What was the point?

[pamu]

I am sure pretty many of us have been either directly or indirectly involved with Iskcon. I am quite curious to hear your stories. What got you interested? Why did you leave? What do you think was the point or the reason why you dedicated your life to it? Things like that. What? Nobody wants to tell? You cannot blame a man for trying.

[pamu]

A polite thing to do is to start with oneself. In the beginning of 1980´s I had an existential crisis in my life. It was not purely religious. I went through a political and ecological awakening too. I supported Greenpeace, became vegetarian and found myself in the left side of political arena. All that felt good but was not enough. The same eternal problems with the all too human greed, envy and general lowbrow-mentality showed up everywhere I looked for help and permanent solutions.

By chance we had an friend from Pakistan who one day decided to try to shape up his religious life and started meditating. Through him we got Bhagavad-gita, a book we found very interesting and most of all convincing. Philosophy was both simple and elevated, an unique combination. With our friend we visited the Hare Krishna-temple in Stockholm. Soon enough I happened to hear a lecture and also see personally one fellow with thick glasses I quess most of you know..
I liked his enthusiasm, his wit and humour and felt immediate kinship with him.

I ended up as a fulltime member of Iskcon because I searched for solutions which would help me understand and act properly in this world. I wanted to be an asset to this world, not simply a burden or a living catastrophy destroying the planet and robbing everything in sight. I wanted to learn to love, which I thought would be the end of all and all in all of our life.

It was good as long as it lasted, but.... After a decade or so I woke up to see that not many if any of us were proceeding anywhere. We were just going through the motions. I was schocked to find out that I could even sell books just going through the motions. There was all too much pretending and absurd projections that made the whole atmosphere feel like I was on a stage playing with fellow actors. I felt the environment to be unhealthy. I felt that I was not evolving. I craved for long and open conversations were nothing was tabu, problemsolving sessions were everything was possible as long as it actually solved the problem.
I felt that human emotions and regular respect were missing in our society. I did not feel as an asset but as an tool.

When Hari left I lost my last bit of desire to stay in the ranks. I knew what I was searching for and I knew it was not wise for me to stay any longer. Even though the decision to leave was my own I went through personal hell after I had left. Panic attacks, severe anxiety, sleeping problems, problems both in physical and psychological department, it was a long dark tunnel I had to go through and believe me, I saw no white light at the end of that tunnel! It took two years and a lot of soulsearching to be able to find my niche of life again.

Now I am more mature and independent person than ever before. Nowadays my whole life is built upon three principles; fearlesness, independence and strong identity. They are the principles of pacifism, which I think is a healthy ground for any and all to stand on.

To be honest, I think the most valuable thing I derived from the whole Iskcon-experience was the conviction that I truly must live my own life, make my own decisions, carry my own responsibility and learn to make peace with the unavoidable "I cannot know everything" dilemma.

ps. oops! The most valuable thing is of course my wife whom I fell madly in love while doing my time in Iskcon.

[GPandit]

Okay Pamu, I'll bite.....

Long ago in a faraway land called Brooklyn, NY there was a cozy temple
Lots of friendly Hare krishna people there.
I joined up with my best friend Pete.
Life was hard and austere, but there were ample servings of joy
The head honcho there was called Bali, he had a wife who like Toyota
Bali didn't seem nice, like the rest of the devotees--in fact, he seemed mean
Anytime he or his wife walked by, we were told we had to bow to them.
It didn't seem right, but I did it.
Later, it got more weird there and I got myself to Coconut Grove Florida
I found Tamal and Vishnu Jana's bus, and they let me join
Being a Hare Krishna was fun again! Then I went on many other buses with many other "leaders"
But, I kept seeing hypocritical things. When I denied them, I stopped listening to the inner voice, the "ceta guru"
Soon, I could not hear the inner voice
I did not trust what I felt deep in my core

I can sum it up with a poem (paraphrased, I cant recall exact words) by Machado:

The wind, one fine day, filled my nose with the scent of jasmine
And the wind said: 'In return for the smell of my jasmine,
I will take the smell of your roses'
And I said: 'I have no roses, all the flowers in my garden are dead'
And the wind replied: 'Then I will take the yellow leaves and withered petals'
And I wept, and said to myself: 'What have you done with the garden
That was entrusted to you?'

