Jagat

One of ISKCON's senior acharyas, Hridayananda Dasa Goswami, who has been teaching at the prestigious Berkeley Theological Union for many years, is  promoting a movement within the movement called " Krishna West ." His proposal has met with controversy, especially since the GBC at its annual Mayapur meetings effectively " quarantined " him. Rank and file members of the movement have been commenting copiously on the meaning of Hridayananda's proposals, which primarily center around issues of the distinctive Hare Krishna dress, showing that he has definitely struck a nerve. Hridayananda vehemently protests that he remains true to the teachings of Srila Prabhupada without compromise and that he is using the issue of dress to make Krishna consciousness more palatable to a wider range of people whose prejudices are awakened by strange appearances. In other words, he claims that he is using the dress issue as a kind of subterfuge to bypass people's bias in...

The other day I saw an orange robed sannyāsī in Vrindavan, tall and strong looking, fit and wearing bright new cloth. He was about 55, with salt and pepper hair. His face was lined and extremely grave. And then I looked at the other sannyāsīs I saw sleeping by the Parikrama Marg, beggars, at best living in jhopris, shuffling along the road to the next khattri for kitcherie. And I thought, "They are MEANT to look mean and miserable. They are meant to frighten you. They are meant to be the bogey man." A sannyāsī is serious stuff. He denies the world. Just think of Vyasadeva appearing to Ambika and Ambalika to sire the royal children of the ironically named Vichitravirya ("Wondrous Virility"). One queen was so frightened at Vyasa's ascetic appearance that she closed her eyes and gave birth to a blind Dhritarashtra, and the other to an albino because she was white with fright. If a sannyāsī does not frighten you, he is not a real sannyāsī, and it is not too ...