If I throw a handful of stones into the water, the circles they make will overlap and clash. But if I could throw the stones all at one center point, the circles would never clash. If we find the perfect center, we’ll have perfect harmony.
As Emerson said, “It is natural to believe in great men.” And in his book, The Hero, American Style, Marshall William Fishwick remarks that “people are ineffective without leaders.”
Peace Corps veteran tells how on his first professional photo assignment he became interested in Krishna consciousness and started making films for Krishna.
One day a friend of mine showed me a book she had gotten from a Hare Krishna devotee. It was called Sri Isopanisad, The book’s introduction alone was so complete—it explained all the things I’d been wondering about!
He was an expert hatha-yogi in the respected order of spiritual life (sannyasa), and had been running a major yoga center in New York for thirteen years.
I am staying here at the temple in Atlanta, and this has upset my parents very much. They started crying on the phone, and my mother even fainted once. Now I see what you meant when you told me that the family ties are much stronger in Indian families than in American families.
John, a traveler, found himself in Istanbul. With nothing to do, he’d gone to the magnificent Blue Mosque, an awe-inspiring monument with huge stained-glass windows, to offer a sincere prayer to God—the first such prayer of his life.
A pretty girl wearing an exotic Indian dress and carrying a handful of flowers and a shoulder bag full of books pinned a flower on my lapel and asked, “Have you ever read the Bhagavad-gita? This book will answer all your questions about life.”
I was Jewish, and my early education was steeped in the lore and culture of Judaism. Weekly my mother would send me for my violin lesson and dance class.
In 1969 I saw the devotees of Krsna on the television program Top of the Pops. Disgusted by the shaved heads of the men, I turned to my mother, “You’ll never catch me joining that bunch.”
Although I was interested in Krsna consciousness, I doubted that I could follow the four regulative principles. I just couldn’t see myself living the renounced life of a devotee. These habits were so deeply ingrained in me that to purify myself of them seemed impossible.
The devotees’ happy, smiling faces, their enthusiasm, and their music all attracted me deeply. Suddenly I felt that I’d like to be a part of this group. I let the idea pass, but I purchased a set of three Krsna books from one of the devotees.
John Favors, alias Toshombe Abdul, had become Bhaktitirtha Swami of the Hare Krishna movement. He had set aside the politics of the revolution and adopted the life of a monk.
My interest in the Hare Krsna movement goes back to when I was a freshman at Southern Illinois University. When those strange-looking people with the orange robes and shaved heads first appeared on campus, I had no idea who they were.
I grew up in Connecticut in the fifties and sixties. Always “the observer,” dissatisfied with the status quo, I saw my parents’ lifestyle as boring and futile. They had to bear the burdens of the kids and their only reward was a yearly summer vacation.
I was born in Aravade, a small village in the Indian state of Maharashtra that differs little from more than seven hundred thousand others in India. After I graduated from high school, my family sent me to Bombay to study chemistry in college. But my college career was not to be.
Having just spent four disappointing years at the Exeter Academy, in New Hampshire, I was enjoying a new freedom at Harvard. I could choose my own courses, make new friends, and take part in Boston’s collegiate youth culture.
The language hypnotized me, to say the least, and I couldn’t put the book down. After about two days of reading, I began to feel out of place around my friends. My only thoughts were of those books and that author. I knew that it was time for me to leave Oregon.