[pamu]

Thank you GPandit. Nice poem, too.

First I thought it to be a sad one, but really, the wind was satisfied with so little! Reciprocation, willingness to share and exchange loving gifts, even not so flashy ones, is indeed what this life is about.

[Janus]

I am sure pretty many of us have been either directly or indirectly involved with Iskcon. I am quite curious to hear your stories. What got you interested? Why did you leave? What do you think was the point or the reason why you dedicated your life to it? Things like that. What? Nobody wants to tell? You cannot blame a man for trying.

I remember "The Good Old Days". There was very little respect for anyone outside of the movement, they were "karmi's", "demons", the "other", even one's parents, very little real compasiion for anyone, anyone. Later on this was exhibited within the movement itself, for if you don't have real compassion for anyone you don't have real compassion for anyone, anyone, irrespective of which side of the movement they might be on.

But there was something else too, something that a fourteen year old boy first experienced on Hollywood Blvd, when he walked between the lines of Vishnu Jahns chanting party and in a spirit of submissive, relevant and eager enquiry looked into the eyes of the chanters as they passeed, something so overwhelming that it was like a light going on in a darkened room, even more so involving. In the language of esoteric Christianity it was a transport, and for a moment it was transfiguRing and configuring at one in the same time.

He was no stranger to transports this boy of fourteen. Already he had performed the Liber Samek, the most powerful ancient Pagan Rite still existing, already he had trafficked with the spirits of the Lemegeton, already he was an Initiate of another esoteric tradition also newly come to America. Besides being the youngest member of an Occult Society he was also a Wiccan, born of the Blood, first best, and second best also, by initiation.

But this was something different, no other tastes combined could equal it in sweetness, could provide the balm, that soothing salve that cooled the furnace of the spirit that possessed him, but still he was a boy and as a boy in the dawning rush of manhood may oten do, he put it aside, meaning to investigate it more fully at a later time.

That time was after Vietnam. There are places that a man can go to but can never return from. Whether he comes back riding on the seat of a plane or stuffed away in a body bag in the cargo hold, he's dead either way. Blown apart or blown to pieces the boy had died as he had meant to die, unable to survive the closed casket funeral of his infant son and she who was to have been his wife. Nothing on this side of the grave could release him from that agaony, but some odd piece of him yet strived, something from the other side of the grave, somthing from the other side of the grave... going back

Sometimes the dead come back.

He saw her at the airport. She was dressed in regular clothes, nothing about her from that distance could portray her affiliations, nor had he ever observed them doing Sankirtan, only chanting briefly. When he went up to her she slurred the name so that it sounded like she was claiming to represent a Christian youth group, what an Irony, he had never been a Christian in any life. But he knew that she was not a Christian, what she was, as a dog can smell what he cannot sight. A moment for her of fright as he said "You are a Hare Krsna", and then relief and good feelings as he expressed support an interest, and the the invitation to the free Sunday Feast. Her name was Lalita and he bought her a stuffed polar bear.

What remained of the beloved walked up to the temple when he got back from leave and was greeted and ushered in by two devotees. The young man was gave hin a brief lecture and the woman his first plate of prasadam. As soon as possible they went off and he was alone in the temple and was able to get down to the business that he had come for. He walked into the temple room to test the movements spiritual authority.
He picked up the Bhagavad Gita, stood before the Vyasana, before Srila Prabhupadas picture and asking his question silently opened up the Gita to a random page and placed his finger upon a random sentence. In a book of over a thousand pages there was the only answer that would satisfy him. The Blood congealed and resolved itself again. He placed his head at Srila Prabhupadas feet and was lifted up again. Soul meets soul when eyes meet eyes. THe dog whined, the old man patted its head, the armored glove, the armored collar. Kindred spirits, this was war and both of them knew it. War for one for some hundreds of years, war for the other eternal, etenal war against all that was hateful in Their sight, hunger, ignorance, suffering, war eternal until l "Thy will be done." No quarter, no surrender." Live or Die

Every human being interprets their existence in terms of a metaphysical model, in the case of some however, the model interprets them. The true value of any tradition, claiming of itself to be transcendent is in its ability to provide liberation, and in the case of those transcendent traditions that are Theistic,, in their ability to offer to one incoproration into the pastimes of the Gods of their tradition, even while they live, life to life

[gangster_of_love]

I am sure pretty many of us have been either directly or indirectly involved with Iskcon. I am quite curious to hear your stories. What got you interested? Why did you leave? What do you think was the point or the reason why you dedicated your life to it? Things like that. What? Nobody wants to tell? You cannot blame a man for trying.

