The Persuaders BBC Channel 4 Documentary

You're watching Channel 4. Now an inside look at the devotion, the euphoria, and the conflict within the Hare Krishna movement whose recruitment policy has caused them to be dubbed the Persuaders. Before I always wanted to be in love. It was my big thing to be madly in love.

And every time it was a letdown. But now, since I've taken a renounced order, I'm much more in love. And the relationships without making love are much, much deeper. When I remember when I became a devotee, and one of our vows is that no illicit sex.

And I remember thinking, how will I live my life alone? And it was very painful. The two things I didn't want to renounce were men and chocolate. the only thing I miss a little bit is chocolate because basically everything I was looking for in a man this perfect love, this ability to be able to give everything to have a reciprocation I'm now finding I'm having Namo Vishnupadaya Pramupada Sritamine Srimati Gurudevaya Bhagavan Goswami Namine Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna hurry hurry hurry rama hurry rama rama rama hurry hurry don't want somebody to take hold of their life they'd almost rather make their own mistakes i mean sermon especially women in this age have come to that point because they've never met anybody that one knew what was right and two was completely unexploited that was looking just for their welfare that was their true well-wisher and this is the role of the spiritual authority of the spiritual master and of his representatives but we have experience of the true well-wisher somebody that wants only your own good this is example of real love and this is an example that we don't find everybody is hungry for love to be loved and to give their love and one doesn't actually meet it and everybody becomes disappointed, they become hardened, they develop a shell of armor and protection, which they need.

And so when they need a spiritual man, a saintly man, as the spiritual master, they have a lot of resistance to it. And it takes a long time to surrender to somebody in spiritual authority. Thank you, Krishna. Happy birthday, Sri Ramana.

Thank you very much. I didn't know it was your birthday. For you, this is the itinerary for the week. This is the report.

We're going Friday, to be late. 12 special guests that I've invited. I think Maharaj might have invited some other, 100 or two, 300. I'm trying to keep it down.

What is the direction that this engagement is supposed to take all these people? These are people who are actually involved with helping the movement, are becoming devotees. They're important people in their own fields, and they understand. Who will be coming?

Princess Ali Ali Khan, Hayley Mills, Hazel O'Connor, Hazel's mom, Hazel's manager. They're worried? No, in fact, her mother said to Animesha, she came to see her, and so she said, Oh, she said, my daughter's a nervous wreck. If you can do something for her, I'd be very grateful.

So she sounds very nice. How about your mother? How is she? My mother's very good.

Perfect health, very good. But she wants to do some service. You know, all those ladies and men that you met in Palm Beach when you spoke, they'd like to do something. They'd like to become involved, especially with the food program, doing fashion show charities. so they're like something they'd like you to come back she expressed an interest last time she was here to redecorate the manor oh she's very good at it she can decorate him before it also oh you mean she should pay for that of course could you ask her should a good day there it is the persuader how an ex-model recruits top stars for harry krishna business is booming for the harry Krishna cult.

I hate when they call it a cult. You know, she was here for hours and I explained to her that it's a religion. Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics pop group, Hazel O'Connor and Hayley Mills are among their converts and the Hare Krishnas know that where the stars go, their young fans will follow. A leading light in this new Hare Krishna mission is a woman who calls herself Ritasya.

I hate when they say calls yourself. It's like, you phony and she does her converting work at select dinner parties, society balls and the sort of places rock stars frequent. Hazel, tomorrow we can go up to the manor to meet Shrugadeva. I've made all the arrangements so can you give me a call as soon as you come back?

So remember I told you out of all these people you extract those who are really enlivened with Krishna consciousness want to do something and automatically that will take you to the next step with us. Hazel is coming this week? Yes, she's coming tomorrow. How is she doing?

Very, very well. When did you first meet up with her again? We met at the Savoy. In fact, Animesha went and met her first and then he invited her to the house for dinner.

