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IDOL WORSHIP: ISKCON'S GIFT TO THE WEST?

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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 slight

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

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 their diets.

THE HARE KRISHNA "BLISS" ADDICTION

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The primary method the founder of the Hare Krishna (ISKCON) movement used to quickly gain disciples in his quest to disseminate Gaudiya (Bengali) Vaishnavism to the West relied on confusing the gullible with promises he could not possibly fulfill. A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami’s arrival in New York in 1966 coincided with the hippie phenomenon and its participants’ experimentation with LSD and other psychotropic drugs and a general disillusionment with what they deemed an excessively restrictive social order.  Conditions were ripe for taking advantage of the hippies’ flirtation with Eastern mysticism. The guru, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, quickly attracted many such followers, as did numerous other Indian gurus. Disgust for materialism of all kinds remained a feature of his new disciples, but the agent of escape from it was shifted from mind-altering drugs to a mind-altering mantra. Specifically, the chanting of the “maha mantra” or Hare Krishna mantra was used as a means to induce dissoc

FAKE MARRIAGES, LIES, AND SADHU-MAKING

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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