I first came to take Krishna consciousness seriously 5 months after graduating high school in 1977. My childhood up till that time was average middle class american teenager for that time. I had lived in Europe briefly though due to my fathers job having us move to Madrid for a couple years when I was 8 years old. I spent my junior and senior high school years in a suburban setting on Long Island, New York. I was a typical stoner kid who was into playing guitar, rock music, getting high, binge drinking, cheating at exams in school because I never did any home work at all nor payed attention in class.

After graduating from High school I moved upstate to Ithaca, New York. My brother had gotten a full scholarship to Cornell University and he had invited me up to stay the summer in the house he and his friends rented. He and his friends were all deadheads and hippies, the smart types. I wasn't a hippie but I was an avid Grateful Dead fan and fan of psychedelic music in general.

My brother had been a small time drug dealer since the 8th grade. LSD, Hashish. Ganja and Speed was what he sold to his circle of friends and their friends etc. Small time teenage stuff. Ithaca is a beautiful place in the finger lake region of New York, mountains, forests, rivers, streams, etc. Cornell is an old style Ivy League University, many very large old buildings in a very beautiful setting spread out amojng hills and forest and a river. Ithaca is famous in America for being a kind of intellectual progressive hippie center. It's been called the most progressive city (really a town) in America.

In those days LSD was all the rage in Ithaca. We would have LSD parties at our large old house where hundreds of people would come and partake. The whole scene was very cool and fun. Ithaca was not your average College town, the people were what you would have expected to find on freak street in Nepal or Berkeley. Ithaca was a place where I had my first experience with a progressive culture and a mystical experience as well (from the LSD combined with the atmosphere).

I had been raised without any spirituality or religion of any type. I was an atheist as were my parents. But in Ithaca I was exposed to the whole New Age culture of the time, taking LSD in that environment produced a profound change in my consciousness and outlook. I started practicing yoga while I was there, began reading books like Autobiography of a Yogi, and essentially became transformed from a suburban stoner into a novice new age seeker.

After the summer I took a bus to the west coast, California. After a while my brother and some of his friends dropped out of Cornell and they came out to California as well. I travelled to a yoga community called Ananda Village in the Sierra Mountains of California. They have a beautiful piece of land with a lot going on. I stayed at their spiritual retreat with a bunch of other guests and engaged in their yoga program which included kirtans and asanas etc. It was started by a disciple of Paramahamsa Yogananda who broke away from the parent organization; SRF. It's still an ongoing spiritual community today.

After leaving Ananda and coming back to southern california, one night we dropped some peyote. My brother and a friend had gone to the Rainbow Gathering in New Mexico and had picked up some peyote from an American Indian. This was our first experience with peyote. Peyote has been used for thousands of years by Indians in their religion as a way for your spirit guardian to communicate to you.

And thats exactly what happened. Although I was involved in yoga at that time, it was mayavadi stuff. I was still essentially an atheist. God as a conscious person had no relevance to me. All of that changed when I took peyote.

To be continued...

[pamu]

Now I can see, that the "gangster"part of your name did not come from nothing. Curious to see, how the love ´portion will come about.

[gangster_of_love]

Now I can see, that the "gangster"part of your name did not come from nothing. Curious to see, how the love ´portion will come about.

gangster of love (from The joker).wav

Before I had taken my first peyote trip I had been frequenting the Iskcon temple where I had lived around a mile from. I would go there for the food during the week and the sunday kirtans. I couldn't relate to the books but I loved the temple ambiance and decor and the wild kirtans on sundays. The food was great during the week. They didn't just put out rice dhal and subji, they had a person whose full time job was growing various sprouts and creating magnificent salads with avocados and all kinds of goodies. They cooked a lot of maha prasad and gave it out at lunch time so that lunch at the temple was a daily feast. They had a couple of great cooks who were serious in their study of Indian cooking and it showed in the great variety and professional quality. Still the best temple food I've ever had were those days.

