The Omkara

sri-guru-charana-padma kevala-bhakati-sadma bando mui savadhana mate jahara prasade bhai e bhava toriya jai krishna-prapti hoy jaha hoite guru-mukha-padma-vakya chittete koriya aikya ar na koriho mane asha sri-guru-charane rati ei se uttama-gati je prasade pure sarve asha

chakhu-dan dilo jei janme janme prabhu sei divya-gyan hride prokashito prema-bhakti jaha hoite avidya vinasha jate vede gay jahara charito sri-guru karuna-sindhu adhama janara bandhu lokanath lokera jivana ha ha prabhu koro doya deho more pada-chhaya ebe jasa ghushuk tribhuvana

The lotus feet of our spiritual master are the only way by which we can attain pure devotional service. I bow to his lotus feet with great awe and reverence. By his grace one can cross the ocean of material suffering and obtain the mercy of Krsna.

My only wish is to have my consciousness purified by the words emanating from his lotus mouth. Attachment to his lotus feet is the perfection that fulfills all desires.

He opens my darkened eyes and fills my heart with transcendental knowledge. He is my Lord birth after birth. From him ecstatic prema emanates; by him ignorance is destroyed. The Vedic scriptures sing of his character.

Our spiritual master is the ocean of mercy, the friend of the poor, and the lord and master of the devotees. O master! Be merciful unto me. Give me the shade of your lotus feet. Your fame is spread all over the three worlds.

Part of what made this Indian teacher unique among those who had come to the West before was that Prabhupada was a strict "Personalist." He held to the dogma of acintya bheda-bheda tattva. This is the Vedantic doctrine of a single Supreme Being/God who is inconceivable, simultaneously one with the creation, and yet utterly distinct from it. This is to say, that like most historic Jews, Christians, Sikhs, and Muslims, Srila Prabhupada proclaimed the existence of an individual supreme God. He taught that the ultimate nature/form of God was personal (individual) rather than impersonal (i.e. not a collective consciousness), as believed by many other Hindus.

Prabhupada's conception of the One God was similar to the Christian Trinity (indeed the Christian doctrine developed from related non-biblical sources). For Srila Prabhupada the gods or devas, including the Hindu Trinity (trimurti): Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva/Rudra, were all emanations or manifestations of the One God Sri Vishnu/Krishna who alone, he taught, is eternal Bhagavan (God). All other conceptions of God and gods arise from Sri Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

His Hindu predecessors to the West had all espoused variations of Advaita Vedanta, the monistic neo-Buddhist doctrine championed by Srila Shankara (aka Shankara Bhagavatpada 788-822 CE) and popularized by Swami Vivekananda, 1863-1902, Swami Shivananda, 1887-1963, Swami Muktananda, 1908-1983, and others more recently.

George's 1969 hit single Hare Krishna Mantra topped the 10 best-selling record charts throughout the UK, Europe, and Asia:

During this period the Hare Krishna Movement had far more impact than is normally conceded. After their heavily publicized experiences with Guru Maharishi Mehesh Yogi (i.e. Transcendental Meditation), George Harrison and John Lennon studied with Prabhupada and Harrison became a devotee (CBH). George remained a devotee until his death on November 29, 2001. In 1969 he produced the Hare Krishna Mantra as a service to Srila Prabhupada. Harrison also donated a seventeen acre estate outside London to ISKCON. Today it is a Temple and ashrama known as Bhaktivedanta Manor (Back to Godhead magazine, January 1983).

Through ISKCON millions of Westerners were introduced to eastern spirituality and practical religious observance. Several thousands became full time Vaishnava monks and nuns for a time. Today only a few hundred people remain within ISKCON as full time devotees. A few thousand more remain associated as householder devotees (grahastha) living outside the ISKCON ashram system. Many of these people regularly visit and support the temples (mandirs). Due to the rampant abuses and rejection of Prabhupada's instructions the vast majority of Prabhupada's devotees eventually left the Movement. Several splinter groups arose and generally fell as the devotees left ISKCON seeking to restore the Movement to its original intent and spirit. Some Devotees joined other groups while most returned to the dominant culture and belief system. Many embraced Buddhism and not a few became Fundamentalist Christians.

On November 14, 1977, at 7:30 P.M., Srila Prabhupada attained Maha-samadhi (died). Since that time ISKCON has abandoned many of his core teachings and altered many more. Without his hands-on leadership the movement has been plagued with countless scandals, including grand theft, various cases of child abuse, arms smuggling, and even murders. It has become a small organization with little influence outside its own religious society (MoS). This is very sad but true. Prabhupada's books continue to be read however and individuals still put his teachings into practice in their personal lives.

A New Age The "dawning of the Age of Aquarius" produced an abundance of spiritual fruit. Some traditional, some new. This awakening promised the dawning of a new age of light and peace against the backdrop of the Vietnam "police action" and the subsequent apathy of the 1970's and 80's.

