Belonging

Ruminations on my sense of belonging growing up Krishna

I was born and grew up totally immersed in a newly created and embodied world of Krishna.
Abhimanyu das, My parents named me after the famous and valiant hero nephew of Krishna. My mother had been reading the famous and central story of India, the Mahabharata, and she loved this name. My parents always argue over who named me, but to me, my mother named me. Even if she did not, I give her the right and credit because she raised me.
All my earliest memories are from my time as a small child playing in or around the various “Hare Krishna” Temples and farms. I didn’t know anything else and I did not hate the experience as a child in the moment, it was an Adventure full of wonder and mystery. My life was not ordinary and I know I am who I am today because of it. However, as we grow and mature its important to reflect and look at our past with wiser eyes. Though we carry much of our past with us today, it’s necessary to let things go or re-frame their place in our lives.

In brief, I was born in LA August 5th 1988, at 6:27 AM…We moved from there only a year after I was born and embarked on a never ending saga of my father’s nightmarish luck and bad choices. Hawaii failed in 6 months. We lasted longer in Mississippi, about 3-5 years, then off to North Carolina. Lots of eye opening experiences there and a bad land deal sent us on the road. We ended up back in Mississippi often, it became a kind home even when we weren’t there and during our travels we’d stop in there to see our friends and people we actually knew.

New Talavan, just outside a small town named Picayune in Mississippi, a dreadfully boring small farm amidst pine forests and grasslands, swamps, Hillbillies and southern Baptists.
Growing up a Hare Krishna here was incredibly weird. You’re totally different but in the same place and world as the “karmis”(A term we used for people outside the cult, like Muggles in Harry potter) Being a karmi was considered “unbonafide” and we were taught not to associate or become friends with karmis.

My parents of course did not encourage or enforce this Idea. My Dad is an Irish Catholic who converted to the Hare Krsnas during the 70’s. My Mom is Portuguese and also raised Catholic. I think she only really joined the cult to marry my Dad, she lived a very private normal lifestyle, surviving the Chaos and hypocrisy openly on display in our everyday lives.

When we went on the Road for a few years, travelling all over America, We were doing “Sankirtana”( essentially pan-handling or Selling bootleg stickers/hats or other paraphernalia at Concerts and other events.

I’ve been to over I think 48 of 50 states in the America. What a crazy time!

When I was just 11 Years Old I could make over 500$ dollars selling “Don’t be a dick” stickers or my favorite “Farfrompuken” I’d hit you with a citation, punch line, stickers in your hand, catch

“I’m raisin money for a soup kitchen”(half truth, I kept all the money, my dad donated a portion of his…Sometimes.) Thank you very much. Rinse, repeat on the next car pulling into the field somewhere in Kentucky, until the concert starts. Head back to the and maybe wait for the blowout to hit another car lot. I learned quick.

Through all of this I was homeschooled or attended a few School pods(Iskcon Gurukulas) which were poorly staffed and poorly resourced. I’d say my education up until this point was very patchy.
I did do one year of public School in Detroit — we were there because my Dad had been diagnosed with lymphoma and his family wanted him to be close.
This was probably the best possibility for a “Normal” life our family had ever had. Even though Dad was in early stages still doing natural therapies and diets to try to cure his Cancer. He travelled on the Road part of the month to earn a living. I excelled in my world. I played in a football team, The school band, and had grown quite popular with my peers. My teachers loved me and I knew that there. It was probably the only time I had this kind of relationship with Teachers, (I’m actually starting to tear up remembering this right now for the first time in 24 years.) I loved Harper woods, my park, my school and the walk I took everyday with 4-8 of my favorite buddies. In terms of football, I loved it despite being picked for Left guard, a blocking position usually for Fat kids(I was quite fat after living on the road)…I spent a full school year here and the next year I made Full Back, a blocker/Runner. I was extremely excited for this but we moved before I ever got a chance to play. I made a lot friends but having lost contact with everyone and never returned I can’t even remember their names. Two Alex’s, Tyrone elementary 1999. 5th Grade.

My little brother Gauravani was born here. The day he was born we found out he had downs. I was shocked and It was a scary experience as a young child to have a sibling born with a disability, you don’t know what their life will be…I fell in love with him the moment I held him and I was relieved of that fear. My little baby brother, I thought he’d need me, but actually It was I that needed him to know what true Self love means.

We went back to Mississippi, spent one year there getting into a lot of trouble. Puberty onset and a very poor pool of Girls in our social world meant boys picked on boys, I was smaller but too curious. I don’t know why parents leave there kids alone so much.

Suddenly and very excitedly, We moved to India. I was 12. I spent my teens in the literal mecca for Hare Krsna people, Mayapur. A place they essentially have rudely colonized with foreigners and mounted a Giant European style Temple to be seen for miles in every direction of Rural Sacred Bengal.
I went to 3 different schools and was lucky to get out of those rather unscathed but uneducated. The last school I went to was after 9th Grade. I went to an ISKCON concocted so-called traditional Gurukul, invented by ISKCONS worst Child Abuser in history…Unbeknownst to me during this time.
It wasn’t until years later that he was caught. A girl confessed he had been abusing her for years to the officials and the history of BVP swami’s abuse flooded the internet and my personal social circle. Lots of victims and buried CPO reports. Everyone was shocked and the local community here in Murwillumbah grieved the sadness of realizing we’d been following MORONS. A terrible past that would end up casting a shadow on the whole experiment.

