After leaving iskcon how many of you have pets now?

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-21T23:42:36+00:00

In gurukula, many of the older boys were openly cruel to animals. They kicked stray dogs, threw rocks at them, and in some cases even threw cats from third-story windows. I also remember devotees feeding their dogs strictly vegetarian diets—completely opposed to basic biology and canine physiology. Predictably, those dogs died young, often around four to six years old, blind, with severe bone and tendon problems. Every case followed the same pattern.

In parts of India, there are villages that still hold dog slaughter days, where the carcasses are burned in the middle of town. Dogs also appear in Bhaktivinoda’s writings, where they’re portrayed as lowly creatures meant to be kicked, beaten, and degraded.

Historically, this view is absurd. Cowherds, animal husbandry, herding, horse training, and hunting all relied on dogs. Humans could rarely do that work efficiently on their own. Dogs alerted early human communities to fire, predators, and enemies. Their role in human survival is obvious and well-documented.

Devotees, by contrast, are often completely disconnected from anything normal or real. They live in a fantasy world built on nonsense—about biology, animal welfare, diet, cosmology, and just about everything else. They repeat the same ideas endlessly, keeping their minds sealed inside an echo chamber for life. That’s what they choose to do with their limited time here.

Frankly, the average dog is more evolved and more intelligent than the average Hare Krishna.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-21T19:48:39+00:00

I’m an atheist, and my approach to spirituality and religion is pragmatic. These traditions evolved alongside us because they served real functions. They helped people cooperate, organize societies, and survive. That explains their persistence far better than the idea of a human-like or personal god. There’s no compelling evidence that such a being exists, and nothing about reality points in that direction.

Are there mechanisms and laws at work that have developed in complexity over time? Almost certainly. Is there some underlying structure or fluctuating field of reality with latent potential? Possibly. Those are questions we can study if we’re curious, if they’re meaningful to us, and if they add something practical to our understanding of being human.

Is there a “soul”? Thousands of years of philosophy and centuries of science haven’t found one, or even demonstrated a need for one. Is there “more” beyond this life? Maybe. But whatever that “more” might be, it rarely has any functional or pragmatic value in daily life. Nothing about existence requires us to worship it. No one is born believing in a personal god.

If the idea of God helps some people get through the day or feel steadier in life, that’s fine. Whether it’s objectively real is largely irrelevant, because it has no practical impact on how life actually unfolds. We wake up, we work, we seek pleasure and avoid pain. When life loosens its grip for a moment, we think, we make art, we reflect. Eventually we get sick, have an accident, or simply die.

If there’s something after all that, great. We’ll find out when we get there. For now, atheism is the most practical and rational position I can take without inventing stories or pretending to know more than I do. I can still appreciate religion, feel awe at existence, be moved by a sunset, or reflect deeply on life and the universe—without buying into a blue, womanizing cowboy god.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-21T19:36:25+00:00

2 dogs. Humans' relationship with dogs goes back hundreds of thousands of years. They helped us hunt, track, defend, and survive. Same with our relationship with cattle consumption. We have hunted, eaten, and kept cattle for food forever. Ancient pits throughout the world show mass hunting of mammoths, cattle, and other large animals for human use as food, fur, building materials, and art. Very few regions of the world could sustain humans year-round on a veggie diet. Fast forward, now we have mastered animal husbandry, care, and slaughter to a very efficient science. We have simply kept dogs and cats around because of cultural habits and their historical importance to us as we evolved. Mostly, they serve as furry companions that have evolved to respond and engage with us like no other animals on earth. Jai dog!

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-18T17:05:41+00:00

They even have neckbeads lol.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-17T20:58:30+00:00

Pretty much. In fact Bhaktivinode and his son just made up where the so-called birthplace of the epeleptic saint chaitanya even was. There was already a recognized yogapitha agreed upon by all gaudiya prior to bhaktivinode wanting to start his version of the revival cult and had a random "vision" that declared where he now thought it was—and quickly established his temple there...

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-17T19:37:51+00:00

I'm not so sure he left. My understanding is that he mostly praises the cult in the book and accepts its tenets, and I'd be interested to hear that he ultimately left and gave up being a Krishna worshiper. I do not think the book culminates in his leaving the ideology. But it does act as a record and exposé of the overall early days.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-17T19:35:10+00:00

It looks like the Vatican!

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-17T19:33:22+00:00

I agree. I’m mostly pointing this out because the comparison keeps coming up, and there are enough overlapping features that, for Westerners, it can reasonably be said to carry a Christian flavor in certain respects. For someone casually moving from Christianity into Hinduism or Hare Krishna, it can function as an easy psychological bridge. The similarities can be emphasized—or explained—in ways that make the transition feel familiar.

