SCRUTINY

COMING OFF COPLEY STREET'S opulent row of brownstones and boutiques, my first impression was that I had stumbled into the backroom of an unkempt--but uppercrust--Kinney's shoe store. Behind me was an enormous cut-glass, iron trellised, oak door; tumbling up to the ceiling on my left and right was a staggered tier of oak shelves, randomly crowded with shoes. Two clues that it wasn't Kinney's: the shoes, chunked with ice and vaguely steaming socky odor, were obviously not for sale; plus, the oak door, creaking shut behind me, was gilt with the words "International Society for Krishna Consciousness."

I was there for the Sunday Love Feast. The prospect of free, genuine Krishna cuisine and an exotic, technicolor religious experience (accompanied in my imagination by the tantalizing possibility of being drugged and brain-washed by sincere baldheaded believers) had been more than enough to excite my curiosity.

After dumping my Adidas on one of the many shelves, I hopped through the icy foyer into the warm, incensed air of the Krishna center. I was late, and an enthusiastic vocal mishmash of "Hare Hare'' was already pouring from the ceremony room. Parquet floors and velvet-tinsel wallpaper surrounded a gleaming swirl of wooden staircases and crystal chandeliers --it seemed more like a British bed'n'breakfast than an eastern temple, and my brain-washing scenario faded in the face of architectural banality.

Upstairs I dumped my coat under a portrait of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, known as Prabhupada--who was sharing wall space with a microwave oven--and shuffled barefoot into the ceremony room. In here, His Divine Grace was represented in 3-D form; a lifesize, full color lacquered statue sat meditatively at the back of the room, surrounded by leafy ferns and silky robes.

Not actually a god himself, Prabhupada introduced the god Krishna to America. In 1965, at age 69, Prabhupada left India to spread his spiritual message in the West. He arrived in America with about $8 in his pocket, one devotee says, but with complete faith that he would succeed in his mission. Twelve years later, Prabhupada had 10,000 western disciples. Today, there are 1000-2000 Hare Krishnas--or Vaishnavas, as they call themselves--in the Boston area.

Prabhupada's "As It Is" translation of the Bhagavad Gita is central to the American Vaishnava movement. It was reading this book that led Dan Coggins, currently a member of the Boston temple, to convert. A Sanskrit translation of the Ghita he looked at didn't inspire him, but, three years ago, when he read Prabhupada's version, he was transfixed. "It was the most potent form of religion I could find."

"I was an agnostic Protestant leaning toward atheism. My father was a doctor; my upbringing was very scientific, and I couldn't see any scientific reason for believing in God," says Coggins, now known by his spiritual name Dhananjaya Pandita Dasa.

"This Christian friend of mine convinced me to pray with him to God, so I sort of did. I prayed 'Hi God, I don't believe in you really, but if you're there, let me know'--and He did. When God lets you know it's really overwhelming. That sounds sentimental and trite, but it's true," says the 27-year-old native of Newton, Mass.

"When I felt His presence, I thought, this is the essence of life, I want more." Coggins began devouring every religious material he could find, leading himself away from Christianity and eventually to the Bhagavad Gita and to the Krishna temple.

AT THE FRONT OF THE TEMPLE'S ceremony room, set off by red-velvet stage curtains, was the altar. Fronting the alter-stage was a three foot wooden collection box--a glass panel exposing a substantial sprawl of bills. Behind the box, yellow marble steps tiered upwards towards a row of white lattice huts, all backed by silver lame curtains. Inside the huts, decked with purple and red leis, sat various wide eyed Kewpie doll recreations of Krishna. The whole thing was strongly reminiscent of a Wheel of Fortune Fun in Hawaii showcase.

The ceremonial music and dancing, and the meal following it, are all spiritual offerings to Krishna. Because Krishna respects the sanctity of all life, the devotees are vegetarian. They live according to four basic restrictions, which prohibit intoxication, gambling and illicit sex as well as eating meat. Another requirement is chanting the Hare Krishna mantra sixteen times a day. A mantra, a Sanskrit word combining mind and feeling, is a combination of transcendental sounds which are intended to free the chanter's mind from anxiety.

