12 ICSA TODAY
Ram Dass chants, and George Harrison is into Krishna
consciousness. I’d be in good company.
OK. So I’ll stay. I guess I’m ready to become a Hare
Krishna. Wow, who’d have thought? But this may really
be what I’ve been looking for. I can always leave if I
want, so what’s there to lose?
After living in the ashram for about a week, I took the initiative
and cut off all my hair with a pair [of] scissors, and one of the
devotee men finished the job with shaving cream and a razor.
Generally you had to ask permission before “shaving up,” because
it had to be clear you were serious, but I recall feeling that I
wanted to do it myself as a kind of statement that this is my own
choice and I didn’t need to be pressured. I wanted this.
***
This, then, is how and why a few thousand of the most idealistic,
spiritually motivated hippies chose to, or felt compelled to,
submit themselves to an insular, totalistic cult. Like Allen
Ginsberg in his poetic masterpiece “Howl,” I mourn the fact
that some of the best and brightest minds and spirits of my
generation—refugees from the mainstream in search of
utopia, deep feelers in search of goodness and beauty, free-
spirits in quest of ultimate Liberation, intellectuals engaging
the profoundest truths—ended up in the wrong place. Like
travellers dying of thirst in the desert, they came upon what
appeared to be an oasis, and desperate for nourishment they
dove in headfirst. This was a particularly lovely mirage: idyllic,
colorful, innocent, full of happy, shiny people ready to travel to
a transcendent world of surpassing beauty and joy. But—long,
complicated story short—the vast majority of those who joined
eventually left, replaced by many others who, in turn, would
eventually leave.
A Modest Sutra of Loss
I’d like to conclude this essay with a kind of litany, if you will—a
recitation of things sought and never found, a lament for
idealism dashed and innocence lost, of vast amounts of time,
energy, resources and soul-force spent and misspent—a modest
sutra of loss:
1
In the end, those most interested in exploring and “expanding”
consciousness were taught, in the name of “spiritual
advancement,” to contract consciousness to a thin, narrow band
of (obsessive) attention.
2
Those young seekers who’d been drawn to the notion of
enlightenment, of spiritual wakefulness, of shedding all illusions,
of opening one’s deepest being to ultimate reality, were instead
shepherded into one small, windowless room within the infinite
mansion of human possibilities and told that everything we’d
ever need was there and nowhere else.
3
We who were deeply introspective, fascinated by the breadth
and complexity of the human mind, were taught instead to
“transcend” the mind by immersing ourselves in a particular
brand of groupthink.
4
We’d struggled to free ourselves from one form of conformity—
that which society demands—only to be sweet-talked into
another kind of conformity masquerading as “self-realization.”
5
Those who had enjoyed experimenting with a freer aesthetics
of adornment learned to wear a virtual uniform (because “This is
how souls dress in the Spiritual World”).
6
Those who had loved music, for whom music had deeply
enriched their lives, were told to sell their guitars and flutes
and LPs and give the proceeds to the temple, convinced that
creativity and its tangible fruits were nothing but “sense-
gratification,” a frivolous and petty indulgence that would
subvert and destroy our spiritual progress, our ears and our
souls simply too fragile and pure for Beethoven, Bach, or the
Beatles.
7
Those who had once sought a communitarian, egalitarian
way of life instead found themselves embedded in a rigidly
hierarchical system in which one was well-advised to know one’s
place, as well as to whom one must literally bow down.
8
Those who had tried to imagine a oneness of humanity, a unity
of all beings, an ethic of universal love and acceptance, instead
found themselves members of a highly insular, self-proclaimed
elite, harshly judgmental of outsiders, all of whom were deemed
less than human (“dogs, hogs, camels, and asses”). The meat
eaters and sex fiends of the world were to be shunned and
avoided at all costs (other than to be approached in carefully
circumscribed rituals for the purposes of fundraising).
9
We came, many of us, for a safe haven from the insanity of the
wider culture, the intensity of the rat race, and the harshness of
cities, but were quickly turned around and sent back out into
those bleak environments for the daily grind of fundraising
and book selling. Rather than being free to live peaceful lives of
gentle spirituality, we were instead trained as street missionaries
and scam artists.
10
We’d left a world where we were certain money was evil and
corrupting, then trained to raise funds for ISKCON by any means
necessary, unbound by “mundane” ethics because “everything
belongs to Krishna.” In the world of ISKCON, not love (bhakti,
prema) but money became the coin of the realm (dollars neatly
transubstantiated into Lakshmi points).
11
Those for whom sex might have been a source of affection,
intimacy, or pleasure, even a sacramental union of archetypes,
learned to regard it as the most vile thing imaginable, the
filthy doings of dogs and swine—beneath dignity but not
beneath discussion, for the subject was discussed and analyzed
Ram Dass chants, and George Harrison is into Krishna
consciousness. I’d be in good company.
