Mid Morning LA on Hare Krishna Brainwashing

the krishna consciousness movement has very very ancient origins krishna spoke the bhagavad-gita that's their bible in india more than 5 000 years ago but their roots in the united states actually are still quite young they were established only in 1966 which obviously wasn't a very long time ago but in that relatively short time their membership in the united states stands at 2 million that's 50 million members worldwide and for my money that's a quite a growth in a very short period of time michael uh welcome back and welcome back to you too michael how how did it begin here in the united states our founder uh his divine grace ac bhaktivedanta swami prabhupada is a spiritual master in a long line of succession which goes back over 5 000 years in india This knowledge had been within India for this period of time, but our spiritual masters teacher had the vision that in the West, as industry would increase, as worldwide tensions would become more frightening, economic chaos would begin to reign, personal tensions and fragmentation of society would grow, that a seer from this tradition should go to the West. and try to implant not only the knowledge of Bhagavad Gita, meditation, reincarnation, but a whole culture which will give people a chance, an opportunity to transcend these anomalies that are upon us. There's probably no simple way to ask this question, but what is the basic belief?

I mean, say, as opposed to myself, Roman Catholic. Are there similarities in our religions? Oh, yes. Actually, all religions at root are similar. we're monotheistic.

Krishna is the Sanskrit name for God. We believe in one God. We believe that we are the soul, not the body. You do believe in one God?

Oh, yes. Yes, absolutely. Is it a man or a woman? Krishna is a male form, and he can also manifest himself in other forms.

But there's one God who exists in this form, who we are part of as a soul. And every soul is by nature a servant of god actually we want to perform some sort of service to god we're qualitatively exactly the same as god but quantitatively we're very small so by chanting mantras that which delivers the mind we realize our original spiritual consciousness and we become blissful and happy even despite whatever may be going on around us and now this morning when we got here i was able to peek into this temple which is so lovely and uh i guess i was witness to a kind of a ceremony were they chanting mantras they were all in here with flowers uh many roses things like that were they chanting this is very similar to the christian rosary we're chanting the names of god krishna means god hare and rama are addresses to the energy and the pleasure potency of god so this is an address to invoke the energy of god into asking to let us engage in his service so So this is a direct form of worship.

And you'll see this worship in millions of temples all over India, carried on in this very traditional manner as we do. We have, in my religion, stations of the cross, rosary beads, for tools, if you will, for lack of a better word. What tools do you have in the Christian faith? Our beads are called Japa beads.

In fact, the same number of beads, 108, are used throughout the world by Buddhists, Mohammedans, Christians. And we chant the mantra, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, on each beat. Correct me if I'm wrong. I was told, or I was led to believe, that each person has his own individual mantra.

If I were Hare Krishna, I would be given... No, Hare Krishna means the Maha Mantra, which is a public mantra. Anyone can chant it. There's no fee for it, and it's meant to bring the consciousness of the whole planet to a higher level of awareness.

It's a type of super-consciousness, as opposed to subconsciousness induced by marijuana, cocaine and this type of thing it's becoming very prevalent let's take a look at uh what would be termed your bible this uh bhagavad gita was originally written in the sanskrit language chantal these texts go way back since the first written annals in history this particular verse deals with the pleasures and pains of the material world which are non-permanent they come and go and how one must learn to tolerate them. So by reading even one verse of Bhagavad Gita, you can open the book up to practically any page, find a very satisfying little aphorism, a verse, and be very peaceful and happy for the rest of the day. That would be applicable for that day. Exactly.

What about the children? What kind of training do they get? Do they go to a Bible school? That is generally left up to the parents.

We do have our own schools. In fact, we have a school about four hours north of here, near the Fresno area. and we do have schools all over the country some parents prefer to have their children go to a public school so we really leave it up to the parents to choose how they want their children educated you know we were talking earlier about the celibacy and the the priesthood for lack of a better word would one choose that celibacy yes one may either marry or remain celibate as one wishes. If we may, for just a moment, talk about your celibacy. You've been celibate for 15 years.

Yes. As a man, you must have flashes of desire as one would give up beef, wanna eat a hamburger. What do you do with those human desires? The principle is called, in Sanskrit, param drishtam, which means higher taste.

The, according to Bhagavad Gita, desire for sense objects remains within the mind and cannot actually be forcibly renounced or constrained or restrained, but they can be controlled only if one achieves what is called pramadrishta, or higher taste, that which gives a pleasure which is so much greater that one feels one isn't missing anything. This is what mantra chanting, bhakti yoga, will produce if a practitioner is sincere and follows through with all his spiritual practices. What is Maranatha Associates, Dave? Well, primarily, Maranatha Associates is a professional organization that has been put together to address itself to the phenomena of cults.

We do a variety of things. A lot of people either do this kind of stuff allocationally, that is, they do it part-time, something like this, or they do one thing and not the other. We have a number of people throughout the United States. We do a lot of different work in different areas, such as litigation, media work.

This is an example of that, being here today. We have several types of counseling that we do. You're actually opposed to cults, is that correct? We are opposed to the incorrect and illegal activities of cults.

