Acceptable Fanaticsm

By Kesava Krsna Dasa

Among the plethora of religions and organisations prevalent in secular, tolerant societies, we the Hare Krishna’s must be the most visually outstanding, and culturally different among them. Though our way of life has very much been publicised, still, very few people, intent on enjoying this world, understand who we are. We remain an enigma to them.

When we chant Hare Krishna, it is advisable to develop a level of intensity and concentration to chant as if each day is the last day. This constant ‘state of emergency’ prayerful mood certainly seems to border on what some professional people say is, an ‘obsessive compulsive disorder’ which can interfere with ‘normal’ enjoying behaviour. For us, our life evolves around chanting the holy names of the Lord, and is the means of direct communion with Krishna. This ostensibly ‘extreme’ or ‘obsessive’ approach to ‘religion’ is quite normal and acceptable for us, when pitted against suggested moderation.

We worship the deities in our temples with love and devotion. The iconoclasts will accuse us of meaningless idolatry fit for slander and severe rebuke. “God is everywhere,” we say. “He can do anything and everything. He can appear in stone or the mind, in a burning bush or a dove. Why limit Him?” While society idolises famous people who are prone to death, and whom appeal to selfish inclinations, our selfless devotion to authorised forms of the Lord is tantamount to unproductive worship of decorated dolls, by those who willingly wish to destroy them, if given half a chance.

Of our open lifestyle, falling down like felled trees in reverence to the gurus and other respected vaisnavas at airports and other public places, tells the world we are exceedingly obedient to authority. Not long ago, when it was discovered that Ambarisa prabhu of the Ford dynasty was affiliated with the Hare Krishnas, a famous cartoon depicting devotees paying obeisances to Ford cars, seemed to sum up a common perception – if we can bow down to cars, we can bow down to anything.

When most people not so much as bat an eyelid when teeming millions of cows and other helpless creatures are sent to slaughterhouses merely to satisfy the taste buds, they sit up and wonder, with derisory disbelief, how we Hare Krishnas can lovingly care for an ailing cow we call ‘Mother.’ They wonder even more when we kick up a fuss after she is routinely killed by a vet, whose sense of compassion saw her as a collateral unit, a soul-less mechanistic used up utility. Even the aged humans, who are unceremoniously bundled and herded into old age homes do not receive the same loving care as Gangotri got.

When we preach to people, we often warn of the futility of accumulating unnecessary material assets, because cruel death will take away everything. Like those morose people who stalk the streets wearing placards that read, “the end is nigh,” or those petrified people belonging to doomsday cults, our death talks are a blatant interference with the desire to enjoy this world. Forget the Seven Wonders of the World, the phenomenon of seeing other’s die, “yet it won’t happen to me, yet”, is a super-wonder Maharaja Yudhisthira observed. Who can blame people who do not want gory reminders of impending death? However, we are blameless.

We tell people that we avoid the four gigantic moneymakers, which makes the merry, um, miserable world go around – no meat eating, fish or eggs, no intoxication, no illicit sex, and no gambling or speculative pursuits. Another wonder is, how can the Hare Krishnas be so diametrically opposed to material enjoyment, yet they sing and dance happily on the streets, and hold blissful festivals? Our messages that material enjoyment equals misery are truly an incomprehensive play of words for the average enjoyer. Earning a degree, PhD, or professorship cannot enable a grasp of this understanding, except to receive a ray of mercy from a non-enjoyer who enjoys living here to serve Krishna.

Our dress code sends an automatic statement telling everyone, “I am part of this world, but not of it.” To the average person obsessed with personal grooming, beauty, and image, our ‘bed sheets and tablecloth’ rags make us appear as ridiculously brave daredevils with the carefree attitude of enlightened derelicts. If our address is somewhere in Vaikuntha, it should explain our ‘out of this world’ appearance, which predates all known fashion trends.

These are just a few ways by which Hare Krishna devotees, differ quite radically from the average citizen of this world. We do everything practically the opposite way to standard comfortable norms. We cut oranges differently, are prepared to sleep on the floor if necessary, Lord Krishna Himself says, “What is night for all beings is the time of awakening for the self-controlled; and time of awakening for all beings is night for the introspective sage” (BG. 2.69). As such, innocent or envious people, whose aim in life is to pursue pleasure by all means reasonable or foul, see us as consummate fanatics, either to be admired or despised.

