Krishna Cult - the Chant Goes On
This article, "'TUNE' TESTS PATIENCE AT BERKELEY: Krishna Cult - the Chant Goes On" was published in The Los Angeles Times, January 11, 1970, in Los Angeles, California.
BY DARYL LEMBKE
Times Staff Writer
BERKELEY - The chant goes on all day and into the evening at the Sproul Plaza entrance to the UC Berkeley campus.
"I wish they'd change their tune," complained a secretary in Sproul Hall. "It gets nerve-wracking."
Berkeley is accustomed to bizarre scenes, but even here, the sight of young Americans arrayed like figures in a tableaux on the banks of the Ganges is a jolt to some and an annoyance to others.
Gandhi - like figures wrapped in billowing yellow robes accompany their chant with clanging cymbals, drums, a harmonium (similar to a portable organ) and a string instrument called the tambura.
Men Have Pony Tails
The men have their heads shaved, except for a pony tail called a sika. The women have long hair and flowing saris. All of them wear white marks on their foreheads as a sign of humility.
The mark is made with clay that comes from India, as do other distinguishing features of Krishna Consciousness, the religion practiced by the chanters at Sproul Plaza.
This cult has spread across the nation in just three years and now has temples in 20 U.S. cities. Others have been established in Europe and South America.
Some critics of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness contend that a religion ought to consist of more than merely chanting Krishna's name all day and night as the devotees do.
Others object to the Krishna sect's aggressive attempts to recruit converts. They contend that the Krishna evangelism and chanting in conspicuous places like the university entrance here and the cable car turnaround at Market and Powell Sts. in San Francisco are inconsistent with Indian culture.
Because of these reservations from a scholarship standpoint, the university has refused credit for an experimental course on Krishna Consciousness which will be taught during the winter quarter by Hans Kary, president of the sect's temple here.
University staff members in the administrative offices of Sproul Hall are not concerned with the Krishna philosophical approach. It is of no moment to them whether a touch of the Baptist faith has crept into Hindu cult. Some employees have complained bitterly to campus police, however, that the chanting is driving them up the wall.
"No one objects to the practice of religion, but when a repetitious sound continues over several hours, it's like dropping water on a stone," said a member of the campus police force, which also has its headquarters in the basement of Sproul Hall.
In spite of the complaints, the university has made no attempt to expel the Krishna devotees from the wide sidewalk strip at Telegraph Ave. and Bancroft Way, where they regularly perform.
Sidewalk Orators
University administrators are understandably chary about severely restricting activites on the strip, which also accommodates pamphleteers, sidewalk orators of various political persuasions, doughnut vendors and fundamentalist Christian preachers.
Back in 1964, the school banned political activity on that same strip. The action set off the Free Speech Movement demonstrations. These angry protests of the university "machine" eventually led to relaxation of the ban on political activity and only the time, place and manner of such efforts are now regulated.
With an apparent hiatus occurring now in the six-year cycle of campus confrontations, the administration is apparently very hard of hearing when it comes to getting riled about mere noise.
Leaders of Krishna Consciousness seem unperturbed by the complaints about their actions. They remained calm even when seven members of the San Francisco Temple across the bay were arrested recently in front of the Geary Theater. They were chanting, passing out incense and asking for donations from theater patrons leaving a performance of "Hair."
Police charged them with disturbing the peace and obstructing traffic.
Michael Morrissey, 22, the president of the San Francisco temple and one of those arrested, said the Krishna practices would continue as before.
'Our Life and Our Soul'
"We must continue our chanting." he said. "It is our life and our soul. People are not going to like it, but many times I don't like it when people blow grass (marijuana) smoke in my face, and many people didn't like the Salvation Army when they came on the streets."
The Krishna society was formed in 1966 by Prabhupada A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. He brought the movement from India, established temples that first year in New York and San Francisco and is called the spiritual master by Krishna devotees in the United States.
At the core of the religion is the Krishna chant or mantra: "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare."
Krishna means the Supreme Being. Bhaktivedanta traces the religion back 500 years to an Indian named Chaitanya, who learned that he could achieve ecstasy by chanting the Supreme Being's name. The practice is common among various Hindu cults.
"The sum and substance of Krishna is chanting," explained Kary, the Berkeley Temple president.
Kary emigrated to the United States from Germany with his parents when he was 10 years old. He went through high school in New York and worked as a realist painter before joining the Krishna movement three years ago.
"Everyone in this country is trying to squeeze pleasure from material activities such as making money, taking drugs or having sex," said Kary. "But they can achieve a higher pleasure by chanting which gives us transcendental vibrations."
Devotees support themselves by begging, selling booklets about the movement and selling incense.
