Monday, April 19, 2010

Context is everything - Part Two

Originally when I was starting this blog I was going to call it "Philosophical Journeys of a Blind Heart". A few years ago I had the idea of putting together a presentation on my personal philosophical journey through life. I had realised, looking back at my life, and looking at the lives of friends around me, it seemed that people in general have a major inclination to accept philosophical stances not on their own merit, but out of emotional or psychological needs at the time. Sometimes atheists will claim that theistic philosophies arise out of the need to feel like there is someone in control, or that life has meaning. I think that, on one level, this is a fair statement, but I think it needs to be expanded. I think that, equally atheists will accept atheism not entirely out of a philosophical sense of 'rightness' but mostly out of an emotional or psychological need. I feel that if you map out people's lives as philosophical journeys, you will see a network of emotional and psychological triggers which led to their taking up new philosophical stances. I've sat through countless lectures at university hearing about the development of various thinkers and their theories, and throughout there is always a theme arising of personal struggles resulting in the rise of new social theories. I think we do a great disservice to ourselves when we assert that we have accepted certain things as truth solely because of their philosophical 'rightness' and not at least partly because of our own emotional and psychological needs.

When it comes to interpersonal relationships I think this same thing happens. Sometimes, at least in the short term, we will ignore problems in a relationship because that relationship serves some specific emotional or psychological need at the time. And sometimes, in order to dismiss people we will readily accept half-truths as essential elements of a persons character, accept speculations as secret realities, and then filter all our experiences of that person through these new social lenses. In the longer term, however, it's hard to maintain this kind of response in a relationship without a lot of hard work and determination.

I know that, if people want to write someone off, they will, and there is nothing you can do about it. Even to the point where, if you do try to do something about it, they will just take your attempts as evidence of their original claims. So, I know that by dealing with some of the ways I have been dismissed within the NZ Krishna community I may be providing more ammunition for my own dismissal. But I still value the right of replying to these accusations, regardless of how they will be received. Those who matter the most to me seem interested to read my reply, so I will deal with these four things, as I listed in my last entry, which were 1) that my blog is an internet campaign, 2) that my blog is an exercise in creative writing, or in other words that it is fictional, 3) that I have elastic gender inclinations, 4) that these elastic inclinations are something that I bottled up, struggled with for years, and eventually popped because of.

One last thing before I start, I've been asked by a friend to point out that the Hare Krishna world is wide and varied. Every area of the world has different things going on, and what is true for one centre is not true for all. So always take this into consideration whenever you read something I've written.

Issue one: Is my blog an internet campaign, specifically against the Hare Krishnas?
I was always worried that this blog would be considered an attach on the Hare Krishnas, which is why when I started I specifically asked two of my friends, who are still Hare Krishnas, one in NZ and one overseas, to monitor what I wrote and let me know if I started getting off track and offensive. Heck, I even wrote an entry entitled, "This Is Not An Anti-Krishna Blog". Writing this blog as an internet campaign or an attack on a community was never at all my intention. As I've explained several times before, I started this blog for my own personal reasons. Mainly, I was tired of having to explain to people over and over again about why I left the Krishna community, and what I had been up to for the past 7 years while I was absent from their social circles. I also realised that by not discussing things I was not properly dealing with issues I had experienced which I really needed to address in order to move forward.

The responses I received from people, especially when I first started this blog, was amazing. For one, people were able to draw parallels to their own individual lives. I had people who started writing to me about the different communities they were part of, whether it be work communities, religious communities, social communities, activist communities. They were able to say that "yes, my community also suffers from these same problems." I think that viewing the Krishna community as a unique community with unique problems is incorrect. It is also incorrect to dismiss whatever problems this blog may highlight as part of some internet campaign against a specific community. If anything, this blog serves to highlight certain frailties of the human creature in general. I think that the vast majority of people reading my blog are able to see it for what it is, at least I hope so.

The fact that my blog has been accused of being an internet campaign unfortunately says more for those making such claims than it does about my personal blog. It suggests that the people making such claims are unable to acknowledge problems that exist in their own community, or else want to ignore such problems, or keep them out of the view of other members of the community. As someone mentioned as a comment to my last entry, saying that there are no social problems in a community, or even a family, is itself a sign of social problems. Even my own family, which many people say they are envious of, has its own issues to deal with in terms of interpersonal issues. It is no criticism to acknowledge these things, and it is incredibly unhealthy to deny the existence of problems.