For Krishna devotees, the Hare Krishna mantra is the holiest of all. "It's a purifying sound, non-different from the name of God," says Pandita Dasa. The Hare Krishna magazine, Back to Godhead, says this mantra is "especially meant for counteracting the ill effects of the present age of quarrel and anxiety."

Closest to the altar room a group of male Hare Krishnas, singing this mantra, were bobbing about in a mild form of skinhead slamdancing, the crowd echoing them with a subdued backup. Cymbals clanged rhythmically, accompanied by the slurping bass boom of the zeppelin-shaped drums which hung from the devotees necks. Hanging on the walls were brightly colored oil paintings of similar goings-on the same drums, haircuts and robes, with the addition of the blue-skinned figure of Krishna.

Behind me, two female devotees--one in flowing yellow Indian robes, the other in the regulation spiky bleached hair, plaid flannel shirt and black cotton tights of the Cambridge punk scene--linked arms, and twirled happily to the music.

Another cotton robed figure circulated with a brass collection plate, on which was mounted a flaming stick of some incendiary religious material. As the plate passed crowd members, hands were passed through the flame then rubbed against foreheads. Anticipating either pain or epiphany, I followed suit, and succeeded in doing nothing more than raising my body temperature--part flame, part Episcopalian embarrassment.

Most of the crowd did seem, however, to be of the appropriate religious bent. But only initiated devotees sport flowing robes and shaved heads, only those who actually live in the temple. Street clothes, a job at K-mart, and other drably normal characteristics are no impediment to being a full blown Vaishnava. It was difficult to distinguish in the crowd active worshippers from the merely hungry or curious.

Women as well as men can become devotees of Krishna, and Vaishnavas come from a wide variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds. In fact, emphasizing such external distinctions contradicts one of the central tenets of Krishna--the idea that the body is illusory. The Hare Krishnas, although they do not consider themselves ascetics, believe that bodily gratification stifles the soul and prevents man from finding the path to true happiness, which is god, or Krishna. The idea that we can become happy through our bodies is an illusion. People think that they are their

bodies, but they're not. So instead of serving

god, they serve their bodies, thinking that it

will make them happy, but in fact, it makes them

miserable," Pandita Dasa explains.

He compares pleasing the body to trying to

please a fish out of water. "If the fish is out of

water, nothing you can do will satisfy him. You

can give him some good food, a pillow for his

head, and so on, and relatively speaking, he might

be more satisfied, but it won't really make him

happy. What he really needs is to be in the water.

People are the same way. We can get relative

pleasure--relative to this body--but it doesn't

really satisfy. We cannot really be satisfied

until we serve God completely."

A STOCKY SAILOR-TYPE GUY with spider

tattoos on his wrists leaned against a cabinet of

religious texts and twiddled his thumbs as the

"Hare Rama's" went on. A tiny Indian girl in a

grey Izod sweater stopped to rub his hand with a

ceremonial flower, and then moved on to me. The

flower, which had just left alter duty, smelled

strongly of incense. Skipping through the crowd,

the little flower bearer applied its scent to

everyone as the cymbals and drums crescendoed.

Then, after a final chanting surge and

synchronized halt, the evening's sermon began. My

first formal entrance into Krishna thought was

underway.

Krishna devotees and their religious

paraphernalia inspire sniggers which I have not

attempted to suppress--they are, quite simply,

ridiculous looking--but their representatives are

intelligent enough to cope with this. The

evening's speaker, sitting cross-legged in white

robes that signified marriage, was explaining the

tiny size of the soul: "If you pulled a hair off

your head-- which is a little easier for you than

for us..." He rubbed his smooth scalp and paused

to smile. And then, questioned about the purpose

of head-shaving, he responded, chuckling, "Well,

it's meant to inspire humility--just try it, it

works."

The Hare Krishnas say they are aware that

outsiders frequently see them as a cult, not a

religion. "We realize we're often lumped together

with groups that are completely concocted, groups

that are totally different from us. In fact, we're

sometimes the symbol of all the other cult groups,

because we look the weirdest," says Pandita Dasa.