Anyways, what I experienced when I took peyote with my friends would change my life forever.

It's probably hard to understand if you've never taken it but I'll try and tell you what I experienced. Imagine having your power of perception intensified greatly. And then imagine being in a virtual reality world where you were interacting with virtual people, having conversations with them. But instead of having different conversations with different people, instead you had a single conversation with one person who spoke through the various people you were seemingly speaking with, without their knowing it.

And imagine if the conversation you were having with someone you couldn't see but could easily comprehend through other peoples eyes, words and emotions, was telling you a story, a story about it's control over nature, all the while showing you that reality through your environment i.e through people, through animals, through media, and through your own mind.

I wasn't in a virtual world, but I was shown that this world is in fact a type of virtual reality in a cosmic computer, and that God was controlling everything

After undergoing that experience all night we were all hungry and headed off to the temple to get some food. It was still dark out and must have been around 5 .a.m.

When we arrived there was a sannyasi (acyutananda swami) sitting on a dais playing a mrdanga and singing Jaya Radha Madhava while all the devotees were seated getting ready to hear Bhagavatam class.

Now up to this point I had been having God reveal to me many things for hours on end and it was still going on, the conversation he was directing towards me through other people, using them like puppets, had not stopped. Just as we sat down the bhajan ended and Acyutananda Swami looked right into my eyes for 10 seconds, and he said "This is Krishna consciousness". And then he gave a lecture which explained in detail the basics of Krishna consciousness. Needless to say my mind was blown.

So a few months later after having had some more mystical experience, although without any drug because I had stopped and had started to study and chant intently, I moved into the ashrama.

I never really "surrendered" totally, body and soul, to any Guru. I was in Iskcon for 4 years and most of that time I did what I wanted to do, my "Guru" was not happy with me and I couldn't have cared less. He wanted me to do various things and usually I rejected it or tried it for a very short bit and then rejected it. I was a pariah in his eyes and the eyes of the other disciples and "authorities". It was easy for me to become the first (I think) "disciple" of one of Prabhupada's successors (the eleven) to reject their "Guru" and join the mission of one of Prabhupada's godbrothers ('81). Even then I only stayed a very short time with them (maybe 4 months in toto).

So even though I accepted on principle the ideology being taught in the gaudiya school about absolute surrender to a Guru, in fact I never did, nor even came close to it. When I first joined Iskcon I tried to "surrender" completely, but after a a year I realized that it wasn't my thing. I judged a bhakti activity on the basis of the amount of, or lack of bliss I derived from it, I "followed my bliss". If I was instructed to do something but that activity wasn't blissful I rejected it after trying it. Since I was reading that the result of bhakti activity is bliss, I reasoned that if any bhakti activity I was doing wasn't blissful, then it wasn't worth doing. That's why they gave up on trying to get me to collect money out on the streets and in parking lots. I would just wander off and go do something else with my time i.e read a book, see a movie etc. I would come back with a few dollars and after a short while they decided to change "my service".

They would try and pressure me into trying to collect more money by mentioning that it would please "my guru", that "if you please your guru then Krishna blesses you". But all to no avail, I was stubborn, if it wasn't fun I wasn't going to do it. I joined Iskcon for the fun of it. I expected that my time in Iskcon would be fun because that is what the philosophy promised i.e unending bliss in the association of happy caring loving people. I became disillusioned quickly. I realized that many people were creeps, and that there was little of the caring loving community I had been expecting.

I had learned to cook by working under the two great cooks at the temple every morning and sunday. I had developed a skill that was desired by temple leaders. I had "an attitude" problem in their eyes because I wasn't a totally compliant person willing to surrender to their whims and then devote myself to that, which they expected. So I had something they wanted because good cooks who could cook consistently good food in large quantities, speedily, were always in short supply. Because of that they usually gave me much less of a hard time then they would have had I nothing that they desired. I was a commodity and treated as such, and I exploited that fact.

I bounced around all the temples in Southern California and Hawaii as well the satellite temples for short stints.

