Krishna Life-style: More Than the Robes and Chanting
This article "Krishna Life-style: More Than the Robes and Chanting," was published in The Los Angeles Times, April 30, 1972, in Los Angeles, California.
All that most people know about the International Society for Krishna Consciousness is that its followers wear long robes, shave their heads and dance and chant on the sidewalks of Hollywood and Los Angeles. Stories here by two Times staff writers give an insight into life centering on the Krishna group's temple in West Los Angeles.
Religion Examined Behind Scenes
BY DOUG SMITH
Times Staff Writer
WEST LOS ANGELES - The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) is one of those esoteric institutions about which little is known by the general public except what might seem outrageous.
Wearing flowing robes, having shaved heads and often going barefoot, the devotees of Krishna Consciousness have made a familiar scene of their dancing and chanting missions on the streets of downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood.
Far Less spectacular and therefore far less known, is the quiet, devoted, industrious life these men and women follow daily in the saffron-orange building on Watseka Ave., a block outside Culver City, that serves as the Southern California center for a religious way of life that is as old as Moses.
Approximately 80 people, most of them in their 20s, live in the center as devotees of a religion that is relatively new and strange in the United States but which has its roots in the Vedic scriptures that brought Hinduism into India more than 5,000 years ago.
The center, converted two years ago from a Methodist church, is their home, providing them with their shelter, food, work, and most important, the joy that so often eludes Western man.
More accurately, they provide these things for themselves through what they call active pursuit of the spiritual life, the life of ultimate pleasure in the service of Krishna, the diety.
The service of Krishna is an elusive concept by Western standards. Perhaps it is captured in the words of a vivacious young woman who was recently married in Krishna Consciousness and now lives outside the center as a householder or one who has started an independent life in service to Krishna.
"I like to talk, so I talk for Krishna," she said. "I like to dance, so I dance for Krishna. I like to sing, so I sing for Krishna. I like to eat, so I offer my food to Krishna. I like sex, so I make children that will be brought up in service of Krishna. He does not deny anything. It's merely a change of accounts."
As in many other religious orers, the service of Krishna demands renunciation of the world's indulgences, from tea and cigarets, and from sexual relations except in marriage and then only for procreation.
Yet, strangely it is the pursuit of pleasure in worldly activities that sustains the Society of Krishna Consciousness.
Renunciation Defined
"Real renunciation is work, to be active, to do things we would do in ordinary life but to offer the fruits of that work to Krishna," explained Kanti Das, a student and resident of the center.
This applies particularly to the world of business where the young people of the Krishna center devote much of their energy.
Jaya Tirtha, president of the Los Angeles center, is an example. He was a business and philosophy major in college. In his 20s, he is the manager of Spiritual Sky Enterprises, a group of family-style businesses that sustain the center and the students who live in it.
Golden Avatar Productions, operating out of a small sound-proofed room full of tape recorders, microphones and electronic mixers, provides an essential element in the spiritual movement of the Hare Krishna Movement - the word of the spiritual master.
Cassettes Marketed
Besides producing a radio program that is broadcast at 6 a.m. every Sunday on FM station KPPC, Golden Avatar reproduces and markets cassettes of the lectures of A. C. Bhaktivedanta, Swami Prahhupada, the spiritual master who brought the movement to the United States.
The voice of the spiritual master is the unifying force to the devotees of Krishna. It gives them the inspiration to wake in the morning, hours before daylight. It gives them the strength to stay awake late at night, doing work in service of Krishna.
6-Day Work Week
A few miles from the center in an unpretentious building on National Blvd., the mesmerizing voice of the spiritual master, accompanied by eastern music, drones across the public address system.
It is the Spirtual Sky Incense Co., where men and women work six days a week, unpacking raw incense punks, dipping them in buckets of scented oil, drying, wrapping, and shipping them to retailers and other Krishna centers in the United States.
