Ishvari Devi Dasi: After reading Slaughtering Chastity, Indradyumna Maharaja requested I write a follow up story focusing on how the chanting of the holy name saved me from destruction.
As I confessed in the previous article, living with my biological mother for almost six months was very difficult. Things that were a natural part of my life are now a penance as a result of my lack of discipline while I was away with her. For instance, I had been chanting 16 rounds since I was 11 years old, but immediately after I left my father’s house I stopped chanting. After many attempts to get me back, my father decided to contact Trivikrama Maharaja and asked him to call me. It was just a five minute call and Trivikrama Maharaja didn’t talk much, but he kindly requested that I chant the mahamantra along with him. I couldn’t utter the holy names at first, but I forced myself. Understand that at this point I was falling deeper and deeper into an ocean of sorrow created by the drugs, sex, and alcohol around me, but a month after Maharaja’s call, I was back under the protection and affection of my father. You may wonder how all this happened.
After all, I had been given a devotional education and devotees often praised what they called my natural inclination to bhakti. Yet, I quickly lost that higher taste for chanting Hare Krishna. I’ll tell you how it happened. My father raised me with discipline and love. Last year I asked him to send me to a devotional summer camp for girls. He conceded and told me to see it as an extension of my homeschooling. I was very happy to meet devotee girls my age and be with them for three weeks. Yet, as soon as the girls started talking, I got confused. Srila Prabhupada often emphasized the importance of devotee association to help us advance in spiritual life. “Association with devotees means association with the Lord.” (Purport to SB 3.25.25) However, my association at the camp was not making me think of Krishna but of the Jonas Brothers, Twilight, vampires, and werewolves. Prior to my homeschooling, my bad association at a private school had made me feel attraction for those things, but I didn’t want to give in to that lower taste. I needed reinforcement from girls my age.
It only got worse when the girls started talking about the things they did, like going on dates to the movies, eating bhoga, and wearing bikinis at the Springs! Even the matajis in charge of the tour took us to eat bhoga at Sbarro and other places. Now I was really confused. In New York, Radhanatha Maharaja gave us a class about Srila Prabhupada and ISKCON’s history. I knew all the answers to his questions, while most of the girls could not answer any of them. I knew about dates, names, places, and even scandals. That led to a conversation with Radhanatha Maharaja that made me feel proud.
Although my father had taught me not criticize anyone – or one risks falling lower than them – sadly I began to look at the girls with disdain. When I returned to Puerto Rico, my mother wanted me to spend some time with her. The way she lives reminded me of the relaxed mood I had experienced that summer. I thought my father was exaggerating with all the rules we had at home. If other devotees didn’t live that strictly, why should we? Little by little I fell more and more, until I ended up at my mother’s house. I have yet to gather the spiritual strength to write about some of my experiences during that time. Suffice it to say that it was the twilight of my destruction. I wonder how I came out alive.
All glories to Kumari hwari Devi Dasi!
All glories to HH Indradyumna Maharaja,
All glories to the Saviour of the World, the Holy Names:
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Jai,
Ppd
It seems the trend featuring vampires in literature, cinema and TV has continued to multiply and grow to cult-like status, especially among children and young people. Some of these works are very cleverly conceived, full of humor and social commentary and the work of talented actors, writers, directors.
I sometimes wonder, though, whether the popularity of the genre (and the inspiration of the writers and artists) comes from raksasas and other fearsome creatures who occupy subtle planes of existence.
Sometimes evangelical Christians decry the supernatural influence of occult forces, witchcraft and satanism in common cultural icons, and elites with higher education scoff at them and look down their noses at such superstition and ignorance. Meanwhile, heavy metal music and other aspects of teen culture openly indulge in satanic and witchcraft themes.
The work of Sadaputa Prabhu drawing comparisons between UFO testimonies and literary depiction of various magical, “mythical” creatures raises similar ideas. We know as devotees that various races of demons, raksasas, bhutas, etc. exist, and there are ongoing competitions between the Godly or angelic realms and the forces of darkness. It is hard to ignore the suspicion that these various daivic and asuric beings are vying for attention within human minds and inspiring our creative writers and other artists in their depictions of the supernatural.
We could analyze the vampire trend as just a style or fashion. (In one episode of “South Park”, a vampire epidemic at the school was quelled when the Goth kids, tired of being mistaken for “Vamps”, destroyed the vampires “lair”, which turned out to be the Hot Topic trendy clothing store at the mall.) But even so, we would need to analyze further what is so fascinating about pale skin, pink eyes, fangs, nocturnalism.
Sure, one might say it is nothing more than the lure of forbidden love, of mysterious creatures who cast a spell and overcome our civilized resistance with dark, animal-magnetic forces, the sexual metaphor of the breaking of skin and the oozing of bodily fluids. But that answer raises deeper questions regarding whether those very features of our psycho-sexuality are themselves aspects of our lower selves, the parts of us more influenced by the darker, less sattvik forces.
Christians are also afraid of Hare Krishna, which appears to them as some occult religion. They may yet see that it is really Godly and Lord Caitanya dispels all darkness.