I became one of those devotees who made friends with the older cynical (realistic) devotees, I liked their way of looking at Iskcon because it mirrored my own. They instructed me on the sordid side of the leaders and the various hidden "naughty" things going on in Iskcon. Maybe those types of devotees were unique to the huge Los Angeles community, I dunno. I remember the temple president of the first temple I lived at warning me about Los Angeles; "They're in maya" he warned me when we went there for a festival. But there were two distinct types of devotees there. There were the ones who disdained authority and were cynical and realisitic at the same time, and were not the gung ho rah rah slaves like the other type. One type essentially saw Iskcon as something to enjoy and exploit for whatever reason, not in a bad way though, and the other type saw Iskcon as a place to give themselves to, to surrender to completely, body, mind, and soul, regardless of what was asked of them. They lived life with blinders on, really believing that they were supposed to be the menial slaves of the leaders whom they saw as "authorized", and whom I and the others saw as being exploiters and egotistic creeps.

My days in Iskcon ended in San Francisco. I had gone up there because I had gotten bored of the southern california temples, things had changed since when I had joined, 4 years had gone by and the temples had become less communal and more Guru centric and fanatic and unpleasent. Boring people fanatically slaving away to make money was the new Iskcon from my expereince. It wasn't like that when I joined, to a degree it was, but it just got exponentially worse as the years went by.

San Francisco was different. It was run by a wealthy Iranian devotee who did as he pleased because he was wealthy and a GBC and wasn't dependent on others. Ambarisa (Alfred Ford) lived a few blocks away with his roomate and was officially the Temple President, although he rarely came by. The Iranian devotee was in charge, he was kissing up to Ambarisa obviously for financial reasons by giving him the temple president title. It was not like your usual Iskcon temple. It was an expensive home in an expensive neighborhood with only a handful of devotees, and besides the mornng program there was nothing else going on at the temple. They did have a restaurant a few blocks away which I cooked at, and eventually they bought the house next door to the restaurant and turned that into the new temple.

I had a lot of fun there because the devotees were cool and Haight Ashbury back then was a fun place to be. That is where I met the ex-president of the Los Angeles temple Dhira Krishna Swami and his partner in crime Brahma Das. They were both living there having just arrived before I did from India where they had stayed at Sridhar Maharaja's ashrama in Navadvip.

They had come there with the stated intent on buying some property and starting a temple outside of the jurisdiction of Iskcon and also to buy a printing press to print Sridhar Maharajas lectures into books.

Well this did not sit well with the GBC, except for Atreya Rishi (the Iranian) who gave them a place to stay at the temple. A handfull of GBC flew in to try to convince Dhira Krishna not to start a schism. This would be the first schism (not counting siddhaswarupa) with the backing of a major Iskcon personality that Iskcon was to experience. I knew Dhira Krishna from Los Angeles from when he was temple president. For a few months I had brought him his lunch in his apartment every day, all the while earning the wrath of the matajis who used to gather the maha for whatever purpose. They were upset that I took so much maha prasad under the pre-text of serving the temple president sannyasi his lunch, in fact I took also enough for me and a few of my friends to gorge out on everyday.

I remember when Jayapataka flew in to speak to Dhira Krishna when we received a phone call telling us Hansadutta was coming over from Berkeley to see Jayapataka. I think Jayapataka was afraid because when Hansadutta came he wanted him to say his peace in the temple/living room with the various devotees present. So I got to see Hansadutta accuse Jayapataka of stealing over 1 million dollars worth of gold from him when Jayapataka took over Hansadutta's Philippines temples. Hansadutta was angry and demanded his gold back. Jayapataka claimed ignorance, it was kinda funny to watch.

Anyways I had listened in when the various GBC tried to convince Dhira Krishna to not start his own temple. My room was adjacent to theirs and our windows were open and I could hear them speak. Dhira Krishna seemed to me to be much more intelligent and easliy rebuffed their attempts. I was impressed with his arguments. So I joined up with them.

When I finally left Iskcon and joined up to help start the first Sridhar Maharaja temple in San Jose california, I at first thought that it would be different then Iskcon. Here were a couiple of Guys who saw through the bullshit of the leaders in Iskcon and who were definitely not the gung ho rah rah slave types. They were, I thought, like myself i.e realistic and without the pompous holier then thou pretense of Iskcon leaders and devotees. I thought it would be something much more familial where people were treated as equals and respected and cared for.

