57
Life at a Hare Krishna Temple
James Nail
Modern Western culture is viewed by many of its
members as representing the peak of mankind's
abilities, the culmination of our attempts to subdue
nature and to carve out a lasting, important niche for
ourselves in the world. Indeed, there is much to sup-
port this notion, for certainly, in history no other soci-
ety has offered so much in the way of technology,
prosperity and physical comfort to so many people. It
is commonly asserted that not even the most exalted
personages in other societies lived as well as does the
average middle-class American today.
Yet it is also said that the average American really
doesn't know how to enjoy his or her own wealth, that
in the midst of such affluence s/he is desperately un-
happy and confused. More and more critical voices are
heard, warning of the dangers of pollution, crime,
drug-dependence, cancerous technological growth
and the manipulation of the masses in the interests of a
few. Each year brings with it a whole new crop of crises
and problems.
In our hurried, profit-oriented society, a number of
organizations offer their members alternative life-
styles. Thus, parallel with our great technological ad-
vances have arisen countless new religious move-
ments, each attracting great numbers of devotees and
each, to varying degrees, projecting an image of op-
position to many of the dominant goals of our
materialistic culture. Some are revitalizations of fun-
damentalist Christian sects. Others are eclectic, deriv-
ing their philosophies and practices from traditional
religions, psychology and the American work ethic.
With their emphasis on self-denial, transcendence and
the cultivation of the soul, Eastern religions are becom-
ing increasingly popular throughout the United
States. "Yoga" and "Meditation" have become house-
hold words.
One of these new religious movements is the Inter-
national Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
It was brought to the United States in 1965 by the same
man who is still its leader, Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada. It is said that he had been sent by his own
spiritual master to "spread knowledge in the Western
lands," had arrived in New York with ten cents in his
pocket, and built the entire movement from that point
to its present size of over 120 centers all over the world.
Members of ISKCON practice what they call "bhakta
yoga," the discipline of love, devotion and service to
God, who is called Krishna. The philosophy is based
on the ancient Vedic scriptures of India, translated
into English (in more than 70 volumes) by Prabhupa-
da. "Devotees" typically live in communal temples,
stressing utmost simplicity in day-to-day activities, ob-
serving strict laws and ceremonies and, in all things,
attempting to please Krishna. Their ultimate goal is
soul-purification and release from the physical world.
Before beginning my work, I had rather expected,
because of the unconventional standard of appear-
ance for which the devotees are most commonly
known, to find them to be somehow basically alien. I
had expected to find a group of people who had sim-
ply jumped on the bandwagon of a strange new fad
precisely because of its unconventionality. Yet to shave
one's head and live in a temple, chanting Sanskrit
names of God, seemed an extremely radical abbera-
tion and I firmly expected my findings to corroborate
this notion. So, it was with the ambivalent feelings of
trepidation and joy in the unusual, the "And now for
something completely different" feeling, that I made
preparations for gathering data. I planned to first
spend several consecutive afternoons at the temple
before actually beginning work. This was in order to
get a "feel" for the people and environment, and to
give them time to make the same adjustments to me. I
wished to make myself less of a stranger bef6re intru-
ding with notebooks, questions and a camera. Then I
was going to schedule formal interviews with various
devotees and invent elaborate questionaires.
As it happened, there were no questionnaires and
only very few formal interviews, but I spent more time
at the temple than I had previously planned,participat-
ing in temple activity. I did such things as helping to
chop vegetables for a religious feast, sweeping up
around the trash cans in the back of the temple, spent
an entire weekend, painted myself with tilach (a special
clay used to symbolize the giving up of the body to
Krishna) and wore the orange clothes I had earlier
considered so strange.
My method of investigation has very much shaped
my results. All my information is derived from de-
votees at the Berkeley ISKCON temple and from par-
ticipant observation. I have not compiled lists of statis-
tics regarding the structure of the temple or its opera-
tions, nor have I attempted to give a definitive descrip-
tion of ISKCON as a world movement. These are the
boundaries I set for myself when I began this field
project. Though I came to realize the limitations of my
focus, I was able to gain an understanding of some of
the values and perspectives shared by ISKCON mem-
bers.