Is this an internet campaign? No it's not. It's just me sorting through my experiences in a public place.

Issue two: Is my blog a fictional creation?
This suggestion is probably the most cutting of all the negative things said about me or my blog. Is my blog fictional? No it's not. It's rather insulting to have someone suggest that my description of my experiences over the past 7 years is fictional, as I'm sure you can imagine. I don't really know what parts of my blog people would like to think are fictional, it would be interesting to find out what people think I've made up and why I would have done it. That would be interesting to find out.

It's funny, because I have had a number of people who lived in the monastery in the past, several who are still Hare Krishnas, saying that they were glad I was finally airing some of the problems that went on in the monastery, and some of the social problems which occurred there. I don't think I described anything that reveals the place to be incredibly corrupt or evil. The fact is the monastery suffered from the same problems as any workplace would, it was just compounded by the close living situations, and intensity of the setting. It happened, it wasn't fictional.

I mean, I do have e-mail records which can verify much of what I've discussed on here, I have friends who lived in the monastery at the times that I described who would be happy to verify what I've described. I don't really see how anyone can claim that my blog is fictional.

In my blog I have tried as best as I can to not deny my own part in negative social behaviour, or community problems. The community I lived in had issues, no denying it, and I played an active role in those problems, I perpetuated the same issues. If I were to write a fictional piece, attacking the community, surely I would make myself come out smelling like roses, but I definitely didn't do that.

Is my blog subjective? Yes it is. It is me describing my subjective experience, looking back at it with a certain mindset and analysing it all with ever changing emotional and psychological needs. If one wanted to dismiss my blog, why not dismiss it based on that fact, and not on the claim that it is fictional. Subjective experience is never fictional, it just may not correlate 100% with someone else's subjective experience of the same thing. While speaking to a friend of mine recently about this all, he made a joke like that, which certainly held truth, he said it was ridiculous how my blog was being dismissed, he said it should be dismissed in one sense for being overly emotional, but not for being fictional, or being the writings of someone with 'elastic gender inclinations', and I think that is fair enough. Read my blog in the context of someone struggling to deal with the feelings one could expect to deal with while making radical lifestyle, worldview and community changes in their late 20s. If you do that, there is no need to make claims that this blog is fictional. It's just subjective. Filter it through the subjectiveness if you must, but acknowledge it as truth, and deal with that truth as you need to in order to continue on with your life, or help you live a better one.

Issue three: Do I have elastic gender inclinations?
I personally don't think this as much of an important issue as the above two, and probably the final one. For starters, what does this claim mean? A friend of mine wanted me to clear up whether the implication being made had to do with gender identity issues or sexual orientation issues. The wording that is being used is definitely both ambiguous and vague at the same time. As I describe the context of this claim I think it will all become a bit more clear.

According to the article I referenced in my last blog, it is claimed that I disclosed in a discussion with another devotee that prior to my taking to Krishna consciousness my "gender inclinations had been elastic". I would like to discuss the context of this conversation, as well as the context of my 'revelation'.

Sometime after I started writing this blog I was contacted by a female devotee who found my blog interesting because of her own experiences within the Krishna community in New Zealand. Because of the segregated nature of the community, I really had nothing much to do with the women Hare Krishnas, I didn't know much about them or how their communities functioned. Since leaving, especially since writing this blog, I have gained a bit more insight into their world. In a lot of ways, it's increased my satisfaction in my decision to leave.

This devotee who contacted me was once being utilized by the NZ Krishna community as a wonderful example of how the powerful process of Krishna consciousness can I guess cure someone from being a lesbian. At the very least, that's what this film suggests - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWSqYruVc-E&feature=related - as it labels this devotees as an 'ex-lesbian'. Feel free to make your own value judgments on that one.

I found myself confronted with a troubled devotee who definitely felt she was being mistreated because of her sexual orientation. My response was to do the same thing I often did when confronted with those types of situations, I discussed my personal history, experience, philosophies and thoughts on the issue of sexual orientation and sexual identity.