But that was wishful thinking. It quickly became a place where the same head trips found in Iskcon became common. A lot of that had to do with their thinking of themselves as superior to the devotees in Iskcon because they had "seen the light" i.e Sridhar Maharaja was a "pure devotee" whereras the devotees in Iskcon were blind and or stupid and offensive to the vision. Exploiting people as slaves for the financial gain of the leaders was the modus operandi, as it was in Iskcon as well. They didn't see anything wrong in exploiting sincere people for their personal solitary financial gain. They were really no different then Iskcon leadership i.e out for themselves at the expense of the people who took them to be "authorities" worthy of "surrendering" to. I was not so blind.

So I took my leave and headed for Maui. Even though I also saw Sridhara Maharaja as a "pure devotee" at that time, though I knew little of what he taught, I never had the inclination to subsume my ego and goals to another person unless that person was going to share everything he had with me. The way I looked at it was that if the Guru was supposed to be like a father whom the children were supposed to love, cherish, give money or service to and be obediant to, then the Guru had better share his wealth, love, etc, fully, with those who "surrendered" to him, like a real father. Since I never once saw that anywhere in Iskcon or outside of Iskcon, I never felt anyone deserved my surrender.

To me a real Guru is one who gives back to his following from what he gets from his following. If his followers give him palatial homes, lots of money, cars, control over a wealthy organization, then a true Guru, a real Guru, will share it all, freely. A true Guru is a person who doesn't treat his followers as things to be used and gives back more then they give, materially and emotionally as well. That is my standard. That is what I gleamed from my philosophical studies of the qualities of a "pure devotee". So since I never saw that from day one, I never took the position of a slave to another, I never "surrendered" to anyone. From my very beginning in learning about gaudiya vaisnavism, before I ever joined up, I had read what the "bona fide" Guru was supposed to be like. i.e Selfless and without exploitative tendencies.

So I walked away from the whole shebang without any mental damage. I viewed all of what I experienced as destiny, a learning experience that I was put through by the fates.

I tend to see things philosophically when it comes to why we do the things we do and how our lives unfold over time. To me it is destiny which is the only factor which decides why we do what we do, and what path our lives go down and what we go through both physically and mentally and emotionally. It's all written in the stars in my understanding. Life is a learning experience, whether you know it or not doesn't matter.

I lived in Hawaii for almost the next 20 years. I had more mind blowing mystical experiences, different from before. I remember one where for 24 hours straight everytime I closed my eyes I would be in a virtual world. The things I saw changed quite a bit during that time. For a while I could walk around with my eyes closed and I could see another world that I was walking in. With my eyes closed I could see that I was near a beach cliff, so I started to walk off the cliff, in reality I was just walking around my yard with my eyes closed, but what I saw was myself walking off a cliff without falling, I couldn't see myself in that virtual world, I had no form, but other people would see me and walk up to me, they were dressed in fantastic costumes. I couldn't hear anything there, but I could see it. Most of that time I wasn't walking around, I just layed down and let the show go on. I was shown all variety of interesting things. At one point God showed me how he manipulates matter in order to create things, at another point God showed me what he looks like, not the human form he takes, but what he actually looks like in the realm of the cosmos.

Later I had other mystical experiences where God revealed his form as young Krishna to me. It was like seeing a hologram floating 10 feet in front of you. It was at night on a secluded beach on maui, the hologram was shimmering brilliantly and easy to see because it was dark out. He was Krishna, dressed up as a 12 year old cowherd boy, although different from any painting I had ever seen. His face was painted in a criss cross pattern of green and red on his light chocolate skin. After maybe 30 seconds of this he started to grow, and grow, and grow, until he rose to encompass the sky. And then it ended.

I've had other mystical experiences, but if I told you everything about them you would think me mad. Gradually I was taught how to perceive God conversing with me everywhere, through everything, and everyone, including my mind, at any and all times. At first it was exhausting and very confusing, but after a couple years it became normal.

My idea of what God is changed greatly over that time. I had been thinking that God is Krishna, Vishnu etc. I related to God treating God as a male. I was emphatically disabused of that notion. What I learned was that I was mistaken. Krishna is a persona God takes on, like Rama or any other avatar. In truth God is female. Or rather God's inner self conception is that of being a female. Radha or Devi or whatever name you want to use, that is God's inner self definition. Radha, Krishna, etc, there is only One God, it is a She. And She doesn't like to be treated as a male. Krishna means nothing to Her. Krishna is just a persona she puts on, a costume, thats all. She looks for male companionship elsewhere.