Description of Temple Life
During my stay at the temple, I found that the ac-
tivities of the devotees are strictly regulated, with a
carefully formulated schedule covering almost every
waking moment. This rigorous discipline is followed in
order to minimize mental preoccupation with the
physical world. As one devotee put it: "This way, you
never have to think about what you're going to do next,
when you're going to eat or sleep or anything like that,
because its already worked out. It frees your mind for
more important thoughts, lets you concentrate on
Krishna." Practicing austerities and deprivations of
the body is an important part of purifying the soul and
freeing it from the bondage of Maya (the illusion of
material existence).
A typical day begins at three in the morning. The
devotees get up and take cold showers - cold in order
to remind the still-sleeping body that physical life is
essentially misery and that the purpose of the day is to
serve Krishna. Great emphasis is placed upon personal
cleanliness, for part of purifying the soul is to keep the
body clean. Showers are taken upon rising, before
retiring and always after defecating. After meals, the
hands, mouth and feet must be cleaned and no one
may enter the kitchen at any time without carefully
washing. This rule of cleanliness in the kitchen is so
strict that if one touches anything but food or cooking
utensils in the kitchen, the entire washing procedure is
repeated, regardless of how brief the contact may have
been or how clean the article touched was.
After the morning hygiene is completed (including
the application of tilach on the forehead, which is done
while reciting ritual prayers and various names of
Krishna), there is a period of half-an-hour to an hour,
until four-fifteen, which is set aside for chanting Jop-
pa. Chanting Joppa is very similar to the Roman
Catholic practice of saying Rosaries. Each devotee has
a string of 108 Joppa beads. The Maha Mantra (hare
krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare hare rama
hare rama rama rama hare hare) is recited once on each
bead, going around the string. One of the duties of
each devotee is to chant his "rounds", consisting of
sixteen times around the string - 1728 mantras!
Maha, or Great, Mantra is composed of the transcen-
dental names of God, Krishna and Rama. These trans-
cendental names are different from their mundane
counterparts in that the actual sound of the spiritual
words produces a physical and spiritual "vibration"
which helps to free the soul from the physical world. It
was explained to me in the following way. "Men's lan-
guages are not perfect. The word is not the thing itself.
You could chant 'water, water, water,' forever, and you
would still be thirsty. But the spiritual language is
different; it is perfect. When you chant the name of
Krishna, he is actually present."
So, the first waking hour is spent chanting. Then, at
four-fifteen, the curtains in front of the idols are
drawn back and a conch shell is blown, signalling the
start of the Mongol Arotik, the morning worship ser-
vice. The arotik is an ecstatic affair, with singing, danc-
ing and chanting before the deities. The drums begin
pounding slowly, and a single voice rises in song, the
entire group repeating the words. Everyone sways
back and forth, slowly to the music. The drums beat
faster and faster, the singing becomes rapid chanting,
and the dance becomes frenzied. All the while, the
priests are up on the stage with the deities, performing
various ritual services and burning incense, making
stylized hand-movements, and seemingly remote from
the activity below. This ceremony proceeds into the
worship of the tulasa plant, holy because, according to
the Bhagavad-gita, it grows at the feet of Krishna and
is his pure devotee. Throughout all the ceremonies,
men and women stay distinctly separate: the men wor-
ship and dance around one tulasa plant, the women
around another. In fact, this segregation of men and
women in the Krishna movement is so strict that for
one year afterjoining, the men are not even allowed to
speak with a member of the opposite sex. Meals are
taken separately and all contact between the sexes is
limited, although both live and worship in the same
temple.