When I was 16 I started taking more and more of an interest in anarchist social theories, and all related topics; feminism, anti-racism, anti-homophobia, animal rights, environmentalism. What this meant was going through a constant reassessment of my own personal values and personal assumption about myself and society around me. Why did things occur in our society as they did? Was this the best, or even most truthful approach to social interactions? The whole community I found myself a part of, especially as I grew older and moved out of home, was one that was always questioning and challenging social norms, and issues surrounding sex, sexuality and sexual identities were definitely up for challenging. Concepts such as polyamory were/are definitely common within the anarchist and activist communities around the world, and the communities in NZ were also taking interest in these theories and practices. I remember reading 'Refusing to be a Man' by John Stoltenberg, a radical feminist who put forward some very interesting concepts of gender identities, and sex and sexuality. Reading his book was definitely something that, at the time, made me start deeply questioning issues like sexual attraction and sexual orientation. He had a way of putting everything on a continuum, even gender. His claim was that sex is not a black and white label, male or female, but a continuum of identity, even based solely on physical traits, which just happened to have larger percentages at two peaks of the population graphs. It was an interesting way to put things, and reading it made me question my own personal histories and attractions to body types. What was the basis of it? Similarly, sexual orientation was placed on a continuum, many people never really questioning the black and white views of sexual orientation they have been brought up with, and therefore never really analysing their own personal sexual attractions to body types. And anarchist and activist communities I moved within were always challenging such concepts, and encouraging people to challenge them as well. And as I challenged various other societal values I also questioned and challenged it's values when it came to sexuality. I think it was this challenging mood which also led to me happily accepting a life of complete celibacy as well.

As a result of my challenging, and honest, reflection during this time, I personally came to the conclusion that sexual orientation was a very fluid concept. If I was honest I had to acknowledge that there were times when I was romantically or sexually attracted to people of the same sex, to some degree. Essentially, I found myself dismissing the concept of sexual orientation in general, and decided it was much more pragmatic to simply just see whatever developed naturally in terms of relationships. I was never a highly promiscuous person by any means, so it didn't seem to really matter much how I described myself, relationships would develop naturally however they did. Taking that pragmatic approach, I would say that, if I were to give a label to my sexual orientation I would borrow a phrase a friend used for me the other day, 'a bit bi'. And, in my opinion, if more people took the time to analyse their own personal lives, and were willing to actually challenge societal conventions we've been fed surrounding sexuality, I think we would find a large portion of society falling into the category of 'a bit bi'. The only difference was I went through a process and period of questioning, challenging and experimenting.

Issue four: Did I bottle up and deny an elastic gender inclination, and thus suffer through my years in an all-male monastery until I 'popped the cork' and left?
A friend of mine pointed out that this claim makes me sound like I was hiding in the closet, full of lusty thoughts, masturbating while watching other monks get changed, which I personally think is hilarious on so many levels.

The article I am dealing with at the moment makes several claims about this. For one, it is suggested that I was "hiding and bottling up such significant psycho-physical tendencies for some years". Personally, I didn't find that I had significant psycho-physical tendencies to begin with, so the assumption that I was hiding them or bottling up such tendencies is itself a non-issue in a lot of ways. I think that, in my explanation above, I probably would have shown that I took more of a pragmatic approach to my own sexual orientation. Since within the Krishna community, with its general celibacy, and suggested/arranged marriages, my personal pragmatic approach was, for the most part null and void. I never found myself struggling with repressed sexual or romantic attraction to any of the men in the Krishna community, nor to any of the women within the Krishna community for that matter. Since my approach to sexual orientation was based on a wider context of questioning the values of society, I never really found it relevant to the context of the Krishna community. When I entered the Krishna community, I willingly accepted the values and social assumptions of that community, so my pragmatic approach to sexual orientation that I held previously seemed to be irrelevant within this new community, so what value was there in discussing it?

Sexual desire had pretty much zero to do with my reasons for preparing to leave the Krishna community. I mean, unlike many others in the monastery, I never struggled with masturbation, I had maybe 6 'wet dreams' a year, I did not look at pornography on the internet, I never thought of any single member of the Hare Krishna community in a sexual way. It really baffles my mind how someone could make the assumption that this had any thing to do at all with my leaving the Krishna community. It sounds to me to be such a scapegoat, a way to deflect the possible reality that I left because I lost faith in the community, the leadership, the philosophy and scriptures.

Everyone outside of the Krishna community which have viewed these comments about me have made their own observations that they are highly homophobic, and they really are. Which brings up one major fear I have about these comments. In the article I am dealing with, it is mentioned that a monastery/asrama is not the place for someone with any kind of 'elastic' gender inclination. For starters, I do think this is a homophobic statement in general, with certain assumptions that I think are just plain incorrect. But, even more so, I think this is both impractical, and also carries the risk of making potential candidates for the monastic life in the Hare Krishna movement doubt their own sexualities, or deny tendencies that are indeed significant for them.

