The Antichristian Phenomenon

Slightly lost, I arrived at Chapmans Torg and was expecting some gathering or sign to point the way as to where to go. I knew the address, but there was nothing. Eventually I figured out that the entrance in fact was a vegetarian/vegan restaurant, and I saw some of my classmates already sitting inside. We were welcomed by our “lecturer”, whose name I never caught, but he was a pretty short, very considerate Indian man. He reminded me much of my Russian friend in personality and manners. There was a room further inside the restaurant where he had placed some cushions on the floor so we could all sit down. He started by introducing the Hare Krishna movement and the cosmology revolving it. Although I study Social Anthropology as my main field, I know shamefully little about Hinduism and Hare Krishna. For me Hare Krishna is a name only, and I had a loose idea of there being some scandals where group members were involved, but I didn’t know what it was, and I still don’t, and no one ever bothered to ask. Suffice to say, I arrived with a very open mind, although slightly disappointed over that I had mixed up the dates and thought we were originally supposed to visit the local Scientology church instead of Hare Krishna. In a very typical manner, I started to lead the “conversation” with a few others. It turned out to be one of the best spent two hours ever in my life actually, and it made me realize why I am educating myself in the field I am actually doing, and that I would have no problem spending days, months, maybe even years with people so different to me and just learn their ways of living. I have the outmost respect of our “lecturer” that he took the time to answer our questions and explain the movement for free I should add, and to me he seemed like a pretty simple man very satisfied with his life and his religious beliefs. He wasn’t one of the most faithful, as he was just a normal member of the movement, and thus didn’t follow many of the more extreme ascetic values such as fasting, which he said he had tried once but it was too hard for him or refraining from having sex, and I think that presentation worked very well. He could explain the religion from a point of view everyone could understand, and he was really good at explaining, often using different kind of metaphors to get a point across.
Being the person that I am, of course I questioned him many, many times. I sure hope he didn’t find me offensive, and I very much appreciated the time he took with me, especially considering that I know so little about Hare Krishna. Having to attend my grandfather’s funeral last week made me miss out the presentation of the group unfortunately, but now in retrospect it might actually have been the better choice. In Social Anthropology, one of the biggest fears is to trying to fit certain ideas or groups of people into a box either because of lack of understanding or prejudice. I felt this wasn’t the case today, and I really see it as one of the first examples I had at “working in the field”. More or less all studies in Social Anthropology today are done in the forms of fieldwork studies. Other types of studies are possible but generally frowned upon because of the lack of an emic (inside) perspective. Having little to no foreknowledge thus allowed me to be there with without prejudice, and I got to take part of how our “lecturer” viewed the Hare Krishna movement and his journey from warm India to cold Sweden. In a way, having him telling about his religious beliefs and the religion he practices was some kind of lifestory. He grew up in middleclass India, and professed to be some kind of atheist, studying as an engineer at some Indian university. (At this point I also realize how bad it was of me to not take any notes when he was talking! I thought he would actually lecture in the actual sense, so I didn’t think I would need any… Hence the citation marks.) One of his roommates from the UK or Australia had left some tapes (this was in the 80s) and he (our “lecturer”) decided to give them some listens before tossing them away, and it turns out they are records of some Hare Krishna lectures. The tapes intrigued him, and I can recognize my own curiosity in his own, now that I am sitting home at my computer writing down my two hour encounter, because regardless of scandals and mystery, Hare Krishna is a religion that fascinates and captures.

