Love and Zeal - Movie Critique: "Hare Krishna! The Mantra, The Movement, and The Swami who started it all”. (2017)

Movie Critique:  "Hare Krishna! The Mantra, The Movement, and The Swami who started it all”. (2017) Youtube Link

Director: John Griesser 

“For love is fierce as death, zeal as tough as the underworld, its pangs are tongues of fire, a Godly flame.” (Song of Songs 8, 6)

This documentary film follows the improbable rise of Swami Srila Prabhupada from a penniless immigrant sleeping in the office buildings of New York, to the founder of “The International Society for Krishna Consciousness” (popularly known as “Hare Krishna”), a Hindu religious movement numbering ~ 1000 temples worldwide with an estimated number of followers between one to a few million.

This global Hindu movement is noted for being composed primarily of non-Indian converts to Hinduism, thus being the only Hindu sect that seeks to proselytize. As is obvious to any Jew who knows something about the movement, many Jews fill their ranks, including many in senior leadership. For this film, the directors poured over 1800 hours of archive videos, and interviewed the seniors, and naturally, many any of these Jews feature prominently.

Artistically, the film is well-done. I wasn’t around when it all happened, but the director did his best to reproduce the authentic taste of the 70’s and capture the larger-than-life events he and his comrades experienced back then. Original footage documents Swami Prabhupada as a globe-trotting spiritual leader, based in the USA, visiting Communist Moscow, Nigeria, Europe, and directing his young and innocent followers in the business of missionizing and disseminating his commentary on the Bhagvad Gita in dozens of languages (I own a Hebrew copy).

Most veteran New Yorkers have seen Hare Krishnas dancing in the streets, chanting the Hare Krishna mantra (a 16-word mantra praising the Hindu God, Krishna). Others may have witnessed another Prabhupada import from India to the West, the Jagannath parade, where Hare Krishna followers pull a huge chariot (from here the English word “juggernaut”) on which the icon of the God rides on his annual day trip outside the temple to meet his devotees.

But most people may not be aware of Prabhupada’s role as a counterculture leader. The Beatle, George Harrison, a noted Indophile who played the sitar, not only met the swami and his men, but recorded an entire album of the Hare Krishna mantra and arranged a 1971 concert with pieces devoted to this theme, proceedings of which went to the victims of the Bangladeshi Liberation War. Many other A-list rockers also played at Hare Krishna events in California in those years, and they feature briefly in the film.

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Prabhupada is portrayed as a God-intoxicated saint, devoid of worldly passions and passionate only about Krishna, ecstatically singing his praise and spreading his message of happiness, peace, harmony, and beyond all else - love. His devotion to the cause was sincere, beyond doubt, and to the death. In his final months he returned to India to die in Vrindavan, the fabled town of Krishna’s birth. The movie points out the great marvel that Indians had upon seeing white men and women arrive in Indian dress singing hymns to Krishna. One Jewish women tells of how locals touched her white arm with amazement.

Swami’s participation in the Gandhian Non-cooperation Movement is briefly mentioned, but the film omits his subsequent disillusion with Gandhian non-violence. A clip can be found online of the swami calling Gandhi a fool and remarking that “If fasting is so effective, why didn’t Churchill fast against Hitler?” Interviewees remarked that he was a man who spoke truth, directly and forcefully.

Unpleasant Episodes in the Movement’s History

The film discusses the common perception in the USA that Hare Krishna is a “cult” engaged in “brainwashing”, (Note: I put these words in quotations as they have no excepted clinical or legal definition. As a researcher of Middle Eastern (West Asian) Studies, I personally believe brainwashing and propaganda are very real and very powerful forces that are almost impossible to “deprogram”. Nonetheless, I’m aware that no social scientist can properly define these terms, despite many attempts) acquiring and retaining membership though psychological manipulation of mixed-up and vulnerable youth.

The 1976 court case, The People vs. Murphy, was mentioned, in which Hare Krishna was exonerated from charges of kidnapping and other cult-related charges and declared “a bona-fide religion”. Absent from the film were cases from the1990’s in which Hare Krishna members were convicted on multiple charges of sexual abuse and child abuse at the movement’s boarding schools. Famous cases of financial crimes committed by leadership were hinted at briefly but not mentioned explicitly. Wikipedia and Google tell it all.

To me, these crimes are nothing unusual for people in positions of unchecked power. On the contrary, powerful people who are saints are the unusual ones, and believe me, no establishment of any religion is composed exclusively of saints. Given human nature, its statistically impossible.