Live in Temples
Most live in temples, where life is austere. Married couples are accepted for membership and marriage is permitted between single men and women after they join but romance in the conventional courtship sense is frowned upon.
A recent issue of the movement's magazine, Back To Godhead, explained how marriages are arranged:
"When a brahmachari (single man) decides to marry, the system is that he should consult his godbrothers and ask their advice. If they agree that marriage is the best thing for his spiritual advancement, then he should submit his plan to the spiritual master for approval."
"Upon approval of the spiritual master, an eligible girl is chosen, either by the spiritual master himself or by the brahmachari's godbrothers. It is best if neither the boy nor the girl has choice in selecting this lifelong companion. Marriage is not for sense gratification, and therefore the partner should not be selected on the basis of sexual attraction, but on the couple's desire to work hard together for the spiritual master."
Those joining the movement agree to drink no intoxicants, take no drugs, eat no meat, fish or eggs, do no gambling and engage in no "illicit sex life."
A typical day starts at 4 a.m., when devotees rise, take baths, dress and begin their chanting. They keep track of their chants on strings of beads. Each string has 108 beads, one for each recitation of the 16-word mantra.
In the course of a day, the devotee is expected to make 16 circles of the beads, which comes out to delivering the mantra 1,728 times.
Bake Own Bread
A one-hour service is held at 7 a.m., consisting of chanting, readings and lectures. Then comes breakfast, consisting of fruit and milk, and performance of household duties such as cleaning and cooking. The followers eat only food which they prepare. None is canned or frozen. They even bake their own bread.
All members of the temple "go on the street," usually to Telegraph Ave. and the university entrance, for a couple of hours of chanting after household duties are completed. They return for lunch about 2 p.m. This is their major meal of the day.
Back to Street
After lunch, they go back to the street for several hours more of chanting. They return to the temple about 8:30 p.m., take a bath, have milk and fruit and retire.
Most of the members are in their 20s. Kary estimates that the movement has about 2,000 members nationally. Some followed the hippie life style and took drugs before finding Krishna.
"We're not hippies - we're happies," said Kary. "Chanting satisfies people's desire to feel blissful, to feel high all the time."
The Berkeley Temple has 20 devotees, including four women. Single women live in rooms separate from the men in the three-story rented house.
This achievement of an almost trance-like state through chanting seems to be the appeal that has attracted young people to the movement. Among the cities which have temples are Boston, Buffalo, Washington, D.C., Detroit, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Seattle.
Dr. J. F. Staal, professor of philosophy and Near Eastern languages at UC Berkeley and an instructor in Indian philosophy, believes that the Krishna sect is an authentic Indian religion and that its adherents are sincere.
Belief in Mysticism
He attributes the society's rapid increase in members to the tendency of today's younger generation to reject organized churchgoing while at the same time searching for fulfillment of a belief in mysticism.
He points out, however, that persons who turn away from Christianity, Mohammadism and Judaism have usually lost faith with the personal god of those religions and are looking for a mystical religion without absolutes.
"These people in the Krishna movement have turned to Hinduism but, curiously, it is a cult that is highly personalistic," Staal said. "They accept a personal god, Krishna, and Christianity has that. I feel that they have transferred some of their Christian background to a Hindu sect."
He also feels that they spend too much time chanting to develop a philosophy. On these grounds, he and others on the faculty turned down the request to give Kary's course credit.
Hard to Dislike
Members of Sigma Chi Fraternity, whose house backs up to the Krishna Temple, have found it hard to dislike the Krishna followers in spite of their eccentric ways.
Disturbed at the persistent chanting and with a few drinks under their belts, some of the fraternity boys went to the temple one night a few weeks ago, began raising their own din and broke some windows.
Krishna members got out of bed, got dressed, took their cymbals and musical instruments and went chanting and dancing to the front of the fraternity house.
"They threw beer cans at us at first," Kary said. "They also invited us mockingly to come in, so we went in, continuing our chanting. They made fun of us at first, but in about 20 minutes, they were all chanting and singing with us. They even took us over to a nearby sorority house and the girls there joined in the dancing and chanting."
"The whole atmosphere became transformed. It was beautiful. All enmity was dissolved."
Asked about the incident, Sigma Chi President Mark Ornellas, 20, agreed that it had a happy ending.
"They (the Krishna followers) don't bother anyone," he said. "They're just a colorful group. It's just part of Berkeley."
Photo: BERKELEY BEAT - Members of International Society for Krishna Consciousness chant and play instruments at the Sproul Plaza entrance to UC Berkeley. Religious cult has spread across the nation in just three years and has temples in 20 U.S. cities, including Berkeley.