I still loved aspects of growing up there… I had a lot of friends at one point, and we’d get up to all kinds of fun and games. Soccer and Brazillian Jiu Jitsu was a daily thing for years. I also loved the holy tirthas and temples, the culture, the vibrancy, the languages and music. Learning how to do Vaishnava rituals, chant mantras, Hatha yoga, swim in the Ganga everyday, access to Kirtan 24/7 and attend spiritual lectures with a wide variety of famous Pedos…I mean pedophile protectors…I’m sorry I mean the worlds greatest Kirtaniyas and facilitators of the “saving of the world”…Cough cough.

(The history of Child abuse in ISKCON is so bad and prevalent it will likely come up a lot in my journal. Its something you can’t just ignore or pretend isn’t an issue. I’m going through that process of finding the baby with all this bath water.)

In my teens I was adapting to this “Krishna” world and mastering it. I dived into reading all of the books they printed and then the ones those books quoted or referred to. I dug through archives and archives of lectures, letters, conversations to understand and be capable of wielding this philosophy to protect myself from manipulation and control. Knowledge of Sastra makes you terribly uncontrollable in this world because people are often controlled through injunctions delineated in these texts. The only way to break free from a cult is to get extremely REAL and learn it fully. I did all the practices, followed the yearly schedules of festivals and holy days. Chanting copious rounds, fasted, meditated etc. I developed my own daily puja ritual every-morning which I maintained meticulously for 20 years. My wife and I share this service now, but we aren’t as strict as we used to be. God sleeps a little more now we have a 2.5 year old boy. My Guru’s tell me he’s my Deity right now.

In my twenties I went back to America. This time my Dad was based in NYC so I’d stay with him and work the streets with him. Rockefeller center with NYC hates and paraphernalia, we really did support a soup kitchen down in Thompson square and I felt pretty capable here. I went to LA for one year and then ended up back in India where I met my wife. We fell madly in love, though in that kind of “were both super traumatized and we don’t know it yet” kind of way. We lived in NYC for almost 5 years. We got married and moved to NZ. She studied nursing and I was a high risk Youth worker. This was a very big time and i’ll write a post all about that in another post.
I experienced severe burnout and depression after nearly three years in that environment. High stress, long hours, hard hard boys. Though dealing with adults was what really got me so down. I was seeing so directly how much Childhood trauma affects the lives of people.

I took time off working and moved to Australia to reside with my Elder brother and try to get myself back in order. It wasn’t easy and I had to literally send myself to the VOID multiple times to dig through all of this trauma. Surfing, Skating, Psiclocbyin, Cannabis, Yoga, deep meditation, and my relationship to my deities, and learning how to build lasting friendships and loving relationships were all part of the process. I was getting to some very deep places and the desire to share this part of my life openly began…. I don’t know, maybe I should never have opened this part of my life, the hope was to0 obvious for anyone who has ever gone down the mushroom path.

I was so Naïve, belligerent, and dumb! It was 2020, just before the pandemic and I had been absolutely transformed by my experiences with Psilocybin, I needed to confess to my community that I was not ”Standard” but my insights and research was valuable for not only validating our way of life and faith, but for curing the copious amounts of abuse my generation and the generations before me were exposed to growing up Hari.
I was attempting to introduce knowledge of the true nature of psychedelics, both in terms of therapeutic and spiritual, an idea in total contradiction to standard ISKCON dogma.
I wasn’t doing this whimsically, I creating a solid case both historically and textually for the existence of sacrament in our yogic tradition. I was representing my own oral lineage and presenting what I felt were gifts.
The pandemic arrived and we started Tiny Temple, an online enterprise to share bhakti yoga and our friends doing kirtan or talking philosophy for free with the world. I dreamed of creating a platform that would sustain countless people attempting to share their faith through the arts and culture of bhakti. I was attempting to rally my friends into a revolution of Kirtan and bhakti culture, encouraging them to think for themselves, read, meditate, and explore consciousness directly.
In a sense, I was excommunicated shortly thereafter. I was refused the right to sing and lead in singing Krishna’s names. A blanket ban on devotees not following the "4 regs(No meat, No illicit sex, No gambling, No intoxication) had only the honest Gurukulis sidelined and made to feel like second class or worse “Offenders to the name” something considered far worse than even Sin…Social exclusion and isolation followed for years and I definitely NOT welcome in some circles….I didn’t leave; I’m just here as the Wizard of Aus.
I do feel a bit bitter. In some sense, I feel betrayed and hurt. Childish to complain maybe, but perhaps I’ve just seen, heard, and felt enough of what is here to just say it. There are plenty of people who are simply innocent by ignorance and others are perfectly aware and helplessly seduced by the cults allure and offerings. There is truly something wrong with this place that I belonged for too long. So many can see it and yet its hard to walk way.

I didn’t really…. Instead, I tried to be transparent and allow my Hare Krsna community to accept me for who I am and what I bring, however radical it may be. Boy, was was I in for a reality check. How I was dealt with over this issue changed the course of my life and I am very grateful because without their rejecting me so rudely, cowardly, and deceitfully, I probably would still be in it.

I am still a Vaishnava, a member of the Diksa parampara of Nityananda mahajana and Jahnava devi, our practices are similar but our history and definitions differ. I learned to read and understand Bengali and Sanskrit so that I could by-pass the wall of translations, now so edited I can not affirm that are even Prabhupadas words. Despite this connection and even deep relationship with my Guru-Mata, I am also not a Bengali or a “Dham-vasi Vairagi”(Renunciate monk in Vraj). I am a kind of American punk rock/mystic family man, a free man first. To me, that is the application of all the wisdom gained from my practice and life long inquiry into spirituality.

You learn “wisdom” means that because the reality of life IS the divine, showing up, being present, doing your duties with love care, trying your utmost to be there for your loved ones, especially your children. To love is to live fully.

That is now where I feel I truly belong, beyond any other notion or concept, or CULT.

Until Next time
Jai Nitai