[pamu]

Oops! Thank you for sharing that. By the way, I was one of those gung ho rah rahs.

[harsi]

A great description indeed, dear "Gangster of Love", showing to me your great skill of writing in a captivating fashion, maybe you should write a book, I for me, would read it with great delight. Simply wonderfull! I desired I could offer you one of this very delicious sweet for your pleasure. Your story was remembering me my time, in this kind of association, I was very much similar to you, I never was this kind of "gung ho ra rah" follower too...

[pamu]

On behalf of all the gung ho rah rahs I have to say, that all of us, even those who say otherwise, must have been a little bit gung ho rah rah.
That was the nature of our society. We thought we knew best.

[harsi]

On behalf of all the gung ho rah rahs I have to say, that all of us, even those who say otherwise, must have been a little bit gung ho rah rah.
That was the nature of that society. We thought we knew best.

Of course when you define a "gung ho rah rah" in that way, than yes, I was also one of them.
In a kind of "gung hu rah rah" fashion, I also thought, that that, what I as many others of this kind, defined to be or not to be, acording to what we heared, from someone who suposed to be a "pure" "one", who would have heard it himself from his own "one", and so on, at least it was "preached" in this kind of "..." fashion to me, that this would have been, in some way, the best and bonafide way a "pure" or true "you know what I mean," should think and behave in order to be able to reach our "Supreme destination."

And I am not including in this matter the natural need of all ".." namely to feel or show an emotion of a human kind to others, a way in which a true and "bonafide" gung hu rah rah would or "should" never reveal to other "...s". if he didnt wanted to be eticheted as a sentimental "one", or one who would be, acording to how other "one of this kind" understood the term "in maya". Only in a complete secluted place where no other one of this kind, could see you, although he would do the same, like all "of this kind".
But one had to maintain the etichete,even inthis kind of "..." society, in order to be apreciated as a true one.

A true, one of this kind, would just have to function well in a kind of bonafide "gung hu rah rah" way even, in order to be apreciated and accepted in this kind of society as a true and "surendered "one" (I dont whant to repeat myself).
Which, and that I must also say I liked also, there were and are also nice and thoughtfull persons inside of this kind of "gung hu rah rah" society. I foundet and developed myself one in Romania, to whose members I have and maintain also a nice and friendship relationship. But that is another story I will write another time.

We like and appreciate each other like all humans should do. I think the word tolerance is the keyword in this conection, which all "gung hu rah rahs" should remember and apply in their relationships, be they "karmi gung hu rah rahs" or "devotee gung hu rah rahs" or whomever I may have forgotten in this conection.
Aren`t we somehow all connected to each other in some way or other, and have the same origins, the Supreme .....One, of this kind, who is the Supreme shelter of all "...", or?

[gangster_of_love]

On behalf of all the gung ho rah rahs I have to say, that all of us, even those who say otherwise, must have been a little bit gung ho rah rah.
That was the nature of our society. We thought we knew best.

I didn't just say "gung ho rah rah", the full phrase was "gung ho rah rah slaves". And then I described what I meant by that:

[they] saw Iskcon as a place to give themselves to, to surrender to completely, body, mind, and soul, regardless of what was asked of them. They lived life with blinders on, really believing that they were supposed to be the menial slaves of the leaders whom they saw as "authorized",

And I contrasted that with the other type which was :

One type essentially saw Iskcon as something to enjoy and exploit for whatever reason, not in a bad way though,... and whom I and the others saw [the leaders] as being exploiters and egotistic creeps.

I also said that the first year I was in Iskcon I also was attempting to be a gung ho rah rah slave type i.e total surrender. But that I became disillusioned quickly because I saw that the leaders were exploiting everyone else. The leaders had nice homes and expensive cars, had plenty of money to travel with, and they did little in the way of physical service if any at all. All the while they would demand and bully everyone else into accepting the life of a slave. It was obvious to me after around a year of being in Iskcon that there was the elite class who palled around with each other living like lords of the manor while treating the common devotees as their financial beasts of burden, often in a callous, cunning, cold hearted, cruel, selfish, uncaring fashion.

