Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Instant karma: A first-hand glimpse into Dallas’ Hare Krishna community

Rex C. Curry

Lewinna Merchant, left, and Hannah Lessinger dance with other Krishna devotees during Festival of Chariots at Dallas' Hare Krishna Temple on Saturday, April 13, 2013.

DALLAS — As the slamming of drums swells in volume, I try my best to push through the crowd. I make my way toward the stage, unsure of myself while an audience with a Woodstock-size fervor sways back and forth moaning a chant straight out of the psychedelic 60s.

A Time for Celebration

I’m at Sri Sri Radha Kalachandji Mandir – Dallas’s only Hare Krishna temple and home to the restaurant Kalachandji’s since 1986. That this festival commemorates the birth of the faith’s main deity Krishna means little to me as I watch grown men blow conch shells while the rest of the group dances.

On the morning of March 26, I didn’t expect that I would be huddled between masses of grinning monks before supper. However I wasn’t surprised, pulling into Gurley Avenue – where the temple stands tall among a suburb of lower income homes – to find throngs of white people in traditional Indian saris making their way to Kalachandji’s with ear-to-ear grins on their faces, like they’d just seen every member of The Grateful Dead at the same time.

Against the warnings of my peers in the past few weeks, I step out of the car and into the temple. At this point, I’ve talked with Nityananda Chandra – the temple’s press contact – but I’m still foggy on the specifics because I couldn’t pronounce half the words on the temple’s website.

Abhishek

Ann Pinson

This is the interior of Kalachandji's temple room at the Dallas Hare Krishna Temple.

As I make my way to Chandra’s office in the back of the temple, I wonder if I’m going to be taken aside at any point and asked politely to drink the ceremonial Kool-Aid.

Seated at his desk clicking through Facebook, Chandra looks more like a vice principal than a monk. Who exactly was I expecting to find seated behind Chandra’s desk, Krishna himself? Seeing a deity would have been a bit too much for a Tuesday, even if it was the day of the Abhishek festival.

“Abhishek is a 500-year-old method of offering worship. The first Abhishek was when Krishna was born and they gave the baby a bath. It’s a way to express some love,” Chandra says.

Chandra tells me the Kalachandji’s house rules before we head to the worship room:

1. You must remove your shoes.

2. You must not remove your clothing.

3. You must leave with a full belly.

Nothing about the worship room – from the purple tinted ceiling to the wax statue of A.C. Prabhupada (the movement’s founder) - made me want to shimmy out of my wardrobe. On top of that, as a college student, I’m always willing to leave a building with a full belly if it doesn’t involve ramen noodles or baby food.

Wafts of powdered curry and cumin spill out from the restaurant side of the temple, and I wince with hunger anticipating the feast that follows the festival.

Abhishek involves two main activities: bathing golden statues of Krishna in a mixture of yogurt, honey, and strawberry juice, followed by a parade around the block. Imagine how difficult keeping up with the Joneses must be when the Joneses run around your neighborhood barefoot, chanting Hare Krishna and carrying statues covered in syrup.

Hare Krishna Tradition

Courtyard at Kalachandji's

In the worship room, Chandra and I talk about Hare Krishna history and its shaky start in the States. According to Chandra, parents would hire “deprogrammers” to disassociate their children from the Hare Krishna movement.

“They were kidnapped from the temple and they were forced at gunpoint to take intoxications. One of them was forced to have sex with a prostitute. They tie you up and inject you full of drugs, berate you, and criticize you,” Chandra says.

Several monks, sweat beading on their foreheads in the sharp light above the stage, pour buckets of yogurt onto the statues of Krishna. This symbolic bathing continues for an hour as the worshipers clap, children sprint around with iPhones snapping pictures, and devotees take turns singing Hare Krishna at the microphone.

Eventually the monks wheel the statues offstage and start the parade through the neighborhood. I follow reluctantly, not wanting to be seen as part of the congregation in the outside world and trying my hardest to avoid the constant downpour of smiles I’m experiencing from every direction.

Luis Villar, one of the smiling devotees, began regularly attending Hare Krishna services this New Year’s.

“My take on it was that it reminded me a lot of Latin America. It brought me back to the similarities between those two cultures. It was great to go out into the streets and sing the holy mantra,” Villar says.

Doing Good Works

David Woo/The Dallas Morning News

Srila Prabhupada sits on a Vyasasana inside the Hare Krishna Temple during a visit in 2011. Located in the Buckner Park neighborhood, the owners of the adjoining restaurant have devoted themselves to improving the area around the restaurant and Palace.

As we move through the streets, I notice that many homes in the neighborhood – which Chandra and company dub “Taam” (holy place)- look patched up.

“We renovate the neighborhood. We take old, broken down houses and fix them up nicely. We take houses that maybe had some rowdy tenants, buy them up, and put some peaceful people inside,” Chandra says.

Back in the worship room, we spread out to make room for the children from the temple’s Sunday school who’ve prepared a performance to celebrate Abhishek.

I was raised Muslim, which means two things: I’m a miser come Christmas and I know how it feels to experience religion as fear rather than love. I still remember nights spent trying to memorize long prayers in a language I don’t speak, kneeling then standing up in one spot long beyond the capacity of a fidgety 10-year-old.

When I see the Krishna kids lined up in two slipshod rows to recite their songs, all bedazzled in traditional Indian clothing, suddenly I’m sucked back to my childhood, sweating as I try to sit still and follow my older brother’s movements wondering why God was so concerned about the position of my legs.

Feasting on Fabulous Food and Life

Kalachandji Restaurant and Palace

After the performance, we feast on dishes carted in from the restaurant’s kitchen. Did I worry that something had been slipped in my salad? Yes, but I texted enough people to constitute a small militia just in case I went M.I.A under the influence of high quality vegetarian grub.

Talking to Mark Merchant, a local artist, I realize that for many the pull of Hare Krishna worship is the cuisine.

“I’ve eaten at the restaurant for 18 years. It took me 13 years before I asked any questions. I wasn’t ready for spiritual things. Of course when I did go in there, Nityananda grabbed me and took me to this transcendental mosh pit, and I’ve never been the same,” Merchant says.

I finish my food while the devotees sit around me talking about negative energy at their workplaces. Nityananda pulls out his smartphone and shows the group a popular Youtube video called “Indian Thriller,” punctuating the cheesy Bollywood tune with his laughter every few seconds.

When I walk out of Kalachandji’s and into my car, far from the cheering of the devotees and the music pulsing from the temple, I’m full but unenlightened.