What was her reaction when she first saw her? Yeah, I want to know. So what did you say to her? Um, he was giving her a cookbook and he persisted and then he asked her said oh that's my mother there you know would you like to meet her come for dinner and then we started having dinners and then she ever heard that I was teaching Sharmini Bhagavad Gita we were studying she said oh can I come and do that too so then she came every day and we studied together two three hours in the afternoons and it grew and then she began to meet other devotees and make friendships and I think she's very sincere and very special but I think it would be perfect if you could take her under your wing now I think it's the final thing for her now she's very nervous about coming I think so she's in the proper etiquette for presenting for a spiritual master.

I wanted to go to your bathroom actually. I did, I did. I can do it later, I'll do it in a minute. I'll let it go in.

Well, you might as well go now. No, let's do it up there. Okay. Because of the traffic.

Okay. It's all right. What I have to do is simple. Brush my teeth.

Shuddhi Prabhupada said you should chant your rounds as though the atom bomb was ringing over your head on a thin string. That's how you should chant your rounds. Otherwise you could just drive on this road. Hare Krishna!

I think it's better not to talk about that. Philosophy isn't a good thing to discuss. It's the only thing to discuss on this show. You churn yours.

I can't take you with me. The song that got me famous was a song called The Eighth Day, which was about man pertaining to be God. And I just nicked it out of the Bible, really, really the seven days creation but i changed it to man creating things like submarines and bombs and eventually he created clones and man blew his own world up that's what the song was about but it was a hit it was a big hit the doom the doom side of things but that's what i thought at the time but since i've been talking with ritasya and coming here what's attracting you Well, I don't think I went that far, to be honest. I'm not being pretentious.

I don't mean it in that way, excuse me. I mean that I was always aware that there are flies that bother you in this world. No, I was always somewhere in the back of my mind aware that it's a power, but that's as far as I've got. So who are your friends now?

Maharaj, Natasha, hopefully you in a while but I'd rather just stick with the people that I really like because I trust them so he said you attract them for me in other words it's no longer a thing where you go out to attract men for your own purposes but you go out to attract men and women you know for seduction and seduction is always painful ultimately painful it's not that there's no happiness in material life there are but it's It's like compared to drops of water on the desert. You can be happy temporarily. I found that it continued at the pitch. I wanted it to get more and more and more my love.

I found that it didn't. It either became mundane or it usually disintegrated completely. So, enough. Whether I'd been a model or not, I would have been trapped in the same image.

I just, the image was there. Then it was just, in a sense, exploited by other people and by myself to get the things that, it was like armor. When you go into battle, you need a certain amount of armor. So this was my armor.

And truth be told, it was very effective. It's still very effective. But armor, or the outer covering, as it were, once you have some spiritual knowledge, you realize it's a tool. Whatever your opulence is, beauty, great wealth, it's a tool that you use in the service of God.

So it's not that you have to... I mean, I wouldn't become more spiritual, you know, going around being less. That wouldn't make me more spiritual. But it's a good tool because it attracts, basically I'm a preacher.

My job is to attract people. So it's one of the tools. Now, if that's all I have, if there's nothing there, if there's no, if you're a glossy painting of a dinner, but there's no real food to give them, then that's very tragic. And that's what would have happened ultimately to me.

We have all these things. You can make this one, Richard. Would you like to come out? We obviously have something like this.

Take two. Hi, Krishna. Hi, Krishna. Let me see you eat your best.

You want to share with me? I don't mind. It's fantastic tonight. Yeah, come on.

Are you enjoying it? She don't like it. There's peas, grains, a little puree of... No, no, listen.

I'm a vegetarian. You're wearing a neck-up zone. What's the problem? No problem.

Yes, I do occasionally. I want to do a book about people like you that come to meet the spiritual master. What you say, how he answers. But I want to do it very beautifully and also the movement, but in a way that really will appeal to people, excite them, inspire them.