OK. So I’ll stay. I guess I’m ready to become a Hare
Krishna. Wow, who’d have thought? But this may really
be what I’ve been looking for. I can always leave if I
want, so what’s there to lose?
After living in the ashram for about a week, I took the initiative
and cut off all my hair with a pair [of] scissors, and one of the
devotee men finished the job with shaving cream and a razor.
Generally you had to ask permission before “shaving up,” because
it had to be clear you were serious, but I recall feeling that I
wanted to do it myself as a kind of statement that this is my own
choice and I didn’t need to be pressured. I wanted this.
***
This, then, is how and why a few thousand of the most idealistic,
spiritually motivated hippies chose to, or felt compelled to,
submit themselves to an insular, totalistic cult. Like Allen
Ginsberg in his poetic masterpiece “Howl,” I mourn the fact
that some of the best and brightest minds and spirits of my
generation—refugees from the mainstream in search of
utopia, deep feelers in search of goodness and beauty, free-
spirits in quest of ultimate Liberation, intellectuals engaging
the profoundest truths—ended up in the wrong place. Like
travellers dying of thirst in the desert, they came upon what
appeared to be an oasis, and desperate for nourishment they
dove in headfirst. This was a particularly lovely mirage: idyllic,
colorful, innocent, full of happy, shiny people ready to travel to
a transcendent world of surpassing beauty and joy. But—long,
complicated story short—the vast majority of those who joined
eventually left, replaced by many others who, in turn, would
eventually leave.
A Modest Sutra of Loss
I’d like to conclude this essay with a kind of litany, if you will—a
recitation of things sought and never found, a lament for
idealism dashed and innocence lost, of vast amounts of time,
energy, resources and soul-force spent and misspent—a modest
sutra of loss:
1
In the end, those most interested in exploring and “expanding”
consciousness were taught, in the name of “spiritual
advancement,” to contract consciousness to a thin, narrow band
of (obsessive) attention.
2
Those young seekers who’d been drawn to the notion of
enlightenment, of spiritual wakefulness, of shedding all illusions,
of opening one’s deepest being to ultimate reality, were instead
shepherded into one small, windowless room within the infinite
mansion of human possibilities and told that everything we’d
ever need was there and nowhere else.
3
We who were deeply introspective, fascinated by the breadth
and complexity of the human mind, were taught instead to
“transcend” the mind by immersing ourselves in a particular
brand of groupthink.
4
We’d struggled to free ourselves from one form of conformity—
that which society demands—only to be sweet-talked into
another kind of conformity masquerading as “self-realization.”
5
Those who had enjoyed experimenting with a freer aesthetics
of adornment learned to wear a virtual uniform (because “This is
how souls dress in the Spiritual World”).
6
Those who had loved music, for whom music had deeply
enriched their lives, were told to sell their guitars and flutes
and LPs and give the proceeds to the temple, convinced that
creativity and its tangible fruits were nothing but “sense-
gratification,” a frivolous and petty indulgence that would
subvert and destroy our spiritual progress, our ears and our
souls simply too fragile and pure for Beethoven, Bach, or the
Beatles.
7
Those who had once sought a communitarian, egalitarian
way of life instead found themselves embedded in a rigidly
hierarchical system in which one was well-advised to know one’s
place, as well as to whom one must literally bow down.
8
Those who had tried to imagine a oneness of humanity, a unity
of all beings, an ethic of universal love and acceptance, instead
found themselves members of a highly insular, self-proclaimed
elite, harshly judgmental of outsiders, all of whom were deemed
less than human (“dogs, hogs, camels, and asses”). The meat
eaters and sex fiends of the world were to be shunned and
avoided at all costs (other than to be approached in carefully
circumscribed rituals for the purposes of fundraising).
9
We came, many of us, for a safe haven from the insanity of the
wider culture, the intensity of the rat race, and the harshness of
cities, but were quickly turned around and sent back out into
those bleak environments for the daily grind of fundraising
and book selling. Rather than being free to live peaceful lives of
gentle spirituality, we were instead trained as street missionaries
and scam artists.
10
We’d left a world where we were certain money was evil and
corrupting, then trained to raise funds for ISKCON by any means
necessary, unbound by “mundane” ethics because “everything
belongs to Krishna.” In the world of ISKCON, not love (bhakti,
prema) but money became the coin of the realm (dollars neatly
transubstantiated into Lakshmi points).
11
Those for whom sex might have been a source of affection,
intimacy, or pleasure, even a sacramental union of archetypes,
learned to regard it as the most vile thing imaginable, the
filthy doings of dogs and swine—beneath dignity but not
beneath discussion, for the subject was discussed and analyzed
