The Return of a Cult Classic—Hare Krishnas are Back: Critical Eye : Details

Many moons ago, 1976-77ish, I was 13 years old and my family was traveling to California. We arrived at LAX and I remember seeing and entourage of Hare Krishnas doing their stereotyped schtick we are all familiar with. That was a long time ago and to be honest the first I have thought of that experience since it happened. There have been sporadic news items throughout the years, but nothing that I can finger specifically., it is why this article caught my eye (with a little help from Rob Robertson over at World Cult Watch).

Nowadays, many people are flat-out running. Nearly 50 years after Srila Prabhupada journeyed from India to America to bring the new teachings of Krishna to a generation of Western burnouts, Hare Krishnas have moved out of the airports, into the streets, and into the cubicle right next to yours. The sect's once-exotic-sounding core practices of mindfulness and vegetarianism—the very beliefs that early on relegated it to the "freak" aisle—have spread virally, turning America into a postmodern ashram. We don't pray anymore; we go on Facebook to ask that good thoughts and positive energy be magically zapped to us. We don't plant our dead in the ground; we feed their ashes to the cosmos. We seek out veggie burgers and lie to ourselves about the deliciousness of kale while contorting our bodies into wordless physical devotionals. Yes, Christianity and Islam may have the numbers, but Hare Krishna—the little sect that could—is winning the culture war.

"All the things the gurus were pushing back then: simplicity, farming, sustainability—people get it now," says Raghunath, who has been singing the praises of Krishna-centric values since 1986, when he and his venerated hard-core punk band, Youth of Today, were sweating out songs about vegetarianism, community, and abstinence. In 1990, he formed the overtly spiritual band Shelter, which kicked off the Krishnacore movement. Now the 48-year-old, who lives in New York City, tours the country teaching yoga to fauxhemians and leads pilgrimages to India for thousands of dollars a pop. America, it seems, has finally come around to his way of thinking. "We all have to make a very simple choice," Raghunath says, "take care of the body or neglect the body."

On the surface, Hare Krishna's estimated North American membership of 100,000 doesn't seem that impressive. But that number undervalues the religion's ability to be consumed in à la carte fashion. With Hare Krishna—one of the youngest branches of Hinduism's 4,000-year-old tree—there is no commitment, just a loosey-goosey to-do list of daily chanting and meditation, a handful of no-no's (no meat, no illicit sex, no gambling, no intoxication), and a deities-welcome policy that merely holds Lord Krishna up as the CEO. The 20 million of us practicing yoga, the 7 million of us eating vegetarian, and the many thousands of us lost in meditation might not self-identify as Hare Krishna, but we are clearly getting a stiff secondhand hit of the group's gateway drug.

This right here is a bit scary if you think about it,  Remove the reference to the Hare Krishnas and insert Dominionists and what do you get?

"Every single religion started out as a cult," says Douglas Atkin, the author of The Culting of Brands: Turn Your Customers Into True Believers. "There's a new idea, it gets some followers, and gradually it changes the culture in its own image. But you have to be different enough for people to buy into, while still managing to become slightly less different as you grow." Atkin cites Mormonism as the gold standard for a heretofore outsider sect that made the leap to the masses. Less than two centuries after being founded on sacred underwear, polygamy, and mysterious golden plates buried underground, Mormonism gave us a presidential candidate who won the votes of 61 million Americans. Considering Hare Krishna's relatively recent arrival in America, the extent of its infiltration is impressive. "Their religion hasn't succeeded yet," Atkin says, "but their ideas have."

The Return of a Cult Classic—Hare Krishnas are Back: Critical Eye : Details