And also break out a lot of misconceptions about what the actual spiritual life has to be. I'd love to. To do it properly. So many people think you have to give up everything and that you have to be miserable.

But I mean, it's not so bad, is it? No intoxication. So you've got a clear sense of intelligence to discriminate what is spiritual and what is material. No illicit sex life.

That means I don't just see women as a product where I can release some frustrated desires and they don't see me as some product or some financial asset that I can provide home and financial security. So instead of marriage just being, you know, I like you, you like me, OK, let's get together, that is doomed to failure. Because I like you now, but, you know, after a while my likes change and then I'm like, I'm better now. Now I'm like her better.

So that's sad. But if it's a question of, I like Krishna, you like Krishna, okay. We can get on very nicely together for a long time. There's an island somewhere in one of the great oceans of the world where they actually worship the Duke of Edinburgh because he came out of an aeroplane.

If you put a stone on a mantelpiece and after a week or so you add a flower to that stone, Pretty soon that stone takes on an importance and shortly afterwards you'll be worshipping that. That's the nature of religion. Anything goes. Absolutely anything.

Excuse me. Hare Krishna. I'd like to thank everyone on behalf of Srila Gurudeva and all the devotees here at Bhaktivedanta Manor for our guests coming tonight and especially to Hazel and Maharani and our mime troupe for putting on a nice performance this evening and I know we would all like to thank Srila Gurudev for giving us some enlightening words this evening to help us advance in spiritual life. Sincere!

You know what the sincerest thing is? You know what the sincerest thing is? That concrete beneath my bloody ass. Right?

That is sincere and that's honesty. That's my only bet. I don't get sucked off from no one. I don't accept it.

I don't want it. If I want another drop of soup and they come round with it, they're getting such concessions, I'm getting nothing. I understand some of the points. The main point was that he was going to do or be printed without first being checked with you.

It was a nice dinner party we had and the different guests who were there and some of the things they said. and then Srila Gurudeva, the leader of the Hare Krishna movement, was, you know, gave a talk. It was a very nice little... And anyway, after he spoke with you, he decided that he wouldn't print it. He's a devotee.

He's doing a lot of service. Yes, I know, but I didn't know him at all, and therefore, whether Jonathan's devotee or a newspaper man, he shouldn't have been given my number. Well, that follows a particular set of circumstances, namely a very frantic phone call by Riteshya, She was also doubting my integrity. Now this is a very, a fault that she has, that she does from time to time, where she also fails to give even Srila Gurudeva and myself the benefit of the doubt from time to time.

And following that frantic phone call, I said, look, it's not, you girls have blown it all out of proportion. you because hazel's crying her eyes out she's lost all faith in the movement what have you done and that's what you said to me i said wait this is getting all mad this is not this is not correct it wasn't correct and i could immediately detect as in the past when this has happened that instead of helping her to understand the situation you commiserated with her and you also were starting to have a crisis of faith and doubting my integrity and that's why That's why I got so heavy on the phone that you should... What she said was, because I asked her, did we not discuss it? Because we did. We all discussed it about publicity.

Right. The reason being... So the publicity was for Sheila Gurde's pleasure about the evening. Now, if you didn't want to be mentioned in the article, we draw up the quote on Hazel O'Connor, but Hayley doesn't mind.

And Hayley said, it was a wonderful evening, and I'd like to have dinner with my fathers and mothers with Sheila Gurde. You know, I mean, it's just a little article to help to, you know, because you never know with service. You see, service comes and goes. You come and go, Haley comes and goes, I come and go.