At six o'clock, after worshipping the tulasa, a teach-
ing service takes place. It begins with a ritual declaimer
by the teacher, recounting the wonders, age and value
of the Srimad-Bhagavatam, the subject matter. Then
the teacher sings the verse to be studied and, one at a
time, men first and women afterward, the devotees
sing the verse aloud. The entire group repeats each
line in a chorus. The verse is then translated word for
word and the teacher explains the precise meaning:
first of each word, then of the entire verse. He
goes on to give examples and analogies, stopping
occasionally to make sure everyone upderstands. The
effect of this ritualized teaching ceremony is truly
beautiful. I had the impression that I had been trans-
ported through time and space to a place where all
knowledge and absolute truths were known and were
being handed on to a new generation to be guarded
through the ages. This idea of carrying on ancient
knowledge is one of the basic tenets of the philosophy
of Krishna Consciousness. It is constantly stressed that
the Vedas are the most ancient scriptures in the world,
containing all science and all truth. It is the stated goal
of Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada, the head of ISKON, to
replace the dying Brahman class of India and to pro-
vide a "class of learned, intelligent men" to lead the
world back to wisdom. Prabhupada is something of a
Christ figure to the devotees. He is their "spiritual
master"; only through him can they come to Krishna
and he is worshipped in much the same way as are the
other deities.
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After the Srimad-Bhagavatam class, the congrega-
tion gathers before a photograph of Prabhupada
which rests upon a large red velvet and gold throne.
The group kneels, faces to the floor and sings praises
to their master. When a garland of fresh flowers is
placed upon the photograph, the morning worship
service is completed. The remaining time until seven
a.m. is allotted to chanting Joppa.
At seven, a brief but very important ceremony takes
place. The deities' costumes have been changed and
the entire group lines up in front of the idol at the left
of the stage. A traditional song begins playing through
the large speakers in the deity room. I was told by
Kritakarma, the chief priest of the Berkeley temple,
that this is the oldest song in the world, first sung by
Brahma, the creator of the physical universe, upon his
birth from the lotus flower in the navel of Krishna.
The song tells of the eternal pastimes of Krishna which
are a common topic of conversation at the temple. The
group sings, prostrating themselves as a gesture of
submission in front of each of the idols in turn.
At seven-fifteen, it is time for breakfast, or morning
prasada. All food prepared at the temple is placed on
an altar as an offering to Krishna before it is eaten.
Every living thing, according to the Vedas, is an incar-
nation of some spirit-soul and is precious to Krishna.
Therefore, one cannot kill without incurring a nega-
tive reaction upon oneself, either in this life or in a
future one. Offering the food to Krishna takes away
the bad karma of having destroyed life and Krishna
bestows blessings upon the spirit-soul which died to
provide food. Also, when prasada is offered to
Krishna, he comes and manifests himself in the food.
This brings considerable blessing to the person who
then eats it and for this reason a visitor to an ISKON
temple is iuvariably offered a meal, regardless of when
s/he may arrive or how hungry s/he may be.
For breakfast, everyone lines up and files past a
serving table, where s/he is helped to a grain-and-
fruit-based meal served upon a piece of paper. Meals
are taken on the floor and eaten with the fingers, using
only the right hand. During the breakfasts which I
shared at the temple, an older devotee sat on the floor
and read aloud from a book of Krishna's pastimes. All
present were listening attentively, occasionally making
comments or appreciative sounds and gestures. Un-
fortunately, as I didn't have breakfast at the temple
very often, I'm not sure whether this is an everyday
phenomenon.
Morning prasada is taken with the entire group, but
then the members separate as each has specific duties
to accomplish such as: cooking, cleaning, laundering
and stringing flower garlands. The priests stay at the
temple to hold the six daily arotik services and make
offerings to the deities. The most important and au-
spicious jobs are performing sankirtana and organiz-
ing "chanting parties." Sankirtana, which means
"chanting the holy names in congregation," is the duty
which occupies most of the day for the majority of
devotees (some members hold regularjobs outside the
church). This is the major fund-raising process of
ISKON and includes selling of holy books and pam-
phlets, distributing flowers and food on the streets,
and asking for contributions. Sankirtana is a very holy
activity and is looked upon as beneficial to everyone
involved: the devotee, who is selflessly serving Krish-
na; the temple, which receives the money; potential
devotees, who may be drawn to the temple; and those
who contribute money, which adds good karma to
their soul-energies. Having a chanting party, which
means chanting the maha mantra out in public, is also
quite beneficial for it provides some contact with the
name of God to a maximum number of passers-by.
Actually, chanting parties are another form of sankir-
tana but are generally considered separate from
fund-raising activities.
