Who are the Hare Krishna?

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Even the shaved head is rather common these days so I think what is most observable is the combination of skin head, beads, and Indian clothing…if they still do all that.
 
“For what it’s worth”.

Images and a superficial guess at someone’s behavior won’t help you determine if something is idolatry. You’d have to understand the belief system and intent of the person. This is why some people of other religious denominations are incorrect in their claims that Catholics practice idolatry. Catholics don’t. The mere existence of respectful or even “nurturing” (not sure what you imagine is happening here) behavior towards an image doesn’t constitute idolatry.

Hare Krishna’s don’t “sell things for their idols”, As far as I know. If they’re drawing from certain strains of Hindu thought (which they seem to be from their writings), it’s more accurate to say the image is a liturgical object equivalent, and they are selling objects to support themselves and their religious institutions.

Also, not sure that all Catholics would hold your view that Hinduized conceptions of God are demonic. Father Francis Clooney, Jesuit, and a professor At Harvard has lived amongst Hindus for decades, is a scholar of Hindu tradition, and doesn’t seem to raise these issues that you do. He’s actually quite respectful of these traditions, and seems hopeful about fruitful possibilities in growing in one’s own faith by mutual encounter. It’s possible to be respectful, while disagreeing.
 
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I just realised you have your religion marked as Vedanta/Interreligious.
This is a clear sign that this conversation will be pointless and fruitless, so I’ll simply leave it be.

God be with you.
 
tomarin said:
What’s wrong with their food? Are they vegetarians perchance?
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Shakuhachi:
Do they still exist? I remember eating their food about 1977. I admired their commitment but a little too wierd for me.
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Their parent organization still exists, it’s called the Society for Krishna Consciousness and it is located in Mayapur, West Bengal, India.
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Their food is fine. I used to eat at their restaurants. It is vegetarian (and no eggs, garlic, onions, mushrooms either). They do use milk and ghee so it is not vegan.

St. Paul said eating food offered to idols would not be bad for him, but could give scandal. (See: 1 Cor 8)
7 But not all have this knowledge. There are some who have been so used to idolatry up until now that, when they eat meat sacrificed to idols, their conscience, which is weak, is defiled.
8 Now food will not bring us closer to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, nor are we better off if we do. 9 But make sure that this liberty of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak. 10 If someone sees you, with your knowledge, reclining at table in the temple of an idol, may not his conscience too, weak as it is, be “built up” to eat the meat sacrificed to idols? 11 Thus through your knowledge, the weak person is brought to destruction, the brother for whom Christ died.
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Well, I think we are about done with the Hare anyway.
 
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One of my absolute favorite Bloom County comics. I just love Opus! 🤣
 
The Beatles travelled to India, published photos sitting with gurus while wearing flowers in their hair, they played sitar in a few songs, and the west went wild for Beatles inspired Hinduism.

George Harrison promoted and supported the Self-Realization Fellowship, which are not affiliated with the Hare Krishna and have been in the west since the 1930s. For example, the money made from “My Sweet Lord” was directed to the Fellowship. This religion is a Hindu and Christian mix.

The Hare Krishna arrived in the west, during the Beatles inspired India-mania, as it were, in 1966 in NYC. They believe in spreading their “consciousness” and were noted for doing so by gathering in groups while singing the Hare Krishna mantra. They were well known as a nuisance at airports, doing the above chanting/singing around travelers. Preventing people from getting to where they needed to get to. A lot of comedic value was taken from this practice during the late 1960s and 1970s. So they are embedded in pop cultural awareness even as their movement has diminished.
 
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RebeccaJ said:
George Harrison promoted and supported the Self-Realization Fellowship, which are not affiliated with the Hare Krishna and have been in the west since the 1930s.
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George Harrison actually was very involved with Hare Krishna for some time. He met with the head of the movement back when he was still in the Beatles. At one point he had Hare Krishna followers living with him and his wife Patti on their estate, which Patti wrote about in her autobiography as putting a strain on their marriage. In the early 80s he recorded a Hare Krishna Mantra with a bunch of London Krishna Temple devotees and it went top 10 in several European countries and was featured on Top of the Pops. He also donated one of his properties to the Hare Krishnas and they were waiting to see if he would leave them a big bequest in his will, but he didn’t.


https://culteducation.com/group/101...on-left-hare-krishna-society-out-of-will.html
 
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amaxiner said:
I was listening to a podcast about the Vietnam war and they mentioned something about Hare Krishna.
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I was surprised the two were linked. When I was at school one of my good friends belonged to a family of Indian origin who had been among the Asians expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin. He and his family were Hindus and I know there faith has an extremely large number of gods. One of these is Krishna and it was Krishna his family had as their preferred (or family) deity. That made them Hare Krishna.

There also used to be groups I saw in the city centre in the 70s as a child of almost exclusively white people, with shaved heads, wearing saffron robes like Buddhist monks wear, and clicking little cymbals on the ends of their fingers and chanting, “Hare Krishna”. I have no idea whether they worshipped Krishna or behaved in this way for another purpose.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
The last time I saw any Krishnas around in US was about 1990. They are probably still around somewhere but nothing like they used to be.
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I’m only in my 30s so I don’t remember the hare Krishnas like older folks. I can say, yes, they are still around. Me and my wife saw a large group of them at the Santa Monica pier in Los Angeles about a month ago. They were beating drums and chanting trying to hand out pamphlets. It was quite a sight.
 
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And let’s not forget they were parodied in the movie “Airplane “
 
They are a bunch of street musicians without a rhythm conductor who hand out books to vulnerable university students luring them with a promise of a family.
 
They are still some around in the UK. A couple of years ago they targeted the town I was living in at the time for a few weeks, chanting and dancing in the streets. But they are certainly not as numerous as I remember them from the 80’s and 90’s
 
They went “out of fashion” here along time ago too. Although they still have a temple in the city,you don’t really hear much about them.
It’s more before my era but I did see them once in the late 90’s at the beach joyfully singing and clapping but that’s about it.
As Tis bear mentioned,the type of people that would have followed it “in earlier eras” are now more hanging out at New Age type places.
Some goes to “spiritual gurus” etc.
Many of the people into this stuff are very lovely people,but spiritually it’s very different from Christianity and most of the new age stuff is really just Hinduism and Buddhism repackaged.
I think they believe some good things such as against consumerism but then they also believe some things that can lead people astray or even distress like they might believe that people’s illnesses are from karma or unresolved emotional issues etc…
 
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