Chris: Hey, Chris, I thought you said we're not doing this.
Kayla: Hey, Chris, I thought you said we're not doing this. You say, hey, Kayla.
Chris: Hey, Kayla.
Kayla: Have you ever heard this song?
Chris: Oh, yeah, yeah. Hare Krishna, my sweet grace and peace.
Kayla: Have you ever heard that song?
Chris: Well, it's a Beatles song.
Kayla: It is not a Beatles song.
Chris: What?
Kayla: It is a George Harrison solo number.
Chris: Really?
Kayla: We'll get to that. We'll get to that in a minute.
Chris: But like, I've got my mindset on.
Kayla: You just like that. Very similar. Did you notice anything interesting? Actually, you did notice anything.
Chris: Wait, when is that from? Cause that sounds like. Sounds like a flower child sixties song. But if it's a George Harrison solo.
Kayla: Joint, we will get to that. Hold your questions. Okay, let me ask the questions here. You noticed something interesting immediately when I started playing the song, because you kind of started singing along and you started saying hare Krishna.
Chris: Yeah, because it's like the. Is that the chorus or the bat?
Kayla: What is that in, like, the backing vocals? George Harrison sings Hare Krishna, Krishna.
Chris: Oh, that's his voice.
Kayla: Hare, hare Rama, Hare Rama. What do you think that is?
Chris: I imagine it has to do with Hare Krishnas.
Kayla: What are Hare Krishnas?
Chris: They are those guys that I'm told are at the airport.
Kayla: Hold that thought. I'm actually gonna answer the question. All of my asking you questions, do you even care? No.
Chris: Am I just an appendage of the podcast?
Kayla: Yes. Let me answer.
Chris: At least I'm good looking.
Kayla: Let me answer these questions with a story.
Chris: Okay? That's my favorite way to answer questions.
Kayla: In 1968, six devotees were sent by their spiritual leader to London to establish a presence. This group had experienced much success in gaining followers in San Francisco and New York, and were looking to expand their presence overseas and build a new temple based on their leader's blessing, the group decided to seek out George Harrison, now one of the most famous men on the planet, to see if he could help them. George was approached because he was widely known to be, of the Beatles, the most interested in eastern spirituality, particularly Hinduism.
Chris: I didn't know that.
Kayla: As well as meditation and indian classical music. Okay, it was George Harrison, after all, who introduced the Beatles to sitar music, lsd, and transcendental meditation.
Chris: Really? I did not know that. He was like their on ramp to all that stuff.
Kayla: Who better than he? To help this group establish a foothold in the UK? The group struggled financially early only able to establish a temporary temple in a warehouse at first. But when they finally arranged a meeting with George Harrison. In December 1968, he greeted them with these words, Hare Krishna, where have you been? I've been waiting years to meet you. George began spending time with the devotees and the new followers. They were slowly recruiting in their warehouse cum temple as well as the Beatles apple core recording studio. George was well versed in kirtan or communal chanting present specifically indian religions due to his visits to India. And he himself started playing the harmonium during kirtan at this warehouse.
Chris: What's the harmonium?
Kayla: It's like that thing that's like that. It's like a musical.
Chris: Oh, it's like an accordion.
Kayla: I think so. I don't know.
Chris: Okay, we'll put it on our instagram.
Kayla: He started playing the harmonium during kirtan at this warehouse and eventually called the devotees one morning inviting them to Abbey Road studios telling them, you're going to make a record. That recording Hare Krishna Mantra, an adaptation of a 5000 year old chant would go on to be a hit single in the charts in 1969 and was a precursor to George Harrison's next hit using the chant Hare Krishna now as a solo artist. My sweet, the biggest selling single of 1971, son of a gun.
Chris: Okay, 1971. That's close enough to like flower child era that the style makes sense.
Kayla: To me. The style makes sense. And as you originally guessed, those six devotees that originally approached the quiet beetle in 1968 were none other than a highly visible new religious movement almost synonymous with the hippie movement, the infamous Hare Krishnas.
Chris: So the topic today is the Beatles then?
Kayla: Yes. Are they a cult?
Chris: Cause I mean, definitely, right? The animals.
Kayla: Definitely.
Chris: For sure. I mean certainly they have a cult following. Well actually I wouldn't call that a cult following. Yeah, they fail on the niche criteria. Nevermind.
Kayla: Yeah, they're a religion. The Beatles are a religion. Welcome to cult or just weird. I'm Kayla. I'm a television writer.
Chris: I am Chris. I'm a game designer and a data scientist.
Kayla: Welcome to Beatles chat. It's not Beatles chat. Welcome. Welcome to our podcast. We're glad to have you here. I'm excited to talk about this topic today because it is the Hare Krishnas are one of the most stereotypical groups when I think mainstream people maybe think about quote unquote cult. And they were really hyper present and hyper visible in the 1960s and seventies and have since become much less visible. So I'm excited to talk about all of that today.
Chris: Do they wear robes? It feels like they wear robes and that's why people think of them as a cult.
Kayla: It's always the robes it's the robes. It's the matching clothing that people just have a hard time grappling with.
Chris: I feel like if I wore robes, people would be like, is that kind of a cult?
Kayla: They would just think you were the second coming of Jesus because of your hair and beard combo.
Chris: Oh, yeah, that's a good point. That's. I mean, that would be a cult.
Kayla: Before we get into our topic today, is there anything we need to address? Any business, any banter that you want to get off your chest, or are we ready to just dive in?
Chris: I have so many things I need to get off my chest, but I will spare our audience most of them. I will say one thing, but first, we do have to thank our latest addition to the Patreon family. I want to say thank you to Paige for joining the ranks as a cultist. We really appreciate your support on Patreon.
Kayla: Thank you to all of our Patreon patrons. We love to have you there. We love to do bonus episodes and polls and little behind the scenes things. And you also get access to a special tier of our discord where we have conversations just for patreon eyes. But if you're not a patron, you can also head over to our discord. There's a lot of stuff going on there. Check out the memes channel. It gets weird in there. I like it.
Chris: Yeah. So we'll remind you again at the end of the episode, but for sure, you should go check out our discord. We have an invite link set up on all of our socials. You can go to our link tree, you can go to our Facebook, you can go to our Twitter profile, you can go to our website, and there's a link to invite to our discord anywhere there. It's pretty active in the discord. It's pretty fun. We would love to have you there. And that's what we talk about these episodes. So if you want to talk about the episode later, head on over.
Kayla: And thank you, of course, specifically to our newest patron, Paige.
Chris: All right, this is something. Just real quick, because I think we have a bunch of Gen Z listeners. I just want to say I feel bad for you guys. Kayla, I talked to you about this, like, a week or two ago. There's so many TikToks out there where it's like, what if, like, Jesus used Gen Z language? Or, like, here's a boomer or millennial using Gen Z speak. And these TikToks are funny because, you know, it's like Jesus saying, like. And then Jesus said to the chat. Don't worry about taking L's for those. L's will become W's and it will be lit. It's just stuff like that where it's like, using Gen Z lingo a lot. And it's very funny.
Chris: But I also feel bad for Gen Z because they are growing up in an era when every other generation has access to TikTok and access to the Internet and everything's free flowing information, and so they can't hold on to any of their own lingo for very long before everybody else is using it. And we didn't grow up that way. You know, when I was growing up, there was like, the Internet was like prodigy like that. Any. Any youth lingo that I had as a youthful millennial was, like, confined to the youth. And it didn't spread to the older folks, the older generations, very quickly. But now it's like the opposite of that. It spreads so quickly. And I just kind of feel bad for Gen Z ears because, like, they don't get to keep their own lingo.
Chris: It just immediately is like, listen to this Gen Z silly stuff that boomers and millennials and Gen Xers say. I don't know, just been something on my mind. Nothing to do with cults, really.
Kayla: The cult of Gen Z?
Chris: The cult of Gen Z. You guys can't keep your own rituals? We steal them.
Kayla: I'm sorry. Your rituals are getting appropriated. Okay, before we jump into the topic today, before we jump into the Hare Krishnas, if you're ready.
Chris: Oh, I've never been more ready.
Kayla: Let me finish telling you the story of my sweet lord. Oh, okay. So first of all, the six devotees that hooked up with George Harrison eventually grew their following, with his help, into the Radha Krishna temple, the headquarters of this group in the UK. The song My Sweet Lord was written specifically in praise of the hindu God Krishna, whom the Hare Krishnas worship. But its intent was to illustrate how all religions are essentially branches of the same tree. So George Harrison viewed his usage of the word hallelujah in that song, which is also used often throughout it synonymously, with the chant Hare Krishna as a call to abandon religious sectarianism. Like, oh, we can use all these words because they all mean the same thing. They're all in worship of the same deity.
Chris: Now that you say that totally comes across in the song. It's like the alleluia is said adjacent to Hare Krishna, as if it was like the same sort of thing. So real quick, though. So the Hare Krishnas didn't have a presence in the UK prior to this engagement with George Harrison.
Kayla: Correct.
Chris: So that was like their in for all of the UK.
Kayla: Correct. They were big in the States by this point.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: But they had yet to establish a foothold in Europe.
Chris: Oh, all of Europe. Oh, wow.
Kayla: This was, I think, their first endeavor overseas. Yes.
Chris: Well, that's a, you know, I guess George Harrison's a pretty good promo guy.
Kayla: I mean, it worked.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: He said in his autobiography he wanted to show that those two phrases meant, quote, quite the same thing. And he also admitted to wanting listeners to start chanting along with him, quote, before they knew what was going on.
Chris: That'll get him.
Kayla: The desire to establish all religions as one and the same wasn't just influenced by his relationship to the Hare Krishna movement, but also to his study of Swami Vivekananda and Paramahansa Yogananda. Oh, the latter who you might remember from the episode where we covered self realization fellowship. And I even think one of George Harrison. I think we talked about it. One of George Harrison's memorials or funerals or something after he passed may have taken place at the self realization fellowship shrine that we visited. There were multiple celebrity memorials there. I think he might have been one of them, but I could be wrong.
Chris: Call back, baby.
Kayla: The song my sweet Lord also contains ancient vedic prayer as the song continues, kind of also in the background where they talk about guru blah, blah. This is intended to be. That prayer is intended to be recited by a devotee in dedication to a guru.
Chris: Huh. It's not a bad song. Really? It's a pretty good song.
Kayla: Oh, it's not a bad song? Is that what you're saying?
Chris: Yeah, it's pretty good.
Kayla: My sweet lord is George Harrison's most popular song from his solo career. Rolling Stone ranked it 454th on their 500 greatest songs of all time, and it reached number one in Britain again after Harrison's death in 2002.
Chris: Really?
Kayla: And it's a song explicitly referring to a group most mainstream people would consider a cult.
Chris: Mmm. Boy, cults know how to make music and cook vegetarian food.
Kayla: We'll get to that. So let's get into it. Who or what exactly are the hare Krishnas? Well, my friend, a good place to start would be telling you that isn't their name at all.
Chris: What?
Kayla: That is a colloquial term.
Chris: Is it an exonym?
Kayla: I think that they're not offended by being called Hare Krishnas, and I think they probably colloquially refer to themselves as it. But it is a. I think it is an exonym. Used to refer to them based on the group's tendency to chant the Hare Krishna mantra in kirchan and public settings. So that mantra in my sweet lord. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna Krishna hare. Hare Rama hari. Rama rama hari hari. That is the specific chant that they would do in public, and hence, they became known as the Hare Krishnas.
Chris: Interesting. That sounds very, the whole thing you just said with the repetition, it's very prayer. Like a sound.
Kayla: Yeah, it's a mantra, it's a prayer. It's a chant. It's a meditation. We'll talk about it more in a little bit, but, yes, you're on the right track. So this group that we're talking about is, in fact, actually called the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCOn. I s k c o n. No way.
Chris: So that's their real name?
Kayla: That's their real name.
Chris: The whole time, yeah. Oh, my God.
Kayla: The whole time? The whole time.
Chris: So just, so you guys, just, I think maybe people know this, but exonym is basically something that outsiders call you or call a thing or a country or whatever, and then endonym is what people from that place call it. So, like, we call Greece. People from Greece, I think, still refer.
Kayla: To it as hellas good to know.
Chris: Thats an example.
Kayla: And to be clear, yes, we are talking about the group youre picturing. So, like, Chris mentioned the robes, specifically orange robes, heads, musical instruments, chanting and passing out literature in airports and other highly visible areas.
Chris: I feel like the airport thing was, like, a little bit before my time, but, like, I always hear about it, like, oh, Hare Krishna is the guys at the airport. And I'm like, I don't think I've ever seen Hare. Should I call, is it more?
Kayla: I don't think it's offensive to call them Hare Krishnas, but I generally refer to them as ISKCoN throughout this episode.
Chris: So if I saw somebody like an iSKCon iskanite, like, what's a person that's an ISKCOn follower? Iskcon follower.
Kayla: Hare Krishna.
Chris: Okay, I'll say Hare Krishna. I don't want to say too many syllables. Yeah, I don't know if I've ever seen Hare Krishna at an airport. Like, maybe once.