And let’s be clear that this doesn’t happens only in religious establishments. Leaders of universities and banks have greater power, but also greater power to hide their crimes. I was disappointed with the film’s attempt to hide the unpleasant episodes, even those which a quick Wikipedia search will tell you about. It reeks of spiritual immaturity, not pristine innocence.

Between Hare Krishnas and Breslov Hasidim

I hope my many Hindu friends, whom I hold genuinely dear, can bear with me in the following lines. I intend no offence and no harm, and I hope nobody doubts this. I’m articulating my feelings as a religious Jew explaining his reaction to this film. I’m deliberately writing this essay in English, not in Hebrew, as I believe friends can and should talk openly, and I don’t believe that I must hide these thoughts from anyone.

Any religious Jew is, by definition, uncomfortable with Jews joining Hare Krishna. From a purely legal Jewish standpoint, it is identical to a Jew converting to Christianity, even if we have heavy historical baggage with the latter. Insofar as they profess belief in one God and worship of his multiple manifestations, both Hinduism and Christianity are defined as Monotheistic worship via intermediaries, which is permitted to non-Jews and prohibited for Jews.

(Note: In theory, Judaism objects to religious iconography for non-Jews too. In practice, the bottom line of Jewish mainstream opinion is as I stated it above. Any future reforms banning icons must be initiated by non-Jews themselves, of their own volition. We can, at best, try to convince, but we vehemently reject any attempts of violent iconoclasm).

Now, what exactly is the problem?  Why can’t a Jew find legitimate spiritual meaning in Hindu worship? If it’s so evil, how come there are obvious Jewish parallels to many elements of Hinduism?

To be precise, the film shows many Hare Krishna features highly reminiscent of Hasidism, and Breslov Hasidism in particular. All Israelis have seen Breslovers dancing on the streets, and dancing on the roofs on vans has become the iconic image of the movement. The satsang commune atmosphere around the swami will easily remind one of Uman pilgrimage, and the importance of repeating  the “Hare Krishna” mantra will immediately remind you of “Na-Nach-Nachma-Nachman MeUman”  mantra (I believe the latter to be nonsense based on a prank gone wildly out of control, but that’s beside the point).  Doubtlessly, the horrific cult-oriented  scandals that have plagued Breslov are another obvious comparison.

So why does it matter which religious parade you are marching in? Just because the music has the wrong lyrics? Isn’t it all one and the same, one God known by any other name and ritual?

To be clear, I personally connect deeply to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, who was a genuine spiritual giant. Our podcast made of one the best intros to his thought available online (in Hebrew. Hopefully, we’ll have subtitles one day).

That said, I think many of his followers are misguided. Forget about “rabbis” Berland, Shick and the other convicted criminals, who are evil. Ordinary Hasidim who attempt to follow Rabbi Nachman receive some very poor guidance on many themes. “Throwing out your mind” as they call it, to blindly follow the leader, is a bad idea, proven to cause disaster. Making a principle of becoming a holy fool, is not what Rabbi Nachman had in mind.

In this respect, some of the negative trends I find to be almost identical in both sects: anti-intellectualism and deliberate foolishness masquerading as innocence and purity, otherworldliness that neglects worldly duties - duties which religion itself mandates – and blindly following a leader while entertaining a misguided innocence as to the results of unchecked power. The founding guru may be a saint, but I will ensure you that his shishyas may not be, and the entire community can never be, collectively.

Betrayal

But what I find the most problematic about Jewish Hare Krishnas was brought home in the scene where George Harrison stood on stage playing guitar and ecstatically chanting the Hare Krishna mantra. In theory, why should I be bothered if Harrison professes Anglicanism or Hinduism? What is my stake in this game?

But I found the scene disturbing. Not because he betrayed Judaism, but because Harrison betrayed his ancestors. Was all his British heritage something so trivial that could be thrown away one day like an old jacket? Was there nothing worthwhile in everything his ancestors lived and died for? He may not have abandoned England, but he had abandoned a central part of what his ancestors called holy.

What is tradition? In the words of the thrice-daily Jewish prayers, it is loyalty to “Our God and the God of our Forefathers”. Rejecting your religious tradition is rejecting your forefathers. Many Westerners do that deliberately, and personally, I hope the sons of radical Muslims will do exactly that. But unless you’re your ancestors were terrorists and undesirables, betraying them is the deepest possible act of treason, and nothing to showcase.

I’ll consent that some religious conversions don’t amount to full-scale betrayal, but I hope we agree that others do. And if Jews are a tribe with our own tribal codes and common blood thicker than water, that explains our overall reaction to Jewish Hare Krishnas.