For starters, what sort of checks would you preform to discover where on the continuum of sexual orientation a candidate monk sits? And where would you draw the line? Would you ask questions like "have you ever wanted to kiss someone of the same sex?" or "have you ever thought another man was good looking?" And at what point on the continuum would you draw the line? How could you discern whether someone had not yet taken an honest look at themselves, and may actually be completely gay altogether? And how would that even really matter if they never found themselves struggling with sexual desire to begin with? Wouldn't an approach like this breed more of a 'don't-ask-don't-tell' situation?

To be honest, after hearing about the ways that the ladies in the Krishna community have been treated who have openly identified as 'queer', I would not fault anyone for not wanting to discuss their sexual orientation within that community. Imagine never being allowed to be left alone with someone of the same sex, for fear that some sexual attraction may develop between to two. Or imagine if you were a lesbian and an entire community tried to 'fix' you sexual orientation. And now, imagine watching someone leave the Krishna community and then hearing accusations that the reason they left was because of bottling up gender inclinations which were 'elastic'. What sort of message does this send to the rest of the community when it comes to issues of sexual orientation? Personally, to me it seems to send the message of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I think this is the longest it's taken me to work on any of the updates I've written for this blog to date. And to be honest, I'm not entirely confident that this has really dealt with the issues brought up. Either way, I hope that it provides some extra context and things to think about when figuring out how you will view this blog and the issues it brings up. I'm gonna let this issue rest for now on my blog, though I still may be taking other actions in relation to the public dismissal. In my next update I'll continue discussing the final lead up to my leaving the Krishna community.

12 comments:

  1. Just making a note on that doco, its actually its made by a friend of mine for a film school project. But I did get told I was actually just a confused straight girl a few times. Which, for anyone that knows me personally, is a bit funny.

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  2. Hey Mikey!

    Just got done reading your latest entries.
    To start with, I never thought this to be an anti-krishna blog, this is about your experiences in your community and not a reflection of Iskcon as a whole. In fact, with the kind of experiences you've had, this blog could well have been Anti-krishna.

    Within a community there are going to be people from all walks of life with their own experiences and conditioning. I think its important to know that even if we are dealing with devotees, in reality we are dealing with egos, none are pure devotees. Things are never going to be fine and dandy as long as we are in this world and will never be. There are always going to be problems and better ways of doing things. The philosophy, given to us by Srila Prabhupada is a way of life, not confined within the boundaries of the asrama/monastry.

    Dealing with people is never easy. But I must admit, not all devotees experience the kind of struggles you've faced.
    coz its the philosophy that drew you in but the people that drove you out.
    anyways life goes on, we have to make choices.

    After you are done and dusted with all this, I would like to hear more about the animal rights stuff you are into.
    Cheers!

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  3. Hey Mikey just thought I would say it was really brave of you to write this post. There is no way I would be able to write publically about who I am especially when you know that there are people who could use what you write to try and discredit you.

    I also want to reafirm that in no way do I read this as an attack on the Krishna movement, as I have said I could easily write about some of my experiences in the animal rights movement and make it sound as bad as anything you have described. Despite that the movement is incredibly important to me and something I see myself being involved in for the rest of my life.

    We need to be able to identify when we have problems if we are going to build safe healthy communitys. When we are inside a group any highlighting of its faults can seem like an attack and can be hard to hear. Hopefully though people can learn from your experiences.

    John

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  4. Hi Mikey,

    Well I must say, you did very well there to maintain a restrained tone. When I read what had been written about you I was surprised and a little angry myself.

    Your honest, warm and genuine nature permeates your writing and rings true in the heart. I think there is very little chance that your motives will be mis-understood by honest readers.

    As you know I have a degree of personal experience with the ISKCON leader who wrote about you. When I read what he wrote I blanched and my respect for him plummeted.

    He has an aloof, dismissive leadership style, which he can often effectively pull off due to his intelligence and general self possession, and obviously he has his 'preaching' interests to protect, as well as his ideological mind-share with his flock.

    His statements, however, greatly surprised me with there lack of grace and goodwill - both characteristics that are prominent in your writing. I agree that his attempted strategic dismissal of your blog will likely backfire and simply serve to exacerbate the social disfunction within the community concerned and increase the suspicion and mistrust of those looking in from the outside. It is really a shame, especially coming from such a prominent leader.