He explained that Hare Krishna worships Krishna, the one god. Krishna is generally referred to as “lord”. He said that Vishnu is a great god as well, if I remember correctly an avatar or aspect of Krishna, but according to some Sanskrit interpretations (there are obviously over 600 of them!), Krishna himself said that he is the creator of everything, as well as the end. One thing which surprised me was that Hare Krishna had a great focus on the individual rather than being holistic, which I didn’t expect considering that it’s a sect (here used to refer a branch of a main religion) of Hinduism, and I know that Hinduism puts a great focus on a holistic cosmology. He explained that Hare Krishna has a holistic view too, but the main goal is to create your own individuality so you can finally meet Krishna as a person. There are thus different kinds of stages that occur in the afterlife where you will either retain your individuality or you won’t. Retaining your individuality was thus greater than becoming a part of Krishna, whereas I had thought it to be the opposite. In this regard Hare Krishna thus sounds very similar to Christianity in the personal relationship you are supposed to have with god, or at least attempt to have. Such activities as prayers (repeating certain phrases constantly for a certain amount of time) and performing yoga are all means to get closer to god or create a communication with god. I also asked our “lecturer” about who the first guru was (prophet/apostle in some kind of sense, although the term “guru” just means “teacher”), since Hare Krishna was started by a guru who taught created the Krishna movement in the West. In Hare Krishna, and other forms of Hinduism, there must be some kind of teacher because humans are imperfect and it is thus impossible for a human to suddenly one day just realize all the great mysteries of god. Here too I notice a similarity with Christianity. Gurus are thus needed to spread the knowledge and messages further to the coming generations. Here I had to ask him who the first guru was, since it’s an interesting question. I actually think they solved the problem pretty well, at least when comparing to Christianity. Our “lecturer” explained that the very first guru was Brahma (sp?), and he taught the humans about Krishna. Of course the disconnection is still there, as Brahma is considered a divine being, even though he has a material body. In such a sense Brahma is in fact very similar to Jesus, who too, was sent to Earth to teach the word of god but at the same time being god in flesh. Now that I am writing about it, I forgot to ask if Hare Krishna consider all other deities to be mere parts of Krishna or whether they are entities of their own, but this is certainly an interesting aspect which should be explored further, although maybe not today. I do however know that there is some dispute among the academics whether Hinduism as an official religion should be considered polytheistic or monotheistic. At least the Brahma solution is better than “being inspired by god” or such nonsense. Even if god inspires us, and there is certainly proof that our beliefs in god at least can, it still doesn’t solve the problem that humans are imperfect and thus everything we do will be imperfect. Our “lecturer” did however seem to believe in some kind of perfect spirituality, where one reaches such a spiritual insight that it can be considered perfect to those who do not understand it. The guru who started the Hare Krishna movement was considered such a person for example. Therefore I suppose that it is logical in such a sense that a being such as Brahma can teach humans to reach such spiritual state of perfection that they too can become gurus.

As the “conversation” continued, it was unavoidable that we would eventually be touching such subjects as women’s rights and how women are treated in India and inside the Hare Krishna movement. It was explained that there have been female gurus, but they were no modern ones that our “lecturer” knew of that existed today, and not within the Hare Krishna movement, but there had been one 400 years ago. He further explained that women were never asked to take upon such a position, but when they wanted to no one stopped them. This was slightly surprising as well considering how patriarchal India is still today, even though it’s changing and has been changing rather rapidly throughout the past years. Within the Catholic Church female priests are forbidden and even in Sweden which is considered one of the most equal countries in the world, some male priests frown upon female priests. The “conversation” then went onto discussing the polygamy versus monogamy issue, and what view the Hare Krishna movement has on taking many wives. Our “lecturer” explained that it’s very uncommon for men to marry more than one woman today, but it happens often in the more rural parts of India, where having many wives might even symbolize a man’s social status. The more wives a man can afford to sustain the higher social status he has. Generally speaking though, no one’s looking down upon a man if he takes more than one wife, but the question is whether he can afford to be married to more than one. Naturally children were brought up after that. Hare Krishna believes that a parent should teach their children to be as good citizens as possible, and this is in fact the only reason why a member of Hare Krishna would have children, and thus didn’t fit too well with me. While I can understand that a member of Hare Krishna may consider their way of life to be the best one, and there are certainly aspects that I don’t mind at least, I do not agree with teaching a child that their way of living would naturally be the best one. However, our “lecturer” also said that it is not a failure for a parent if the child doesn’t follow the way of Krishna but takes a different path, and almost retorted to something like “god’s way is mysterious”. He didn’t express it in such a sense, but that our consciousness together with karma can more or less influence our lives both directly and indirectly. This also includes the religion or lack thereof we may follow.