To be called a cult doesn't mean you're good or you're bad. It simply means that you are an organization out of the mainstream, small, something like that. After, you know, some of them can be called sects, S-E-C-T. And at that point, again, you have to look at what do they do.

Is it good or bad? Some of the mainline, quote, religions do things that are not, quote, correct. We argued about that before, I remember, when you came on the show. We won't do that today, but don't you actually go in occasionally?

I mean, this isn't, you know, the whole of everything that you do, and actually remove people from cults for their family members. When we do that, we do that primarily in a legal and legitimate manner. There's a lot of people who have gotten themselves quote-unquote famous doing some of this kind of work, have gotten famous because they've made mistakes or they've done things that are illegal. Let us say you have an organization, Cult X, okay?

Okay. Brand X, the religious field. And they, your child or your wife or somebody, was engaged by them on the street someday while shopping or something. And the next thing you know, they're gone.

And in checking this out, you find out that this was not a legitimate conversion or something of that nature. Did they actually kidnap them, you're saying? Well, no, not necessarily. Not physically.

Not physically kidnapping. I mean, that there was fraud involved, there was deception involved, there was cheating involved. They were not told the total truth of the matter. And there are some cults, for instance, that you could be in them for up to six or eight, even nine weeks, and not even know the actual name of the cult.

Why would anybody do that? I can't understand why anybody would go with anybody. The desire? Well, on the part of the person who is brought in, okay, What you have is, everybody has desires, needs, wants.

You have your dreams, Meredith has hers, I have mine. And we also have built-in insecurities. That's part of the thing that makes us unique and human. Our frailties, as you were.

And these people are very adept at finding the self in you. And they basically make a little package, and they dangle it in front of you and say, hey, we've had it all the time. Mormons you also consider to be a cult. Yes, I do.

Christian scientists, we talked about that before. Yeah, a lot of these organizations, for instance, like the ones you've named, you don't hear a lot about them doing quote unquote a lot of garbage things. You hear either it's passive or you hear some positive things, all right? And so the basic difference is strictly a theological difference.

If Meredith and I were married and she disappeared off the street and all of a sudden she's with a cult, and I come to you, and you say, well, okay, you figure out it's a legitimate kind of mental kidnapping. You're going to go after her. But Meredith is old enough to know what she's doing. She can say to you, look, I did this with my own free will.

Well, we check into that also by basically finding out just how it came about. But the state of California recognizes the fact that although we may be adults, we may not always act like adults. We could also be defrauded. That's why we have certain laws in our books. and we work within those laws and when we go to a court by the way, I'm going to say this for those who may be watching, who may be involved with these cults we don't go there screaming about their religion, okay that is not our concern they have the right to worship as they please they have that right, but they do not have the right to violate another human being's rights, or just to violate another human being when we come back from our commercial break Jeff and I want to ask you about that, because Chantal, our field reporter, is out there live in the field at Hare Krishna Temple.

And we're going to have you say what you feel about them, and then they're going to have a chance to respond to what you have to say. Okay. Very interesting this morning. Be right back.

Welcome back to Midmorning LA. Meredith and I are with Dave Wignall with Maranatha, which is an organization which repossesses people who have been taken by cults against their will, against their psychological will. well the Hare Krishna the Krishna cult which is a division of Hinduism has failed in India and that goes back to 1486 if I pronounce the name correctly forgive me if I don't because I have a biology but the name was Chaitanya I think it is my Hindu obviously is very terrible he was supposed to be a reincarnation of Krishna and so on and what have you and then what do they believe well they espouse a belief in their bible would be the bhagavad-gita if i'm not part of that role also yeah well you i wouldn't know yeah well that's what i do i just follow that in seek up the moral ways to that theological quicksand uh uh and uh which that's their kind of like their bible which is part of the big scriptures, there's 90,000 tablets in the big scripture.

And they primarily believe that, like in reincarnation. You said something that you don't interfere with cults that aren't doing something destructive or against the law, that people have a right to believe what they want to believe. From what you just told us about Hare Krishna, that's their choice, that's their religion. What, in your opinion, do they do wrong, and why have you gone after some of their members?

To begin with, they are experts at deception, fraud, illegal activities. They're known colloquially as the mafia of the religious world. As a matter of fact, they have ties to the organized crime families of the United States. Now, that's a serious charge.

It sure is. It's been made in several newspapers and proven. They've been involved in the murder of people right here in Southern California. Murder?

Murder. Contract murder. You've made some very serious charges here this morning, and Chantal, our field reporter here on Midmorning LA, is out live right now with one of the members of a Hare Krishna cult at their temple. And you've accused them so far of being involved with a mafia and a murder.

I'm sure they'll do that. To name a few. I would think they wouldn't admit it. Let's give them a chance.

Chantal? I'm visiting with Michael Grant, who is Minister of Public Affairs for the Hare Krishna. Meredith is certainly right, Michael. Those were quite a boatload of accusations.

Would you like to respond, please, to Mr. Wignalls? Yes, Chantal. Of course, our attorneys who are watching today, I'm sure, have a lot of material to work on in relation to what's been said this morning.