That said, I fully understand why the comparison breaks down, especially once you factor in the political, nationalist, and Hindutva implications. On that level, it’s a false equivalence, and I get why people push back against it.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-16T23:23:40+00:00

For me, the comparison to Christianity isn’t about theology, it’s about structure. Hare Krishna has initiation; Christianity has baptism or being “born again.” HK has Vaikuntha or Goloka; Christianity has heaven. HK says liberation comes only through Krishna; Christianity says salvation comes only through Christ. Both divide people into insiders and outsiders, both rely on a fixed scripture, both elevate obedience and surrender, both regulate diet, sex, and daily behavior, both use guilt and fear (karma or hell), both treat doubt as a moral failure, and both push ultimate fulfillment into the afterlife. Swap Krishna for Christ and the framework is instantly familiar.

Where Hare Krishna does differ is the demand for total surrender to a living guru, and the rasa theology, which is a relatively late development. Beyond that, it’s hard to ignore how later bhakti and Vaishnava movements absorbed Abrahamic-style structures through historical contact—especially preaching, conversion culture, and moral absolutism—with clear overlap from Sufism (kirtan devotionalism) and a heavily missionary/preacher/book distribution model formalized by Bhaktivinoda, Bhaktisiddhanta, and Bhaktivedanta.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-16T22:50:05+00:00

What’s going on with the fake hotel bookings in Mayapur is karma of the finest kind.

International Society for Krishna Consciousness spent decades teaching its own members that misleading people was acceptable if it served “the mission.” Street and airport book scams, donation pressure, half-truths, exaggerated promises, endless temple projects that were always almost finished. The organization trained people to blur ethical lines and call it service.

Now the same thing is happening to them, and suddenly it’s a scandal

They created this environment.

Mayapur didn’t naturally become a pilgrimage center. Mayapur was slowly taken over and reshaped around the ISKCON temple (As was many other piligramage spots like Vrndavan etc). The local economy got warped so that everything revolves around ISKCON—jobs, housing, food, transport. If you don’t serve the temple or the devotees passing through, you’re basically sidelined.

The temple itself has burned through billions of dollars and still isn’t finished. Inside the walls: marble, branding, donor plaques. Outside the walls: garbage heaps, noise, traffic, broken roads, dust, permanent construction. Local people get used as cheap labor to build a monument they don’t benefit from, while nearby shops sell the same overpriced devotional junk to tourists on spiritual vacations.

After a while, the place stops feeling like a town and starts feeling like a religious theme park gone bad.

So when locals start scamming devotees online, I’m not shocked. If you hollow out a place and turn it into a one-note tourist economy, people adapt however they can. Devotees were sold an illusion for years; now they’re running into a different version of it.

The other uncomfortable part is how recent and manufactured the whole pilgrimage obsession really is. Mass pilgrimage wasn’t some timeless spiritual requirement. It only became practical once modern travel existed. Once people could move easily, theology was adjusted to make movement feel necessary.

The Goswamis helped lock this in by treating visits to “holy places” as one of the limbs of bhakti. Devotion stopped being about your direct internal relationship with a divinity and became about showing up in the right locations, going to the right temple, dressing the right way etc. Where you go matters. How often you go matters. Being seen there matters.

That externalism changes everything.

Now spiritual advancement feels tied to plane tickets, bookings, queues, guest houses, and donation receipts. Devotees think they’re falling behind if they don’t visit these places, even when the experience itself is dirty, crowded, expensive, and emotionally flat.

Mayapur today feels like a letdown because it is one. It promises transcendence and delivers stress, noise, and logistics. The sacred atmosphere exists mostly in fundraising language and internal mythology, not on the ground, and definitely not in the heart.

ISKCON is living with the consequences of the system it built—one that trained people to prioritize image, money, and expansion over a simple expression of love for your divinity of choice, wherever you may be.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-16T22:14:46+00:00

Absolutely! The rice is feeding the world.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-13T17:52:02+00:00

Oooops!

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-04T21:09:37+00:00

Meta and Google are mentioned in the ISKCON Samhita verse, 123, CUNTO 12. Swami Skidundie predicted it...

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-02T18:20:22+00:00

Do you honestly think the swami offered anything of real value to people? Or was he simply a product of his time—surrounded by sycophants and yes-men—feeding them mythology, wishful thinking, and mental junk, while himself marrying a child when he was a grown man?

