The september 18, 2006 newsweek magazine, religion section. the article purports to describe the legacy of the baby boomers and re-examines some of the phenomenom described in 1969 as “the year of the guru”. one of the 15 related questions of the period asks, “which movement, popular in the 60’s and 70’s, was founded in new york by the indian monk Swami Prabhupada?”. the choices offered are:
a. transcendental meditation
b. Hare Krishna
c. New Age
d. Bhakti-yoga
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14703400/site/newsweek/?storyID=14703400&showPage=2&correctAnswers=0
they alledge that the correct answer to this question is the second choice, B but a debate has started over whether D is in fact the more correct answer. the debate centered over whether Hare Krishna was the means rather than the goal and that the movement was in fact, “Bhakti-yoga”, as it had been transplanted to the west by the master of all gardeners, the keeper of the creepers, Swami Prabhupada.
In this article it is also mentioned:
Perhaps even more satisfyingly outré was the Hare Krishna movement. This was a Hindu sect whose members shaved their heads and paraded in saffron robes, chanting and banging tambourines, and cadging donations from harried travelers in airports. The full-time members, who lived communally in ashrams, probably never exceeded about 4,000, according to Burke Rochford, a sociologist at Middlebury College. But that handful, he says, “really believed they were going to change the nature of American society.” Instead, as the movement dwindled in the late 1970s, the ashrams shrank, and devotees, some of whom had joined years earlier as teens, had to make their way in society with little education and no job experience. Hare Krishna is now mostly a religion of Indian immigrants, not white American youths, but it left its mark on those who passed through it, says Graham Schweig, an authority on Eastern religions at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va. “They’re not all still in the ashrams, but their miracle has been to find the ashram within the mainstream, within themselves, and still function in the world.”
We might note that Professor Graham Schweig is also known as Garuda dasa, acbsp.
Your servant, Urmila devi dasi
This “Hare Krishna is now mostly a religion of Indian immigrants, not white American youths” sounds very innacurate and dismissive to me. And the part about how we all left asramas to “make our way in society with little education and no job experience” is completely misleading. Yes, we moved out of the asrama – but not out of the Hare Krishna Movement! We continued as faithful “Hare Krishna devotees,” we just moved into the mainstream as professors and lawyers and realtors and geologists and artists and in a multitude of other professions. I think devotees need to write to Newsweek en masse and request that they correct the inaccurate and misleading information they have printed. C’mon everybody! Go out and get yourself a Newsweek or log onto the website and tell ’em how it really is!
After seeing this posting on Dandavats, I logged onto www.newsweek.com to read the entire article. I was pretty dismayed by the unflattering portrayal of devotees that I found. The following is my own Letter to the Editor, but I really recommend that devotees submit letters (the magazine editor is mark.whitaker@newsweek.com) urging them to correct their dismissive and inaccurate portrayal of what the Hare Krishna Movement is today.
“Thank you for your interesting piece, “Finding and Seeking.” Your portrayal of the Hare Krishnas, however, was laced with inaccuracies and the quotes from Drs. Rochford and Schweig appeared to be taken out of context and reassembled in such a way as to create quite a misleading picture of the present-day Hare Krishna Movement.
Most of us who moved out of the temple ashrams and into our own homes did not leave the Hare Krishna Movement, as your wording “passed through it” implies. Rather, we strongly retained our faith and spiritual lifestyle while integrating into the mainstream. Our thriving community here in Alachua, Florida is a wonderful example of this. Among our more than one thousand congregational members, most of whom formerly resided in ashrams in the ’60s and ’70s, we have university professors, many attorneys (one of whom recently ran for circuit court judge), real estate brokers, construction contractors, computer specialists at the University, social workers, nurses, musicians, licensed mental health counselors, nurses, artists, a physician, a dentist, a psychologist, an architect, a geologist and a park ranger. (This also explains why we are more likely to be found wearing western clothing instead of the monastic robes of our ashram days.)