Things come and go real fast in this world. You know, it's just blips of information over the TV, blips of information in newspapers. But the fact is, a little good news here and there builds up an incredible response in the public that helps us with our mission. now that's preaching work but wouldn't it have been better which was what started the whole thing off was that if you've got somebody like me who's interested who's not committed who's interested who's shown some kind of commitment by willingness to learn I'm not saying I want to learn it's not showing I'm doing this to show I'm willing to i want to learn so learning and being with special people like shrila gurdav yourself mama ritesh here you know the whole thing is uh continues to be a revealing experience like even us having this now what happens is and i'm sure everybody that ever talks about meeting or being with devotees gets like devotee aversion every so often and I had a classic case of that at the end of it all which was even that was interesting because I had to think why don't I ever want to see them again Hazel wants to do publicity wants to do things at the right time in the right way and the point is it's not something you can just rip off these people they have to yeah but that's That's my point.

When you use that kind of language with me, that's inappropriate, because I'm not a rip-off. I'm not trying to rip off anybody. Who used that? And that's my point.

If you feel in your heart that this is what I tried to do this weekend, well, then why did she say those words? I think it's a very bad idea to put the things in that news of the world, when the point is you promised... I don't know news of the world at any time. All I ask is, Jonathan, write a little blurb and check it back with me.

And we'll check with Hazel. And if everyone likes it and Sheila Gurdia liked it, he said it should go on. Sheila Gurdia liked it. He thought, oh, this is wonderful.

Put it in. My gosh, you promised Hazel that there would be no press. That's right. And therefore, I was going to check with Hazel before we published it.

The main point of the thrust of the article was there was a dinner for Sheila Gurdia. And several people came. And Hayley Mills said this. and Hazel said that. Now if Hazel doesn't want to say that at the dinner, it's fine with me, I'm not attached.

But what I don't appreciate is being told on the phone, like you just told me now, that I'm a rip off. Or that I'm gonna mishandle people. When the fact of the matter is. But that was a mishandling of her.

She was completely freaked out. It did freak me out. And all you brought. Now hold on, now two points here.

Right. First off, as Hazel pointed out, sometimes she goes potty anyway. No, not anyway. No, not anyway.

These are the reasons. That's why I said that. That's right. But all she had to do was call me.

All she had to do was for the two of you to come over and see me. We could have cleared the whole thing up in a second. But instead, you called me up and tried to accuse me that I wasn't being very having very much integrity in the situation I said it was just premature I didn't say anything about integrity I said I was very worried that Hazel that I was worried about what was going on and if you had only said to me don't worry won't use anything unless we always ask people that would have been the end of it It's not just myself, it's others too. In the beginning when you first started coming around, you had a missionary spirit, but the perverted twist it took was that Srila Gurudeva was an instrument for your plan to save the world.

Going back to your days with Castro and Che Guevara and all that, you know, revolutionary Spirit, you saw in Srila Gurudeva a very powerful, a real spiritual master that you could use to save the world. Now we got over that misunderstanding that actually you're the servant of the spiritual master, the spiritual master is not your servant, but there's still residues of that attitude. Your avatar complex, that you're God, an avatar means a divine descent, a personality who descends from the spiritual realm to save others now your tendency is to think that because on one level you're able to attract people to this movement that you're very successful and potent but the real fact of the matter which really really when i've gone over with you many times is that that's about where it ends you don't have the power and spiritual austerity and knowledge yourself to take them much further beyond that initial attraction but when you get all attached to trying to, you know, completely manipulate the situation as per Hazel or anything else, and then you doubt or you think that I'm interfering with your master plan, which is what you said over the phone, then we have a basic problem again, where you use the words, this is not according to our master plan.

And I pointed out to you, I said, whose master plan? Srila Gurudeva, and I haven't discussed this with you, so whose master plan are you talking about? And this is where, and it was the same old consciousness that you had before. Manifesting again, only this time Hazel was the catalyst.

Now I'm not perfect, and when I get a lot of pressure on me from all directions, as I have when Srila Gurudeva there when we're coming to the end of the week everything and i get a phone call and at least to my ears it sounds panicky it sounds weird it's not giving me the benefit of the doubt it expresses the idea like you just did a minute ago that i'm just ripping off hazel for some cheap publicity scam well you know i have to admit that i got a little offended and so i just reacted all right listen, the buck stops here, don't worry about it, click. You know, because I'm in the middle of a meeting with Srila Gurudeva, I'm not going to take out time at that point to go into the whole thing with you, when it's, frankly, you should have a little more faith on what Gurudeva said, give us the benefit of the doubt, nothing's going to happen.

