Hare Krishna Fest NYC 2018

[godwide_void]

Anyone going? It is scheduled for 12P to 2P today in Manhattan. Just heard about it a few moments ago!

[AnthroHeart]

Is that a religion?

[godwide_void]

The Hare Krishna Spiritual Movement rooted in Hinduism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internatio...sciousness

Scouting for Spiritual goodies, mainly, at the Fest. I wouldn't call myself a follower of the movement although exposure to it early provided a nice leeway for further Seeking.

[Stranger]

There is a lot wrong with this movement. It is bhakti-based - bhakti means worship or devotion, and the whole notion of "if I please the powerful deity through my praise, adoration and sacrifices, the deity will pay me back by protecting and blessing me" is fairly distasteful, almost feudal, and seems to have little if anything to do with any form of authentic spirituality (i.e, Oneness-based self-transformation, service to others).

Moreover, the Bhagavad Gita itself (the "holy book" on which Krishna worship is based) is a paean to blindly following "duty", where your duty is decreed by your birth. Krishna is in the warrior caste, and they're at war, so his duty is to slaughter his relatives who have wronged his tribe. Krishna has no wish to do this - he would rather forgive them - but the "deity" is persistently instructing him in the reasons why he has to kill them anyway, whether he wants to or not. It's his duty. If this is a spiritual work, it is an STS one.

Those are my philosophical objections. Then there's the actual organization itself, and its founder - here's a random article:
http://pages.shortlist.com/news/inside-t...-krishnas/

"Though the Hare Krishna theology is rooted in Hindu scripture [i.e., the Bhagavad Gita], its manifestation in the West is a modern phenomenon. When you and I speak of ‘the Hare Krishnas’, we’re talking about the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCon), the late-20th-century legacy of Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. The controversial guru is responsible for launching the organisation in the West, bringing it to the attention of millions after he arrived in the United States in 1965. So integral is he to the movement that devotees mention him far more often than the religion’s deity, Krishna himself. In the Watford temple, followers regularly prostrate themselves before a life-sized – and none too creepy – sedentary model of him.

Because Prabhupada’s near-every word was documented, followers are aware of his colourful history. He impregnated his wife when she was 14; he said men’s brains weigh twice as much as women’s; he claimed that syphilis is the result of women keeping large dogs for sex, and he believed men never really landed on the moon."

[JJCarsonian]

hinduism went overboard with their gods lol!