rādhāvallabha: The one who says it's no necessity to have a spiritual master. He says "The picture is not mine. Had it been mine I would have hesitated to put it there. The picture only appears as mine."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's word jugglery (laughter). The picture is of himself, he says "It is not me. If it was me I would not have put it there, it only appears to be me."
Devotee (1): They want something very cheap and easy to attain.
Rādhāvallabha: Here's his method. First they engage in breathing. It says, "The really successful meditator sounds like an exhausted sea lion." He says "If you feel like dancing, dance, laugh, scream, sing, express your love, your hate, your anger, your jealousy. Do not condemn what happens; do not condone it. Just go mad. Express whatever is within you totally, intensity." And here's his mantra, "Who who who." That's his mantra.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They were doing this in Bhopal. In Bhopal, we were there when we had our Jeeps. So in the same place we were staying they let this group Rajneesh do it. So they were going with that mantra, "Who who." So we were standing out from the balcony shouting, "Kṛṣṇa, that's who." Every morning they would do that meditation, and we would answer "Kṛṣṇa." (laughter)
Hari-śauri: They call his method "chaotic meditation."
Prabhupāda: They say?
Hari-śauri: That's the heading, it says "Chaotic Meditation."
Rādhāvallabha: That's the name of it. After they go "Who who who who who who..."
Prabhupāda: What about..., what they have written about us?
Rādhāvallabha: About us?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: A big article.
Rādhāvallabha: Everything is favorable. They didn't say one bad thing about us.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It says "Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare. The group above are performing a kīrtana, the chanting of the names of Kṛṣṇa, the Vedic Deity they believe to be the supreme personification of Godhead. They are shown before the doorway of one Astor Plaza in Manhattan's Times Square area. Their chant, increasingly familiar on street corners in all large cities across the country, runs, 'Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.' These Kṛṣṇa devotees belong to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, ISKCON, less formally known as the Hare Kṛṣṇa Movement and still less formally to the man in the street as the Harry Kṛṣṇas." (laughter) Actually, Prabhupāda, one...
Prabhupāda: Harry Kṛṣṇa.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They think that we're worshiping a person, some material man by the name of Harry Kṛṣṇa. They think that your name is Harry Kṛṣṇa. (laughter)
Ādi-keśava: In Boston they once wrote an article in the newspaper, the Boston Globe, they said "I walked into the temple room and there he was, a big picture of Harry Kṛṣṇa sitting on a big throne." (laughter) On the vyāsāsana.
Hari-śauri: Harry is an English...
Prabhupāda: Harry, Harrison, like that.
Devotee (1): They are saying Kṛṣṇa's name.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Should I read more? "There are several hundred thousand members of the movement, several hundred thousand members of the movement throughout the world. Ten thousand in New York City alone." Actually, there are at least ten thousand followers. "Of these, about a hundred and fifty are full-time students and live at 340 West Fifty-fifth Street, an eleven-story former Josephine Baird Home of the Roman Catholic Carmelite Nuns." This was a nunnery. "The Hare Kṛṣṇa center on West Fifty-fifth Street draws about five hundred lay devotees and curiosity-seekers from the metropolitan area every Sunday. Open house begins at five p.m. A great drawing card is the serving of prasādam, food specially prepared for and offered to Lord Kṛṣṇa before being distributed to the public. The eating of prasādam, (see the article, "Food of the Gods" on a later page), is believed by members of the movement to convey important spiritual benefits—for example, the cleansing of karma due to past sins. Movement members are not unaware of the more immediate and mundane effect. 'Prasādam is our secret weapon,' said Alaṅkāra dāsa, spokesman for the center. 'It gets them in here, and then they can get the message.' Les Tursley, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami, India-based senior member of the movement, has said of prasādam in his country..."
Rādhāvallabha: They think you're an Indian.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They think I'm an Indian. " 'If anyone comes around to our prasādam distribution program, that means he is hungry. If he is hungry, that means he cannot listen to our philosophy. If his hunger is not satisfied, he'll never become Kṛṣṇa conscious. That is the point. If we just went around with a program of speaking and kīrtana, they would come once or twice but they wouldn't see its practical value. But if you give them prasādam daily with kīrtana and speaking, eventually you can convince them. Look, this is our most practical way of life. Why don't you come and live with us completely and work with us? ' " That's a quote from an article in Back to Godhead. "Though food is far more plentiful in the United States than in India, prasādam appeal seems to work its magic here just as well. The entire movement began only ten years ago in a storefront temple in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Today it owns the largest publishing house of Hindu classics, many in demand for leading university courses. The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust in Los Angeles, the world's largest, last year's gross of one million dollars; incense-producing Spiritual Sky Scented Products Company; and Kṛṣṇa Fashions Incorporated, a wholesale clothing manufacturer. An important portion of the movement's income comes from the contribution of lay devotees, who are successful businessmen. More comes from street-corner solicitation of alms by devotees during kīrtana. How significant the last is, was shown recently by the closing down of elevator service in the New York center. 'A lot of us are going on pilgrimage to India,' said Alaṅkāra dāsa. 