At this point I had to ask what he thought about other religious beliefs or even making up your own, or what it meant to lead a “pious” life but yet not worship any god. To that he retorted, loosely quoted from memory, “that it’s like a road with many mailboxes, where some never received any mail to pick up”. He thus seemed to believe that some religions (most probably the ones he knew of and which shared similar ideas to his own) have more legitimacy than others. Some religions don’t worship any gods, Shinto being a more well-known example, but on the other hand, is it important if there would be some “answer” on the other side if you aren’t expecting any? Atheism and humanism comes to mind. I wasn’t asking it straight out because I didn’t think of formulating it in such a way, but I was of course thinking of the morality issue that many Christians throw around with in atheist/Christian discussions. I do think that he did believe that people can still lead pious lives though, without actually believing. There was no patronizing or threats such as “…but this will happen when you die!” sort of deal, just a simple answer that if you aren’t expecting anything of the religious or metaphysical nature, then probably nothing will happen. I think this is very interesting because it shows how important it may be for us to actually believe without there being anything to necessarily believe in. The belief itself is somehow more important than the worship, and I do believe it still boils down to what ways that works for each individuals that can help them to their self-empowerment, which I wrote about in a previous article here at the ACP. One of my classmates asked him whether he would’ve picked another religion, would it have been introduced to him in another environment, but she also said that he had answered it already in that he thought that Hare Krishna had all the right answers (that fit with him). But what I disagreed with here is that ultimately he believed that there must be some great divine authority that carries the knowledge over to humanity. We are ourselves unable to form our own answers to our existence. I do not believe in authorities, and people who know me well will probably also know that I like to form my own answers, not be given any. This is very true when it comes to my “spiritual” beliefs as well, as I do not share any ideas that move into the metaphysical and even if metaphysics would be true, I also ultimately believe that metaphysics is merely physics. I also do not share the sentiment that there would be a great divine being that controls all. I suppose that for some people it might give them relief knowing that they are not in control of everything and thus the cause of every action they take, in a way becomes some kind of excuse or crutch to say that “well, at least it wasn’t my fault it happened this way it happened”. I believe I am in control of my own life in that I can directly affect the world around me according the actions I take, or for the actions I choose not to for the matter. The free will versus causality is a tricky question. While I believe in free will in such a sense that I believe that we are free to decide our actions to a certain extent by becoming aware of our options, we are also controlled by causality because we are all part of a causal flow. When I feel hungry I feel hungry because my stomach just sent information to my brain that it’s empty, so my brain generates some signal substances that makes me feel hungry, but I at that moment I also got the option to eat and not eat, or if looking back into a previous moment in time, I could’ve eaten later to avoid becoming hungry, since I can calculate the causal flow that I will become hungry at a certain point. Eating before that point will thus change the causal flow. However, I am digressing; this is about my study visit at the Hare Krishna, not about the problems with Cartesian dualism.

Since I am already on the free will versus causality, Hare Krishna shares some peculiar ideas on the subject matter. First of all, every human being has a consciousness. It is something we can learn to control with increasing spiritual awareness. Our consciousness is thus similar to our normal mental processes and Descartes’ formulation “cogito, ergo sum” comes to mind, in a very literary sense. This is an idea strongly shared within Hare Krishna, and is also reflected in such terms as “civilized animals”. I can either learn to control my consciousness and become closer to god by doing so (read leading an ascetic and pious life) or I can be like an animal and merely act on my instincts. Consciousness is thus something that we can control with our “free wills”, and it may even be able to affect the environment around us. An example was when one of my classmates asked if our “lecturer” believed in Astrology, and he said he did, although “99% are fake”. He told us a story about one of his father’s coworkers who got his fate read by a local Astrologist whom he claimed was good at reading when people had bad luck. So this coworker got his fate read, and the Astrologist said that on a certain Monday he would be hurt by a very sharp object. So the coworker refused to go outside on that Monday, hoping that by limiting his movement that day he would reduce the risk of getting hurt. However, he had forgotten the antlers of a deer that hang on the wall above the sofa he had decided to sit in, and the antlers fell down and penetrated his chest. To this my classmate retorted that it could’ve as well actually been his consciousness that had been so focused on not getting hurt by this sharp object this very day that he actually got hurt. So in a way it’s like cognitive psychology where they speak about self-fulfilling prophecies. If you think something bad will happen, something bad will in fact happen because you will unconsciously expose yourself to such risks and may even cause them yourself without being aware that you are doing so. Then lastly there is karma. Most people are probably accustomed with the term that if we do good actions, we get good karma and if we do bad actions then we get bad karma. Depending on what kind of karma we have, it will also affect the environment around us. Karma also accumulates among a group of people so if a group of people do a lot of bad actions, the karma within that group will be generally bad. Karma is some kind of higher power of justice. If a person leads a very pious life but goes through many struggles, he or she may ultimately be rewarded thanks to karma; similarly, a person who leads a bad life might get punished. At this point asking about Haiti felt very natural, knowing that some Christian groups are so avid exclaiming that the earthquake in fact was caused by the god as punishment because of the Haiti people being so sinless or some equally silly nonsense. To this our “lecturer” explained that there are two things that can cause an earthquake. There are some demigods that control such things as the weather, and thus naturally also earthquakes, but earthquakes can also be caused by too much accumulated bad karma. I do not know which answer he believed was the right one here, but I felt he was treading very carefully in this matter considering how touchy the subject is, hence the vague answer.

At this point however, my two hours were up and we had to leave. It had been an interesting evening and I am really looking forward to the Scientology study visit in two weeks.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Culture, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.