Guru Maharaji

The Divine Light Mission (DLM) of the youthful Guru Prem Pal Singh Rawat (aka Guru Maharaj Ji, born December 10,1957) was influential for a while. I attended many of their darshans or meetings in the mid to late seventies. This group, like the Hare Krishna Movement, espoused a bhakti (devotion) based philosophy. Unlike ISKCON that focussed on Krishna as the Supreme Person of Godhead, this devotion was directed exclusively to the Guru rather than to him as a representative of God. For his followers, Guru Maharaji was God incarnate, not just His representative. The DLM stressed the importance of personal realization and devotion to Guru Maharaji over ritual and beliefs. Realization was not something handed down from the past, it was NOW, in this moment, close your eyes and see It! Taste It! Through it's yoga techniques I saw the 'divine light' and tasted the 'celestial nectar' they claimed.

Among other teachers that arose during this period was the famous Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his Transcendental Meditation movement. This movement was very popular among celebrities especially for a while. Also popular was the Daimoku trend ("Namu Myoho Renge Kyo") of Nichiren Buddhism and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Swami Muktananda and his Siddha Yoga foundation, Swami Brahmananda Mishra of the Yoga Institutes, the miracle worker Sathya Sai Baba (November 23, 1926 - April 24, 2011), and so many other Eastern masters and teachers were active in the West during this period. Their influences continue to reverberate. The sixties and seventies were a time when spiritual masters, both real and fraudulent, were easily found. Their world views deeply impacted us all directly or indirectly as Eastern conceptions unified and entered the Western Paradigm. The New Age beliefs did not replaced Judaism and Christianity, but they did come to exist along side them as equals in the mind of many people. In many ways they surpassed the traditional beliefs among the young. These young people are now the adults.

As the late seventies gave way to eighties and nineties, the vast majority of citizens drifted back into quiet structured society. Everyone had been fundamentally altered by this period of seeking enlightenment, whether people had actively taken part in it or not. Now it was as though the nation was collectively exhausted from its search for something beyond apparent reality. The Secular Sciences and Secular Humanism had won the paradigm war. Religion came to be viewed as nothing but superstition, spirituality was an opiate and cop-out. Humans were nothing but animals. As such the ME generation was born.

Greed became the accepted social norm. Outward appearance replaced inward goodness, material possessions replaced spiritual realizations and love. The war in Vietnam was over but there was no peace. As this trend developed the economy began to crumble. It could not handle the greed of the new consumerism. With both parents working full time and children becoming optional through the Roe-V-Wade decision that legalized infanticide in 1973, the nation's children who survived birth were largely left to the Secular Humanist school systems to raise. Parents were too busy to be bothered with child rearing. This generation of children is now coming into its own and we are witness the results of this absentee parenting.

As the economy became more uncertain and the political winds blew occasional hints that things were not as they appeared, hopes were fading. Without a spiritual center people were being devastated. Apathy began replacing greed as the new norm. Drugs like Meth became epidemic. Mellow Marijuana was being bred into a serious drug that only increased the apathy. Honey oil and other forms were increasing and minds and bodies were being destroyed. With HIV Free Love became anything but, and meaningful human interaction was becoming unknown to many many people. The world was becoming a cold and lonely place without meaning. Without God in their lives people seemingly suffer and die without purpose or meaning. But the Awakening flame continued to flicker and some people held on..

The religion of Secular Humanism had won and become the dominant belief system throughout the non-Islamic world. The priesthood of the nation were now the "nerds" and "geeks" wearing white lab coats and muttering mysterious words like "gigabytes" and speaking of a mystical reality in "cyberspace." Most Americans were content to abide within this undemanding paradigm amazed by the new shiny technologies as their ancestors had been awed by the powers of the Shaman and fakirs. Relativity and political correctness had become the gauge of ethics and morality. The belief in God as historically embraced was dying on the vine and devout Christians were being recast as religious fanatics.

Through the greed-based egocentric experiences and realizations of the 1980's through 2001 the nation and planet was forever changed in tangible ways. Impersonal technology has replaced the Personal God for most Americans, whether they wish to acknowledge this or not. Today Christianity is no longer the largest nor most influential religious system in the post Judeo-Christian United States.

Throughout this period Islam was rising fast everywhere, including in the US. By the mid-1990's it was clear that Islam was the religious heir apparent for the world, other than Secular Humanism.

The nation of Israel was politically solid, and yet frequently under attack. It continued working to secure itself as the Jewish homeland while maintaining equality for all under incomprehensible near global condemnation. The United States mainly stood firmly with Israel during these years. Israeli Jews were as divided and largely non-Observant as Christians in the US. The secular population wanted little if anything to do with Torah other than essential holiday observances. The rift between the Observant and non-observant portions of the society was growing. Meanwhile the USSR, which was formally dismantled on December 26, 1991, China, and the United States of America were each actively discounting religious faith and becoming more and more similar to the Nazi regime of Germany as those few who were still protesting during this period frequently pointed out.

The People's Republic of China, already the world's real economic and military super power, was quietly developing its plans to topple the US house of cards, something that seems imminent as of this update (March 2015). U.S. independence and its Constitution is now a myth that few belief in. Most Americans are too dependant on the lower prices China offers through its slave based economy to support real capitalism. Through their buying choices Americans brought their own economy to its knees, bowing to China by transferring ever larger percentages of its wealth to the totalitarian governments.