New Age - What Do You Think?

[Jill]

Originally Posted by bhuvana-mohan dasa

Sounds good to me,Tam. i've read, in my time, a book from an evangelical bookstore back in the 1970's by an overly dramatic (but then quite popular) Christian author named Salem Kirban, wherein he "proved" that then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was indeed the "Beast" spoken of in the New Testament Book of Revelation.....(). Ever look inside a Christian bookstore? They virtually burst at the seams with this silly, defamatory, overly dramatic garbage in print (which ends up hurting the lives and hard earned reputations of real, identifiable people.

So you tell me.........where is the "darkness"?

ys,
bmd.

Oh please, bmd, this is such a broad and unverifiable statement. I sincerely doubt that the majority of Christian bookstores are bursting at the seams with "silly, defamatory, over dramatic garbage" or that anyone would have the time or energy to prove this.

Do some authors write silly things? Absolutely, but this silliness extends to all religions--including Hare Krishna--so to blame Christians alone for it or use it as an excuse to avoid Christianity is illogical. Are some things defamatory? Probably not, based on how paranoid most publishers are when it comes to these things. And if they were to the degree you argue, lawsuits would constantly be in the news.

Maybe this is a good place to remember how many people were driven away from Hare Krishna in the 1960s and 1970s due to harr***ment at the airports and public places by overly zealous (some might even say programmed) recruits? Could this behavior (such as taking back a flower when a donation was not forthcoming) be called silly or overly dramatic?

Yes. So, I fail to see a solid or defendable point here.

[bhuvana-mohan dasa]

Originally Posted by Jill

Are some things defamatory? Probably not, based on how paranoid most publishers are when it comes to these things. And if they were to the degree you argue, lawsuits would constantly be in the news.

Maybe this is a good place to remember how many people were driven away from Hare Krishna in the 1960s and 1970s due to harr***ment at the airports and public places by overly zealous (some might even say programmed) recruits? Could this behavior (such as taking back a flower when a donation was not forthcoming) be called silly or overly dramatic?

Yes. So, I fail to see a solid or defendable point here.

Consider, please, if you will, the historical context of the appearance of the Hare Krishna movement in the United States during the 1960's and 1970's (and ALSO the generation to which that movement primarily appealed), and compare that with the established tenure (and cons***uency) of (primarily) Protestant, evangelical Christianity in the United States.

For the benefit of those who were not a part of that most interesting segment of U.S. history, i (who am one that was) will try to explain. The youth of America were again questioning traditional values (having come to a realization they were not living in a "Leave it to Beaver" world, but that senile old politicians were asking them to go out and sacrifice their lives on foreign soil in a war (in defense of such a fantasy) which they (the politicians) had no intention of winning. The idealism of their youth then became prey to alot of senile old politicians (on the Communist side) who saw their vulnerability, and therefore unleashed a campaign of tabloid sloganism, cheapening the import of such lofty yearnings as "PEACE" and "LOVE", among American youth (who, by this time, were doping themselves up on hallucinogenic drugs and calling "free love" what was, in reality, an expenditure of unbridled lust and anxiety, because the hypocrisy of their parents (and the values their parents had pretended to uphold) was the only gleam of Truth impinging on their conscious processes.

Srila Prabhupada appeared from the East (at a time when nearly every American adolescent considered it "cool" to have an Eastern guru, and those to whom he appealed came into his own residence and temples stinking of marijuana smoke and recently ejaculated semen, and it was from this tired, cynical, and basically unruly band of recruits that the underpinnings of an ancient Vedic civilization were transplanted onto American soil by a humble Indian soul, who had taken the commission of his spiritual master seriously, to familiarize people on the entire planet with the Hare Krishna Mahamantra, and to hold forth the chanting of the Holy Names of God and prayerful surrender unto Him as being the ultimate "escape route" back to Him, and that God was offering this most timely benediction not only to American youth, but also to all people on this entire Planet.

These were his "soldiers" in the early days- American kids who had come to the mistaken belief that the ends justify the means, and thus, many mistakes were made and are most frankly acknowledged by those of us whose lives were touched by Srila Prabhupada during the 60's and 70's, and i have personally asked God's (AND now your) forgiveness for all such mistakes that i have
made (and will yet make) and have received from God the truly blissful ***urance that they have been forgiven (and will be, for as long as i make trying to serve God the object of primary focus in my life).

What i have shared with you here is not someone else's ****ysis of history, Jill, that you or any other member of this Discussion Board can "Google up" and find that it was copied from someone else's (or even my own) "canned" ****ysis of the pivotal role played by historical events in the birth or subsequent evolution of the Hare Krishna movement in the United States- please accept this as my very personal gift , offered exclusively to Walter Martin Discussion Boards.

ys,
bmd.