Kayla: Well, we'll get into it. But eventually there were specifically, like, at LAX and probably other airports specifically, rules and laws were eventually put into place partially to remove the Hare Krishnas from being kind of so annoying.
Chris: Oh, were they, like, aggressive? Sort of.
Kayla: They're not mean aggressive, but they are, like, they're loud and they're doing their thing, and they're passing out literature like they were at the time. Things have changed a lot since the 1970s, but they were very much trying to be visible and be attractive and be, like, passing out literature and doing kirtan in public spaces was a really big part of this. And eventually, yeah, they were kind of moved out of public view or put into areas of airports that were like, this is where the charities can go. I see. And they also eventually would decide to not be so visibly distinct when trying to share the word. But, yeah, I don't think I've ever seen that kind of sight in public. The references were kind of the extent of my knowledge of ISKCon.
Kayla: Like, I heard maybe some hushed bits of gossip between my parents about, like, oh, so and so's sister left the family and gave all their money to the group. Or, like, a parody in, like, I distinctly remember a parody of them in cartoons like Rocko's modern life. And I know that they were largely considered a cult by the mainstream of our parents. And I. I knew that they were somehow associated with hippie culture, but until we moved to this current apartment, I never really thought much about them.
Chris: Wait, why this apartment?
Kayla: Because one day we turned a corner five minutes from home and drove by a large building with a sign, international society for Ka Consciousness of Los Angeles. Oh, and I won't lie outside of a moment of, like, whoa, cool, we should do them on the show. I also didn't think that much about them again until.
Chris: Kayla. There's a lot of stuff going on in Laden, right?
Kayla: There is. But then one day, I was searching on Yelp for good vegan food nearby.
Chris: Wait, did they do it, too? What was the other place went to? Lovinghut.
Kayla: Loving hut. And I. What the fuck? I found a restaurant a couple minutes away.
Chris: Everyone and the source family. What's going on?
Kayla: Everyone was raving about this restaurant called Govinda's, and I quickly learned that this restaurant was inside the IsKCon temple, and immediately I knew we had to go.
Chris: Can you please explain why this is a common thing?
Kayla: Why is this a thing? I don't know why it's a common thing. I think we've talked about that on the show before, but I will get to why this is a thing specifically for ISkCON.
Chris: Okay. Should we have a spin off show where we just go eat at cults and then just talk about the.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Just, like, review the food or something?
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: All right.
Kayla: You heard of your first cult chow with Chris and Kayla?
Chris: Cult chow. Because we're dogs.
Kayla: Yeah. Before we can head anywhere and eat anything, let's learn a little bit about the history of the group, what they believe, and who their charismatic leader is or was.
Chris: So, George Harrison.
Kayla: It was not George Harrison. He was a acolyte, but he did also, like, he did a lot for them.
Chris: High level acolyte.
Kayla: What iskcon? Okay. In their own words, from their website, the International Society for Ka Consciousness, otherwise known as the Hare Krishna movement, includes 500 major centers, temples, and rural communities, nearly 100 affiliated vegetarian restaurants. Thousands of what? Yep.
Chris: Okay, first of all, 500. Surprise me. And then 100. Okay, so just keep going.
Kayla: Thousands of namahatas, or local meeting groups, and a wide variety of community projects, and millions of congregational members worldwide.
Chris: Really?
Kayla: Although less than 50 years on the global stage, ISKCON has expanded widely since its founding by his divine Grace aC Bhaktivedanta, Swami Prabhupada in New York City in 1966.
Chris: Oh, so they had only been around for, like, not that long before they started branching out to the George Harrisons of the world.
Kayla: Correct. Iskan belongs to the Gaudiya Vashnaiva Sampradaya, a monotheistic tradition within the vedic or hindu culture.
Chris: Monotheistic?
Kayla: Hold that thought philosophically. It is based on the sanskrit texts Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavad purana. These are the historic texts of the devotional Bhakti yoga tradition, which teaches that the ultimate goal for all living beings is to reawaken their love for God or Lord Krishna, the all attractive one. God is known across the world by many names, including Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, Rama, etcetera. IsKCON devotees chant God's name in the form of the Maha mantra, or the great prayer for deliverance. This is the classic hare Krishna chant in my sweet lord and that we've referenced a few times here.
Chris: Sorry. My mind is, I'm like, you can see that nobody else can see this, but my eyes are just like, keep.
Kayla: Widely wider and bigger.
Chris: I just didn't know that they were. Okay. I didn't know that they were monotheistic. I didn't know that. So they consider Rama as to be the, like, the monotheistic christian deity, that is.
Kayla: But, yes.
Chris: Okay. Because my understanding was that in and the hindu tradition that Rama was more like a Hercules, like a demigod, heroic figure. But I also don't know that much. And then I have a third question, or maybe this is my first. Is this white people appropriating hindu indian stuff, or is this more legit?
Kayla: That particular bit of it is not a white people thing that we will again get into it, but that particular.
Chris: I don't want to, like, shit on anybody.
Kayla: No, I get it. Because, spoiler alert, the Hare Krishnas started in the United States.
Chris: Okay, so they're western.
Kayla: They were started by somebody who came directly from India.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Who was. I don't want to spoil too much, who was raised in a very similar tradition. So this idea is not necessarily unique to the Hare Krishnas.
Chris: I see.
Kayla: But hold some of those questions till we can kind of untangle that a little bit more. A little bit later.
Chris: We'll get to that. We'll get to that.
Kayla: Correct. Going back to the ISKCON website, members of ISKCOn practice Bhakti yoga in their homes and also worship in temples. They also promote bhakti yoga, or Krishna consciousness through festivals, the performing arts, yoga seminars, public chanting, and the distribution of the society's literatures. ISKCON members have also opened hospitals, schools, colleges, eco villages, free food distribution projects, and other institutions as a practical application of the path of devotional yoga.
Chris: That sounds nice. Is bhakti yoga the same thing that they were doing at SRF? Or is that because I know you said there's different types of yoga, and some are more transcendental meditation and some are more movement oriented. Is that bhakti?
Kayla: I don't think bhakti yoga, and I could be wrong is the exact same kind of yoga that they were practicing in SRF. But you are right in that it is not like the mainstream western understanding of yoga as not like downward dog, a series of movements. Yeah, it's a spiritual path, a spiritual practice that I'll define a little bit better in like 2 seconds, because on their website, iskcon, God bless them for making this episode so easy. They literally have a dropdown menu called beliefs.
Chris: Oh, man.
Kayla: It's just a drop down menu broken down into bhakti yoga. God is a person. Meditation, vegetarianism, studying sacred texts, reincarnation.
Chris: And karma is the name of that dropdown.
Kayla: For podcasts, this is like, yeah, that's just their press kit. Wait, is it actually, no, it's their beliefs section.
Chris: I was like, I don't know. That's pretty good.
Kayla: I'm gonna give a brief rundown on each of these, but first, I kind of want to go back to something you were saying a little bit ago. Like, you're talking about Rama. You're talking about the different gods. Who is Krishna and why him? Why are we talking about him?
Chris: So Krishna is a guy person.
Kayla: As stated, iSKCON believes Krishna is simply God, and that all religion's names for God are all kind of referring to the same thing. We've been introduced to this idea in multiple different groups that we've talked about that was present in SRF. That's just present in a lot of these kinds of beliefs where it's like we're all worshiping the same thing, but come worship this way.
Chris: Yeah, I guess it makes sense for a new religious movement to operate that way, because, like, you're gonna get more interest, more followers, more whatever. If you are syncretizing with existing stuff, then, like, competing against it. And, like, I guess Christianity did that back in the day, too, bro.
Kayla: I feel like everybody did that.
Chris: I mean, even Yahweh is, like, from a different prior, like canaanite.
Kayla: I was just reading that, like, that there are hindu traditions that are syncretized with, like, ancient non vedic belief systems that were present in ancient India.
Chris: Yeah, that makes sense.
Kayla: So for Iskcon, Krishna is the source of all avatars of God. So the other hindu gods.
Chris: So that's like earth, fire, water, air, and then the fire nation attacks, is that what you're saying?
Kayla: I don't think they did they have religion in that show?
Chris: I don't know, actually. They must have.
Kayla: I mean, they had spirituality, but I don't know if they were like, I don't remember. I don't remember. Avatar, the last airbender. So think of, like, if you know a little bit about the hindu traditions, there's a, it's a polytheistic tradition. There are a lot of other gods. The Hare KrIshNAs are saying, well, all other gods are kind of like a version of KrIshna or an avatar of KrIshna or like an offshoot of Krishna. And I think that this means that, like, any other gods appearing anywhere else are also just, like, all kind of coming from KrIshna. He is the highest form of God. They refer to him as the supreme personality or supreme lord. And outside of Iskcon, Krishna is a major deity in Hinduism.
Kayla: He is an avatar of VIshnu, who is another supreme being just a little bit higher on the hierarchy.
Chris: So in hInduism, VIshnu's higher, I believe KrIshna.
Kayla: Yes. Krishna is like the 8th avatar of Vishnu.
Chris: Oh, man, theRe's a lot here.
Kayla: There's a lot here. And in the Hindu tradition, Krishna is a supreme God on his own, but he is one of many, as opposed to being the only.
Chris: OkaY.
Kayla: In hinduism, he is the God of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love. And sounds like a good one. Yeah, I like him. In HinDU based religions, he is very popular and very beloved. And like most gods in most religions, there are many, many tales about him in the mythology. And for him, it goes, there's tales about him as a child, as a young adult, as an adult, as a supreme lord. There's a whole slew of myths about him, and he's most often depicted, or most recognizably depicted as a blue skinned deity playing the flute. So you've probably seen him.
Chris: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Kayla: So that's KRISHNA. That's who we're going to be talking about as we're talking more about ISkCON. Okay, so back to their beliefs. We're going to start with what you were just asking About. BHAKTI YOGA. And that's spelled b h a k t I, Bakti. This is a spiritual path in the hindu traditions focused on loving devotion towards a personal deity. And that deity in question for ISKCON is Krishna.
Chris: Okay. So it's like, specifically a. It's like, it doesn't even sound like meditation. It sounds like some sort of, like, ongoing.
Kayla: It's like a lifestyle almost.
Chris: Shit.
Kayla: Yes. Yeah. Bhakti yoga is one path to spiritual enlightenment. The other paths, including jnana yoga, karma yoga, and hatha yoga. I think karma yoga was Srf, but I could be wrong. They may have also been practicing a form of bhakti.
Chris: Is there going to be a quiz? Because I'm not going to remember all.
Kayla: No.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: ISKCON states, quote, the path of bhakti yoga is developed through a variety of activities. These include mantra meditation, or the chanting the names of God, the study of sacred texts.
Chris: So that's why they say Krishna, Krishna.
Kayla: Res.
Chris: Yes, that's vice.
Kayla: Yes. That is why associating with like minded spiritual aspirants, eating sanctified vegetarian food.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: And living in a way that upholds the principles of truthfulness, mercy, austerity, and cleanliness are all core practices for a life of a follower of bhakti.
Chris: And rockstarness is rock star ness.
Kayla: George Harrison, the next God is a person. ISKCON refutes claims that God is formless or that the divine cannot truly be known or given a face. Okay.
Chris: Glad that they, like, take a stance on that, because, like, I kind of.
Kayla: Feel like it's a hard stance to understand. Though I won't lie, it still confuses me. But that's also because I'm not a religious scholar.
Chris: Well, like, I mean, I imagine it's about as easy to understand as the trinity. In other words, not. But I do appreciate, though, the hard stance, because for me, I'm like, well, God could just be love or the infinite understanding of the universe. And I appreciate that. They kind of go like, no, it's a guy.
Kayla: It's this guy over here.
Chris: It's this one. Good for you, man. Good for the concreteness there.
Kayla: They claim, quote, there's overwhelming evidence suggesting that the supreme person is not abstract at all. In the Vedas, the oldest and most comprehensive of all world scriptures, one can discover that the abstract truth has both impersonal and personal aspects. His eternal, blissful, all knowing and all attractive personality tends to remain hidden behind his all pervasive majesty and overwhelming greatness. Vedic writing describes in detail the unlimited names, activities, opulences, and associates of the supreme person, both in this temporary universe and in the world beyond. So they're like, no, he's all around. He's here, he's here, he's here. He is concrete. You can have a relationship with him. It's great.
Chris: Okay, so he's like a kind of a Jesus in that sense?
Kayla: I think so.
Chris: Okay. But also, Jesus was the son of God. Now, see, now we're getting to the trinity stuff that's hard to understand.
Kayla: Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit are all just avatars of Krishna anyway, so don't worry about it.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Okay, next. Belief meditation. ISKCON believes meditating by chanting the name of God, like we mentioned, is the method of spiritual awakening of choice. The idea is that our eternal souls have gotten trapped in a cycle of reincarnation via karma, which we'll talk about both of those in a second, because we have forgotten our relationship with God. And so by chanting the name of God, we can start to reawaken that memory in our souls, to grant us that reinstatement of the relationship to God and then joining him in the universe.