'There won't be many around to beg. These elevators cost us $2,200 a month to run. So we're cutting down except for essential services.' " We don't do that anymore. That was the previous mismanagement. Someone had the idea that if you turn off the elevator, that's very good, but I told him if you're not going to run the elevator, why did you move here? They had people walking up eleven stories, and it was crazy, just to save... Anyway, "These include moving foodstuffs and milk into the building. Much of the food comes from the 350-acre ISKCON-owned dairy farm in Academia, Pennsylvania, one of the six similar facilities in this country and Canada." They show pictures of devotees in the temple, devotees taking prasādam and two lady devotees. "The yoga," it says under the caption, "monks take breakfast by hand in rows on the dining area floor." Here it says "Saried women devotees dwell in cloister atmosphere of the center." Then "The yoga of devotion: Tilaka of clay paste marks the devotee as a member of ISKCON sect. Central shrine in the temple is the focal point of twice a day services." A picture of Rādhā-Govinda. " 'Our life is our meditation' said a śikhā-ed, saffron-clad monk in the Hare Kṛṣṇa center. 'Everything we do is offered to Śrī Kṛṣṇa, but in addition to that there is the personal chanting, most...' (break) ...slung from the devotee's neck. He often counts the beads without taking his hand from the pouch. In the early hours the Hare Kṛṣṇa center buzzes with a droning sound, difficult to identify by the stranger who does not know that it comes from the monks, who are beginning their required sixteen rounds." They have given everything very detailed. "The personal chanting sometimes occurs in unusual situations-while escorting a visitor to the center, while waiting to complete a phone call, or even during pauses in a conversation." (laughter) Devotees are always chanting. " 'The mahāmantra is the only mantra needed' the devotee says. Besides the sixteen rounds, devotees are expected to observe four rules. They must abstain from meat-eating, intoxication, gambling and illicit sex. Illicit sex is defined as any sexual act other than that intended for procreation. Sex outside of marriage is forbidden. Married, full-time devotees may have sexual relationship once a month at a time propitious for procreation. All the devotee's activities are regarded as bhakti-yoga, the yoga of devotion. He regards everything he does as service to God. The name he is given at initiation is followed by the word dāsa, 'a servant.' Full-time ISKCON devotees adopt Vedic dress, one objective being to keep others aware of Kṛṣṇa. Women wear saris, the men dhotis; both may wear shawls. The men shave their heads except for single lock of hair at the back. (See the article, "The Kṛṣṇa Cut.") The lock, called a śikhā, identifies the followers of Kṛṣṇa." Actually no one can imitate us because no one wants to give up their hair, so no one will try to make believe they are devotees. "Shaving the head announces renunciation of material pleasures. The tilaka is a mark made with clay-two narrow vertical stripes on the forehead meeting in a triangular swatch on the bridge of the nose. It identifies the body as a temple to be used only in the service of God. Full-time students follow a rigorously monastic life. They arise at four a.m. in the morning, begin four hours of prayer and chanting. At nine o'clock they have breakfast, seated cross-legged on mats on the floor. The men eat apart from the women. During the day devotees work at various preaching programs or at regular jobs. At seven p.m. devotional services are held in the center's temple. In Manhattan this features an ornate shrine including representations of Kṛṣṇa and His consort, Rādhā. Both are costumed sumptuously with elaborate care; both wear festoons of flowers. Visitors are cautioned, 'When you go in the temple room remember that these statues you see are not representations of the Deities, they are the Deities. Kṛṣṇa is in everything, Kṛṣṇa is everywhere.' Temple kīrtana." There's a picture. "Eleven-story New York sect's center is former Carmelite Baird home." Picture of the temple. "Services in the temple are attended by about five hundred every Sunday. Many of these are from New York's Hindu population. Frequently husbands bring their pregnant wives, dedicating their unborn child to Kṛṣṇa. The kīrtana begins with the chanting of the mahāmantra, slowly at first and melodiously. Later the chant will speed up as the spirit of the devotion spreads. Often the most rapid and intense chanting is done by a hard-core knot of dhoti-ed men before the curtains of the shrine." The devotees get in one group and start... (laughter) Hard-core devotees. "The rhythm approaches that of an express train, and the atmosphere is apt to remind a lay visitor of an old-fashioned football rally. Some of the onlookers try to keep up with the central group, clapping their hands, swaying their bodies, throwing arms upwards and, among the younger, adapting modern dance steps to the rhythm. When the shrine curtains are drawn back, devotees kneel and press their foreheads..."
Prabhupāda: Who has introduced this peculiar dancing?
Hari-śauri: It just evolved. (laughs)
Rūpānuga: We were speaking about that the other day. It's changed from the original dancing that you showed us to something else. Too much like the modern dancing.
Prabhupāda: Hmm. I think this is not good.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Shall I read on? "The service has become..." What way should we dance, Śrīla Prabhupāda? With our hands outstretched? Sometimes the devotees like to jump around. Is that all right?
Prabhupāda: In ecstasy one can do anything, that is another... But artificially to do something is not good.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But if one feels like jumping, it is all right?
Prabhupāda: Anything artificial is not required.
Rūpānuga: So running back and forth is not...
Prabhupāda: No, no, that should not be an artificial.
Hari-śauri: We don't dance for show, we dance for the pleasure of the Deities.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, we're not professional dancers. "The service has become so frenetic that the almost folksy, matter of fact preaching of the Swami makes a stark contrast. 'Some people are against us because they say we teach children to smile. Well isn't that too bad. We make children smile—we are bad. We try to teach them that life should be a joyful thing, we're evil. Well that's too bad, isn't it? ' "
Devotees: Who's that? That's crazy.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This is theory.(?) (laughter)
Prabhupāda: So he has not returned with the key?
Hari-śauri: Who? Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa?
Prabhupāda: Hmm. Still more?