Hare Krishna Transformed

Notes

Notes notes to introduction 1. Bhakta means devotee. The term is typically applied to devotees who have not taken initiation from a guru and precedes their Christian name. 2. For an account of the research methods used in my initial study of iskcon , see Rochford 1985:21–42 and Rochford 1992. 3. The Prabhupada Centennial Survey was an international survey of two thousand current and former iskcon members from fifty-three countries. This book includes only the respondents from Canada and the United States, however , given its focus on iskcon’s North American development. 4. Geertz (1973:93) argues that cultural patterns are “models” that “have an intrinsic double aspect: they give meaning, that is, objective conceptual form, to social and psychological reality both by shaping themselves to it and by shaping it to themselves” (my emphasis). 5. Caitanya and his followers were known as the Gaudiya school of Vaisnavism because of their Bengali origin and to distinguish them from other Vaisnava traditions (Squarcini and Fizzotti 2004:45). Gauda is the ancient name for the area corresponding to much of present-day Bengal (Squarini and Fizzotti 2004:87). 6. Although distribution of Prabhupada’s books provided the primary source of revenue for iskcon’s communities, other funds came from the sale of Spiritual Sky incense. In 1969 in New York City, iskcon members began producing and distributing incense as a way of raising money to support the community . Incense sales remained an important source of revenue until the late 1970s when Spiritual Sky Scented Products was sold. notes to chapter 1 1. Dasa’s life history is based on three separate interviews conducted between 1998 and 2005. In December 1998, I interviewed Dasa for ten hours over two days. In May 2000 we spoke once again, for a four-hour period. And in November 2005 I conducted a three-hour phone interview with Dasa. All the interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed. Note that Dasa is the name I chose to protect this man’s anonymity. 229 2. The Fisher mansion was transformed into an iskcon temple and cultural center and was financed by two iskcon members, one a grandson of Henry Ford and the other, the daughter of Walter Reuther, the former president of the United Auto Workers. 3. The Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu text, describes Krishna giving spiritual knowledge to his friend and disciple Arjuna on the battlefield of Kuruksetra . The two sides in the conflict were the Kurus and the Pandavas. 4. To encourage devotees involved in either “picking” or book distribution, scores were computed according to how much money an individual collected in a given day. Success at collecting funds was an important basis for establishing status in the devotee community. 5. Unfortunately, the saga of Dasa’s mother’s death does not end here. In 1986, workmen digging a trench for a pipeline accidentally dug up her remains, as she had been buried in an unmarked grave. Because of an ongoing murder investigation at New Vrindaban, her body was exhumed and impounded by the state as evidence. Tragically, her body was misplaced, and it took Dasa until 1993 before he was able to locate and claim it. Her body was then cremated, and Dasa and his brothers and sisters placed the remains in the rose garden at Prabhupada’s Palace. In the summer of 2005, Dasa and his siblings held a memorial service for their mother at New Vrindaban. They installed a bench in her name with an iron trellis surrounding it along a path circling the pond near the temple. 6. In 1991, Bhaktipada was convicted of racketeering and mail fraud. In July 1993, his conviction was overturned when an appellate court ruled that the district court had wrongly allowed evidence of child molestation and other irrelevant matters to be presented during the trial, evidence that unduly prejudiced the jury. In April 1996, Bhaktipada went back to court after refusing a plea bargain offered by the government. Although he accepted no responsibility for the murders of two former New Vrindaban residents, in the middle of the trial he pleaded guilty to one count of federal racketeering and was sentenced to twenty years in a federal prison. In 1997 the sentence was reduced to twelve years because of Bhaktipada’s failing health. Eight years later, on June 16, 2004, Bhaktipada was released from federal prison in North Carolina. He now lives with a handful of his followers at the Sri Sri Radha...