On busy days the factory workers, mostly house-holders who live outside of the center, may work 15 hours and produce 500,000 sticks of incense.
Their reward is $200 a month, give or take a little. But their incentive is the voice of their spiritual master.
"The devotees relish hearing the master's voice," explained Kanti Das who used to work in the incense factory. "If you did this kind of work with no help, you would become very discouraged."
"But I found that my hands did the work while my mind concentrated on the voice. Everyone was in bliss. There's no day-off from Krishna Consciousness because we're enjoying every minute of it."
Kanti Das, a young man, small and with an intense face like that of a student, whose mind is always on his subject, was attracted to Krishna Consciousness, like many other talented and educated people, by its fusion of the spiritual and the worldly drives, without conflict.
"A lot of us have gone through a dropping-out phase," he said. "Young people are seeing the hypocrisy in society and don't, want anything to do with it."
Not Satisfied
"I spent six years working for a commercial television station in Seattle," said Kanti Das. "Prior to learning about Krishna Consciousness, I was taking all my income for myself and was not satisfied. Now I'm doing everything I was doing then in electronics, but I'm giving my labor to Krishna and I'm happy."
Actually Kanti Das, like his fellow students, is more than happy. There are times when he becomes ecstatic. It happens in the two hours of the morning when he calls the beloved name of Krishna on his chanting beads which he carries in a bag at his side for moments during the day when his work is finished.
It happens especially during the Sunday Festival when all the students and householders of the center gather in the Sri Sri Radha Temple to dance and chant in unison the name of Krishna.
"It's very ecstatic," Kanti Das said. "You can really feel the power of God. We all have a common experience glorifying the source of us all. Our goal is to see God face to face. The only way to do that is to develop love and then he will reveal himself."
ISKCON, the movement of Krishna Consciousness, came to the United States from India with the arrival of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada to New York in 1965.
Bhaktivedanta, claiming to represent an unbroken lineage of spiritual masters from the original revelation of the Vedic scriptures through Krishna 5,000 years ago, went from the East Side streets of New York City across the country to San Francisco's Haight-Ashhury district, spreading his message.
Following the instruction of his own spiritual master, who had learned in his turn the teachings of Lord Caitanya, the reincarnation of Krishna who appeared on the earth 500 years ago, Bhaktivedanta taught the value of the words, "Hare Krishna, Hare Rama."
"Go on chanting and I give you blessing that you will be liberated. Not only will you he liberated, but you will reach the highest goal - the abode of Krishna."
The followers of Bhaktivedanta have now built 50 centers throughout the United States where men And women can live to learn the spiritual life of service to Krishna.
In the first few weeks, the male student, if he shows he is serious in his intent, will shave his head, because it is clean and feels good.
The student will begin to take part in the private chanting and the Sankirtan or congregational public chanting missions, showing the ecstasy of Krishna Consciousness to any receptive person who is open to it.
He will begin to take part in the door-to-door missions, spreading the message and selling the books of Vedic literature that are published through the ISKCON Press in New York.
After six months or more of serious life, in which the student takes part in the spiritual and the worldly life of the center, he will he eligible to receive his eternal name when the spiritual master arrives on his visits to centers around the world.
"After one or two years of student life, a man and a woman can marry and live in their own house, where they will still keep the Krishna Consciousness habits they learned, while pursuing a career in the business world, if they want," said Kanti Das, whose name translates "servant of one as beautiful as Krishna."
"We don't want the lawyer to give up law, or the politician to give up politics. But it all works so much more nicely for people if they do it for Krishna."
Women Devotees Fulfill Own Roles
BY BARBARA RIKER
Times Staff Writer
While it is still dark outside, the 24-year-old priestess of the temple of Krishna Consciousness arises and begins her duties as caretaker of the deities.
Tulasi Devi Dasi, whose Sanskrit name means servant of a sacred plant which is offered to Krishna, begins her day of service to Krishna at 3:30 a.m.
