Hey, there! Log in / Register

Singing the Hare Krishna mantra to the City Council

Hare Krishnas

The Boston City Council starts its regular meetings with a convocation or prayer by a clergy member selected by a particular councilor. Today, members of the local International Society for Krishna Consciousness opened the council meeting with a request for help for survivors of the Nepal earthquakes and by singing the Hare Krishna mantra.

They were invited by at-large Councilor Michelle Wu, who noted 2015 is the group's 50th anniversary in Boston. Wu and Council President Bill Linehan wore garlands presented by group members.

Neighborhoods: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

These Hare Krishna nut jobs are a harmful cult. Look it up for yourself. Classic mind control cult. Disgusting.

up
Voting closed 0

You can say nearly the same about any religion.

up
Voting closed 0

Yeah they sure seem dangerous:
http://www.harekrishnatemple.com/4regs.html
I mean someone could end up not supporting the new Wynn casino in Everett or something.

up
Voting closed 0

At the end of the day, they are a religion and the tradition is to have some religious folk come in and do an invocation.

I don't care for the Hare Krishna's, but I think they are less dangerous than even I first felt. Yesterday they got their day in the sun, so today it's back to the grind for them.

up
Voting closed 0

that anyone would support the Council's tacit endorsement of mind control techniques, including sleep deprivation, separation of recruits from society, separation from family and friends, confiscation of money, etc.

There is a fine line between so called "real religions" and cults but the Hare Krishna crowd is definitely and definitively a cult.

I don't know why the council needs to parade "religion" into government proceedings anyway.

up
Voting closed 0

I don't know why the council needs to parade "religion" into government proceedings anyway.

I don't either, but given that they do, it's not exactly legit to say that one set of groupthink, irrational taboos and superstition is less valid than any other. Fie on your so-called "real religions", none of them is any more empirically based than any other, and all of them have been known to abuse their adherents.

up
Voting closed 0

Apparently the Hare Krishna group is now pretty much a mainstream organization:

http://www.icsahome.com/articles/book-review-hare-krishna-transformed

up
Voting closed 0

They aren't pushing people to join their religion, and encouraging people to do so should be the goal of all religions. They aren't hassling me, so live and let live.

They've been starting meetings with prayer back when the town fathers were on the Arbella. I get the concept that we should not have an official state religion, so diversity should be the rule. Alas, as Kerpan notes below, they are mainstream today.

up
Voting closed 0

...ever pass thru O'Hare Airport around 1980?...my Lord, what a gauntlet. I have had better treatment from mosquitoes in the allagash...

up
Voting closed 0

... 35 years ago.

up
Voting closed 0

I own a time machine, and for some reason every time I go backwards I end up at O'Hare Airport, and perhaps I am obsessed with the 1980 Winter Olympics, since I want the Olympics in Boston. In that situation, I would be seeing the Hare Krishnas every time I was in O'Hare Airport.

up
Voting closed 0

including sleep deprivation, separation of recruits from society, separation from family and friends

This describes any number of religious and non-religious situations, including monastic life, certain LDS missions, military basic training, and having a new baby at home.

up
Voting closed 0

How is the council tacitly endorsing practices that are nonexistent? I'd expect the council members receive meeting agendas beforehand, and I'm also supposing the councilors are all reasonably well-educated. If so, at least a few of them would have enough cultural literacy to trigger alarms in their heads if what you describe about the Hare Krishnas were still a reality. It seems unlikely there would be absolutely no objection to having adherents address the meeting if their group advocates abuse and manipulation of members as you've described.

I'm genuinely curious about your age and how your opinion of the Krishnas have been informed. I'd understand if you're of the generation that observed them in the decade and a half after their formation, but clearly you have no idea of how the group is currently structured, practices or preaches to others, nearly forty years after their heyday of public visibility.

up
Voting closed 0

Synonyms for the word cult are church, religion, creed, following, persuasion, sect and faith, just to name a few. According to Bill Lockwood, minister of Iowa Park Church of Christ, biblical quotations comprise 34 percent of all the source material offered by the founding fathers of the Constitution! He also wrote "Third, Supreme Court rulings for the entire first century of American existence boldly declared that "Christianity was a part of the common law of the land." In fact, the Constitution is only officially considered to be one of the fundamental laws of the United States. The Declaration of Independence is another and is so stated in the U.S. Code. As Samuel Adams put it: "Before the formation of the Constitution … this Declaration of Independence was received and ratified by all the states in the Union and has never been disannulled." The Declaration, which grounds our liberties upon God, was always considered to be interrelated to the Constitution in the same sense as articles of incorporation are related to the bylaws of a company. The Articles bring the entity into existence and the bylaws manage how that entity is to be run. Thus, the founders needed not place their sense of values in the Constitution since this had already been done in the Declaration."
So how can you say that you don't know why the council needs to parade "religion" into government proceedings anyway, when it is their right and the will of the majority of the American people.

up
Voting closed 0

I spent my last two years of high school without a steady place to live and, more often than not, not enough to eat. I got lunch at school, so it wasn't so bad during the school year. But the summer would be brutal.