Our dynamic, multi-cultural, multi-generational congregation also includes people from almost every country in the world, thus also disproving your statement that “Hare Krishna is now mostly a religion of Indian immigrants.” Appreciating the rich religious tradition of their heritage, Indian people do flock to Hare Krishna temples. But they worship alongside “white Americans” and people from all ethnic backgrounds.
Also, again quoting Dr. Rochford, you somewhat dismissively state that “a handful” of devotees back in the ’60s and ’70s “really believed they were going to change the nature of American society.” But certainly modern mainstream society’s heightened awareness of yoga, vegetarianism and concepts such as reincarnation and karma is due at least in part to the intensive educational efforts of the Hare Krishnas in distributing tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of books on these subjects.
In conclusion, the Hare Krishna Movement is not a thing of the past, as your article seems to portray. We are very much alive and well and still chanting Hare Krishna.”
Lisa McLoughlin
Self-Employed Artist and Licensed Realtor
(aka Lalita Madhava devi dasi, 27-year Hare Krishna devotee)
Taking Lalita Madhava’s suggestion, I just sent off the following letter to letters@newsweek.com:
I felt your story on the religious quest of baby boomers (September 18 issue) conveyed a distorted impression of the Hare Krishna movement, and trivialized my own experience. I was one of those you described who joined as a teenager and lived in ashrams. Though I later “made my way in society” (I now have a successful law practice in California), neither I nor most of the Hare Krishna friends I have known for 30 years have given up our youthful conviction that the chanting of Hare Krishna and distribution of Srila Prabhupada’s books will continue to change America. The movement did not really “dwindle” in the late ‘70s, as you have written. Today it has more centers, more members, more festivals and distributes more literature in more languages than ever. It is true that, as we got married and had children, many Hare Krishnas moved out of communal ashrams to participate more in the economic mainstream, and while some of us no longer keep our heads shaven, that does not mean we have abandoned our beliefs and practices. It is also true that, as the Indian-American population has swelled, the demographic of our American congregations has changed accordingly. But the teachings of devotion to Lord Krishna that Srila Prabhupada brought to the West are still relevant to all Americans, regardless of ethnic background or social position. This year I attended the annual festival in Mayapur, India, along with thousands of Hare Krishnas from Russia, France, England, China, Africa, Indonesia and many other countries, even Iran. Without a doubt, the chanting of Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare, inaugurated 500 years ago in India by the Golden Avatar, Lord Sri Krishna Caitanya, will continue to increase in America and throughout the world, and will bestow good fortune as it eventually drowns everyone in love of God.
Adam Bernstein, Los Gatos, California
I also found this article’s treatment of Hare Krishna disappointing. As they surveyed various groups, they said positive things: the Moonie was still happily married after 24 years; the est person was still teaching Landmark classes; Maharishi’s TM now teaches business management along with Vedic studies at its university, etc. But even though Dr. Schweig tried to put a positive spin on devotees leaving ashrams, the overall impression was that people who joined Hare Krishna in the ’70s were deluded in thinking they would change American society (those fools), and regretted it later when they struggled without education or job experience (those losers). The article gave the false impression that becoming a Hare Krishna in the ’70s was a regretable mistake. I know Garuda Prabhu has his reasons for remaining incognito, but I would have felt better if he “came out,” and Newsweek could then say, “This Hare Krishna is now a professor, and still a committed devotee.” Instead, the two authorities Newsweek quoted, Rocheford and Schweig, while maintaining their authority as ostensibly unbiased, objective outsiders, could not embrace or endorse Krishna Consciousness as it deserves to be endorsed.