Chris: Beyond the name of Goddesse. That is also how you get past the second trap in the Indiana Jones and last crusade to get to the holy Grail.
Kayla: Very similar concepts. This type of meditation that they're talking about can either be. Hold your questions, Joppa.
Chris: I'll do what I want.
Kayla: Joppa. Kirtan or Sankirtan. So quote, in Joppa, the meditator individually and softly recites God's name with the use of beads similar to a rosary.
Chris: Oh.
Kayla: Kirtan is a public meditation in which one loudly sings the names of God, accompanied by musical instruments. When performed in a group, this is called San Kirtan.
Chris: Okay, so that's being annoying in an airport.
Kayla: Yeah. The main mantra that we talked about, the Maha mantra, or the great mantra, is also called the great mantra for deliverance. So the three words in that chant, as we mentioned, are Hari, Krishna and Ramadan. Okay, Hari. Oh, my God. We're getting into trinity stuff here. Hare. See, Hari means God's energy, and Krishna and Rama refer to God as first, all attractive. That's Krishna and Rama, all powerful. So chanting the maha mantra brings one closer to Krishna.
Chris: Okay, so Hari is definitely the holy spirit.
Kayla: That's what it sounds like.
Chris: The other two, though, don't quite.
Kayla: It sounds like more like they're brothers rather than sons. But it's also.
Chris: It's one person, it's two aspects they handle. They're two different jobs.
Kayla: Yeah, but it's like if I cloned.
Chris: Myself so that I could do, like, two different jobs.
Kayla: Right. Next belief. Vegetarianism. According to IskCon, they are sometimes referred to as the kitchen religion because they view cooking as a sacred experience.
Chris: That is true.
Kayla: The preparation and eating of food should be based on principles of compassion, nonviolence and balanced living. Thus, Krishna devotees advocate a lacto vegetarian diethenne, strictly avoiding meat, fish and eggs. Eggs, too, but not dairy.
Chris: So it's like semi vegan?
Kayla: Yes. They also believe that reducing the killing and suffering of animals reduces our collective karmic debt, helping to, quote, alleviate the horrors of war, which so plague the modern world. So the idea is like, there's so.
Chris: Much if they don't eat bacon and there won't be wars.
Kayla: Not that it's that the wars and all this, like, horrible stuff that goes on, but people killing each other creates this karmic debt, and we can lessen with all this suffering, and we can lessen the total amount of suffering by not killing as many animals.
Chris: Iskcon, I would love to not eat bacon. I really would. I'm with you. I just. It's so tasty. I don't know what to do.
Kayla: Sounds like a quitter. Sounds like quitter.
Chris: I am. I'm a quitter. I'm a lazy quitter.
Kayla: But it's not just about adopting a vegetarian lifestyle. It's also about evangelizing a vegetarian diethyde.
Chris: Oh, there.
Kayla: I don't think, annoyingly, not in a, like, oh, you know how to find the vegan at the party. Not necessarily in that way, but wait.
Chris: Till, say, the punchline.
Kayla: Everybody knows that punchline. They'll tell you. And it's a stupid punchline. It is. But whatever this more means, ISKCON followers have written cookbooks that have sold millions of copies. So it's like sharing.
Chris: That's cool.
Kayla: Sharing. And I'm not saying, of course, I'm sure there's many Ari Krishnas that are annoying about their vegetarian diethyde. Just like there's annoying keto, just like there's annoying carnivores, just like there's annoying vegans. Whatever.
Chris: Right, right.
Kayla: But when I say evangelizing vegetarian diet, I mean in this way where, like, they've written cookbooks. One follower even won a James Beard award for her writings on vegetarian cooking. Another member hosted an international public cooking show. There are, like we mentioned, 100 Hare Krishna restaurants around the world, in many of them in major cities attached to the temples there.
Chris: Wait, so is there one attached to the one here in LA that's five minutes away?
Kayla: Yes, ma'am. It's called Govinda. Yes, ma'am. I, I'm excited. Yeah, I'm really hungry. Right.
Chris: For two, if it's even half as good as loving hutt.
Kayla: I will say I have heard, unfortunately, it's still good, but that it was better before the pandemic.
Chris: Well, that's weird.
Kayla: I think it just moved from a true serve yourself buffet to behind glass and somebody serves you. And it's just they don't have as wide a variety. Pandemic ruins everything.
Chris: Well, I'll be the judge of that.
Kayla: The temples also host cooking classes, and they also share vegetarian feasts with worshippers on Sundays, according to ISKCOn. They also have a program called Food for Life, which distributes over a million free plates of food to those in need every day, which makes them, like a really, like, one of the biggest vegetarian food distribution to the needy organizations in the world, which I'm like, I haven't done it yet because, spoiler alert, listeners, we're going to talk about the group, visit the group, and then come back and, like, talk about the group again, I have not fact checked that yet, and I do want to fact check it because distributing over a million free plates of food, that's an amazing feat. Yeah, it's a very big claim. So I do want to look into that.
Chris: Sure, sure.
Kayla: They also run several farm communities in America and Britain that produce cruelty free milk. Ahimsa milk. So that's why they're able to be lacto vegetarian, because they produce cruelty free milk.
Chris: It's cruelty free milk. Is that like they milk them in a less aggressive manner.
Kayla: Unfortunately, the dairy industry can be considered quite violent towards the cows because it's like we have the cycle of. We impregnate cows. So. So we're doing the impregnating. We remove the calves from the mother very quickly so that we can then harvest that milk. I think about half of those calves are immediately slaughtered. The other half are then put back into the same cycle. So it is a very. You know, if you're. If you're somebody who cares about animal rights, that can. That can seem like a very violent system. And so what they do is they. They have a different system.
Kayla: I don't know exactly the details, the same way I know the details of factory farming, but I think that they're like, we don't do the slaughtering, and we don't do the taking the calves away from the moms and that kind of thing. So it's probably more expensive, but I don't know.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: Okay, next one. Studying sacred texts, pretty self explanatory. The sacred texts in ISKCON are the Bhagavad gita, a 700 verse hindu scripture positing the existence of an individual self and a divine self within each being, or the dialogue that takes place between the human and the immortal in each person.
Chris: That text is hindu in origin, right? Not Krishna in origin, correct.
Kayla: The Bhagavad gita. I don't know if it's hindu in origin or if it's just, like, influenced Hinduism. Oh, I don't know who wrote it or why. I guess I'm gonna look that up.
Chris: You don't have to.
Kayla: Well, now I'm interested. Yeah. It's specifically a hindu text, or it's in present. That's where it originated, and it's present in hindu related traditions. And the vedic texts are another one that they study. And that is a large body. We've referenced it a few times. It's a large body of ancient indian religious texts, passing along mantras, rituals, ceremonies, meditations, philosophies, and spiritual knowledge to worshipers. Next one. Reincarnation. Also somewhat self explanatory. ISKCON adheres to belief that when we die, our soul leaves this body and enters a new one.
Chris: Do they believe that we fart our souls out?
Kayla: Who believes that?
Chris: Those. The Pythagoreans that are.
Kayla: That. That they believe in reincarnation. But the way that it happens is our souls get.
Chris: No, no. That's why they don't eat beans is because when you fart a little chunkier soul escapes with it. Or as it.
Kayla: Well, maybe they should have been farting chunks.
Chris: Well, no, you'd fart a chunk of your soul. It's not.
Kayla: The farting chunk is.
Chris: That's just pooping.
Kayla: They don't believe that. They believe something else.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: I imagine from their website, quote, our present body is the result of a long series of actions and reactions in previous lives. The law that governs this is known as karma. Every action has a reaction. Our previous actions have produced our present body, and our current actions will determine our next body.
Chris: Okay, this is like, if I'm good, then, like, the next person I hook up with is gonna have, like, a hot bode. Is that what that means?
Kayla: No, the next person you be.
Chris: Oh, the next person I be will have a hot bod.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Yeah. I. You know, I'm not a religious scholar. I would like somebody who is a religious scholar to explain, to talk to me about the concept of karma, because I just. I see a lot of, like, philosophical holes there where I'm like, okay, so you're telling me that if, like, bad things happen to me, it's my fault? I don't really like that.
Chris: I mean, it sounds like what you're.
Kayla: Saying is maybe it helps give meaning to the bad things that happen to you. I don't know.
Chris: Yeah, I think that's something that we all, through our lives, struggle to make sense of.
Kayla: I must have done something in a past life. I say that all the time.
Chris: Yeah. I mean, especially because, like, you're not saying, at least this is just me going off of what you said. I'm not a religious scholar either, but if something bad happens to me and I haven't done anything wrong, then. And you can explain that away by my past self having done something wrong, right. Like, at least I'm not to blame. Right?
Kayla: Especially like, that guy is, and he's me, right?
Chris: I must have been Hitler in a previous life, or else I would have won the lottery last week.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: But, yeah, it's. I think it's that. I think it's like a way to explain the, you know, theodicy problem. Why do bad things happen to good people?
Kayla: Why do they.
Chris: Yeah. So it's not why do bad things happen to good people? It's why does evil exist if God is both good and all powerful? Explain evil, bitch.
Kayla: I can't. The Hare Krishnas believe that this human form is the only one that can free us from the endless cycle of reincarnation by building a loving devotional relationship with Krishna, as Krishna states in Bhagavad Gita 816, from the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one attains to my abode, never takes birth again. So the idea is that if you break out of this cycle of misery by developing this devotional relationship, this loving relationship with Krishna, it will reconnect you to God's kingdom, essentially, and you will break out of this cycle and be there instead.
Chris: It's like, that's how I escaped the matrix.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: It's not dissimilar, but then you're just in a new cycle that you have to break out of.
Kayla: Well, according to the matrix, I don't.
Chris: Think according to it cycles all the way down.
Kayla: The vedic texts.
Chris: That's true. That does happen. That's what's so great about the matrix is that, like, they just. They take that idea of its cycles all the way down and, like, really run with it. In the second movie, whatever hurts. This is not about the matrix. It's so painful. It's great.
Kayla: Finally, the last one in their beliefs drop down. Karma. Literally. Like, literally, karma means activity. The law of. Yes, that just means activity. Like the idea that you do something and then something happens. You do an activity and then there's a consequence. The law of karma dictates the consequences of our actions. Be good, get good stuff. Be bad, get bad stuff. It gets more complicated than that. So I will go ahead and let ISKCON explain over a series of paragraphs. Quote, karmic reactions include not only things that happen to us, but determine our health, wealth, intelligence, physical appearance and social status. Us, as well as our personalities and inclinations. While we have some degree of freedom to choose our current actions, our choices are influenced by our nature or personalities which have developed from our previous actions.
Kayla: Karma thus locks us up in a cycle of action and subsequent reaction. As long as we are in this cycle, we will experience both happiness and distress. Even if we act in a pious way, we destine ourselves to accept another material body at death, to enjoy the reactions to our materially good actions. As long as we accept a material body, we cannot avoid the miseries of disease, old age and death.
Chris: So if I'm really good, what do I reincarnate as? Do I reincarnate as, like, a billionaire with yachts or. I feel like they're miserable too. So what? Like, would I reincarnate as the guy that holds the towel for the supermodels when they shower?
Kayla: Probably just a guy who, like, has nice things happen, who, like, doesn't have a dead kid and, like, has a nice life.
Chris: Oh, man, that'd be rad.
Kayla: Just, like a normal guy. That's the best we can hope for. Is that like. Like, hey, this is all right. Fortunately, karma is temporary. I hope that if we leave the joke about a dead kid in. I hope that anybody. I'm just saying, I hope that anybody listening understands that we are speaking from a place of experience, not making a joke about people who are bereaved parents. Oh, yeah, we're making a joke on her own benefit.
Chris: We're making a joke about bereaved parents that are us.
Kayla: That are us. Fortunately, karma is temporary. We can break free from its bonds by performing spiritual acts in service to Krishna. Such acts of devotion, or bhakti yoga, purify the soul and gradually awaken our spiritual knowledge and innate love for Krishna. Thus, both our karma and our longstanding desire to enjoy life within the illusory material world, the root cause of our bondage, are destroyed. So even your happiness is me talking now. Even your happiness. Even your, like, whoa, this is great. Even that is keeping you locked in a cycle of misery. It is not happiness. It is not piousness, it is not good works, it is not good acts, it is not good faith.
Kayla: It is not any of those things that will break you out of this karmic cycle, because those things are just keeping you trapped in the cycle of then reaping the benefits of those things. The only thing that will break you out is establishing this relationship with Krishna and having your spirit awaken, reawaken into this knowledge that we are one with Krishna.
Chris: Interesting.
Kayla: I kind of, like, part of me is, like, that hurts my brain, and part of me is like, that's really interesting and cool and, like, makes a lot of sense.
Chris: That's exactly kind of what. What I'm doing right now, in my head, I'm kind of going back and forth between, like, that makes a ton of sense, and, whoa. You know, like, it's. It is. It's. I guess from an outsider's perspective, my bias was to think of reincarnation as sort of. That is the point, right? The point. And as, like, if I'm reincarnated, then my literal afterlife will exist. It'll just be here on earth. And my reward in said afterlife, just like my reward in a christian afterlife in heaven, would be based on my actions in this life. But what you're saying is that in the Hare Krishna ISKCON estimation, that reward punishment cycle is there, as explained. But there's also this, like, off ramp.