A friend in a similar situation introduced me to the Hare Krishna temple on Commonwealth Ave. Twice a weekthey had "offerings" where I could count on a good, free meal. They always made clear that they would welcome my joining, but were never pushy about it and always made me feel welcome.

On Fridays I would dine at another cult, the Community/Twelve Tribes over on Melville ave in Dorchester. They were pushier about joining, but still very welcoming.

After high school I joined another cult-like situation (the Army), and got on with my life. I am still very thankful for what I got from these two places.

I knew what they were, and why they opened their doors like they did. But they always felt safer to me, as a teenage girl, than the typical free meal program offered around Quincy and Boston.

up
Voting closed 0

Shame on you, not Wo.
What did you do in your previous life, burn witches in Salem?

up
Voting closed 0

I've been a teacher for forty years, and I can assure you that the Hare Krishna's are not nut jobs or a harmful cult. If you indeed read any of their literature you would immediately realize how offensive and dishonest your comments were. The source of their knowledge predate the Bible by 3,000 years making it the oldest written literature on this planet and their philosophy of life is unparalleled by any other spiritual scripture or secular source. Investigate it yourself. What's disgusting is that there are people who make erroneous commentaries confusing the innocent population. Before you speak such nonsense you need to research the subject accurately and actually read the material. You'd be surprised at what you might learn! Only a fool believes everything he sees on the internet.

up
Voting closed 0

I would love it if you'd provide some references that describe how Hare Krishnas practice now and who their adherents are comprised of, as opposed to perceptions of this "cult" that are based in the 1970s. As far as I know, most members, both Indians and Westerners, are no longer residents of their temples but live and work in the community just like members of any other church. When was the last time one of them tried to prosletyze to you or accost you in airport? Times change and religions change. I think the average follower today is more mainstream than you'd like to believe.

up
Voting closed 0

Bletchley Park type attempt to make Plain Text from .sgstn StenoGraph StenoNote file from Council Chamber Computer. Wed 6 May 2015 Public Meeting of Boston City Council
http://www.reddit.com/r/openbostoncitycouncil/comments/35oeic/public_mee...

up
Voting closed 0

I am familiar with the work done at Bletchley Park. Amongst other things they broke the enigma machine code. Wiich was a blessing for protecting allied shipping. It did,nt

work so well for Coventry. But for an island that needed fuel and food from ships it worked. Granted it took months to figure it out. As an American of Irish heritage I find Bletchley Parks work Heroic. My father and multiple uncles may have survived because of it.

up
Voting closed 0

"15 It's my honor {ed to} and welcome Reverend dawn man sten from our safe safe of the lute lute church ."

Heh. Lute lute church.

"21 I fires that we youse {ed} to have in East Boston ."

It must be the Boston accent.

"25 Was dog some work ."

I agree. Dog tired here. So, English to Urdu in Babelfish, then to Russian, then back to English.

up
Voting closed 0

Boston City Council has been holding back the additional file of acronyms, abbreviations, shortcut tokens used for the the Stenograph Record needed for clear understandable plain text. And the full text of Captions from Webcasts of the Public Meetings.

see also
https://www.youtube.com/user/BostonCityCouncil/videos

Comment re FY16 Budget of Boston City Council's own Departmental Budget
Wider Advertisement for more up to date Stenographic Services with newer technologies/software is needed. Better technology and software is now available for a lower budget that has more features than the current service. For example, plain text for vision impaired, hard of hearing, ESL English as a Second Language folks. Not all can use video, for example concussion recovery folks finding it easier to read than watch and listen to video.

Budget for a better stenographic service with lower cost and the more advanced technology/software that reduces current expenses. Get rid of the out of date current equipment used in the Council Chamber for the Stenographic Record.

Look into a more comprehensive Council Records Management Program that reduces costs with greater features to access more easily Council Archives and digitize Council Public Records online for ready access.

up
Voting closed 0

It's the Boston City Council. It was Ronald McDonald day last Wednesday, Thursday was American Idol day and next Monday Is or is not Bruce Jenner/Kardashian day.

up
Voting closed 0

Boston City Council could be critiqued for the inordinate amount of time on commemorative Docket items but glossing over personnel appointments without proper reading by the Clerks !

More observers would hold Boston City Councilors and Council Central Staff to better Practices and Procedures !
http://www.reddit.com/search?q=boston+city+council

up
Voting closed 0

The Council is on top of things like

http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/home.html

up
Voting closed 0

If you take a look at the minutes of any old meeting, you'd see mention of temporary personnel appointments.

Since they are pro forma, there is not much need for discussion. I mean, Lee Blasi has been a "temporary" employee for over a decade. How much can you talk about her every 4 months?

up
Voting closed 0

...he's having a nirvanic experience

up
Voting closed 0