Prasada is served again at the temple at two-thirty in
the afternoon; this is the last meal of the day. Hot milk
is served after evening arotik ceremonies, but it is
regarded as auspicious to limit one's intake of food. As
stated earlier, arotik is held six times daily, but people
usually attend only twice or three times a day. There
are only a few people present at the other set-vices. The
temple begins filling up again at about five-thirty, and
arotik is held at six-thirty . Later Bhajan is held. It is
quite similar to arotik but without wild dancing and the
chanting is more soft and subdued. A class in
Bhagavad-gita follows. At eight o'clock hot milk is
served and the final arotik service occurs at eight-
fifteen. The day ends at nine o'clock when the lights
are turned off, and any leftover time between then and
the end of the last arotik is used to finish chanting
Joppa (although it is considered more auspicious to
have finished chanting one's rounds by ten in the
morning).
Analysis
Upon my first arrival at the ISKCON temple in Ber-
keley, I was more or less put in the charge of Bhakta
Frank (bhakta means devotion, or devoted, and is used
as a prefix to a devotee's name until his spiritual master
assigns a permanent spiritual name). One of his
duties is to help with the orientation of new members.
Frank is tall, about thirty-five years of age, and has a
varied background. For a time, he made women's
handbags professionally, was editor of an under-
ground newspaper and attended a Roman Catholic
seminary. He was attracted to ISKCON, he says, be-
cause he was searching for a way to be of "loving
service" in the world and there was no opportunity
other than at a religious community to engage in this
sort of life. When asked why he had discontinued his
earlier religious training, he said, "The Catholic semi-
nary I was at was too much into authority so they
missed the whole essence of religion. They didn't re-
ally have the experience of god-consciousness." At the
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ISKCON centers, Frank says, everything is geared to
be "functional, but in a loving way."
His commitment must also be at least partially the
result of a pessimistic view of the current trends of
society which drew Frank to Krishna Consciousness,
because embedded in many of his statements and ex-
planations of Vedic philosophy were examples of fail-
ures and mistakes of Western culture. He said, for
example, that he sensed something drastically wrong
with the world, that there is no morality, that people
are getting wilder and more violent than ever before,
that large corporations are in control of everything,
and that even hospitals today are only out to make a
profit. He said that no one really knows what they're
doing anymore, citing as an example the case of au-
tomobiles and rapid transportation systems in general,
often thought of as a great technological achievement
of modern man, which he considered more of a curse
than a blessing.
The idea that modern society is purposeless and
foolish is typical among devotees. Caru Das, the leader
of the Berkeley temple, likened Western man to some-
one who just jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, is
about to die, and is saying to himself, "Gee, the sun is
warm today, there's a nice breeze blowing; what a nice
day it is today." A typical attitude is, in Bhakta Mark's
words, "I just knew it was all insane."
I began to wonder whether there was something
similar in the backgrounds of the devotees. I had been
having a casual conversation with Mark, and had men-
tioned that I thought perhaps I should have been
asking people questions about their backgrounds
whether they were from broken homes, or had been
addicted to drugs, and so on. He said, "Well,just watch
the people walking by here, trying to enjoy themselves.
I didn't come from a bad situation at all. I came from
what is supposed to be a really good situation. I just
knew there had to be something better." I asked
another devotee, Bhakta Daniel, what he thought
about American society compared to other societies
around the world, and he replied, "I'm not like a lot of
people. I think the United States is o.k. but everybody
here just wants to have sense gratification, and that's
not the way to live. We need to combine our technol-
ogy with the spiritual wisdom of India." Daniel told me
thatjust before he had come to an ISKCON temple for
the first time, he had seen a man run over and killed by
a car, and he had thought, "Man, death is so close...."
He said, "Devotees come here because they're sick and
tired of the world, mostly - or they just can't make it,
you know ... because here there's so much love and
attention."
It seemed that whenever the topic of conversation
was the world outside the temple, there was nothing
but pessimism. But quite the reverse was true when
speaking of Krishna Consciousness or the change in
lifestyle brought about by living at the ISKCON cen-
ter. I spoke with Bhakta Spencer many times, and
never heard a word about anything but the ecstasy of
chanting and serving Krishna. "It's just ecstasy, divine
bliss. Your eyes get opened more and more with time
and practice. It just gets greater and greater. People
can tell, too, after just chanting one time, kind of like
licking the outside of ajar of honey. And it never gets
boring."
