The Meeting of Opposites?. Andrew Wingate
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of God first, and then of ISKCON. He does not like to be too restricted. He discovered this wider tradition when visiting Vrindavan on a spiritual search in India. He was attracted too to Gandhism. ISKCON came into his life when he met a group casually in west London. He visited ashrams, and decided to become a monk, which took him around Europe. Then, like he estimates 90 per cent of monks, he got married, as in Buddhism, his monk period over. Since then he has done a doctorate in the field of Vaishnava research, and become an academic. Where does he see the links between Christianity and what he prefers to call Vaishnavism? The strength of the theist tradition in both, with God both infinite and highly personal, has led him to study Catholic personalist philosophy, as well as finding this in Vaishnavism. ‘Krishna’ is another name for God, and the manifestation of God in Jesus is no problem. He can see also strong links between bhakti worship in his tradition with that of Catholicism (see Chapter 9, on Sweden, for further encounter with Ferdinando).
My second interviewee is Pradip. Like the majority of devotees and initiates now – a big change in the last 20 years – he is British Indian Hindu, and was born in Birmingham. He was brought up to attend pujas and festivals in the Handsworth Temple, and his father was president of their caste association, which provides security, culture and order for its members. Learned visitors used to come from Gujarat, but he could not understand their religious teaching. As a secondary school student, he began to discover the Gita in English, and also to read the Gideon Bible. The change in his life came when John Lennon died. He went into the history of the Beatles and their connections with India. The song ‘Goddess of Fortune’ on an old record affected him, as did Hare Krishna chanting, produced by George Harrison. He found the sound ‘awesome’. He discussed all this with a school friend, who introduced him to ISKCON, and he used to attend the Hare Krishna gathering every Saturday in a rented hall in the city centre. They also read Prabhupada, and his theological reflection that every person can have a personal relationship with God. He was impressed with his selfless character, his devotion and commitment to service. He valued the teaching that we are spiritual beings, beyond any designation of religion, label or caste.
His parents accepted his becoming a strict vegetarian and his taking up chanting. But they were wary of an organization they felt was being led by white people converting to Hindu practice. He was taken by his uncle to the Manor, in the hope that he would be put off. This failed, as he was impressed with the discipline and clarity of the movement, and the feeling of access to God. Even the Gandhian uncle was impressed, and only said that he should not bow to a white person, a seemingly racist remark.
At 18, he went to London, and after graduation moved to the Manor, and spent ten years as a monk. His goal was not status but life in the spirit, serving and educating others. He eventually left there to get married, and to do an MBA, from which he became a manager within the movement, working alongside the Governing Body Commissioner for the UK. It was a vital area of service where there had been a deficiency, supporting ten temples and many small groups throughout the country. Meanwhile, his father became reconciled to his involvement and even proud of him. After a visit to the Manor, his father heard someone say, ‘There is a young man there from our community here, and he speaks well.’ His father replied, ‘Yes, he is my son.’
He became a temporary leader of a struggling and divided community in Leicester in 2004, and moved with his wife to that city in 2006. He became one of the key persons in establishing the I Foundation, which opened the first state-supported school in Harrow, and since coming to Leicester he has worked towards such a school there, opened in September 2011 (see above, and in Chapter 7 on Leicester). He also is very ready to offer teaching to Christian groups, including future clergy, and has a real gift in explaining the basic parameters of Hinduism, and his own movement, in a way that is clear and engaging.
The third interviewee is Gauri Das, a leading person at the Manor, Scottish, and again a former Roman Catholic. He told me how his father had died shortly before the interview, a very devout person, as is his sister. She relates how her father had told her, when near to death, ‘Don’t worry about the boys; they know God.’ This represented, he feels, his father’s endorsement. He has had a visionary encounter with his father after his death, which meant a great deal to him. He is convinced that the two faiths use different languages but represent the same spiritual experience.
He is quite a free thinker, and feels the use of Prabhupada in an absolute way is very recent. He feels that a fundamentalist approach to scripture is dangerous. He finds the way the ISKCON leadership went was worrying, as the Governing Body Commissioners just chose themselves. He spent ten years in Vrindavan, and had an arranged marriage with an Indian South African. As he reflects on the movement now, he feels it is brilliant for the Indian diaspora, working out how to be Hindus in the West. But he wonders whether it has the language any more to talk to Westerners, and talking of karma, reincarnation etc. is no longer enough. We are in a post-colonial religious time, when spirituality is more important than church attendance. The movement should spend less time trying to convert, and more in affirming people where they are and building on this. The five principles of ISKCON are no longer enough: ‘Dream on, if you think Western people will accept all this.’ It will just lead them to neuroses. We need to be less judgemental. It is not surprising that he joined the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (SOAS), and studied religion for three years, the last year without wearing his ISKCON clothes. He is devoted to the garden in the Manor, and showed me with reverence that which had been designed by John Lennon’s widow, a meditation garden.
Gauri introduced me to Sruti, the current president of the Manor, and a Ugandan Asian. He was another who was influenced by hearing George Harrison on Top of the Pops and then saw a Hare Krishna group outside in London. He found them very attractive, and visited the Manor when Prabhupada came in 1977 for the opening. Sruti was 18, and was deeply impressed by his charisma and purity, and determined, after he finished his master’s degree, to join the Manor. He did not receive enthusiastic support from his family, thinking it was like Swaminarayan, and also because most residents at that time were foreigners; ten only from India out of 100 in the late 1970s. Now there are 50 residents, 60 per cent of Indian origin. Congregation figures for today are that there are around 10,000 members, 80 per cent from London, and 80 per cent being Indians. Half are committed; the rest are eclectic searchers. He remained a celibate monk for 20 years, and then married through the ISKCON marriage board.
As leader, he has been very committed to interfaith relations, and is very proud of having recited Sanskrit prayers in the church in Harrow when he became a chaplain to the Hindu mayor. He prayed for ‘wisdom, strength and love’. The local church support to the Manor has been very important and helped to remove the stigma that ISKCON is a cult.
He appreciates that there are no philosophical blocks between some aspects of Christianity, and Hinduism. He sees Chaitanya as being of the personalist school, and opening up the faith across caste, creed and colour. Chaitanya, he believes, was predicted to come in the Vedas. But he quotes Prabhupada, who said that anyone who claims to be God is God spelt backwards! There were 108 centres in the world when Prabhu died, and now there are 690, 200 in the south and 10,000 devotees in Russia, with groups also in Ukraine and the Czech Republic.
A final document of special interest is the doctoral thesis written by Daphne Green in the year 2000. It is entitled, ‘A Comparative Study of Krishna Consciousness in ISKCON, and the Practice of the Presence of God in CSMV (the Community of St Mary the Virgin, with Headquarters in Wantage, Oxfordshire)’. She spent a considerable amount of time with members of both communities. She wanted to study how Brother Lawrence’s concept of the practice of the presence of God could aid in learning to encounter God in all things and all situations. She found many similarities but also differences. The place of the guru was much higher in ISKCON, and the role of chanting. The place of silence was much stronger in CSMV, and also their lifelong commitment to celibacy. The ISKCON devotees saw Krishna as eternally youthful, joyful and playful, expressing this in the fullness of Creation. The task is to go beyond the illusions of this world, in order to serve Krishna through seeing him