Now, that's where I'll have to be humble today, and say, no, and really, honestly, that it was a little inexpert. Not much, I definitely have to beg Mother Tusha's forgiveness that I was a little heavy-handed with her due to not remaining transcendental. But still, but I'd just like to say that then we have to, at that point we have to separate style from content. Now, was the content of what I was saying correct or not?

And I think I was correct. Now, the style may have been a little heavy-handed. And for that, I apologize. Yes.

So you've been feeling a little estranged? Very. Why do you think? It seems that everything I start to try to do for you, I start to do it, and then it gets either taken away, or somebody comes in, or I'm not told, and everything then falls apart.

And so, you know, it happens once or it happens twice, so you tolerate it. But it's becoming just the whole pattern of everything. Well, the point is that there's a principle which we're missing. And that is that because you keep yourself isolated from the devotees, and even with Maharaj, the ability to communicate is breaking down.

Sorry. See, it's not just the few devotees that you're attached to. It's even Maharaj and even me. You feel that no one can understand you, that you are the best one to understand you.

And no one can understand you. But if you are going to take a spiritual master, then you have to at least try to take his instruction first, almost like it's axiomatic. It's complete and it's perfect for you. If we want to denigrate the position of spiritual master to just someone who's just got an opinion and he has his opinion and I have my opinion, now certainly there's some discussion, but ultimately there's siddhanta, there's conclusion.

And you always have to accept the conclusion, just like Arjuna had to ultimately accept the conclusion of Bhagavad-gita. So if I speak to you or even some old devotee like Maharaj is speaking to you and it's just you refuse to accept that then experience what it's like and you do experience what it's like whenever you just refuse to accept you become completely disheartened even though you're using that independence and you've seen when actually you've you've success you have accepted and you've done it in a humble mood that actually krishna has given you success i don't want you to think when you come i come in the door you say oh there's this woman again you know i want to bring with something and I want to do I want to do something out in the world but do you possibly think you're going to be able to do that with any without any instruction for me how to do that I'm always learning from you always I won't listen to your tapes all day listening to tapes is one thing when we're talking about how to do your specific service that's another kind of class isn't it And you're so attached to doing it right that you don't check before and you don't check after.

You learn just how to check with me, or Maharaj, or others. Don't you get tired of checking all the time? No, just like a cook. A cook, Prabhupada said, after the cook finishes cooking, he's supposed to go out, personally serve it himself, and then after everyone takes, he's supposed to ask if everyone enjoyed it.

And if anyone had some complaint, he's supposed to listen to it. Not just he thinks because I cooked it and I worked hard in the kitchen, therefore everyone has to like it. There may be some preparations that get burned a little bit. That's easy.

Well, that's all. If you could just do that, you would find a big, big difference. You're making it more complicated than you have to. Yeah, I thought it was going to be much harder.

Don't you want to please the devotees? even if they're real simple devotees oh yeah don't you want to please me so then if you just go and practice a little humility and ask everyone how they thought it was you'll find it and what more you could do if you just adopt this little humble attitude but that's very simple yes then why don't you do it i can do that if you read bhagavad-gita the first quality of knowledge which is humility. tabhe sanatana prabhoracharane dhariya dhanya vinati kare dante trinalana dhanya humility vinati bowing kare does dante in the teeth trina is straw Translation A devotee should think of himself lower than the straw in the street, more tolerant than a tree. So the principle of existence should be humility. For one who has to die at any moment, for one who is so caught up in the world of duality, what is there actually to be proud of?