Kritakarma also stressed that chanting never be-
comes boring. "That's something about transcenden-
tal things - they never get old. It's funny, because
after you live here for a while, your whole conception
of time changes completely. One day blends into the
next, and you don't seem to age so much. That's one
way you can tell that the things we are doing really are
transcendental, because they just go on, forever."
Kritakarmajoined ISKCON three-and-one-half years
ago. He had been an engineering student at the Uni-
versity of Oklahoma and had started taking LSD. He
said that he had suddenly started thinking about
things like reincarnation and yoga, had read the Tibe-
tan Book of the Dead and had realized that all the
things he had been thinking were written down
thousands of years ago, by some people thousands of
miles away. "I used to say that Acid turned me on to
Krishna, but really I was looking for something, and I
didn't find it in Acid. So I came to Krishna."
From this small amount of exposure to the physical
and mental environment of an ISKCON temple, the
reader may have formulated some conception of the
reasons why some people decide to leave their families
and friends and the outside world in order to join this
organization. The Bhagavad-gita says there are four
reasons that a man comes to Krishna: he might be
distressed and looking for comfort; in need and look-
ing for help; inquisitive and looking for answers; or
wise and looking for God. There are definite mental
currents and themes present at the temple which lead
me to believe that there are several things that Krishna
Consciousness might offer, especially to someone who
is, in Bhakta Daniel's words, "sick and tired of the
world."
Our society today is fractionalized without solidarity
or a feeling of belonging. Job mobility and other fac-
tors tend to uproot families, and it is a rare person who
can say: "My father lived here, and his father lived
here. I belong here. I'm a native of this state, I go to
this school, I live in this community, and all these
people are my neighbors and friends." In contrast, life
at the temple seemingly offers a feeling of solidarity
and brotherhood. There is the feeling of "you and me
against the world," and it is emphasized by renouncing
the world, shaving one's head, living in a large group
and wearing similar clothing.
There is no certainty in the modern world; things
appear to be constantly changing. The social condition
everywhere is boiling; warfare, revolutions, and ter-
rorism are rampant. Not only are we caught between
all kinds of conflicting propaganda so that our minds
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61
tend to become bewildered, but we have little idea
what to anticipate. Krishna Consciousness offers what
purports to be an ancient science, a science given by
God himself, with answers to any question the mind
can conceive. The correct lifestyle is carefully pre-
scribed, goals are provided and all answers are backed
up with the authority of scriptures that are five
thousand years old; the scriptures are deemed those
upon which the world's most "spiritually advanced"
society has relied for all time.
And finally, in a way, the modern world is rather
boring. In a materialistic culture, there is little which
one can appreciate in awe and wonder. All appears to
be the result of human activity. Technology, for all its
"breakthroughs" has become an accepted thing; even
the flight to the moon has become "old hat." We be-
come jaded to the excitement of human accomplish-
ment. ISKCON, on the other hand, offers the rich life
of the imagination, the unfathomable and unparal-
leled glories of Krishna. There are the constantly excit-
ing stories of demigods and demons, reincarnation
and spiritual growth, and the pastimes of Lord
Krishna. Is it possible that man has a basic need for the
adventure and involvement of myth, legend and re-
ligious belief? If so, then this is one area in which our
steel-and-concrete society has failed us miserably.
I have no all-encompassing theories to present and,
of course, the possibilities of research into Krishna
Consciousness are by no means exhausted. There is
need for a more systematic approach to the structures
of temple organization and the movement in America
in general (now that a beginning has been presented)
in order to arrive at an understanding of ISKCON. I
would also be interested in the results of two other
types of investigation. Some organized attempt should
be made to delineate and analyze the differences bet-
ween traditional Hindu theology and that of
Prabhupada - devotees insist there is none. Secondly,
an extensive compilation and comparison of indi-
vidual case histories should be undertaken. In the
meantime, I hope that this paper will suffice as a sur-
vey of one ISKCON temple and its significance to the
lives of its devotees.
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