Posts

Showing posts with the label International Society for Krishna Consciousness

IDOL WORSHIP: ISKCON'S GIFT TO THE WEST?

Image
Idol worship is to religion what the Stone Age is to the 21 st century. Whether caveman or  computer programmer, the general motivation is the human tendency to get something one desires with as little effort as possible.Typically worshippers offer flowers and incense accompanied by repetitive chants or prayers with the ceremonies led by a high-born priest. If conducted in what is believed to be a holy place of pilgrimage, the pious effect is generally held to be magnified exponentially. In general, attendees are taught from childhood to believe that worship in such a place will cleanse them of sin and grant them direct communion with the deity. Many also exhibit a type of religious euphoria akin to possession and display passionate and violent displays of emotion. On the other hand, ISKCON uses the uneasy familiarity of its Judeo-Christian converts with religious notions of pilgrimage sites of their own heritage to get them to engage in worship of deities without having the sl...

ISKCON AND INDIGNITIES: A RATIONAL LOOK AT THE FOUR "REGULATIVE PRINCIPLES"

Image
If you’re thinking about joining the Hare Krishna temple in your area, you’ve probably heard about the “four regulative principles” every devotee is expected to follow. Here’s a objective look at what they involve in practice from somebody who joined as a 14 year old and followed them for the next 13 years: 1. No eating of meat, fish, and eggs. No garlic or onions or mushrooms. According to the ridiculous propaganda that newcomers are fed along with the Sunday Feast, these vegetables “grow in dirty places and increase passion.”    COMMENTS Vegetarianism in various forms is practiced by millions of people world-wide for reasons that are religious or ethical, and sometimes both. Buddhists and Jains, for example, are even more stringent in their vegetarian practices than the tiny minority of Hindus who avoid the above-mentioned foods. Other than proscribing the eating of beef due to their cultural reverence for cows, most Hindus include animal protein in the...

INSIGHTS INTO THE SOUL-KILLING TRAITS OF CULT LEADERS AND TERRORISTS

Image
In considering the after-death fate of particularly evil people, I have often thought that some of the real soul-killers who attempt to rob others of their hopes and dreams actually lose their souls after they die. In other words, they suffer complete annihilation, a just recompense for what they attempted to do to others during their lifetimes. Another aspect of such people is that, in truth, no matter how destructive a force they were in the lives of some people, to others close to them they were often quite the opposite: loving parents and spouses, attentive neighbors, and models of ethics in their dealings with their colleagues and friends. Twentieth-century history is littered with the bones of many such demons whose double-dealing practices with politicians and soldiers alike led to the deaths of untold millions. In our own time, names such as Kim Jong-un, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi come to mind. Each is an example of the modern day cult of personality, which ...

HARE KRISHNA HACKERS BEWARE!

Image
This posting is in response to the numerous attempts at hacking that have plagued my blog and websites during the past year. Most of these appear to originate from Russia; others from various spots in Europe and North America. Regardless of their sources, these cowardly acts are clearly attempts by the disciples of Gopal Krishna Goswami to obliterate blog postings that contain potentially damaging information about their beloved guru. Phoenix Rising from the Ashes A few have been attempts to damage the formatting of my blog, all of which are exercises in futility since my blogs were created and updated on Google. Any attempt at interfering with Google products—truly the backbone of the Web—is doomed to failure in any case. Another more common attempt at bringing down my blogs is through submitting virus infected comments.These nuisances are easy to detect and my response is to simply press the delete key.Those of you who have read any of my postings know that they are genera...

FAKE MARRIAGES, LIES, AND SADHU-MAKING

Image
SHAM MARRIAGES AND “SPIRITUAL” ADVANCEMENT Now I will show how A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami used his personal experience to teach his disciples about his notion of the “Vedic” or traditional Indian view of marriage (this is a direct quotation): So I think I have spoken about my own life. You know that I was a married man. So after being married, I did not like my wife. (laughter) . . .So I was preparing for next marriage. . . . So my father, he was a saintly person. So he called me one day and said, "My dear boy, you are trying to marry again. I request you don't do that. You do not like your wife. That is a great fortune for you." (laughter) So I gave up that idea of marrying. Yes. So now I am realizing my father's blessing, yes, that if I would have been too much attached to my wife, then I could not have come to this position. That's a fact. So by ethical point of view, from spiritual point of view, to become too much attached to wife is an impediment f...