Those devotees that didn't see the double standard and obvious exploitation after being in Iskcon for a short time were what I classified as the "gung ho rah rah slave" type. As I wrote they lived life with "blinders on", they really believed it was their lot in life to be the menial servants of the "authorized" leaders.

When I described the other type I wrote that they "saw Iskcon as a place to enjoy and exploit, but not in a bad way." By that I meant they tried to use the resources of Iskcon for their own projects, or they could have used Iskcon resources in order to make money working at a paying job within Iskcon, or even they simply used Iskcon to get Iskcon to pay for their apartment and living expenses while they did as little as possible for Iskcon to get that. Those devotees I described as not being fooled by the positions of leadership in Iskcon as being some kind of confirmation of those leaders superior spiritual status, and thereby giving them divine right to do as they please and be worth surrendering to like a menial servant.

I would disagree that everyone was a gung ho rah rah slave type at some point who joined Iskcon, I was for around the first year, actually more like 8 months. I remember when I changed my outlook because it was traumatic for me. I had joined Iskon with great expectations and great faith. I believed that I was joining the transcendental world, I was very excited. But after a while it became obvious that many devotees were cold hearted or asocial or creeps or all three, and also it became obvious to me that the leadership was abusive of their power over us little guys. It was obvious that they lived in wealth and luxury and that I lived in poverty, it was obvious that they did no physical work while demanding that I do backbreaking physical labor to support their luxurious lifestyle. It was obvious to me after a while that the leaders, (I don't mean the GBC or Gurus because I rarely saw them, I mean the temple presidents and their right hand men) were not any more spiritually advanced then anyone else, and usually the opposite was true. The longer I was in Iskcon I got to see more of the GBC and Gurus because a lot of that time I spent in Los Angeles where many Gurus and GBC were coming and going. While I didn't have experience of what was going on in other "zones", I expected that it was more or less the same as what I had experienced in Ramesvara's Zone, although I don't really know from experience. I assumed that the GBC and Gurus were like Ramesvara i.e doing little, taking a lot, and demanding menial servitude with no expectations of anything but a space on a floor to sleep on from his disciples.

So like I said I don't think everyone came into Iskcon with the same expectations or naivete as I had. I was 18 years old when I moved in, many others who first join Iskcon are older and more mature or even the same age as myself but without the same expectations and faith in Iskcon as being a totally transcendental realm. Different people joined at various stages of their maturity and life experience and they joined for various reasons with varying degrees of faith. I have had conversations with quite a few ex Iskcon devotees who have told me they never really believed in God, or Krishna, or Caitanya, Prabhupada, etc.

So not everyone was in a purely spiritual head space ready to give their life and soul when they joined Iskcon, and many who did have deeply spiritual reasons for joining lost their faith and then just went through the motions in order to be accepted.

[Janus]

There were other types of devotees, one who believed Srila Prabhupada to be qualified and his mission as being something to serve, but who did not believe that anyone else to be other than a neophyte. The other type shared the same belief about Prabhupada and his mission but they did not believe that the pretenders were ever qualified, they saw that they weren't.
A middle class devotee has an awakening of spiritual sight. He can see anothers situation within the modes, can read their minds to the extent of determining their motivattions.

[pamu]

I suppose there were noticeable differences between zones and even between temples in the same zone, as far as this slavery thing is concerned. I suppose that the mood and character of the temples could change because of the people being involved in the affair. I mentioned me being a ghrr-slave because I found it as a funny way to describe the way we were. I volunteered as a slave and found it fullfilling for quite a long time. Selfsacrifice felt ok. I believed it was justified. I was the TP of our temple and went out collecting money like anybody else. I lived together with the brahmacharlies for 8 years eventhough I was a grihasta. So in no way was I a highroller, and I tried to believe that because I was living my life in Iskcon like that, it also sort of kept everybody else in our temple from slipping into something else than being a voluntary slave. Most probably I was wrong and most certainly I went myself completely bananas in due course of time.
It was a mess and there was nobody I could talk about these things. Now that I have found fellow "drop outs" who openly ventilate their feelings of what they themselves experienced, I feel great relief, even if they do not always agree with me and my understanding. It is all good.