"It's frustrating. That's party of the reason we

hand out so much literature, like in Harvard

Square."

Hare Krishnas emphasize that they are, in fact,

quite the opposite of a faddish cult. "We're the

most ancient religious tradition in the world.

We've been around for about 5,000 years," says

Pandita Dasa. Like all Hindu traditions, Vaishnava

thought stems from the Bhagavad Gita and other

Vedic literature, and, says Pandita Dasa, is

actually the purest branch. "Now, Hinduism has

come to mean so many different things that the

term is almost useless for designating some sort

of religion. Hinduism is more like an ethnic

group."

Their purity is achieved through what Krishna

devotees call 'disciplic succession." What this

seems to mean is that gurus pass on spiritual

knowledge only to initiated servants of Krishna who

vow to continue the unbroken chain of tradition.

The rituals, the instructions, the chants do not

change, and in this way, the religion maintains

its purity. "Potency is lost through change, and

so after a while, most religions lose their

potency. What we have is very potent, a chain of

untainted, pure people," Pandita Dasa says, adding

that it was this pure strength which first

attracted him to the religion.

As the sermon progressed children rustled about

and were taken away by parents, while other

listeners whispered, scratched, and sneezed,

giving the whole experience a familiar Christian

tone. The most significant difference was that the

preacher, rather than looking down from a pulpit,

was seated conversationally in the middle of his

listeners.

Krishna, I was told, is not an all consuming

being into which all souls eventually merge, or a

blood-and-thunder Old Testament type

ruler-from-a-distance. He is a friend (again and

again, a friend), someone that doesn't

restrict a devotee to admiration, but shares an

equal relationship of love.

Krishna devotees believe that all living things

have souls. A soul gets reincarnated again and

again, in different forms, until it lives a life

in which it is totally devoted to God. "If you're

truly pure in your devotion to god, in your next

life, you will take birth into the spiritual

world," Pandita Dasa says. "If you waste your

whole life not inquiring about god and acting like

an animal, you'll come back as an animal. If your

greatest desire is to eat a lot of food, you will

come back as a pig; if your greatest desire is to

fly, you'll come back as a bird," he says.

AFTER THE CEREMONY, we piled up

styrofoam trays with different multi-colored piles

of absolutely weird looking, but delicious,

vegetarian dishes. We all squatted on the ceremony

room floor, and devotees moved among the diners,

offering seconds out of blue Coleman coolers.

Over my globs of vegetables, I chatted with a

devotee who was originally from England. He'd come

to America to teach a pottery class at NYU, and

then left the job to travel. It was in Boston that

he finally entered the Krishna temple, but he had

run into the devotees in Holland, Britain and

other parts of the States. They had always

impressed him as friendly and intelligent, as he

also seemed, and in Boston he had eventually

started reading the Bhagavad Ghita and coming to

temple.

If I were to see a videotape of my conversation

with him, I would laugh at the visual contrast

between my sidepart and his stubble, my standard

Rugby and his exotic robes. But the substance of

our conversation, far from being the typical

drivel about classes, sports and who got drunk

last night, was quite straightforward and

intelligent. There was no attempt to suck me into

contribution or conversion, no polemical

philosophy; he answered my questions, asked a few

friendly ones of his own, and left my personal

religious aspirations unprobed and unattacked.

As I rose to leave, leaving my empty tray in a

pile by the winding staircase, my devotee host

gave me a free copy of one of Prabhupada's books.

His main interest as I left the temple was only

that I actually read and investigate Prabhupada's

book--unlike the scenarios I'd half-imagined, the

food had not been drugged, the ceremony had

involved no bondage, and the steamed-up door to

the wintry foyer was still unlocked. I was free to

go, free to come back, and most importantly, my

Adidas were still on the shelf. Book in hand, I

walked back towards the T, the Krishna

consciousness center gradually fading behind me

into the rest of Copley's bourgeois brownstones.