Reuther, Ford Heirs turn to Mystic Krishna sect
This article, “Reuther, Ford Heirs turn to Mystic Krishna sect" was published in The Detroit Free Press, August 15, 1975, in Detroit, Michigan.
For Ford, product of a regimented private boys’ school and a Tulane University drop-out, the path to the Krishna temple on Jefferson began about two years ago in visits to Krishna friends. Ford recalls the experience in which he dropped to his knees and touched his forehead to the floor, as his surrender to the movement.
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Reuther, Ford Heirs Turn to Mystic Krishna Sect
KRISHNA devotee Elizabeth Reuther: "This is one way we can cleanse our minds . ."
Her parents and four other persons were killed in an air-lane crash near Pellston five ears ago. Ford and Miss Reuther have not discussed their back-rounds with each other. Socalizing between single male and female adherents is forbidden in the temple, a converted Indian Village mansion where some 30 members of the sect live.
FOR FORD, product of a private regimented boys' school and a Tulane University drop-out, the path to the Krishna temple on Jefferson began about two years ago in visits to Krishna friends.
Last year, during a visit to Dallas temple, he met A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder and spiritual master of the International society for Krishna Consciousness.
Ford recalls the experience, in which he dropped to his knees and touched his forehead to the floor, as his surrender to the movement.
Before joining the Detroit temple a month ago—he helps manage the center's business affairs — Ford was chanting prayers on the streets of downtown Honolulu.
He has not, however, severed ties with the outside world. The young Ford continues to live at his family's home in Grosse Pointe Farms, where he wears normal clothing.
KRISHNA adherents are not required to live at a temple nor are they forbidden outside commercial involvement. Ford still owns an Indian import store in the sky resort town of Teton Village, Wyo., but the store is presently closed.
He says his parents are pleased "to see that I am happy and that we are sincere in what we are doing."
His father refrains from public comments about his son's new life "because I don't want to be put in the position of saying how I feel about the movement." But the elder Ford says Alfred's spiritual pursuit has not caused any family conflict. "We're all individuals," he says.
Alfred has a brother and two sisters.
The new Krishna follower retains an attorney and accountant to manage earnings from his share of the family fortune. Some of the earnings, Ford says are used to support Krishna projects.
One of those projects is the temple's planned move from Indian Village to a poverty-stricken neighborhood on the near East Side. The Krishna group hopes to expand its membership by inviting the neighborhood's poor to free feasts at the new temple.
MISS REUTHER followed a similar course into the movement. She began to study the founder's teachings about two years ago at the urging of friends.
At the time, she was working with emotionally disturbed children at Pontiac State Hospital and living in Ann Arbor, waiting to begin graduate studies in social work. She holds a psychology degree from Oakland University.
The daughter of the UAW leader is also an accomplished weaver, but she says she has abandoned that interest recently.
"I have really given up so many of my personal desires," says Miss Reuther, who lives at the temple, located about one block from the international headquarters of the union her father helped to organize.
"There's nothing I want to do more than spread this movement for our master," she says. "This is one way we can cleanse our minds, by seeing a goal that is so much more important than our personal selves."
The life adopted by Ford and Miss Reuther is, in essence, a ritual of songs. dances, vegetarian feasts and continuous chanting of what followers believe are God's names: "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare, Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare."
Krishna adherents scorn meat, liquor, drugs, gambling and sex outside of marriage. Both of the new adherents have assumed Krishna names. Ford's is Amharisa while Miss Reuther is known as Lekhasravanti.
Ford, who doubtless could have opted for a substantial management position with the Ford Motor Co., now sees himself as merely one among a growing number of people turning to this spiritual mode of living.
"People who were hippies before, taking all kinds of drugs and engaging in non-sense — now they are leading very pure lives," says Ford. "As more and more people become frustrated with mate-ial life, more and more people will turn to this movement."
-Friday, Aug. 15, '75 DETROIT FREE PRESS