International Society for Krishna Consciousness

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International Society for Krishna Consciousness

Standing at the forefront of the contemporary emergence of Eastern religions in North America, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness was the first of the Asian religious groups to form in the wake of the changes in 1965 in the U.S. immigration laws allowing more Asians to immigrate to the United States. The society was founded by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977), who in the mature stage of his life was responding to the admonition of his teacher to bring the popular Bengalee Vai??ava Hinduism, as taught by the Guadiya Mission, to the West. His arrival coincided with the coming of age of the baby boom generation and the emergence of the psychedelic street people subculture in America. He spoke directly to the subculture participants, offering them a means of getting high through meditation and chanting rather than taking drugs, and the overwhelming majority of people who joined were former drug users.

Swami Prabhupada taught a form of Vai??ava practice that had been spread through Bengal by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1534) and that offered freedom from this world's situation through adoption of the renounced life as a sanyassin, devotional service in a temple setting, and the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra. The mantra was repeated as a prayer to Krishna, the Supreme Deity conceived as a personal God. When done while dancing and accompanying music, chanting lifted the believer into a transcendent consciousness.

Youthful male believers shaved their heads and adopted the saffron robe identifying themselves as monks. Devotees lived communally in Krishna temples; and supported the work of translating, printing, and distributing the books of their teacher through begging on the streets and in airports. In the early 1970s their lifestyle became one of the major targets of parental criticism, and the society was branded as a "cult." During the 1980s the society was one of the groups facing multiple deprogrammings and a major court case that threatened to wipe out much of the movement when it resulted in a multimillion-dollar judgment for brainwashing a member (later overturned on appeal). In the midst of the anti-cult controversy, the movement suffered from the defection of one of its more conservative gurus, Swami Bhaktipada, who had oversight of the centers in West Virginia and Ohio. Swami Bhaktipada became involved in illegal activities and was eventually convicted for ordering the death of an ex-member.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, as the brainwashing controversy was laid to rest in the courts, the movement spread internationally under the guidance of the Governing Body Commission, which had assumed authority in the movement following Swami Prabhupada's death, and a set of new gurus who assumed spiritual authority in different parts of the globe. Their support in North America was greatly expanded by the adherence of thousands of first-generation Indian Americans who found in the Hare Krishna temples the best representation of their religion in the West.

With their first-generation problems behind them, and with centers in more than sixty countries, the Krishnas have found their place in America's multi-religious landscape.