Krishna Ultimate In Happiness, Say Devotees
This article, "Krishna Ultimate In Happiness, Say Devotees" was published in Corvallis Gazette Times, August 4, 1973, in Corvallis, Oregon.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Do you really want to be happy?
Dinabandhu Das, 23-year-old leader of Portland's followers of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, says it's not hard.
All you have to do to sweep away your sad illusions, says Das, is to chant:
Hare Krishna
Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna
Hare Hare
Hare Rama
Hare Rama
Rama Rama
Hare Hare
"When I was young, I was an altar boy," said Das, who dropped out of Notre Dame four years ago during summer vacation after devotees of Krishna approached him on a Boulder, Colo., street.
"By the time I got through high school and college, I was pretty much an atheist, but I was searching for an answer," he said.
What he found were the teachings of his spiritual master, called Sriprabhupada for short.
Sriprabhupada came to the United States via New York six years ago from India to spread Krishna consciousness among the English-speaking.
His teachings, contained in several books, are not readily condensed.
But he says Krishna is the appropriate name of God in this time and place and only Krishna can satisfy the longings all persons feel beyond their sensual desires.
Material things are illusory and the body is merely a vehicle for the soul, he says.
Sriprabhupada also teaches reincarnation, with a twist.
Instead of coming back in the form that befits your past state of sinfulness, he teaches, you will come back best equipped to do what you want to do.
Suppose you like to eat meat, something disciples of Sripradhudapa do not do. Krishna may bring you back as a lion.
Best of all is not to come back at all, and the only way to do that is to do everything for Krishna.
Initiated disciples of Sripradhupada number some 3,000 in the United States, says Dinabandhu Das.
They live in about 50 temples, he says and there are another 50 temples outside this country.
Sriprabhupada's followers, who can be seen in Indian clothing on the streets of most American cities, live on selling incense they make in a Los Angeles factory and books and magazines about their cause.
When an altar boy turns into a young man with a curious haircut beating a drum and dancing at a downtown bus stop. what do his parents think?
Dinabandhu Das, once Don Romeo of Los Angeles, has little hope his parents will follow him into Krishna consciousness, although he said his father accepted his choice.
"He said that I was an individual and I had the right to make my own decision," he said. "My mother was unhappy."
"I keep hoping my father, who is very intelligent, will study the books I left."
He and others his age have turned to Krishna consciousness and other religions, he says, because they have learned that "all material enjoyment is false."
So he, for the sake of Krishna, is presiding over a community of about 12 men and three women in a comfortable but chairless house in a middle-class Portland neighborhood.
Why the Indian clothing and the haircut, which leaves a topknot but little else?
"With the devotees who are living in the temple, their main business is preaching," he said. "These things remind people of Krishna. It's also a sign of renunciation. We don't have to worry about our wardrobe."
Among the devotees in the Portland temple is 21-year-old Bhakti Michael, only four months a follower and still without a new name. He was Michael Ottenbacher of Portland until he began going to the fest the temple holds every Sunday.
"It's really bliss," he said. "This is the spiritual world." Bliss was far from his lot in the past, he said.
"In looking for happiness, I tried anything that alleviated the pain," he said. "I took drugs for a few years, LSD and things. They almost put me under the illusion that this was the ultimate."
After he found devotees of Krishna dancing on a downtown street, came to their fests and began lessons in the Bhagavad-gita, a Hindu scripture, he decided to stay in the temple.
"From the first night, I was intoxicated with Krishna consciousness. I found nothing attractive in the world. It was only this that was satisfying, that was beautiful, in the whole world."
Kuvera Das, 22, is an insistent, articulate black man from Chicago who handles incense sales in Oregon. He said he had a business degree from the University of Illinois and a job offer from a major corporation before he gave it up for Krishna.
Few black persons have become disciples of Sriprabhupada. "I'd say there are 10 to 15 or 20 in the whole movement," he said.
Why? Kuvera Das, who used to be Dwight Jones, says black persons have not yet realized that material things won't satisfy their longings for liberation.
"There are four stages of development," he said.
"First there is economic development."
"From there is religiosity."
"After that is sense gratification, and when you come to the conclusion of sense gratification, then you desire liberation."
"They're just now going through sense gratification."
Sikhandi Dasi, an 18-year-old San Franciscan who used to be known as Sherri Theall, said she joined the movement about a year and a half ago.
Like Kuvera Das and Dinabandu Das, she was sent to Portland to strengthen the temple population.
She said she grew up without any religion and was doing whatever she could to make herself happy - without success - before she learned about Krishna on a Berkeley, Calif., street.
"I tried to do so many things...get high, go to dances, sex life...something seemed to be missing."
"When I came to the temple, it just hit me."
Single women are equal to men in the Krishna community, she said, but married women must be subject to their husbands.
"Their husbands are kind of like spiritual masters," she said.
She said she used to be interested in yoga and even studied the Bhagavad-gita before she actually came to Krishna.
Those and other attempts to transcend her unhappiness were futile, she said, because she was not ready.
"If you want a cheap god, Krishna will give you a cheap god," she said. "Krishna will give you anything you want."