In Brooklyn, a Hare Krishna Reckoning

The Hare Krishna temple was in its previous life the mount Sinai synagogue. I was married there by rabbi Isadore aaron in 1969 !!!! Interesting to see what the next incarnation of the building will be.....

As a former devotee who knew Prahbupad this story is exactly what he would warn us about - the siren song of the material world. The fact that there are not any plans visually for the Queens mandir makes one wonder who will benefit from the 60 million? It is an enormous amount of money. Plus, the Brooklyn temple does not seem to think it is part of the International Society is further proof their sale is not on the up and up. The current board Did not have any part of the original Brooklyn purchase. We did Sankranti to pay for the temples, and this group probably doesn't even know what that is. Prahbupad would be most annoyed with the temple's decay into Maya. You need to do more chanting.

Yes, this article is misleading because the issues have nothing to do with who gets the money from the sale of the temple. But i's about the mission of the project. Some devotees want to move closer to their Hindu congregation in Queens and others want to keep the temple centrally located near downtown Brooklyn providing access to a more diverse audience. Swami Prabhupada placed the GBC (the international governing body) as the final authority for disputes. It seems the GBC wants to keep the temple where it is. Rather than spending huge sums on litigation (which Swami Prabhupada did not want to see happen) the parties in NYC should follow the vision of the GBC. The problem is the present management in Brooklyn seems to have its own ideas.

I first met Bhaktivedanta Swami in Boston circa 1968, and he seemed very humble, down-to-earth, and sincere. Unlike some of the fake gurus of that time, who pretended to be spiritual but mainly wanted your money, Srila Prabhupada just wanted people to follow Krishna. Perhaps that lack of artifice is what attracted young people to his movement, even though the demands (including a nearly monastic lifestyle) were a challenge. I never wanted to join the Hare Krishnas, but I considered them friends, and we'd often go out on the Boston Common to chant the names of the Lord. But after he died, his followers had the same problem many new religious movements have-- so much had centered around him, and nobody could maintain it the way he did. Plus, society was changing and eastern religion/asceticism were difficult to sell to a new generation. Today, in our internet and social media world, it's no surprise that the Hare Krishna lifestyle has little appeal to American young people. Thus, when I read this article, it saddened me, but it wasn't a shock. On the other hand, I do miss that more innocent era, when almost any city had sankhirtan (public singing and chanting), and even if you weren't a member, the music made you want to sing along. I wonder what Bhaktivedanta Swami would think about what has happened to his movement, and I wonder if somehow it will reinvent itself. I must admit I don't know the answer.

A Few Details. 1. The battle is over the location it isn't over money. Neither side can take the money legally, one side wants to sell and build a traditional Hindu temple building in the center of the Hindu community for NYC, Queens. The other side wants to stay put because it has become a fashionable place recently. That is the sole debate. 2. The Freeport temple is about something different. The person currently in charge does not follow or teach the same teachings as ISKCON, he is teaching something a bit different, it is a religious difference. Like if your local reform synagogue was taken over by a person who decided to teach orthodox instead of reform Judaism. That is what is happening in Freeport and why the court sided with ISKCON and asked the current leader to vacate. 3. The article didn't mention a major ISKCON center in Manhattan, a 6 story thriving complex, with kirtan center, yoga ashram, yoga hotel, yoga studio, vegan restaurant, The Bhakti Center, at 25 1st Avenue.

In 1968, having just graduated from high school, I was in New York and visited the Krishnas a couple of times in the Village. It was an amazing experience for a kid from Nebraska and I will never forget it. I do remember the breakfast they served being pretty awful.

I was a member of a loosely knit meditation group that met in a Bay Ridge apartment once a week in the mid-1980s. We took an outing to the Schermerhorn St. temple on a Friday evening. The promise in my mind was a free non-traditional meal. We were greeted warmly by members and sat through the service which ended quite late. I was starving and happy to dig into the vegetarian feast. I recall a humble friendliness coming toward me and us outsiders from the East Asian members. Afterward I recalled that the speakers and leadership during the service were all Occidentals and those who merely participated were East Asian. It seemed odd but then I realized an aspect of western ego that is all too evident to non- European cultures.

I remember the Henry Street location. Interested in architecture and particularly in plaster ceiling medallions, I visited their headquarters. I don't remember the medallions; but the crown molding, intricate, enormous rosettes, was painted in a kaleidoscope of bright colors. Pretty unnerving to a teenaged purist. They offered me a glass of milk, which I refused. Then there was the story about the grandmother who said, "Who is this Harvey Kirschner anyway, who shaves his head and sings in the streets all day?"

Upstairs dorm space? Any homeless families around?

It reminds me of this story: There lived an ascetic (Sanyasi) whose only material possession was his loin cloth. The loin cloth was regularly attacked by rats which ripped them to tatters. So, he goes and gets a cat. To feed the cat, he goes and buys a cow. Then he gets married to fetch a woman to milk the cow. Before you know, there are kids running around. And no meditation! It is easy for Krishna (the sweet lord) to declare we are all living in an illusion, a Sim City. Harder for us to let go of our six inner enemies.. Lust, anger, greed, attachment, pride and jealousy.

Sad, perhaps, to say, but the human genome, and the society that it has created, seem to be very incongruent to Krishna teachings. Or, indeed, to other intellectually-based ethics such as Kant's categorical imperative. Or Christian values. And on and on... Our selfish, tribal- and clan-based behavior would seem to have a long future ahead of it.

Fascinating article. As a student with a summer job with the USPS in the early 1970s, I delivered volumes of mail to ISKCON's Schermerhorn St. property, at that time in a blighted area. How very far the leadership of this once gentle religion with an otherworldly view has strayed from its ideals, playing with tens of millions, embroiled in bitter court battles, co-opted by the rampant greed of the age....nothing in NYC is affordable for regular working families anymore and they might do better selling out and relocating to New Jersey.