    I know that by making this small comment I myself risk incurring accusations of being 'offensive'. Normally I would not bother to expose myself thus, but in this case I would like to publicly offer you my support.

    Warm regards,
    Tim Marwick.

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  5. Same as above, Mikey. We are all trying to do our best and be our best. Sometimes it just plays out in ways that can make us cringe in hindsight. I appreciate your honesty and I am also sympathetic to the struggles involved with living and teaching Krishna Consciousness in current times. Nobody is perfect and we just have to accept each other for who we are and work it out how to deal with it from there.

    Ekendra

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  6. Srila Prabhupada said that when someone leaves Krishna Consciousness it is 50% their fault and 50% the devotees fault. It would be inspiring and sane to see that balance expressed in real life. But alas ....

    Isn't honesty supposed to be the foremost quality of a brahamana (or one who knows brahman) ?

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  7. I also agree with Tim, Mikey. Personally, I think the Guru should apologise. One of his current disciples should have the guts to tell him so. I would have more respect for him if he did. An apology is no big deal and would demonstrate the humble disposition of a sadhu. He's acted on bad information and got it wrong.

    His claim that your blog is fiction is the actual the falsification. I was in the ashram with you at the time and I can verify most of things you said. I was one of the monks in the ashram that was struggling with celibacy and I can say, given I was the manager at the time, you certainly were not! You and one other monk were the only ones in the ashram who were studious, sincere and peaceful monks. You were a pleasure to work with. Your talk of bullying etc is true and at one stage I experienced the same behaviour from the same person, though I'm not the type of guy to tolerate such things.

    To say you left because of sexuality issues – spare us the gender elasticity euphemism to cover over the ‘dirtiness’ of the sex word – is pure dismissive propaganda. That's one of my main concerns about his community; it's a propaganda community, where balance, diversity of thought, intellectual debate, the ability to at least entertain another point of view and dissent are not allowed. Only the official Guru approved party line is allowed on the airwaves.

    Propaganda is not truthful, or very often ethical or kind. Its sole purpose is to reinforce belief by persuasion, manipulation and by suffocating opposing views so they are no threat to member retention. A community in which this is the norm, I believe, is destined to wither away and only remain populated by zealots, rather than generous minded people.

    It's a shame because their philosophy and way of life has so much to offer the world. There is so much to admire about them, but these issues are reducing their credibility as a genuine religion and making them fall into the category of a cult.

    However, I want to make a distinction between the community of the Guru in question and Hare Krishna in general. There are many Hare Krishna communities which are mature and healthy. But sadly, the community under discussion often has a condescending attitude toward other Hare Krishna communities. For example, my wife was encouraged not to listen to lectures by any Hare Krishna Guru other than you know who. And I was told to not talk to a broad minded Brisbane devotee or read his blog because he, the leader said, is offensive because he doesn't tow the party line. Actually they might learn a thing or two from other groups, like Brisbane community or even tranditonal Indian namahatas, if they only started to honestly reflect on themselves and become receptive the constructive feedback they're receiving from outside.

    As I said to you when we caught up last, I think one thing they could to start such a process off is invite all the ex-members, like you and me, along with other still practicing devotees who share our concerns, to a workshop at which they could ask for our feedback and for us to explain why we left.

    I would quite like to go along to the Loft for bhajans occasionally, but I won't as long as they refuse to deal with these issues and become reflective and open.

    Josh Gale

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  8. i would seriously think there would be a lockdown on "still practicing devotees" conversing with "ex-members", regarding "contamination"... like the amish community not speaking with worldly minded people, or those members who are ex communicated from the order. the amish lifestyle is pretty cool though. I'm so getting a horse and cart!

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  9. Hey Mikey,

    I love what you said about sexual orientation - I hate that people ascribe to labels like 'straight' or 'gay' or 'bisexual.' Attraction is truly a continuum - could someone tell me that, in a world of six billion people, I would not find woman that I could possibly be attracted to? I would hardly believe that.

    If people opened their minds, attraction would not be based on gender. Rather it is based on the individual at hand - gender is irrelevant. It just so happens that my soul mate is of the opposite sex, that is completely irrelevant. My soul mate may well have been a woman.

    Yet it still seems, that even when one explains this, people say 'so you're a bit 'bi' then?' It's so frustrating hearing this - it makes you want to yell we are ALL a 'bit bi' dammit!

    It's nice to know that someone else out there gets it, that like so many other things, attraction should be looked at on an individual level, not on a group level.