However, I would like to point out that our religion, the higher Christian religion, has the lowest crime rate of any religion in the world. That there have been some cases where people who claimed our faith have been in trouble with the law. but these are individuals, and no religion can be impugned for the actions of individuals. I think if one were to log the religious faith of the various people involved in serious crime in the world, you'd find amongst all the Christian faiths, amongst Mohammedans and Jewish faiths, it's a very surprisingly high rate. Of course, we don't know because the media generally don't log a person's religion according to a crime or a crime according to one's religion. so it's very important that one shouldn't try to impugn a religion for the actions of individuals interestingly enough the word cult as being applied here was applied to the early Christians for the first 500 years until the king Constantine decided to declare his empire the Roman Empire as the Holy Roman Empire so I'm hoping that we don't have to wait 500 years now that we have things like television to let people know who we really are and what we really do.

That's an excellent point, Michael. Mr. Wignalls, would you want to respond to that? Go ahead.

First of all, to go back over his history a little bit, the Christian religion was never referred to as a cult in the first 500 years of its existence. Christianity was, at the early stages, always called the way, or the way of God. and the idea of being a cult. The way you can refer to it as a cult would be as a small beginning, but it was only small for about the first six months to a year of its existence. After that, it was huge.

You know, he made a point that you really can't blame a religion for the actions of some of the individuals. That's if it's an individual action. If it's an organized thing as it is with the high Christians, some instances. Now, there are times, I'm sure, as he points out, that individuals, maybe they get overzealous, go out and do something they shouldn't that's true i'll go along with that but when it's an organized planned program that is a different story and are you saying that crime is an organized planned program of the harry krishnan yes well we better give him a chance to respond once again sean tall thank you meredith thank you jeff well michael well what do you have to say to that i think it's very important for people who are interested in higher consciousness and genuine spiritual life to know that it involves a type of control of the senses now in our religion which is the orthodox core of the hindu religion not a divergent fire religion and this is our book father which does go back 5 000 years in fact the original writings the original transition of this knowledge goes back even before the dead sea scrolls were written there are literally millions of Krishna temples in India this book is followed by some 650 million people now followers of Bhagavad Gita and the spiritual science known as Krishna consciousness are not allowed to take any form of intoxication that not only includes drugs and alcohol but even down to tea, coffee and cigarettes premarital sex is not allowed no gambling is allowed no meat eating, fish or eggs So, of course, we have been praised for our work by the Washington Area on Drug Abuse, Washington Area Council, for being almost 100% effective in curing members who enter our program on drug addiction.

We have letters from officials all over the world for our work in combating the tendency for young people to get involved in crime, especially drug-related crime, and I have documentation this high to verify what I've said. And we'll have the opportunity to talk about that and lots more. We'll be right back, so stay with us, please. You know, listening to Mr.

Wignalls this morning, I found most of his claims very surprising. But one of the ones that I would like to ask you to retaliate a little bit is he talked about the women. He said, boy, you know, ERA and National Organization for Women should really be down on these people because they treat women as a form of lower life. Is that true?

I thought that statement was about as ludicrous as his accusation that we were involved with organized crime. Actually, if- None of you look like gangsters. Never. If you talk with some of the women, which presumably you have, the test is to see how happy a person is.

Liberation is not simply economic or political. Liberation means to know I'm not the body, that I'm a soul, that I have a blissful nature. So any woman who participates in that, that is real liberation. That's what we're offering.

It's a question of choice. It's a question of choice, exactly. From whence do these people come to be a member of Hare Krishna? Were they once dopers and drinkers?

Well, what you're seeing now, your viewers are seeing, is the sight of Hare Krishna that they probably never do see. If you come here any Sunday to this community here, you'll see anywhere between 1,500 and 3,000 people who come for a wonderful spiritual festival. When these people come to us and join us, we now have about two million members in this country, through our books. 80% of the people come because they've read something that's struck a chord in them that's important, they've studied the philosophy, and you'll find most of them, for about a year, will read and study and gradually approach Krishna consciousness.

That's how most of the people join our movement. Are you a wealthy religion? By the standards of what most people know as religion, we're talking about the mainline religions, even including the Mormons, I would say we're very poor. Some people would say that this might be considered opulent, where we are now.

The temple, it is very, very simple, but it is very, very beautiful. Your sound studio across the street is expansive, to say the least. Surely you don't make that kind of money selling incense. Our income is derived from a lot of contributions now with our large membership, which is much larger than when we first started.

So what we do in a temple, because Krishna is a concept of God, not as a poor man or an old man sitting on a throne, but a very opulent, very beautiful, wonderful, happy person who gives pleasure to the senses. So the temples of Krishna are very opulent. But myself and others here have a wardrobe of two of these and two of these, and we sleep on mats, and we live very austerely, actually. Well, I certainly have enjoyed my visit here, and I'm glad that I had this assignment, because again I had great misconceptions about the Hare Krishna and I find your community to be absolutely lovely the people are beautiful uh I have to put in a plug for the food the Hare Krishna food is absolutely incredible thank you so much for visiting with us thank you for letting us share this with you