She puts on a sari of yellow, a color which Indicates to other devotees that she is married.
Sleeping alone in the hallway outside the temple doors is her husband of less than a month, 20-year-old Dhruvananda Das Adhikary, who guards the deities at night.
"It is easier to practice Krishna Consicousness if we remain separate."
"But it was decided that since we are to closely associated we had better get married."
Tulasi explained that after a few years of study at the temple, suitable marriage partners are chosen for devotees. Marriage, though not recommended, is considered preferable to rearing children outside the sect.
It is one of the basic principles of Krishna Consciousness that sex is condoned in marriage only for the purpose of propagating children.
Tulasi said she does not desire to have children but those who do want a family, live outside the temple in private residence. They are called householders.
Members of the society renounce the use of drugs, tobacco, tea and coffee. They eat no meat, fish or egg.
One of Tulasi's duties is to help prepare vegetarian foods according to recipes thousands of years old.
Devotees bathe three times a day and those who prepare the meals must wear fresh clothes in the kitchen, she said.
Breakfast, served before most of the people in the neighborhood are awake, consists of a cereal of farina and cracked wheat along with yogurt, fruit, raw chick peas and ginger root.
Lunch is the main meal of the day. It is served to followers after it has been offered to the deities in the temple. The men and women eat separately.
The mid-day menu includes a flat whole wheat bread, a spicy bean drink, rice and vegetables.
The evening meal consists only of milk.
"Our spiritual master said that we should not eat in the evening because then it is difficult to get up in the morning," said Tulasi.
As well as giving up what many people would consider the comforts of life, Tulasi and other followers have found themselves separated from family and old friends by vast differences in life-styles.
College Dropout
"My family doesn't understand Krishna Consciousness at all" Tulasi said. "But it says in the Scripture that when a person becomes liberated, 100 generations backward and forward become liberated. So I am doing them the best service in this way."
Satyabhama Dasi, 18, said she has given up writing to her friends "because they don't talk about anything that matters."
A college dropout, she has little contact with her parents or six brothers and sisters.
Another follower, 24-year-old Mary Leona (she has not yet received a Sanskrit name) admits that her large Catholic family "flipped out" over her devotion to Krishna.
"But I am so involved in the service of Krishna that I don't have time to be lonely." she said, smiling and twisting her dark braids.
Does Gardening
Another couple sold everything they owned in British Honduras, left their families there and came here to practice Krishna Consciousness with their three children.
The 40-year-old mother of three leaves her apartment every day after their youngest is off to school ("You know how kids are. They don't go to school unless you see that they do.")
She does all the gardening at the center, and has planted flocks of orange nasturtiums which match the brightly painted temple.
Although she is older than most of the devotees, she says she feels at home among them.
"We had been married 20 years, always searching for something to fill our hearts. Here, the people really follow their beliefs."
"It gives me such peace of mind. The men don't drink, smoke or gamble. I mean, where else can a woman have peace of mind with her husband?"
Photo 1: WORKERS - One of businesses that helps sustain Krishna Consciousness movement is incense foctory where workers such as the three above dip punk sticks into perfumed solution. Another form of service is trying to interest others in the society, such as woman devotee, Pam, above right, is doing on Hollywood Blvd.
Photo 2: TEMPLE - Buildings, right that once served congregation of a Methodist church on Watseka Ave., a block outside Culver City are now used as a temple by Krishna followers. Exterior of the temple is a bright orange.
Photo 3: FOLLOWERS - Krishna group, below, on Hollywood Blvd. sidewalk chants "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna" over and over while others give out literature. At lower right is year-old Govinda Das who has hair in devotee style, carries cloth bag as grownups do. Times photos by Gll Cooper
Photo 4: Kanti Das
Photo 5: PRESIDENT -Jay Tirtha heads the L.A. temple of Krishna group. Times photo
Photo 6: Tulasi Devi Dasi