Going back West

 

Back in Frisco with a vengeance?

An interesting piece on a controversial sub-movement within ISKCON (the Hare Krishna) known as Krishna West. I always assumed that virtually everyone attracted to ISKCON was White, and while this may have been the case once, it seems that the Hare Krishnas now attract more Indians than Westerners. 

Some sections of ISKCON want to change this, the most radical being Krishna West, led by Howard J Resnick (to use his Western name). His sub-movement have dispensed with temples, idols, Indian food, ditto music and (most obviously) Indian dress, while still adhering to the basic theological tenets of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Not sure how Resnick looks at gender roles or LGBTQ issues. Or the flat earth, for that matter. 

There are other ISKCON groups which look Western, but they apparently want to serve as a "bridge" to the more traditional Indian practices (I´m almost tempted to call them fronts groups!). By contrast, Krishna West explicitly says that they are a "destination" rather than a "bridge". 

Personally, I really don´t see how a movement widely perceived as culturally or ethnically Indian can attract more than a handful of Western converts, since modern India simply doesn´t have *that* much power. Indeed, the success of Hindu spirituality in the Western world is presumably in large part due to its decoupling from a Indian ethnic or cultural context. ISKCON were always the odd men out on this point, being seen as super-cultic (and super-weird) for wearing ochre robes, shave their heads, and so on. 

So if your goal really is to spread Krishna consciousness to the huddled materialist mlecchas, Krishna West´s approach is probably the way to go...  

Krishna West