    Also, you are completely right about gender actually being a continuum - the men are men and women are women assumption is completely wrong (and well acknowledged in intelligent biopsychological circles.) Both men AND women contain the same hormones - it is in fact a balance of chemicals, and our own behaviour actually engenders which of these chemicals will be released. For example, when people win (regardless of sex) testosterone is released, when people lose, their testosterone levels are reduced. So essentially, why are men more agressive/ambitious/competitive? Because, due to the way that society is structured, men are put in situations where they can win - women as such, don't tend to be - particularly not up against men. Behaviour also interacts with hormones, you see this with ambitious women. People who win become more ambitious and competitive, leading to more winning, leading to more testosterone. Hence you see why men are perceived as being competitive and ambitious, and women as gentle, feminine etc etc. The SAME chemical reactions happen with women - but the situations to promote them are scant for my sex. As always I think it's an indication of the inability of our society to not compartmentalize groups. I feel that looking at gender and sexual orientation as a continuum, with no landmarks or definitions, is much more helpful to understanding and accepting one another. Indeed, it should hopefully lead to a more equal footing for men and women in society.

    Thanks for this post Mikey - as always you've captured so many peoples thoughts about these issues. It's great to hear someone voice them.

    Ana:)

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  10. Mikey, in trying to come up with a succinct summary of your "argument" (for want of a better term), I've come up with the following, which I'd like to run past you for comment:

    I would summarise it as follows: "The NZ Loft community (for want of a better term) is made up of human beings with human fallibilities. I was part of that community for a number of years, and after some time within it I began to struggle with the fact that the philosophical patterns that were used to structure people's perceptions and actions seemed to sometimes obscure the human nature of the community. Although I appreciated much of the value in the philosophical patterns and their application, over time I found the overall situation emotionally unsatisfying, and I was concerned about the long term social effects of this dynamic. I wanted to see change, or even openness to processes that could bring about change at a social level in the community, but the philosophical patterns and their application in that community seemed to be opposed to that dynamic. I thought that unhealthy, and it affected my faith in those philosophical patterns, so I left the community, and currently my relationship with those philosophical patterns is in limbo."

    Your comment on that?

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  11. Thanks everyone for the comments, and thanks for clarifying the context of that youtube video I linked to. I was unaware of who actually created that piece.

    To Sita-pati, I think that is a fairly accurate summary of the main points in my blog. I also think that an important part of it, along with what you've described, is that as my faith in those philosophical patterns changed, I started to have an increased faith that I would be able to find what I wanted out of life outside of that community. Parallel with my struggling with the relationships within that community I started to develop really solid, positive, and productive relationships with people outside of the community. My goals and desires for life became more shaped by those outside of the community, and as a result I started to feel much more at home outside of the community than I ever did inside.

    I think both of these things are important aspects to my making the changes that I did.

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  12. hi,
    this is the first time i read this so my comments will be alittle late. As an outsider reading your blog was to help me understand the choices my friend made in chooseing to be a hare krishna i wanted to get a better idea from someone who has actually experianced that lifestyle because i am still struggling with the loss of my friend and the fact that he has changed greately. Your blog is honest and i would recomend it to anyone that is researching the hare krishnas i think it will give allot of comfort to the people devotees leave behind. The media is so one sided i admit labelling iskon as a cult and reading all those reports can be very scary for family members
    Reading your gurus report i had mixed emotions mostly anger in that he put the point out to non krishnas i think the term is karmis that as devotees you are not allowed to be whom you are. That devotees are not supposed to feel or act in a certin way there is a famous saying that goes something along the line of"you can change most things about yourself but not your soul the soul always stays the same" I think the guru guy needs to really examine his words and see that just because someone is introverted does not mean to say there are some serious psychological issues with them the more spiritual someone gets the more introverted they become because they have learned to listen not only to themselves but to their world around them
    The youtube video really made me sad to see because i think that with things like homosexuality you are born that way it is not something that you switch off. Devotees maybe need to stop giving their powers away i think devotees need to understand that it is ok to be different and to really come to terms with the vows and the choices they made and to use the gita to strengthen their faith.
    Pleas do nto stop writing these blogs because i am like a sponge sucking in what you sre saying Lol becaue in order to accept my friend wholly i need to understand his point of view you have no idea how much of a comfort this blog is to family members who do not have much or little contact with some devotees. So thank you for the blog. Sorry about the spelling i text so much i think i am forgetting to spell

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