Chris: And it sounds like my interpretation is that the off ramp has to do less with good and bad and more about transcending into some beyond good and evil, for lack of a better book title.
Kayla: That's my understanding, too. But the interesting thing is that it seems as if the practice of bhakti yoga, at least as described by ISKCON on their website, the practice of bhakti yoga does also include good works. So I say, along with these beliefs, the group also undertake various activities, including participation in a variety of arts, including music and Kiritan educational programs, festivals and holidays, eco villages, cow protection, multiple daily worship activities at their center, and a weekly Sunday love feast open to all. That includes music, worship, lectures, and the sharing of vegetarian food. So they do a lot of, like, traditional worship and good works. And that's all part of the bhakti yoga. That's part of establishing this relationship with God.
Chris: Okay, so I know you might not be able to answer. You probably won't be able to answer this, but are they doing the good work? Are they doing the hare, Hare Krishna, Krishna as their off ramp into the cycle breaking, and then they're doing all the good work stuff as like a. But just in case I don't break the cycle, I want my next life to be awesome. Is it like that, or is there also some element of if you do enough good stuff that helps you with the off ramp versus helping you have a better next life?
Kayla: I think it's saying that these good works are part of building that relationship with Lord Krishna.
Chris: There's a secondary side effect of giving me a next life that's good.
Kayla: I don't know if they're sitting there thinking about, ooh, I hope this is good karma. I don't get the sense that they're even necessarily thinking about that. Just the big emphasis is on building a loving devotional relationship with Krishna. And I think that the loving devotional actions manifest as these, like traditional worship, the holidays, the festivals, the music, the meditation, and also is like sharing food, doing educational services, doing the cow protection, doing the eco villages. It's like living in a way that manifests that loving devotion to your chosen deity. Does that make sense?
Chris: It does. I think I'm still a little. Maybe I'm just trying to categorize and pin things down in a western science sense that just isn't going to work. But I'm wondering also if when we visit on Friday, will people be willing to talk to us about their beliefs. Do you think?
Kayla: I don't want to talk to any of these people?
Chris: I do. I have questions.
Kayla: I have. I tried to set up somebody to talk to. I tried to set up a tour. I tried to reach out to them to have official on record, and never, at the time of this recording, nobody returned my calls and emails. So I don't know. I also have.
Chris: Let's bring a mic just in case.
Kayla: Yeah. So I'm not sure. I think we're gonna have to see how this plays out on Friday.
Chris: Can't wait.
Kayla: Okay, there we are. We did it. The beliefs generally of ISKCon or the Hare Krishnas, in their own words.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Do you feel like you have a little bit of an understanding of their faith? Like, do you have any other questions? You know, no, I have.
Chris: I mean, I asked you a bunch of questions in line, so, not at this time. But I. I feel like I have a much. A much bigger, much greater understanding of ISKCOn. I still think I do have maybe some questions, but I have a much greater understanding.
Kayla: I have a question for me? Oh, not for you, just in general. I had a question at this point.
Chris: What's your question?
Kayla: My question was, are the Hare Krishnas Hindu? And if not, what's the difference? Yeah, the answer apparently is yes and no.
Chris: Oh, okay. I was gonna guess no, but I guess yes and no. God damn it. Why can't anything just have a simple answer, like, God is a person? See, that's what I liked.
Kayla: So isKCon can be understood as an offshoot or schism.
Chris: Schism. Oh, but that's how, you know, Hinduism has made it, not hare Krishna.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: They need to have their own schism, correct?
Kayla: I don't know if they have that, but they are. They definitely schisme off from mainstream Hinduism. They are a branch of, I mentioned it before, Gaudiya Vaishnavism, which is a movement that began in 15 hundreds. India started by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, a believed avatar of Krishna, who promoted the worship of Vishnu through Bhakti and Sankirtan. So Bhakti again, we've been talking about. And Sankirtan is the public singing, enchanting.
Chris: Good friend of mine's name, Chaitanya.
Kayla: It's a good name.
Chris: Shout out to ChaiToWN if you're listening.
Kayla: ISKCON's belief in Krishna as the supreme personality from which all other gods manifest classifies them, like we said, as a monotheistic belief. Whereas traditional Hinduism is polytheistic, they share many origins, particularly in the teachings and beliefs in the ancient vedic texts and the Bhagavad Gita. But in many ways, ISKCON is explicitly not Hinduism.
Chris: It seems like the monotheist thing really puts them at odds.
Kayla: That's a big thing. Well, also talk more about the founder later. But when he was alive, he was quoted as saying there's a misconception that the Ka consciousness movement represents the hindu religion. Some Indians, both inside and outside India, think that we are preaching the hindu religion, but actually, we are not. The Ka consciousness movement has nothing to do with the hindu religion or any system of religion. One should clearly understand that the Krishna consciousness movement is not preaching the so called hindu religion. End quote. I.
Chris: Okay, that sounds pretty clear.
Kayla: It was made clear during his life that ISKCON was not a form of any particular religion, hindu or otherwise, probably partly allowing it to be practiced by anyone of any faith in that very classic strategy. But because it shares so many origins and similarities with Hinduism, there can be some confusion. And there is some like, well, it's not Hinduism technically, but it is in the hindu tradition in a lot of ways.
Chris: Yeah, it sounds like it's, like, beliefs wise, it's partially hindu, and culture wise, it shares a lot, but it's not technically hindu. You know what I mean? It's Hindu stuff without all of the Hindu, without the exact copy of Hindu DNA.
Kayla: Right, right. Agreed. Speaking of the founder, let's talk about him for a minute. Bhakti Vedanta, Swami Prabhupada, or as his followers referred to him, Srila Prabhupda. He was born Abhai Charan di on September 1, 1896, in Kolkata, India, to a merchant family. According to bengali traditions, his parents had an astrologer read his horoscope, or horoscope, as I said in the horoscope. His horoscope. And, Chris, you'll be shocked to learn this.
Chris: Oh, boy.
Kayla: The astrologer predicted that Abhai would grow up to become a great exponent of religion.
Chris: Yeah, yeah, of course, of course.
Kayla: This was wonderful news for his parents, who were devoted vaishnavites, which means they belonged to the hindu sect that worshiped Vishnu as the supreme being from which all deity avatars sprung. So they were part of this kind of, like, offshoot that Hare Krishna would eventually become a part of.
Chris: Did he also chop down a cherry tree and explain religion to the older gentleman in the temple? When he was a child, he could.
Kayla: Never tell a lie. According to IskCon, in addition to being raised in these spiritual beliefs, he also joined Mahatma Gandhi's civil disobedient movement as a young man and even chose not to accept his college graduation diploma because he was part of a national movement advocating for national schools and self government, not the british rule of the time, which. That's pretty fucking cool. I will say.
Chris: Yeah. To not accept your diploma because of that.
Kayla: Yeah, he went to, like, dope some. I think it's called the scottish college or something like that. And, like, he went for four years and then he went, no, thank you.
Chris: Fuck the british side story here. I wish it's senior year. I had not accepted the honor society thing.
Kayla: Why?
Chris: Because, like, literally everyone had got into honor society and IB except for me. And I think. And it was like, totally. I think it was totally just like. Because the teacher that was in charge, like, didn't like us.
Kayla: Ew.
Chris: It was. Because it was literally just us three. It was like a default, like, hey, here's your honor society thing. But for us, it was like, no, ew.
Kayla: I wish you just not done it because fuck honor society.
Chris: Yeah. And then we applied again senior year and got it. And, like, to this day, I'm like, I wish I hadn't. I wish I had been like, I don't care what you think is honorable.
Kayla: No, get out of here. Honor society is just like, here you go, privileged kid. Here's a sash. You're the best.
Chris: Yeah, it's fucking stupid.
Kayla: Back to our topic. He married a woman named Radharani Datta and began working in a laboratory after his graduation.
Chris: Oh, cool. What lab?
Kayla: Bose.
Chris: Oh, my God. Really?
Kayla: I don't know if it's like Bose, but yes. No, that's Bose.
Chris: That is like Bose wave radio. That's that guy.
Kayla: Well, that's where he worked.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: In 1922, Abhi met a prominent spiritual figure in Kolkata, Sreela Bhakti Siddhanta Sarasvati, a leader in the Gaudiya Vashnaiva community, a tradition similar to the upbringing Abhay had, where the followers had this monotheistic belief in Vishnu against the backdrop of hindu culture. We've talked about it a few times now. Just trying to remind you because it's hard to keep up with.
Chris: Yeah, it's important. The reminders are important.
Kayla: Yeah. It's just. It's such a robust and complicated and nuanced, like, realm of spirituality specific to this area of the world. That's very different to, like, the realm of spirituality you and I have been steeped in the west.
Chris: So it's both robust and foreign, which makes it hard to grok.
Kayla: That's why there's these reminders that meeting changed Abhay's life. And according to ISKCON, at their first meeting, Srila Bhakti Siddhanta asked Abhay to bring the teachings of Lord Krishna to the english speaking world. This request deeply affected him, and in 1933, Abhai was initiated into Rlabati Siddhanta's face and became his disciple. His name was changed to Abhai Charan Aravinda, and he began his 32 year journey preparing to bring this faith to the west. In 1944, he started a magazine called back to the Godhead, which he wrote, designed, published, edited and distributed himself. That magazine is still the main publication for ISKCON today and has grown from its original, it was a pamphlet into now a full fledged production.
Chris: Shit. Good for him, man.
Kayla: In 1947, he was granted the title Bhaktivedanta for his progression on his spiritual journey. And he soon moved into a medieval temple in the holy town of Vrindavan, where he began writing his first book, the Bhagavata Purana. His guru believed that the written word would be an integral way to spread Vaishnava culture throughout the world. He published this book in 1959, was then initiated as a sannyasi and given the name Swami. Swami a sannyasi is someone who renounces worldly and materialistic pursuits to dedicate their lives to asceticism and spiritual pursuits.
Chris: Is this swami just mean like teacher or guru or like.
Kayla: I think it's a similar title in that vein.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Soon he was granted the honorific Prabhupada, leading to his full name, A. C. Bhakti Vedanta Swami Prabhupada. And that is how his followers would eventually come to know him. In 1965, the United States passed the 1965 Immigration act, which removed national quotas, a policy that had restricted immigration from the east based on national origin. This was Srila Prabhupdas opportunity to bring his faith to the english speaking world. According to Iskcon, at 69 years old, their founder begged a free ride. Stop it. Their founder begged a free ride on a cargo ship leaving India for New York. The trip took 35 days at sea and was just, apparently an awful time. Resulted in two heart attacks for Srila Prabhupanda while on board.
Chris: Is he. How did he get. Is there a doctor?
Kayla: He survived. Hopefully there was a doctor.
Chris: Just power through his little heart attack. Just hit your chest hard enough. Oh, there it goes.
Kayla: When he arrived at the pier in Brooklyn, he had $7 in his pocket and a crate of his translations of sacred Sanskrit.
Chris: Man, that is some american, like, pull yourself up by your bootstraps storytelling if I've ever.
Kayla: There's some true american dream stuff in here. Those early days were tough. In New York, Srila Prabhupda was believed to have direct ancestry with Chaitanya Mahuprabhu, who you might remember as the founder of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. And Chaitanya himself was a supposed avatar of Krishna. So Srila Prabhupda's connection to the divine was quite direct, but he needed to find an audience. He started out by giving lectures on the Bhagavad Gita in lofts and in hotels and leading kirtans in various public parks. It's notable that Srila Prabhupada didn't go the route of courting celebrities or trying to, like, get in with the elite until, you know, come later with the George Harrison stuff. Although I think that wasn't technically his idea. I think that was an idea from one of the followers who, like, had a relationship with some musicians that the Beatles knew.
Kayla: So I don't know for sure, but he did give his blessing anyway at this point. Instead, he was focusing on young people, tapping into the 1960s countercultural hippie beliefs, reaching out to those folks publicly and drawing them in. His mystical messages of peace and love meshed well with what the hippies were already doing. And Srila Prabhupda had answers for a lot of these young people who had a lot of questions at a very troubling time, and who, above all else, valued the idea of peace.
Chris: Why the fuck are we in Vietnam right now?
Kayla: Yeah. Some of his followers became serious students and eventually helped their guru rent a storefront in the Lower east side to use as a temple. The congregation continued to grow, and just one year after his arrival, just one year from that meager beginning of 35 days at sea and two heart attacks and $7 on the Brooklyn Pierdez ac Bhaktivedanta, Swami Prabhupda founded the International Society for Ka Consciousness in New York City. The Hare Krishna movement was born. Slow clap.
Chris: That was a fast clap.
Kayla: Eventually, the movement spread to San Francisco and then to England, where it attracted figures like our boy George Harrison, who brought along both publicity and financial backing. And in the years since, ISKCON has created over 800 centers around the world, as well as farming communities, eco villages, and remember this one? Boarding schools amassing millions of followers.
