Hare Krsna!

Bom dia!

So, here I am again.

I’ll tell you now my experience with the Krisna-Fanatic and how Priscilla just wanted to have some days for Yoga.

Priscilla is a girl from Sao Paolo. She was doing holiday in Recife before, and came to Alto Paraiso to relax a bit and make some yoga after a week of party. 

So, on Sunday of the last week, we (Lu, Grabriella, Gleide and I) went to this place in Alto Paraiso for our field work. Beautiful place and a great position to place a "Spiritual Center"! The houses are made of wood; they look like small houses, with two floors. Small but charming. There is also a small temple, with an altar were the statues of the god are placed (I remember just the names of two: Lord Catanya and Lord Nityananda). In one of the houses they also have two kitchens, one to cook for the god and one for our food... We ate on the floor, on small tables, sitting on pillows. But, apparently, this was already luxury (maybe I should use another word, otherwise Krsna will get mad... But I'll explain later on..) as Priscilla told us that they used to eat on banana leaves on the floor before we arrived.

What I didn't expect was defenitively the change of temperature. It was "much" colder there! Fortunately I packed as if I would go to Holidays for a week, so that I had enough stuff to stratify. :-)

However, let's come back to the interesting part...

As we arrived, we met this woman, A. She's a devote of Krsna and she's there to introduce people into Krsna consciousness and practice with other devotes their rituals. She told me that one of the main goals of a devote is to convert other people into Krsna's consciousness... The similarity to the begin of the Crusades is not far...

Anyway, when we arrived, she seemed to be a, very, very, very (multiplicate this very other 10 times, at least) religious woman, but very nice and in peace with herself. She offered us to participate to the rituals and to have an insight to their traditions. We were glad to accept: it's always nice to know something new!

So, that evening we had our first ritual. She explained us that before we could eat anything, we had to offer it to Krsna. This means that they put a plate in front of the god’s statues and they make a whole ritual to wake them up, to give them some air (because of the heat), some water (also because of the heat) and some flowers. Very interesting so far! In fact they have to offer everything to the god, before they want to eat or drink it. This means that also for a simple glass of water, they have to do this ritual! 

She also explained us that Krsna has divided itself in 5 forces, and that Krsna has many different names. The main activity of the rituals is to chant prayers, to read some chapters from the Bhagavad Gita and to discuss about their meaning. Then they have to chant at least 108 times “Hare Krisna, Hare Krisna; Krisna Krisna; Hare Hare; Hare Rama; Hare Rama, Rama Rama; Hare Hare” counting beans. They usually have their first ritual at 6.00 in the morning. Who knows me, knows that I have jumped this part.. J

The main message I’ve got from the rituals is that life on earth is like a punition for those who turned their faces away from Krisna. So, we are here in this material world, to gain our spiritual life back. In fact, the most a spirit gets detached from Krisna, the worse body he will get on this world. For e.g. to be a dog is very bad. However, the worst thing remains to be an atheist person who does not believe in any God. She also said that our preferences in this life may affect our reincarnation of the next life. So she made the example of people who love sex: in their next life they may become pigeons, as these have sex continuously. For Krsna’s devotes, the material world and the senses make us blind for real spiritual life. For this reason, luxury (which also includes sex, which should be done only to have Kids), egoism and angry are the three doors which lead us to the evil.

They also believe in how food can influence our mode. There are three modes: the mode of good, the mode of passion and the mode of ignorance. For e.g., juicy and fatty foods are “good” foods; spicy and salty foods are foods of the mode of passion and stale and putrid ones are foods of the mode of ignorance. They also belive that in the morning people are mainly in the mode of good, while over the day they accumulate influences from the material world, so that in the evening the mode of ignorance is predominant. In fact, she said that to be sleepy and to sleep is part of the mode of ignorance. I just told her that I think that to sleep is great and very important…

She also told us that people that get into spiritual life, they gain like pluses. A first stop on the way back to Krsna is the moon. They believe that higher spirits live there, in a beautiful place with beautiful gardens, etc etc. When I heard that, I really thought “So, you’re wasting your time singing Hare Krsna from 6 am until the night only to get to the moon… Go to the NASA, it’s easier!”

Anyway, so far everything was very interesting. You can agree or not to what they believe.

It started to be a bit weird when A. started to try to convert me and Luciola to Krsna consciousness… She kept on saying that we would be great devotes, and so on. At a certain point I told her, that I actually don’t believe n God. She looked at me, and I swear, if a look could kill, I would be death now!

Things became weirder when she talked about the fact that she wants to open her own Center to make a lot of money. What was the thing about luxury and the evil again?! J There were so many contradictions: a lesbian woman that affirms that sex should only be practiced to create new life is not very reliable.. There were so many funny moments in these days. But at the end I really felt pity for this woman, that seems to hold herself on this believe with all her force to not fall.

I also felt pity for Priscilla: when she arrived to that place, she had no idea that it was a “Krsna-Center”. In fact she just wanted to practice some yoga, sleep and relax. A. told her hat yoga is not good and forced her to wake up every morning at something like 5am (the devotes have to take a bath before doing anything), to serve the God and to do almost everything for her (and of course, for Krsna). She also told us that once they went with a group of people to a cascade. Priscilla thought “yeah, a bit of air, finally”. The trip became kind of interesting when A. started to dance and sing “Hare Krsna” in the middle of the cascade, animating the other visitants to join her… She wanted to die! J I hope she will write a book about her week with Krsna! 


Anyway I really appreciated this time. I still think that religion is here for people that need to believe in something to be strong in times when life is not going as it should. As long as they don’t try to force other people to believe in the same thing, everything is fine. They have some good points, and some other which I find completely absurd. However I’m still in love with this material world, and I would not want to give away one of my senses to gain some spiritual life! I still think that our “spiritual life” is strictly connected to our senses. How would we be able to think without any inputs from this amazing world?! I cannot imagine something more beautiful than to enjoy all the emotions we get from our environment.