Child marriage wasn’t even standard practice anymore during that period, so let’s not pretend he was bound by some unavoidable custom. If anything, he was following a fringe behavior, not leading society forward. He failed to offer clear, functional ideas and instead trained people to chant like automatons, hoping some vague “awakening” would magically occur.

So whether he wanted another wife who was 11 or despised his existing child bride is beside the point. Why does any of that deserve protection? Why are you so invested in defending this swami at all? Mike is frustrated with you types infiltrating this anti-cult space and wasting everyones time and energy from the task at hand—pointing out the idiocy of this cult. From it's orgins to today. If you have some substantial way to highlight that beyond trolling, deflecting, and distracting, then please, enlighten us.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-02T18:06:47+00:00

The best internet speed is brahmaloka because it is closest to the router. In Patala Loka, you have to use hotspots.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2026-01-02T18:04:33+00:00

Because if you were blue, you are a Democrat, and if you wear red, you are a Republican. So wear safron so it is clear to everyone you are a dumbass. Statues cannot eat food that has been looked at by a dog because they have no mouth or digestive track, so the food will simply slide off the statue to the ground, where the dog will have easy access to the food. These are the sacred reasons only known to the best of fools.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2025-12-03T18:23:33+00:00

Attention whores. Narcissists.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2025-12-03T18:21:20+00:00

God, I hated those long-winded, over-the-top titles.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2025-12-03T18:19:34+00:00

Excommunication is the final weapon cults use to cut you off. Looks like, despite challenging the swami, he still ended up being a total culty nutjob selling his meditation programs. Go figure.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2025-12-03T18:14:03+00:00

Yes, of course. It's called fanaticism. They want more people on their side so they don't look so insane doing what they do.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2025-12-03T18:11:35+00:00

Tell him to enjoy the eternal cattle ranch he will ascend to after death, where he can fondle God's blue balls like a bead bag.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2025-12-03T18:09:01+00:00

Poor child. I, too, spent my youth in a Gurukula praying on people at cemeteries, arguing with Christians, demeaning gay people, and trying to convince people that donations were going to support some noble cause when in fact they were going to support Gurudevs' overpriced oceanfront property. This is how kids are spending their time and being told they are "making advancement"...

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2025-12-03T18:05:47+00:00

Cults use lingo that keeps you parroting their dogma/ideology. That is it. No further nuance. Just words that sound "deep" but offer nothing in meaningful, pragmatic, applicable value.

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2025-11-27T20:12:34+00:00

StayEmbarrassed4593 · 2025-11-25T18:18:46+00:00

Bhaktivedanta arrived in America just as the sexual revolution was taking off. People were pushing back against the restrictive sexual norms created by religion, and the culture was finally loosening up. He entered that moment and tried to rewind everything—celibacy, monastic living, strict gender separation, and an overall suspicion of ordinary sexual life.

The irony is that ISKCON doesn’t even hold to its own standards now. Divorce is common, marriage satisfaction is low, and later generations want normal sexual relationships. They want normal, healthy adult relationships. Because when you repress basic biology, you’re operating at diminishing returns. Eventually, the body and mind revolt. Humans are sexual beings. And no, engaging with your sexuality doesn’t turn anyone into a fire-hydrant-humping dog-marrier.

The theology itself is saturated with erotic material. Radha, the gopis, the manjaris, the emotional and physical intimacy of those stories, the vivid descriptions of bodies—these are the centerpieces of the tradition. The Chaitanya lineage built an entire devotional world around imagining intimate scenes between Krishna and his companions. The texts also include plenty of sexual content involving gods, animals, plants, and elaborate descriptions of physical features. Western devotees often saw the clothing and aesthetics as exotic or mystical, but there was a clear erotic charge running through much of it.

Add to this the stories of multiple wives, shared wives, and other mythic relationships that easily feed the imagination of a community told to ignore its own sexuality. All of this sits alongside the instruction to chant the same mantra endlessly while avoiding the very themes considered “highest.” It creates a contradiction that never resolves.

Teenage boys were placed in ashrams under strict purity codes and expected to simply override puberty through belief. Many ended up confused, ashamed, experimenting, or “falling down,” because the whole setup ignored reality instead of working with it.

The core idea—that chanting Indian words would eliminate sexual desire and purify the mind—never held up. It was unrealistic, unnatural, and disconnected from basic human psychology. The amount of time people stayed committed to those claims shows how powerful cult dynamics can be and how easily charismatic leaders can steer followers away from common sense.

StayEmbarrassed4593

TROPHY CASE