Chris: Do you think when George Harrison was singing, I got my mind set on you? You think he was thinking of Krishna.
Kayla: No, I think he was specifically thinking of the letter u. Oh, set on.
Chris: The letter u. Yeah.
Kayla: Okay, which mysterious Washington. An episode of Sesame street.
Chris: Was it seriously?
Kayla: I think so. No, no, that was. I'm sorry. That was.
Chris: Aw.
Kayla: I really got a hold on you. Really got a hold on me? I really got a hold on you. I don't know. Somebody sang a song that had the word you in it and then went on Sesame street, and it was about the letter. Yo. One of these songs. Maybe it was George Harrison. I don't know. AC Bhaktivedanta. Swami Prabhupda's predicted mission of bringing vaivism to the west had been fulfilled. He died at 81 years old in 1977. But the Hare Krishna movement continues to.
Chris: This day down the street.
Kayla: So, Chris, now that you've learned all about Srila Prabhupda, the Hare Krishnas, and the ISKCON centers the world over, are you ready to go visit the ISKCon center? Right in our own backyard.
Chris: Mainly for the food? Yes.
Kayla: I don't know what to expect, but we're gonna try a few different things while we're there.
Chris: When you say try a few different things, you mean, like try different dishes?
Kayla: Oh, we're gonna eat a lot of food.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: And we're going to see what we can find out. All right, you ready for this?
Chris: I'm always ready. Let's go, baby.
Kayla: You were born ready. Okay, hold on. It's close, but I'm a bad driver.
Chris: How close?
Kayla: We've driven by it, like, 50,000 times. It's by the in and out.
Chris: Oh. That would explain why I didn't ever see it, because I was floating out of the car on a little loft of smoke, like in a cartoon.
Kayla: This is like a mile and a half away, so.
Chris: Oh, shit. Mile and a half. So that'll be like, 45 minutes.
Kayla: Waihenk is. Chris, I know that you're not going to join me, but unfortunately, I think that. I think I'm one of them now.
Chris: Yeah, you say this every single time. You said this last time. You said this the time before. Are you just like. What? Do you just like being part of things? Cause that's fine.
Kayla: I'm a joiner.
Chris: I think you're just a joiner.
Kayla: I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Chris: There was nothing. Look, it was.
Kayla: This was a great time.
Chris: It was a cool thing. And also, you are gullible.
Kayla: It's not that I'm gullible. It's that I'm really easily moved. It's real easy to move.
Chris: That's a nice thing. That's a nice thing. Just don't be anti vaxxer. That's all.
Kayla: So how do you want to break this up? How do you want to share with our listeners? Because were at the ISKCoN center of West Los Angeles for about 3 hours today. So how do you want to break up our experience of it? Because we kind of experienced a few discrete events while were there. So maybe let's talk about the first thing we did, which is the sand kirtan. The second thing we did, which was eat at the restaurant Govinda's. And the third thing we did, which was participate briefly, in a highly publicized lecture.
Chris: Yeah. So thematically, it was hot out, and I sweat a lot. That's kind of the thing that ties it all together for me, is that I was hot and sweaty. Does that kind of COVID it for you?
Kayla: No.
Chris: No. Oh, okay. Actually, I'm just a sweaty person. Anyway, it wasn't that hot.
Kayla: How about I paint the picture? So we roll up to the ISKCON center at quarter to ten this morning, and again, this thing is like ten minutes from our home, so stop doxxing us.
Chris: Kayla.
Kayla: Sorry. We live close by.
Chris: This is somewhere close ish, but maybe not in a ten minute radius.
Kayla: Somewhere in Los Angeles. And we also live somewhere in Los Angeles. And, you know, I don't know about you, but I had a lot of trepidation as we. As we walked up it also.
Chris: Yeah, you did. Why did you have so much trepidation? You just nervous.
Kayla: Because I'm scared about new things. I don't like going to new things because I don't like doing.
Chris: But you like joining them.
Kayla: I do. And this is why I haven't joined any of them, because I'm scared.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Because you'd never know what the rules are. You know what I mean? And there were rules, and it was.
Chris: You're so weird, because, like, sometimes you're like, fuck the rules. But you're like, I'm also scared of rules.
Kayla: I'm not afraid of. Okay. Fuck the rules. That come from authority.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: And also, I want to respect the rules.
Chris: All rules come from authority.
Kayla: Okay. Rules is a hard word. Cause what I mean is the customs or the, like, what is expected of you as you participate in a space?
Chris: So you didn't wanna be disrespectful.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: It's not that you were afraid of consequences. It's that you were afraid of, like, being disrespectful in somebody else's space.
Kayla: I don't wanna fling open the door. And they're like, oh, you're early, or, oh, you're late, or, what the fuck are you doing here? You need to sling open the door.
Chris: Have it slam.
Kayla: I'm here, so I don't want to do that.
Chris: Pause your chanting while I find a seat.
Kayla: So we start walking up, and it became very clear very quickly that the ISKCon center was much larger than I expected and also included apartment complexes.
Chris: Yeah, it wasn't just like one building. It was like the whole street, by the way, I also. I don't want to go someplace and be disrespectful either. So I share that nervousness even though I make fun of.
Kayla: I also. Just in general, I like to know what is expected of me when I enter somewhere. Like, it's really hard for me and for everybody. I'm not special. It's very difficult to, like, sign up for, oh, I'm gonna take a zumba class at, you know, the y. I get really anxious about doing that because I'm like, okay, well, am I supposed to. Am I supposed to talk to people? Am I not supposed to talk to people? Shoes on. Shoes off. What am I supposed to do with my hair? Where am I supposed to stand? Can I put my water bottle here? Am I supposed to get a locker? Yeah.
Chris: Any small error would be just the end of the world.
Kayla: Just the end of the world. This was not the end of the world. This was pretty. A welcoming environment. So it did feel like I was stepping into. I expected it to be pretty small or low footprint, but this is a pretty big footprint. The location is a pretty big footprint in the neighborhood.
Chris: Specifically a shoeless footprint.
Kayla: Yeah, specifically a shoeless footprint. So we walk up to kind these. These. There's a few steps and these big gold front doors for what is clearly the, like, the temple part of the ISKCon center. Thankfully, there was. I don't know if it was just a longtime member or if it was somebody who worked there, but there was somebody sitting outside that we could go like, is it. Can we just walk in? Do we take our shoes off?
Chris: Yeah, were able to at least confirm that part of the, like, oh, shit, what if we do it wrong? He was like, yes, please take your shoes off.
Kayla: Take your shoes off.
Chris: Thank goodness.
Kayla: You can go right in. We went in, and on the website, the sand kirtan, which, as a reminder, is the experience of group chanting the maha mantra or the, you know, the Hare Krishna. Hare Rama chant we've talked about so many times, the group experience of doing that chant altogether. We got there right on time, essentially.
Chris: And we're so good.
Kayla: We're so good. There was. How many people in the room? Eight.
Chris: I think that may have been the first time I was on time to anything. Yeah, there was like. Okay, so there was four people sitting down doing the chant, primarily, and then there were, like, a couple people on the perimeter, including ourselves, at first.
Kayla: So when we say sitting down on the floor and in the perimeter, this is a.
Chris: It's an open space.
Kayla: It's an open space, you know, inside four walls and a ceiling. But it's a big open chamber, essentially. That is their temple. There was a stage of equivalent that acted as the altar, which had what looked to be like three kind of dioramas depicting Krishna, and, I think, some other versions of Krishna. Very, very beautiful. Like, probably hand carved, hand painted.
Chris: Intricate.
Kayla: Very intricate. Very detailed.
Chris: Like rococo. Can I say that?
Kayla: Super rococo. Super colorful. Like, it's not the kind of thing that you see when you walk into, like, a christian church, where it's, you know, tends to be more simple.
Chris: Well, it depends on the church, Kayla.
Kayla: I've never walked. The depictions of Jesus are usually.
Chris: No, you're right.
Kayla: Not that. Almost never that intricate, celebratory, flamboyant, colorful.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: This looked more in the hindu tradition. Like, picture that.
Chris: This is what you got, and we'll put it on instagram if you don't want to picture it, if you just want to look at it.
Kayla: I know at first I was, like, taking secret pictures because I didn't know if we could take pictures in there. But then I saw everybody else taking pictures, and I felt better.
Chris: Yeah. Like, the worshipers themselves were taking pictures, so were like, okay, so there's.
Kayla: That big altar kind of at the front. All around the room. There were also paintings depicting, I think, various scenes from Krishna's stories. There were also the words to the maha mantra, both on a plaque, which is good.
Chris: I wouldn't have remembered. You know, it's just. It's so complicated, so hard to remember.
Kayla: And then it was also on banners all the way around the room. And my favorite part. Did you notice this? My favorite part was there were at least one, but probably several, like, little porthole windows up at the top. Did you notice this?
Chris: No. Oh, wait. Yes.
Kayla: The porthole window. And at the time of day were there, there was one porthole window that had a shaft of light, literally, like, a shaft of light coming. I'll keep saying shaft coming. Streaming down from the heavens.
Chris: Nobody can see her hand gestures either. This is really nice.
Kayla: Like, going up and down the shaft.
Chris: It was beautiful, though.
Kayla: It was beautiful. And the shaft. The beam of light. I'll just.
Chris: Thank you.
Kayla: The beam of light landed exactly where the person who was leading the kirtan was sitting.
Chris: Yeah. And I saw that, and I was like, is that intentional?
Kayla: It was beautiful. It was amazing.
Chris: Do they do this at this time of day and put that porthole there on purpose? But actually, now that I'm talking through it, like, I guess not, because seasons change and the position of the sun.
Kayla: Maybe just anytime the sun's in the sky, it streams through. I don't know.
Chris: It was tight as fuck.
Kayla: It was. And so that landed on a microphone, and a person was sitting there leading the sand kirtan. They had a harmonium, which we talked about. It's kind of like a little handheld floor accordion that makes a very consistent sounds, like it doesn't stop.
Chris: Sounds like an accordion. Kind of.
Kayla: It sounds like a more droning accordion.
Chris: Well, because it doesn't stop droning. Yeah. Droning sounds, like, negatively connotated. It doesn't. I get what you mean. It's like. Yeah. It's a consistent sound versus, like a. Yeah, it's not.
Kayla: It's not doing rumpa pa. It's not doing oompa music. And next to this person chanting, there was somebody doing. Joining on drum. A specific kind of drum and, like, a hand drum. Hand drum. And then there were a couple other people sitting, maybe more off to the back. And that's kind of where we sat.
Chris: And the floor was like beautiful marble, well maintained marble. I was really jealous because were sitting on chairs and the marble looked so cool.
Kayla: There were little mats that you could take to sit. Most people were sitting directly on the floor. Some people were sitting on chairs, but.
Chris: They did have mats. They also had. If you didn't bring your own drum, there were two drums you could borrow.
Kayla: Locals, local drums, communal drums. And it looked like there were also communal, like, little, like, finger symbols or hand symbols.
Chris: Yeah, yeah.
Kayla: And there was a life size statue of Srila Prabhupada, kind off to the side, like, very lifelike.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: At first I thought there was madame Tussauds, but it was. Yeah. Madam Tusso's of their.
Chris: And he's the. That's the founder. Right.
Kayla: That is the founder of the Hare Krishnas.
Chris: Okay, now, this is gonna take a long time. Can you go over all of the things that they were chanting with her, like, just be comprehensive about it.
Kayla: We were there for an hour listening to the chants. Yeah, the chants went on for, I think, like two, almost two and a.
Chris: Half hours, because it went on after we.
Kayla: So, yeah, I might not be able to recall exactly everything that they were chanting, but it, from what I do remember, it was hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare.
Chris: And there was a third whole word.
Kayla: Hari rama.
Chris: Yes.
Kayla: Hari, Rama, Rama, hari. And then that would repeat, and then they would do that again.
Chris: Okay, so I'm sitting here being cheeky about.
Kayla: And then they would do that again. And then they would do that again.
Chris: But it sounds like, from what you're saying, that it's. Even though there are only three words in their various chants, there is a variety of, like, combinations of those words. No, that are specific.
Kayla: That's the chant, dude. That's the way the chant always goes in that.
Chris: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I didn't know that, actually.
Kayla: Yes, that is the chant.
Chris: Even though I heard it for almost an hour today, I didn't pick up on the fact that it was always those words in those orders.
Kayla: It was written on the wall twice.
Chris: I don't read things.
Kayla: It was written on a plaque.
Chris: I'm barely literate.
Kayla: It was written in the banners all around the world.
Chris: It has to be on magic card. Okay.
Kayla: Yes, it's the chorus of the George Herald.
Chris: I just. I guess I didn't put together that it's always.
Kayla: That is the chance those.
Chris: In that order. I thought that there was, like, some more. And maybe I was, like, led astray today because today felt so improvisational because, like, the melody, you know, like, the tune that they were sort of singing everything to, they definitely improvised on that, and they improvised on the beat and the pace. So maybe I also. Maybe I just, like, got it in my head that they also improvised, like, different combinations of Hare Krishna and Rama.