Really there is only one thing to be proud about in this world, and that is that we are all part and parcel of Krishna, who is the greatest. As Krishna is the greatest and we are part and parcel of him, then there is something great to be proud about. Hazel, welcome. You had a meteoric rise to fame in the film Breaking Glass, didn't you?

But what else has happened to you? Have you had any other big changes in your life? Well, over the last year, as I said, because things weren't happening as fast as I thought they would, I had to search my soul a little bit as to why weren't things the way I wanted them why did i ever suffer and all that kind of stuff that everybody questions and i did actually come up to the conclusion that um i think there's some kind of supreme controller and it's not me god or call it what you like and from that premise onwards i discovered a lot of things like i stopped eating meat and became vegetarian to see how that felt i met with some harry krishna people in the movement and i started to chant which has left me like a lot calmer so when at work and i always chant a lot before i go on and anytime i've not been talking to you i'm going to leave my bead bag in a minute oh great because you've got a little counter in there haven't you it looks like a stitch counter you told me it was in fact well i'm supposed to use these which are chanting beads right but because i'm in the media this thing here like clocks up how many chants you do a day and it's just a way of kind of counting what you're actually doing and you know i mean you can believe it or you don't have to believe it really it's just i found it very important part of my life like growth well you seem to be incredibly together now more ways than one i mean you're fronting your own future now aren't you very much i think so calling the shots and now you're going to do for us your latest single is that right that's right from your album and it's called it cuts too deep it did it doesn't anymore leave me your beads yes and tomorrow lisa kim's gonna be here again with hints on chinese kukri Now, Hazel O'Connor with It Cuts Too Deep.

She's got a nice smile. She's a real sweet girl. Thank you, guys. That is one wonderful song.

I saw that nice girl on Pebble. Pebble, no, it was. Little does he know what a freak out she really is, eh? This song will be number one one day.

This song will be a great song. It'll be a great song in America. I just keep pushing. It still works.

It still works. It does that job. To entertain and to capture people's minds is quite special. So therefore I want your career to be successful just for this purpose.

And it's like the lady said, it's a completely different hazel. And that's, I mean, we know why that is. because you've taken such advantage of being in Krishna consciousness actually and you've gotten my support and Krishna's support through chanting and but you have to persevere well Tasyur is an attractor well attracted is it's a funny word I saw her at that we'd done a concert at the Savoy in the harry krishna band playing and I personally had a deep rooted hate of harry krishna people because I had a very nasty experience with one when I was 16 and to me it was like looking at a room full of demons thinking oh I hate them I hate them but then I met Anamisha Ritesh's son he was so funny and so like wouldn't give up and then he said come and have a cup of tea with my mother and I sometime I looked across and I saw this woman with bright blue contact lenses in and perfectly white sari and everything was so perfect I thought this can't be for real and it made me actually want to go for that reason therefore you know I wouldn't say that probably Ritassia could attract every sort of person because you know she's got unusual qualities but it was enough to attract me I thought she is so camp this woman what's going on and so Ritesh is great at sort of attracting the more camp side of life more strange people and certainly worked with me but then after that if I was going to carry through with a philosophy I need I will I need, I need the best and Srila Gurudev's the best.

This modeling and having to put my sort of my faith in the way I looked, then you can say as you get older you're on a loser's trip. But now in my life I'm on a winning trip because the love that I'm experiencing now with the people that I teach and the people I'm close to is so sweet and I'm very neophyte in spiritual life. So as I'm getting better and making advancement, God willing, my life will become more and more beautiful, more lovely. So this is the perfect life.

I mean, what's the problem? Humility has to go both ways or it doesn't work. If humility is not going both ways between your authority and yourself. You're a sucker to leave.

Things are very difficult here and I don't know what the future will bring with him. Right now things are at a very difficult place. I know that I wanted to serve everything that he represents and actually I'm quite determined that I will. Spiritual life is personal.

Is there anybody you can trust now? To trust? You mean to trust somebody with your entire life?