I hadn’t seen one for years, maybe decades, until last Tuesday when I saw a group of 4 of them outside the McGill gates, chanting their thing. They are mostly harmless, except once I was teaching in a ground floor classroom on a warm day with the windows open and a large group were "oom"ing away loud enough to be disruptive. Although I asked them politely, they refused to desist and I had to close the windows.
In general, I view all religions as cults and have no interest, but I would like to point out to those who want to see their adherents deprogrammed that the church has been a refuge and a sanctuary to millions of American blacks when no other organization–certainly not the government–had any interest in serving them. So while religion is not for me, I see some value in it–for some others. Obviously, I have to exclude Fred Phelps’s church; that is just a hate vehicle.
Around here, I’ve only seen them at airports and colleges. At Lambert airport, there’s actually a kisok (or was until recently – I haven’t been there in awhile) where they sell overpriced Baghavad Gitas. The guy who mans the kiosk doesn’t dress in the stereotypical orange toga, so it looks like a regular book/magazine stand until you realize the only thing they’re selling is Hare Krishna literature.
At college (2006-ish), I made the mistake of telling one of them that I don’t carry cash so I couldn’t donate. The guy whipped out a little handheld card reader and said “Don’t worry, we take credit!”. I still didn’t donate, but I learned that excuse doesn’t work anymore.
I’ve got a pretty decent Hare Krishna recipe book, at least, it’s pretty good if you ignore the proselytising at the start, and the random picture of Krishna in the middle of the food photos.
Yes. My ex-roommate. One day I came home from work to discover he was giving away all his worldly possessions to sign up. It didn’t last long, and I’ll I’ve heard him say on the matter was “too many dishes, not enough yoga”. This would have been 1996 or 1997. The two Krishnaii who came to get him were nice guys and didn’t proselytize at me in the least.
I don’t know whether the fact it was HK had anything to do with the neighbors’ ire. Would they have been just as irate if the owner planned something like stringed orchestra practice? No idea.
However, I will say that there was only one small access road for everyone in the neighborhood.
Lived with a girlfriend’s sister and B.I.L. for a couple weeks a long time back in Seattle. Bunch of drones as far as I was concerned. Chanting and meditating half the day at least. Meals at the temple were interesting. Tasty for vegetarian fare for sure. Heavily based on white rice and sugar. Makes me wonder how many of them turn out diabetic in later years.
First couple visits to the temple, I was impressed with all the fresh flowers. After a few days of visiting, we were encouraged to partake in some of their activities. Their mistake to invite a northwoodsman to dance and frolic on street corners. I was half way into it until a grouchy old lady walked by and tried to spit on me.
Then I discovered where all those fresh flowers came from when I was invited on an early morning raid through neighborhood yards. They had no problem swiping flowers. Probably hit up the spitting old lady’s carefully tended poseys a few too many times.
I got the impression that a lot of the lost souls that got scooped up found a place that was far from the worst one they could have ended up, and a lot of just them stayed until they got their heads together and moved on.