Religious Crackpot Of The Month — August 2007: Facts For Life

This month’s Religious Crackpot Thereof award goes to a crazy monk whom I met some months ago now. What? Don’t look at me like that; the Nobel Prizes are awarded to stuff that happened years before the date on the certificate. Besides, he was a Hare Krishna, and whoever heard of Hare Krishnas bombing someone for saying bad things about them? This crazy monk, whose name alas I do not know, spotted me when I was some distance away. I knew he was going to talk at me, but I thought, what the hell, what’s the worst that can happen?

‘Hello.’

‘Have you ever met a monk?’

‘No.’

‘Well, now you have.’ He was about my height, dressed in a terracotta robe (the colour, not the material), and he was completely bald except for a ponytail, and possibly a tuft at the front. I can’t remember for certain ’“ the haircuts of people I only met once are not a priority for my long term memory. He talked to me briefly about nothing very much and then handed me a little purple book with the phrase ‘FACTS FOR LIFE’ printed on the front in big, friendly letters. After that he told me to shout ‘gouranga!’, which I didn’t, because we were standing in Leeds city centre and I though it might get looks. I think he meant generally anyway, rather than right then and there.

Later that day, I read his book. It was hilarious. This is the bulk of the blurb on the back:

This is NOT a sentimental religious book! It is: candid, cutting, explicit, unerringly logical, penetrating, revealing, stimulating yet grave and deep, irresistible reading!

Precisely one of those adjectives can reasonably describe the book: ‘revealing’. Let’s have a look at some ‘unerringly logical’ statements from the author, ‘today’s greatest authority on Vedic knowledge’. Exactly what definition of ‘today’ is being used here is unclear, since the author in question died in 1977, fully 25 years before the book was published.

Charles Hennis: I don’t think you can expect an international organisation to indoctrinate people... Srila Prabhupada: Why not? It should be international...

Note that the book is a collection of conversations between the author, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and a succession of morons ’“ in one case including ‘one of his disciples … taking the part of a materialistic scientist’. I prefer to think of it as a really crap play. And remember, it’s ‘unerringly logical’.

Srila Prabhupada: Krishna says, ... ‘After death the spirit soul enters another material body.’ We accept it. We don’t require proof from a so-called scientist, who is imperfect. Doctor: So the question of belief comes first. Srila Prabhupada: It is not belief; it is fact. Doctor: Yes, but how do you prove the fact? Srila Prabhupada: That Krishna says so is proof.

Watch it fail to err!

Srila Prabhupada: But consider the cow: we drink her milk, and therefore she is our mother. Do you agree? Cardinal Danielou: Yes, surely.

The back of the book says that the author ‘speaks out on ... Women’s Liberation’. What I wasn’t expecting was for him to speak out against women’s liberation:

The woman should be subordinate to the man, so that the man can take charge of the woman. Then the woman is not a problem for the public.

I swear, it says that. If you can track down a copy, it says it on page 43.

Srila Prabhupada: Why isn’t it scientific [to take everything in the Bhagavad-gita on faith]? The Bhagavad-gita says ... ‘All living entities subsist by eating sufficient food grains, and grains are produced from rain’. Is that belief? Disciple: That must be true. Srila Prabhupada: Similarly, everything in the Bhagavad-gita is true.

What I love about this book is that you can open it at random and nine times out of ten you’ll hit something laughably insane. I just opened it, quite at random, to page 60/61. Here is some of page 61:

In India, many men are already unemployed, so to introduce more machines there is not a very good proposal. One hundred men’s work can be done by one man working a machine. But why should there be so many men unemployed? Why not engage one hundred men instead of one?

He’s a bloody Luddite! He goes on:

Here in the West, also, there is much unemployment. Because in your Western countries everything is done by machine, you are creating many hippies, frustrated young people with nothing to do. ... Everyone should be employed, otherwise there will be trouble. ‘An idle brain is a devil’s workshop.’

Ah, there’s the nub: everyone should have a boring monotonous job so they don’t think too much. Let’s open the book once more, again at random. This time I hit pages 112 and 113. Here’s some of the latter:

When you are walking, your brain is working’”‘Go this way; go that way; a car is coming’’”

It’s important to remember this is Important Vedic Teaching, and not one of the songs from Trumpton.

’”and your brain says to your legs, ‘Come to this side.’ Now, the work of the brain and the work of the legs are different, but the central point is one’”to get you safely across the street.

This time, I opened it to pages 70 and 71. On page 71 (and a bit on page 72), a priest annoys Prabhupada by using his own logic against him. Prabhupada criticised the priest for eating animals despite a commandment Not to Kill. The priest points out that obviously it can’t mean do not kill anything, ever, or else by the same logic Prabhupada and his disciples are wrong to kill and eat potatoes. Prabhupada squirms and fails to win the argument, despite having a defensible position for a change. Why this exchange was included in the book is a mystery.

But all this fun and random-page frivolity aside, the part of this book that worries me the most is, well, the entirety of the Hare Krishna philosophy. Honestly, it has to be the shittest religion ever. I mean, at least Scientology lets you have some fun, assuming you can still afford to after you pay their fees. Let me outline the Hare Krishna religion, as I understand it from this book.

It is not possible to be truly happy in this ‘materialistic’ world.
After you die, you will reincarnate.
If you have fun (or, more accurately, a ‘very convincing experience’ of happiness) then you will reincarnate in some really crappy way, perhaps as a tree or a beetle or a Hare Krishna monk.
The best thing you can do it become a monk or get a boring, monotonous job so you don’t really notice how crap everything is.

So that’s that. Life’s shit and it goes on forever. What a marvellous message for today’s young people. And a worthy winner, I think, of Religious Crackpot Of The Month.

Note that this page can be accessed at http://www.andrewt.net/blog/?p=663 since the normal URL is a bit of a pain with the em-dash. I'll try not to use those any more.