Kayla: Interesting.
Chris: Yeah, that's. I think that's just. I fucked up.
Kayla: I think you fucked up because that.
Chris: Is, like, I'm stupid.
Kayla: The foundational chant of this organization is specifically that.
Chris: I will say this. If anybody else had the incorrect impression that I did, please email so that I can argument with my.
Kayla: Also went and sat and listened to it for an hour.
Chris: I don't think that we need to be really specific about this. I think I just need. I just need some ammunition.
Kayla: So, okay, we go in, we start, we hear the chant, and again, there's maybe four people participating in the, like, directly in the sand, kirtan at this moment, and then some other people kind off to the back. And when we got there and we sat there for, like, ten minutes, I was like, all right, this is gonna be. I think we're done soon.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: And then more and more people started joining, and. And for me, it became more and more engaging because people would come in. Generally, there was some sort of one.
Chris: Or two at a time.
Kayla: It was a steady stream.
Chris: It was just a steady stream. Yeah, yeah.
Kayla: People would come in one or two at a time, like you said. And usually there was some sort of reverence or supplication before the various altars and statues.
Chris: A few of the folks were laid full prostrate on the marble floor several times, which I did notice was very interesting. And also I was. Because the marble floor looked cool.
Kayla: Yeah. Some of the folks would do a full body, like, flat face down on the ground, which I'd never seen before as a form of worship. And at first, I only saw one person do it, and I thought, maybe this is just that person's personal.
Chris: Yeah. But then we saw a second person.
Kayla: Do it, and then we saw a second person, and ten people did it by the end of our time there. So people would kind of come in, give their honor to whoever, to Krishna.
Chris: And then they would join the chant. Like, hop on in, and, like, one dude had, like, a second drum, and then another one had a violin.
Kayla: The violin was beautiful.
Chris: The violin was dope. Yeah. And also, like, I want to be clear, like, they were not bad.
Kayla: No, it was really. I'm like, okay, I see why George Harrison wanted to make a record of this.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Because they were. It wasn't just like somebody sitting around going, hare krishna, hare krishna. They were singing these chants.
Chris: Yeah. And whoever these folks were, like, had sung beautifully. Talent. Yeah. Like, one or two of them. Yeah. Had, like, a gorgeous voice, actually.
Kayla: And there was, like Chris said, a variety of tempos or melodies. And they were. Yeah. Kind of this group improvisation in terms of the music coming together. And usually it was kind of like a call and response thing, where one person who had the mic would kind of set the chant. Like, here's how I'm gonna do the chant. Like, I'm gonna sing it to this tune. And then it would come back around and everybody would join, following in that same tune, and that would go on for kind of however long, and then they would switch to something new, and there were times where it was much more slow and subdued, and then it.
Chris: Would build almost like, the person singing was like. Like a conductor.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: In that sense. Like, they sort of, like, set the tempo. Like everybody like it. Didn't you say call and response? But it was like, it's. There was. It was very fluid, but they definitely, like, set the. Set this, set the table, whatever conductors do. I don't know.
Kayla: My favorite part was when they would kind of grow into this more like frantic, feverish, climactic. All the drums are going and they're going really fast, and they're saying the chance really fast, and the cymbals are going, the symbols are going. And definitely there were times where I was like, oh, I'm moved. Here. I am moved. And especially when people start coming in and filling it in and people are hugging each other and somebody gets up and starts dancing, and it just was like, the worship was very clear, and it felt like, you know, you made a joke about this when were there. And I was like, you know, singing its praises, singing, ha. It was like the, you know, quote unquote the best parts of church.
Chris: Right. When we got out of there, I was like. And I thought catholic masses were repetitive.
Kayla: But this wasn't repetitive. And, like, I actually didn't find it repetitive because of. Yes, they were saying the same words over and over, but the variety of.
Chris: Tempo styles, it was actually very interesting.
Kayla: Was quite complex.
Chris: Yeah. Because the literal lyrics were repetitive, but, like, all of the other aspects of the music were not. And to your earlier point, the rising and falling action.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: They definitely had a sense for, like, you know, increasing the tempo and the volume and then, like, falling back down and then kind of being calmer for a bit and then rising and louder and then calm for that was definitely a compelling thing.
Kayla: There were all different styles of dress inside the temple at this part. There was a number of people, particularly women, who were wearing more traditional hindu or indian style dress, like, wearing saris. But then there were also people coming in to with, like, shorts and vests and people coming in with just kind of, like, really the gamut of clothes you might find in a church was also present here.
Chris: Do you remember how you made me wear shoes and then we couldn't wear shoes? You left the house and you're like, don't wear your sandals. And I was like, okay.
Kayla: And then we had to take our shoes off.
Chris: We had to take our shoes off.
Kayla: Anyway. It's not prepared. My socks.
Chris: I know it should have been like, wear your nice socks. And I'm like, oh, no, I don't wear my stained socks.
Kayla: I don't even know if your socks matched. One of the things that I did find striking was the age demographic. For some reason, I kind of, yeah, it skewed younger. It skewed younger. I pictured this being similar to, like, the source family or even like, self realization, fellowship and ethereus. I was expecting this to be older folks who had been a part of it, maybe in the seventies or eighties, even the sixties.
Chris: That's my mental context for it.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: It's like the airport stuff in the eighties or whatever, or George Harrison.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: So I'm like, okay, so it's gonna be a bunch of boomers who like the Beatles. Right, right. So I was expecting that. Not so.
Kayla: No, I mean, then there were elderly people, there were older people, but there was a lot of younger people.
Chris: Exactly.
Kayla: When I say younger people, I mean, like twenties, actually.
Chris: Like, I know we as like, 30. I don't know.
Kayla: We're in the 35. 35 plus demographic.
Chris: 35 plus range.
Kayla: We're watching Frasier right now, and he's middle aged at 41, so. Middle aged, baby.
Chris: Yeah, but no, but we mean actual young people in their twenties.
Kayla: And that was surprising to me because in my head, the Hare Krishnas are not a contemporary organization.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: They're an organization from, like, a time gone by. But this, to me, made it clear, oh, no, this is still something that's very vibrant and has life to it. Not, I get the sense from a theories and not to, you know, they're not similar, but just another group that we visited that we sat and listened to their stories.
Chris: The demographic was different.
Kayla: The demographic was. And I think that's something they're having trouble with, is that they are not able to.
Chris: Ethereus.
Kayla: You mean ethereus? Yeah. They're not able to bring in new members that are younger at the same pace that they would, like, need to. To continue their organization at the rate that they have. And that didn't seem to be, I can't speak to all ISKCON centers, but that did not seem to be issue here.
Chris: Yeah, I mean, there was a contrast that I can visualize for sure between the two demographics. And, yeah, it was interesting. Do you think it's recruiting on ISKCON's part, or do you think that it's a generational thing or do you not have any idea?
Kayla: I don't have a good answer because a spoiler alert.
Chris: Oh, no, don't tell me what happened in the last season of succession.
Kayla: This is gonna be a two part.
Chris: Oh, Kayla.
Kayla: This is gonna be two parter. But don't worry.
Chris: We are gonna love two parters. No, two parters are good.
Kayla: We're gonna come back in two weeks. I don't want to make you wait another month before we can finish this conversation, but there is a lot more to this conversation. I'll hold on that for a little bit. But in terms of whether or not they're recruiting, I kind of want to get into next time, so I don't say too much.
Chris: Okay. All right. So I've asked you. We'll get to that question, which we'll get to in the next episode, which.
Kayla: We'Ll get to in the next episode in two weeks. But what I can say is that their style of recruiting members has definitely changed, okay? Especially since those early years where their first idea or their first kind of method was go out and beat a Beatle. Get. Find George Harrison, get a record deal. No, go out. Be in public parks, be in public places. Worship loudly, distribute literature. That's not really their style as much anymore.
Chris: I definitely got that impression. This wasn't like, oh, get. Let's get out there. I mean, it was very welcoming. Like, people were super welcoming. They were like, would you like a chair? Would you like a. Like, at least in the lecture part.
Kayla: I did not feel as if I was imposing in any way. And, like, you know, you were two people who've clearly never been here wearing, like, heavy duty masks, sitting in the corner, not chanting, just kind of staring, taking creepy pictures every once in a while. And I did not feel like I was any sort of imposition. And it felt like. It felt like anytime we kind of came across somebody who we, like, started a conversation with, it was like, oh, hey, we have something else going on. Like, stay later. And not in a creepy, like, join our cult way, but in a, hey.
Chris: You are welcome here, love bombing sort of way.
Kayla: Definitely the love bombing sort of way.
Chris: But maybe more like a love.
Kayla: Cruise missile grenade.
Chris: Love grenade.
Kayla: Yeah, like a little love grenade. Okay, so that was the kind of the Cien kirtan we realized, I thought, that they would probably go for, like, an hour, and then they continued on after the hour passed. And again, this was when multiple people.
Chris: I would get tired if I were singing that long.
Kayla: Well, they kept switching up. They kept switching up.
Chris: Yeah, but everybody was singing.
Kayla: I know, but they were all in this really meditative space. And honestly, the worship looked very fulfilling. I was watching the people more than I was listening to the people, man. People were into it. People were into it. So went, okay, let's go see what else we could find while we're walking.
Chris: Oh, I thought you were telling. The way you said that, I was like, are we pausing and taking a break from recording?
Kayla: So we need to get out of this room because hot in here.
Chris: It's hotter in here than it was there, actually.
Kayla: I didn't know that you were hot and sweaty because it wasn't hot and sweaty to me until we came back the same day.
Chris: It wasn't really like, I just. If to me, hot and hot enough to be sweaty is like 60.
Kayla: I know.
Chris: It's just. It's a me thing.
Kayla: Places don't use their ac enough. Maybe they don't have an ac. I don't know. So we. We did leave the sand kirtan early once. We kind of felt like, all right, we've observed there's a lot more people in here now. It really did. It really did grow. And went then to go eat lunch at the.
Chris: Wait, first, we did one thing first.
Kayla: What do we do?
Chris: I guess it's not super important, but they have a little garden. I mean, they have a bunch of things.
Kayla: Oh, yeah. Okay. Actually, we did two things before went and eat lunch. So the. The next thing we did was went to the Srila Prabhupada's memorial garden, which was.
Chris: Oh, I didn't know that was a memorial garden for him.
Kayla: It was specifically built for him to enjoy when he was at this temple. So this ISKCon center was built in 1970. So when he was still alive.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: When he was still going around and building centers and being a really active participant in the organization.
Chris: Was the enormous orbweaver spider part of the memorial?
Kayla: I think it was just part of the garden.
Chris: I mean, yeah, actually.
Kayla: So the garden was built kind of to be a place for him to have some quiet when he was visiting this particular center. There was also. We did not get to view this because it's available only by private tours. There is also. His private quarters are still on site and kept as they were when he used them. So the quarters in the garden were kind of like his special places. So were able to go visit this little garden. It was pretty small, but it was very pretty. We'll show pictures on our instagram. Anything you want to say about the garden?
Chris: It was nice.
Kayla: And there is. Now that he has.
Chris: I said the spider thing. That's all I.
Kayla: Now that he has passed, they did build kind of like a memorial shrine to him in the garden, which we'll share. And then went to the gift shop, because you got to stop by the gift shop.
Chris: Got to do the gift shop, which.
Kayla: The gift shop is not pushy. It's like you have to go upstairs. You have to go inside another building and upstairs, like front and center.
Chris: No, yeah, you don't exit through the gift shop, which is a big miss on their part, really.
Kayla: And the gift shop was part. You know, there was books, obviously, some of the cookbooks that we talked about. There were lots of little different trinkets that you would use in worship or in this lifestyle. And then there was a ton of clothes.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: The clothes that were, like, the style of clothing.
Chris: What was the specific name of them? For them, it was.
Kayla: I mean, they called them yoga clothes, but they're not. Yeah, yoga clothes, like you or I would think of. They're not stretchy spandex.
Chris: No, no.
Kayla: Big flowy. Like.
Chris: Yeah, but men's clothes, too.
Kayla: There was men's clothes. There was women's clothes. Kind of the kind of clothes you think of when you'd think of maybe, like, contemporary, traditional indian garb. So not necessarily something that you'd see at a wedding, but something you would see when you go into a hare Krishna temple. Picture that.
Chris: Yeah. And I totally would love. Like, I think that the clothes look really cool. I just. I can't. I can't. I can't be the white guy.
Kayla: I think that you should.
Chris: I know, but, like, I'm just.
Kayla: You're so hot all the time.
Chris: I know that I'm very attractive.
Kayla: I mean. Okay, you're physically very attractive, and also, you run hot. I think the flowy clothes would do well for you.
Chris: No, it would be good. It's just like I'm walking around as the white guy in the indian clothing, man.
Kayla: I know, man. But look, it's hot.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: We're gonna die.
Chris: That's true.
Kayla: Do you really want to only wear.
Chris: I don't want to be sweating until I die, even though that's exactly my fate.