Fanatical we may be, in the worldly sense, yet the Hare Krishnas know how to blend in with society. Rather than incite enmity, bigotry and hatred, we extend a hand of friendship and love, as befitting an all-loving, all-accommodating Lord Krishna Who is above all sectarian divides. As law-abiding citizens, we work with the same material ingredients that cause misery – an opposite, 180-degree turnaround trick, which brings happiness. Nuclear scientists and poets, soldiers and politicians, farmers and businesspersons, factory workers and labourers all have a place in the Vedic way of employment, which seeks to engage bulls to till the land, rather than tractors.

Our agrarian ideals may appear backwards, our simplicity meant for dull minds, and our theistic convictions worthy of cowardly fear of the unknown. Our vegetarian fare appears to be a low protein staple to keep us as docile slaves to authority, our constant chanting as rigid mind control to prevent independent tendencies, and our cultivation of humility, a grovelling, effete show of weakness. However, all these objections fail wretchedly against our high thinking, based on the timeless wisdom of the Vedas, for we are both ultra traditionalists and way-ahead futurists too.

In a world bedevilled with uncertainty, and when society is bound up to dependence on fossil fuels, which destroys the environment, the Hare Krishna lifestyle is suited to withstand the rigors of a collapsing civilization. In such an event, our perceived fanaticism will become a normal survival guide. Because people will not cope without electricity and oil, their shattered dreams will induce extreme behaviour. Who will laugh at our simple extreme lifestyle just turned normal then?

Srila Prabhupada advised to acquire land near bodies of water; he had the end of civilization in mind. His intuition warned of Gandhi’s assassination, and his sweeping view of history foretold the collapse of the Soviet empire. His observation that the present civilization will crumble eventually, had our “simple living, high thinking” mode adaptable to what may happen to society as we know it – Srila Prabhupada was way ahead of his time.

By being vegetarians, the Hare Krishnas are saving many trees and animals from needless loss of life. Refraining from illicit sex keeps us away from the ever-increasing ravages of aids and STD’s. Being intoxication free helps to reduce levels of crime and violent deaths associated with drugs and alcohol. By shirking gambling and speculation, an aptitude for truth develops, seeking to undo the ingrained atheistic conjectures of big bang, and evolution theories, which destroy the essence of sacred life and its traditions.

In short, our ‘fanatical and extreme’ spiritual behaviour is quite normal. The challenge is to understand how the present civilization with its reliance on the four big money guzzlers, is an abnormal situation. Wherever sections of society are unhappy, more solutions that are abnormal are invented to appease them. The fabricated isms filled with exclusive dogma have done more harm than good, and have brewed such tenacious fanaticism and extremism as to degrade human values to less than animal standard.

To those who lurch to the right of the political spectrum, our multiracial mix is surplus to eugenic requirements – racial purity. The inclusiveness of the Vedic way to human progress, allows anyone to become an Aryan, should his or her developed qualities permit. Those with a nationalistic curve see the Hare Krishnas as fanatical foreign invaders corrupting the established traditions of their cultures. In fact, the Nazi symbols of the swastika and Aryan goals are borrowed twisted perversions of the original pure symbols and ideals found in Vedic culture. The Hare Krishnas have come to rectify this mistake, and help anyone who wants to become a real Aryan.

To those on the red left, our ‘spiritual communism’ allows God worship, and encourages all classes of men and women to engage their talents for the betterment of society. Such allowances are seen as anarchist threats to divert people’s allegiance from God-state control run by atheistic power hungry cronies, to outlawed fanatical madness. The enforced equality of Marx’s whims is a soul-destroying ploy to reduce humans to mere inexpressive cogs of state machinery. An injection of Krishna consciousness will no doubt expose the evils of a Godless system, and restore people to the happiness they are meant for as humans.

Unless the perceptive tables are reversed, and people realize that the insanity of an atheistic stranglehold makes all economic mass killings and other abnormal extremism acceptable, the illusion of material progress will consider any genuine spiritual attempt to help, as inconsequential fanaticism. Insignificant we may be, the Hare Krishnas will wait on the sidelines if necessary, and kindly inform people about a culture that knows no beginning or end, until people come to their senses and see that what is going on is really, really unacceptable.

Ys, Kesava Krsna dasa – GRS