I spoke with Garuda Prabhu last night. We discussed this subject at length and he told me he trusted me to speak on his behalf and gave me permission to do so. During the interview, the journalist seemed only to want to hear of the negative stories – people who left the Movement and then struggled to make their way in the world. No matter how many positive or affirming histories Garuda shared with him, he kept reverting back to the negative and prodding him for those sorts of stories. And, ultimately, when Garuda did not provide the negative information he sought, he cleverly framed Garuda’s quotes within other negative, misleading information in order to achieve the end that he sought. Thus it is obvious that this person clearly had an agenda. In the context of this article, he very much needed the Hare Krishna Movement to be a thing of the past which formerly idealistic boomers had to struggle to recover from.
Also, Garuda made the point that he was consulted as a scholar. Had he “come out” as a devotee, they more than likely would have consulted someone else who they would have thought could be more objective. His feeling was that in his position, he was able to give a more positive presentation of the Movement than any other scholar would have, and so he chose to remain “incognito” in the hope of doing more good.
The news media loves negativity. Virtually all news on the T.V. is negative, for example, – no good news. They don’t want us to succeed and they celebrate when we fail. This is the materialistic mentality that Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur describes – materialistic people rejoice when they see others fail.
We should not be overly concerned about their negative views of our society. How can they ever understand? The non-devotees are suffering very deeply because they rarely hear the Lord’s name chanted. Even though they have written terrible things about us, it is really only because they are suffering so deeply and can’t understand our Movement’s purpose. Our Movement unfortunately, at this time, is viewed by many people as both a botheration, and an annoyance.
We really can’t overly protest negative things which have been written about us, because after all, many negative things have been done over the years, by some of our members. Those acts will be very difficult for others to forgive or forget. There is really only one way we can individually prove that they are wrong in the negative things they write about us and that is by becoming saintly.
To quote the New Testament: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.” The best way to convince others that our process works and is a success is to have halos around our heads. That is the real proof to human society that the Krishna Conscious process works, and is not just another philosophy or religion.
Mr. Whitaker:
Just a quick comment on your recent article on “Baby-boomers’ religious journeys etc.” Why such a negative slant on the Hare Krishna communities?
Their demographics in America cover the whole spectrum of ethnic and educational backgrounds, with an above-average proportion of well-educated, productive members of American society. That your reporter did such a shoddy inaccurate job is very counter-productive to your so-called objective journalism.
At least the growing numbers of American Krishna followers (often working as professionals within the mainstream), as well as many other readers, don’t take such bias to be quality reporting. You should fire such bigoted reporters to protect Newsweek’s own integrity.
Guy Paquette, Vancouver, Canada.
Suresh Prabhu, I’m sorry, but I completely disagree with you when you say that “we should not be overly concerned about their negative views of our Society.” I believe that it is not only our obligation to Srila Prabhupada to be concerned, but to take action as well. He sacrificed everything to spread Krishna consciousness in the West, and we can not just weakly, passively sit back and allow some biased, inept journalist to undermine the progress this Movement has made (at great personal cost to so many devotees, I might add) with his bogus so-called “reporting.”
Why, if I was just some regular person who read that idiotic article, I would never be attracted to visiting a Hare Krishna temple.
So therefore it is our obligation to stand up to this sort of nonsense and demand that it be corrected. “Preaching is the essence,” and this issue is about preaching.
Most people know what the Hare Krishna Movement is, at least in the U.S.A. They remember us well from the 70’s-80’s. Most people who were alive during that time have been sold a book or knows someone who has. Most people see us as a botheration, a nuisance, or think of us as professional panhandlers. This is our legacy to date. Although we possess a wonderful philosophy and religion, few saintly persons have been produced, at least in the eyes of the public. Most people see us as pushy and agitated, not calm and quiet, like saintly persons should be. When the Dalai Llama speaks, thousands of people go to see him. Right now we don’t possess any Dalai Llama’s in our movement who could attract thousands of people if they spoke, or that can garner favorable press. Instead of protesting the bad article, which is really only reporting old, outdated news, we should just follow our own philosophy and become peaceful and saintly. I believe this, combined with the good charitable work we are presently doing in so many places, is the only way we can change peoples’ poor opinion of us.