Kayla: So, after visiting the little gift shop, were able to go downstairs and have lunch at Govinda's, which I believe all of the restaurants attached to the iskcon centers are named Govindas. It's just the name of the restaurant.
Chris: It's like demolition man, where all restaurants are taco bell. It's very similar, except all restaurants are Govinda, so.
Kayla: Yes, just like demolition man. Govinda is taco Bell, all the same. Do you want to describe Govindas?
Chris: Actually, I want to describe Govinda's and then extend that to the rest of their. It was, like, clean. It's fucking there.
Kayla: Extremely holy, sanitary, hygienic, and clean.
Chris: It was so clean. It was like the cleanest restaurant. Like, clean and tidy. Yeah. And, like, so was the garden. And frankly, so was the worship center. It was, like, the floor was, like, spotless. So, like, props for that. But, yeah, it was. I mean. I mean, aside from, like, you know, gleaming, pristine. It was similar ish. It had marble floors as well. There were some what looked to be like Krishna, paintings of Krishna or whatever hanging on the wall, like wood.
Kayla: And there was also, like, wood carvings.
Chris: Some wood carvings, yeah. And it was just a bunch of tables that you could just sit down and eat their food, which was, I would say, on a cult food scale. You know, if I had to give it, like, I would. I would give.
Kayla: If loving hut is our ten.
Chris: If loving hut as our ten, I would say this is maybe, like, what, seven and a half?
Kayla: Oh, I'd give it 8.58. But that's just.
Chris: Well, okay. I would give the not samosa. What was it called?
Kayla: Okay, so you're jumping ahead of us. So what we did first, jumping ahead.
Chris: We're talking about the restaurant.
Kayla: Yeah, but you're jumping ahead to where we've already gotten the food. We got to talk about the process of getting the food right. So we walked in. So before the pandemic, this used to be a self serve buffet where it was like, you know, $4 a pound or whatever, and now it is.
Chris: You are full service buffet.
Kayla: Full service. You get a plate, you order one plate, and a plate is $8, which is still quite cheap for lunch in Los Angeles.
Chris: And you are in terms of volume, too, just to be clear, in LA, it was like $20 worth of amount.
Kayla: I was full. I was full. You had your choice of rice. So there was plain white jasmine or a fried rice that had vegetables and tofu in it. I obviously opted for the fried rice.
Chris: That's the correct decision.
Kayla: Then there was a kind of probably like, the dish of the day, what looked to be like.
Chris: Yeah, this was like a cabbage, potato sort of mix.
Kayla: Cabbage, potato, tofu. Very heavily spiced, very delicious mix. And then there was a lentil dal, and then there was some sort of sweet.
Chris: There's a few different sweet things that came with it. Oh, that came with it. Yeah. And then you could get extra sweet things, including gulab jammins, which are some of my favorite. But I have diabetes now, so couldn't do that. But that's fine. Cause I got a mangelosi. And that was pretty good.
Kayla: You got a mangalassi there. They had a selection.
Chris: They also get separate savory pastries.
Kayla: Oh, man.
Chris: Which were amazing.
Kayla: They described them as. It was like a big samosa that had been baked, not fried, and it was really good. So it had kind of like a samosa filling that, like, potato pea spicy feeling.
Chris: Yeah, but it looked more like turnover. Like an apple turnover?
Kayla: Yeah, it looked like it would be sweet like an apple pie. Like a McDonald's apple pie.
Chris: But it was just, like, the filling was good and, like, the flaky crust was good.
Kayla: Obviously, the whole meal was vegetarian, as in aligned with the beliefs of this religion organization. Sorry, I'm jumping ahead to what I think it is.
Chris: Come on. Jumping ahead to next episode.
Kayla: I know, I'm sorry. Maybe I'll change my mind, but I'm not sure. And so that's part of why I loved it was because it's just like, I'm generally a vegetarian person. I'm more flexitarian these days.
Chris: I was gonna say flexitarian. You're supposed to. Okay, you're supposed flexitarian like this. I'm a flexitarian.
Kayla: Why do I say it like that?
Chris: I don't know. Because it's, like. Kind of feels like. Like a pretty. Like when you say that word, like, you're the worst.
Kayla: Yeah, I am the worst. It's fine. But that being said, like, when I do eat meat, it's a. Can be a fraught experience. And I just feel. I don't know, even with. Even outside of the, like, ethics of it, I can just get squeamish about what may or may not be on the plate. And so if you're eating, like, vegetarian indian food, there's no squeamishness at all. It's just kind of like, woohoo. It's a party. Just a free and with wild abandon.
Chris: Woohoo, doll crazy.
Kayla: That's the craziness in my life.
Chris: We talk. I mean, it is nice to have. I'm not a vegetarian person, but for a vegetarian person, it is, I imagine, very nice to have something that is not really. It's not made as, like, all right, we'll grudgingly take the meat off this sandwich. It's more like, no, the dish is made this way. This is just what the dish is. This is the ingredients. They just are vegetarian, and I think.
Kayla: They did a really good job with that. Yeah. It's not the same kind of thing as a loving hut where you go and you have a selection of dishes, and you order what you want off the menu. You get a plate, and it's like.
Chris: A cafeteria kind of situation.
Kayla: They put on the plate what you're gonna get. And we sat and ate, and it was delicious. I got a pineapple spindrift, which I never had before. That's not particular to go into, but delicious pineapple. I was taking a chance. It was.
Chris: Still bears mentioning.
Kayla: It was good. The restaurant did get a little fuller than I expected, because, as we mentioned, on Sundays at IsKCon centers, they do a. As part of their Sunday worship program. They do. I think it's free. They do a feast at the end of it where they take the food that they probably serve at Govindas and share it amongst the wider congregation. So I was surprised that people were there eating while were there. We were kind of avoiding the crowds. What did we do next?
Chris: That's when went over and saw there was a bunch of shoes on the shoe rack at that point, because people were going into the temple area for the lecture.
Kayla: We were okay, weren't going to stay for the lecture, you guys. We were kind of like, we got to go home. It's hot. It's Sunday.
Chris: I've been out of the house for 2 hours. That is way too much.
Kayla: But multiple people, and this is why I would easily join occult. Multiple people that, like, worked there and were also obviously adherents, told us, like, oh, hey, there's this, like, really famous guru that, like, he's never here. He travels all over the world. He's never here. He's coming to do a lecture. Like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna take off. Like, I'm working at the. The museum over here. I'm gonna take time off to go listen to him. You should go listen to him.
Chris: Yeah. So were like, okay, I guess we kind of have to, then.
Kayla: Guess we. I guess we have to. And so when we had left the temple during the Sankirtan, there was probably, what, 25 people in there.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: When we walked back in, there was 200.
Chris: Yeah, I'd say it was about 200.
Kayla: And everybody at that moment was prostrate. Is that the word? Prostate? Were they all prostate?
Chris: They were prostates.
Kayla: Everybody was getting their prostates checked. It was amazing.
Chris: That's a cult, for sure.
Kayla: When we walked in, everybody was kneeling, you know, foreheads, hands to the ground. It looked as if there was maybe a group elder that was leading. Kind of like the end of the kirtan. We missed. There was another ritual that went on while were eating lunch, I believe, called Aarti. And I think I could be wrong, but I think that is what is called a deity viewing. It's another form of ritual and worship that they do throughout the next part of mass. Yes, the next part of mass. So we go in, we sit down. I'm freaking out because I, like, I have Covid now because this is 200 people in a closed space.
Chris: It was a touch crowded, I will say.
Kayla: The Kirtan, they kept the doors open, which was really helpful to me psychologically because I was like, oh, there's airflow. They closed them up. They closed them up. Later on, it was all closed up. And there were some, like, church, there were some regular announcements of, like, here's things that are coming up, here's people that need help right now, that kind of thing. And then he introduced the guru, who was named HDD H. S B. Kashavaswamy. And let me read you.
Chris: She's from London, right?
Kayla: Yeah. So let me read you the little, like, blurb on the Instagram post. Svayam Bhagavan Kashavaswamy is a spiritual author, community mentor, dynamic teacher, and worldwide traveler. In 2002, after graduating from university College London with a bsc information management, he adopted full time monastic life to expand his knowledge, deepen his spirituality, and share these timeless principles with the wider society. In 2022, Khashavaswamy accepted vows of lifetime renunciation. Nowadays, he is a globetrotter.
Chris: You gotta renounce.
Kayla: You gotta renounce teaching in universities, corporate firms.
Chris: That doesn't sound like that Steve Jobs, for sure. That sounds like Silicon Valley shit there. Yeah.
Kayla: Government organizations and spiritual communities bringing wisdom to the places which need it most.
Chris: So I need. Okay, I need wisdom. I need a real bad.
Kayla: I need a real bad.
Chris: And I didn't get it today because we didn't really stay very long.
Kayla: I just couldn't. Oh, okay.
Chris: No, I don't. Listen, I agree with you.
Kayla: We were sitting down, somebody offered us some chairs, which is very nice. They also offered us copies of the Bhagavad Gita. Cause we had never been there before.
Chris: We were totally just gonna be there for two minutes just to kinda like, peek. But then after they were like, here, please have a chair, please have a book. Have a book. We were like, sh. Okay, well, that sticks us here for what, a good ten minutes now?
Kayla: I went into it thinking were gonna jump right into lecture, and instead we jumped right into another song.
Chris: I know. They chanted for two and a half hours, started the lecture, and it's like, they just chanted again.
Kayla: And I'm like, well, now, it was.
Chris: Is this the lecture? I don't know.
Kayla: He brought up the harmonium. It was a different song that had different lyrics. Did also incorporate the Maha mantra.
Chris: There were one or two other words that they added.
Kayla: Now, it did also include, like, chanting Rla Prabhupada's name or title as well. So there was, like, some worship of the founder. And then. And that, you know, it was very moving to witness that as well, because this was a congregation of, like, 200 singing in this kind of, like, call and respect response style. It was very beautiful. Yeah.
Chris: Aside from our Covid anxiety. Aside from that, it was pretty cool.
Kayla: It was extremely cool to witness. And then it went into the lecture, and he was speaking on the vedic texts, and he was talking about a particular verse, which he, I think, read in the original Sanskrit. You can't read Sanskrit. It's written in Sanskrit. But what do you read it in?
Chris: I am not learned enough to know the answer to that question.
Kayla: He read it.
Chris: Sanskrit. Verbal Sanskrit.
Kayla: He read it in its original language, and then people like, it was kind of. That was also call and response where he would read a line, and it would be responded to or read along with him. Do you remember that?
Chris: Yeah. And I'm thinking again, that's like church.
Kayla: And then he read it in English so that you and I could understand.
Chris: Specifically you and I. Like, oh, Chris and Kayla are here.
Kayla: Okay, well, here's a dumb it down. And it sounded to be specifically about kind of the stuff that you and I talked about. When we talked about the beliefs, it was largely about. Man has forgotten his spiritual relationship with God. Like, we're stuck in this karmic cycle because we have forgotten that we are connected to God in this way. And, like, our journey here is now about getting off the karmic cycle by remembering that we have this relationship with God, and that's why we do the.
Chris: Hare Krishna mantra, classic ISkCon.
Kayla: And that's when we. There was also a little kid in front of me that was, like, coughing, sneezing. That's when I was like, we gotta go. I gotta get out of here.
Chris: Yeah. Little disease vectors. Those damn kids.
Kayla: And luckily, they got up to leave at the same time we left. So we just kind of followed them.
Chris: Right. It felt less. We felt less, like, stand out.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: We'll just kind of, like, shuffle off with them.
Kayla: And that was kind of.
Chris: That kind of wrap the book with us. We also took something else. Kayla.
Kayla: Oh, no, don't say it.
Chris: Are you kidding me? I'm definitely telling them about.
Kayla: Okay. We walked in, and Kayla stole a priceless artifact. I didn't mean to. I really didn't mean to. I'm sorry. I'll try to give it back.
Chris: We were there.
Kayla: I bent it, too. Oh, my God. I know. I'm sorry.
Chris: It's as old as you are.
Kayla: It is. Okay, so when we walked into the temple, there was, like, a whole slew of pamphlets and, like, informational brochures.
Chris: Stuff that you're supposed to take.
Kayla: Stuff that you're supposed to take. Clearly, your stuff you're supposed to. To take. And then there was also a selection of magazines. And remember we talked about the magazine back to Godhead, which Srila Prabhupada published back, like, starting back in 1966. And now it continues to be starting.
Chris: Back just before this one that we have in our hands right now.
Kayla: This is the magazine of the Hare Krishna movement. So I thought that this was like, oh, something. And maybe it is. Maybe it is.
Chris: I don't know.
Kayla: I thought, this is something to take. So I just. I grabbed it. I didn't look at it until we got in the car to leave, and I was like, first I looked at the advertisement on the back, and it's an advertisement for the book that we.
Chris: Candy hose.
Kayla: It's an advertisement for Bhagavad Gita as it is. But it's an advertisement.
Chris: Is it next to a Walkman?
Kayla: On tape.
Chris: On tape.
Kayla: And, like, literally, there is a cassette tape in the cassette tape.
Chris: That'll tip you off.
Kayla: I was looking at this and going, well, maybe that's just like, I don't know, stylized. And then I start looking at this magazine, and I'm like, this looks old. This looks old.
Chris: What year is it from?
Kayla: And then I looked in the front, and it is from. It's volume 23, number 7, July, 1988.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: So I don't know if I was supposed to take this. Cause it is literally as old as me.
Chris: And it looks. I mean, it's a little bit yellowed and everything.
Kayla: It looks ancient. I'm so scared, and I'm really sorry. I'll try to bring it back.
Chris: In reality, they took away that they probably intended it to be. Oh, wait.
Kayla: They took it away. They took away the part that had these magazines in it.
Chris: That's probably because they were like, where did this. Oh, no, Kayla. You probably, like, initiated a whole change in policy over there.
Kayla: I hope that it's okay that I took this.
Chris: And at the Iskcon, like, command center. They're, like, discussing it right now in the war room.
Kayla: Oh, God.
Chris: You can't fight in here. This is a war room.
Kayla: I'm sorry that I stole from the Hariku temple, but we did give them $25.
Chris: You don't look sorry because I'm still looking at it right here.
Kayla: I'll take it back the next time we go, because we are going to go back because there is a Bhagavad Gita museum that. Oh, yeah, we might go back. It's essentially a telling of the Bhagavad Gita, which, again, is one of the fundamental hindu scriptures and is also a fundamental scripture in this faith. And they have, like, a telling of it that's done via interactive dioramas. And I've seen some pictures of the dioramas. Like, they're not. They're not your second grade classrooms. Diorama.
Chris: Excuse you. I made some pretty sick dioramas back in the day. I did one of the battle of Lexington and Concord that was, like, dope as hell.
Kayla: We'll have to share some pictures from, like, the Yelp or the Instagram or something of these dioramas because they're very cool looking. We couldn't go into the museum today because I thought it was just like a kind of like a look in and, like, peek around and then you're done. But it's like a.
Chris: No. Yeah, it's like a thing you have.
Kayla: It takes, like 45 minutes to go through just if you do a self guided tour. So we want to go back when we have the time to dedicate to going there.
Chris: And then we put our shoes on and came back to record this.
Kayla: Just going back to the magazine I did when I took it.
Chris: Is this for the show?
Kayla: This is for the show. I took the magazine and I noticed that the magazine behind it wasn't the same as this one. And I just had a thought in my head of, like, well, if they're not all the same, then maybe I'm not supposed to take it. Maybe it's like, just, you know, reading for while I'm in here. And I was like, no, it's with all the other stuff.
Chris: Look, if we're being realistic, honestly, I think it probably was intended to be taken if it's on the table with all the other stuff to be taken. That being said, I am going to eternally try to make you feel guilty about it as much as possible.
Kayla: I do want to read one more thing before we kind of get into our overall reaction. Just, I think it sets us up for maybe next episode a little bit. So were handed. We mentioned were handed a book. We were handed. The Bhagavad Gita it is. That's not the correct title. The title is Bhagavad Gita as it is, and the author is his divine grace. Ac Bhakti Vedanta. Swami prabhupada.
Chris: Yeah, I'm not reading all that, but, you know, congratulations. They're sorry that happened.
Kayla: It's a very thick book, 700 plus pages. I just want to read you the back cover.
Chris: Is it good?
Kayla: The Bhagavad Gita is universally renowned as the jewel of India's spiritual wisdom. Spoken by Lord Shri Krishna, the supreme personality of Godhead, to his intimate devotee Arjuna, the Gita's 700 concise verses provide a definitive guide to the science of self realization. I've heard those words.
Chris: Self realization.
Kayla: His divine grace ac Bhaktivedanta, Swami Prabhupada, the foremost vedic scholar and teacher of recent times, represents an unbroken chain of fully self realized spiritual masters, beginning with Lord Krishna himself. Thus, unlike other additions of the Gita, his conveys Lord Krishna's profound message as it is, without the slightest taint of adulteration or personally motivated change.
Chris: That's a good quote.
Kayla: So we mentioned. That's the back of the book.
Chris: Oh, the back of the book.
Kayla: That's the back of the book, baby.
Chris: That's not one of the three quote. Because they have three quotes.
Kayla: There's quotes from Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Mahatma Gandhi, but they are.
Chris: That's not what you read?
Kayla: No. And these are all just about the Bhagavad Gita, not the Bhagavad Gita as.
Chris: It is, which is the thing you're holding.
Kayla: Yes. So the reason I wanted to read that is because we did talk about how Srila Prabhupada was believed to be an avatar, or somebody who has direct ancestry with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who is the, I think, 15th century indian scholar and Guru who founded Gaudiya Vaishnavism, which is, again, this, like, monotheistic style of Hinduism. And that guy was believed to be an avatar of Krishna. So when they say, this is a direct line, I think that there is some belief in this organization that RlA Prabhupda is a version of Krishna, who is being worshipped here. I don't want to make this seem like, oh, I'm saying that they're worshiping this guy because I think he's Krishna. I don't really know, but what I am saying is that it's a little.
Chris: Bit like Jesus and God.
Kayla: It's less that and it's more like they're saying that this is the real Bhagavad Gita because our guy wrote it and he's actually. So the Bhagavad Gita is supposed to be the word of Krishna. This translation of it is the exact translation because our guy is actually Krishna. So this is as it is. It's not quote.
Chris: So he came adulterated, or as this guy, to translate his own book into.
Kayla: English without the slightest taint of adulteration or personally motivated change. To me, that says a lot when you're saying like, no, this is not biased at all. There's no personal motivation here. This is literally Krishna's word because our guy wrote it. I want to get into a good.
Chris: Translator is like, make or break, man.
Kayla: This is true. We'll dissect that a little bit more when we get into part two. But I just wanted to point that out here. So. Yeah. Any other takeaways you had from our visit to the Hare Krishna center?
Chris: They're a very musically talented group of people. That's my main takeaway. That. And like, the pastry was delicious. I don't know, I guess I'd go again. It's.
Kayla: I could see myself going again. It was just nice. And it was just more fun than like, I'm sorry, it was more fun than like a regular, you know, christian church that I've been to. Christian churches are not that fun.
Chris: Okay, well, you've been to my catholic church, so that's part of the problem.
Kayla: I've been to like the new agey, like, oh, yeah.
Chris: Like, you know, who else did? Blah, blah.
Kayla: Like, I'm a cool church. We're in a warehouse.
Chris: I'm a cool 24.
Kayla: Close their eyes.
Chris: Yeah, yeah.
Kayla: So I've been to that, and I've been to lutheran churches and Sunday school shit as a kid. This is, this is more fun.
Chris: Where does this like. And if you had to stack rank, like church experience this aetherius other church experiences. What about the time?
Kayla: More fun than a theories. Like, Ethereus was fun, but it was also not this. It was.
Chris: Ethereus was like more church like.
Kayla: Yeah, it was hard to stay engaged.
Chris: Yeah. How does it compare to the time that we did that mass at the top of Mont Saint Michel?
Kayla: That was beautiful.
Chris: With the rays of dawn coming through.
Kayla: This, I could see myself going back to and I could see, I could.
Chris: See, I want to go back to Mont St. Michel.
Kayla: I could see the appeal of being one of the people who gets comfortable enough to be in that inner circle of the kirtan, the Sankirtan, where you're.
Chris: Like, I never do that.
Kayla: Singing really loud and, like, you're participating. I would love. But I see the appeal of that. I would love to be that kind of person.
Chris: Yeah, yeah. No, it's just I can't sing in front of people.
Kayla: Like, all is one.
Chris: I know.
Kayla: You don't have to be the person doing the chant. You could still being led, but you can do the little finger cymbals.
Chris: I could be one of the. Yeah, like, drum circle guys. Like, I just couldn't be on the microphone. He says into the microphone.
Kayla: I found it to be a very powerful and moving experience, and it was. I could see myself going back just to, like, participate in that energy.
Chris: Yeah, yeah. Agreed. All right, so you got some more stuff for me next time. What's going on here?
Kayla: Do you feel like you have a better understanding of the Hare Krishnas now?
Chris: I feel like I know everything. I pretty much need to know. Delicious pastry. Delicious pastry. That's it. Done. Don't tell me anything else, but there's.
Kayla: A whole other side to this story.
Chris: Oh, no.
Kayla: We've mostly covered the good.
Chris: Salacious.
Kayla: We've mostly covered the good. We do, unfortunately, still need to get to the bad and the ugly.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: And it does get pretty ugly at times.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: But mercifully, it also gets kind of good again.
Chris: Okay. I like a good rising, falling action.
Kayla: Just like the singing, like the Sankirtan. It is just too much story to cover in one episode. So, like I said, we are going to come back in two weeks for part two of the Hare Krishnas. And I was gonna say, you're gonna be shocked by some of the things we uncover, but you're probably not me. Anyone?
Chris: It's not. Yeah, it's 2023, Kayla. Nobody is capable of being shocked anymore.
Kayla: I will say we're not gonna do some sort of debunking where we're like, it's all bad. It's all bad, after all. I don't think it is that. But we are going to talk about some of the less savory aspects of this, and unfortunately, it's just like, that seems to be a trend in most organizations. Faith's belief systems.
Chris: Are we going to talk about. Speaking of less savory, are we going to talk about their appearance in GTA one?
Kayla: The Hare Krishnas are in Gta one. Why didn't you already talk about this?
Chris: Well, because it's a little fucked. Like in GTA one. And now this is like, when I say one, I don't know if anybody's played GTA. Like, nobody's played GTA.
Kayla: I've never played GTA. When I started with three, baby.
Chris: It's like top down, eight or 16 bit. I mean, it's like super ogden type video game. I'm pretty sure that, like, a lot of it involved. I mean, just like the other GTA's, a lot of it just involves running over pedestrians.
Kayla: Oh, my God, no.
Chris: Yeah. And you can run over, like. I think the thing is there's like, hare krishna's used to do their chants in like a. Like a line in public.
Kayla: They did. Or they just do this in.
Chris: Or maybe it's just in GTA. You know what? I'm going to look this up and double check before. Before we edit this, but if you ran over all of them in a row, I think you got a bonus.
Kayla: That sounds about right.
Chris: Look, I'm just the messenger who also likes the GTA games. But I didn't play GTA one. I didn't play that one. And also, GTA in general encourages you to run people over. So I don't think it was anything about the hard Christian in particular. It's just a thing that I remember from my repository of gaming knowledge. Take it what you will, Kayla. I don't know if we're getting towards the end here before we do, like last time on the show, we are simulcasting. What are we doing? We are on a live discord voice chat while we are recording the podcast.
Kayla: Correct.
Chris: And so if you join us on discord, then you can do that, too, which you totally should go to any of our socials and click one of the invite links and you'll join the party. But I asked the folks there if they had any questions or anything they want us to talk about. One of our listeners in the chat asked us, is Hare Krishna a sect of Hinduism?
Kayla: So that's a complicated question. Yes and no. So it is a form of gaudiya vaivism, which. Vaivisme is an offshoot of the Hindu religion, of Hindu traditions. So it shares a lot of the same foundations and origins, like the vedic texts, like the Bhagavad Gita, and then the various gods and other traditions are very similar. But the big difference between something like Hare KrIshna or other GAUDiya VAIshnavism religions or beliefs is that so it's a subset.
Chris: Hare Krishna is a subset.
Kayla: It's like an offshoot, or it's like, it's basically its own thing now. They just share a lot of the same, like, foundational backbone type thing, so that's why they look so similar. But with the Hare KrIshnas, they are specifically monotheistic. They only worship Lord KrIshna. They think that any other deity is an avatar or a version of KrIshna, whereas traditional Hinduism is a polytheistic religion where there are a different, like, there's a wide variety of gods and a different hierarchy of gods, of which Krishna is one, and he's very popular in Hinduism.
Chris: They picked the most popular one, and, like, you're. You're our number one guy.
Kayla: They picked a very popular.
Chris: You're my number one boy now.
Kayla: He's the number one boy. He's the supreme godhead personality.
Chris: Got it. And so it's. It's not sex. It's offshoots. There's no sex.
Kayla: S e x or s e c.
Chris: T. S e c t s. Kayla, come on.
Kayla: Gross. I don't know if I can say whether or not it is a sect, because I don't know quite the definition of that, but I just know that, like, if I were looking at a true.
Chris: If you were to have sex, they.
Kayla: Would share a trunk, and these would be different branches.
Chris: Okay, so no sex with the tree.
Kayla: Don't have sex with the tree. Okay, so, listeners, please come back in two weeks for part two of this episode on ISkCon. And if any members are listening, please feel free to get in touch. We want your stories because there's a lot of rumors out there, and we want the truth, especially about the murders. This is Kayla.
Chris: Wait, what did you just say?
Kayla: And you are?
Chris: Chris. What did you just say?
Kayla: And this has been culture just weird.
Chris: What did you just say?
Kayla: We'll get to that.