All religion, mysticism, yoga etc begins with asking you to accept as truth a paradigm that has no obvious present manifestation, be it Jesus, Brahman, or Krishna. The Bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ have been handed down for centuries but no-one really knows for sure how accurate they are or whether in fact the parables can be correctly attributed to Him. The practising mystic focuses on the formless Brahman and the aspiring yogi on the Supreme Lord even where there is no evidence they exist.
And take the Bhagavad Gita, which is supposedly narrated by a blind clairvoyant and clairaudient who relates to the King what is happening on the battlefield of Kurukshetra far away. If you cannot accept or at least entertain this possibility then you are never going to accept the Gita. None of us in our normal human state of consciousness can see Jesus, Brahman or Krishna. Anyone who can is regarded as gifted, visionary, or self-realised. Yet for the neophyte approaching and attempting to embrace spirituality the only tools they have are belief, and later, faith - that is, until (and if) they come face-to-face with and can directly see God.
So it is not surprising to find that those aspiring on varied spiritual and/or religious paths may believe in some rather bizarre ideas.
In 2020, covid-19 brought with it a shipload of conspiracy theories – some quite plausible, but most of them utterly ridiculous. In general, participants of counter-culture such as devotees do not trust governments and western society, usually for good reason. We therefore expect to see sentiments ranging from anti-establishment to those bordering on anarchy. But this global catastrophe has exposed just how gullible sheepish people can be, falling for conspiracies about it being a population control experiment, a fake pandemic (how can you have both!?!) involving Bill Gates, UN & the Great Reset, engineered bioweapons, claims of face mask 'danger', vaccine microchipping and altered DNA, caused by 5G, etc.
Don't worry, the government isn't going to kill you - but the virus just might! Here's something I prepared earlier:
"Covid has exposed cultish elements in some ex-iskcon devotees. I have witnessed several posting online every conspiracy theory ad nauseum - even tired flim-flam disproven long ago. No-one seems to check authenticity even - they're more concerned with showboating their latest discovery or revelation rather than a truthful exposé. It's so ridiculous it's not even funny. Here's some of the nonsense (followed by sense):
The vaccine will enable authorities to track you via an injected microchip -
No. The said microchip is on the vessel to track expiry date etc.
The vaccine will alter your DNA -
No. Messenger RNA (known as mRNA for short) never enters the nucleus of any body cells and only interacts between them via dendrites.
YouTube videos show Bill Gates has planned the whole thing -
No. The said videos are edited/respliced/arranged and contrived to imply things he never said.
5G causes covid by excitation of the oxygen in your blood -
No. It is true that 5G uses oxygen molecules to efficiently transmit signals over short distances - how 5G works - but if you had free oxygen molecules in your blood you'd be dead in seconds. Yes, free oxygen molecules in the air (0₂) become excited by the 50-300 Gigahertz radio wave spectrum, but oxygen in the blood is bonded with iron (FeO) in haemoglobin and is unaffected."
Can I stop now? You get the point.
Wuhan bat soup. Population control experiment. Engineered bioweapon. World Bank & IMF global wealth redistribution. Vegan immunity. Quack cures - drink bleach or straight vodka. Fake pandemic. Face masks are suppression muzzles…"
I have known former devotees who, out of uniform, have behaved as bad as, if not worse than, your average Joe Blow. After all, we're only human, and Hare Krishnas are no different when they 'come to rest in their normal state'.
Certain types of people are prone to believing in conspiracy theories - especially those with cognitive biases that filter out any information that doesn't conform to preset conceptions of how they perceive reality to operate. If it doesn't fit, it's rejected. This effectively cuts off all learning as it stops new information from being assimilated and processed. It never even gets a foot in the door.
Cognitive bias is when a set of prejudged concepts form a closed loop and anything and everything outside that loop is rejected as false. Most conspiracy theories are not based on evidence but on belief or faith in the CT. This lack of evidence is used by CTers as 'proof' because it is 'hidden by the conspirators'. This is known as circular thinking and doesn't actually accomplish anything or distinguish fact from fiction. Furthermore, CTers argue that the very term 'conspiracy theory' is manufactured purely as a slur to discredit them, thus deepening their conviction that they alone are privileged to have the secret knowledge of what is going on that the general public is ignorant of. Often in life the simplest explanation will suffice but these kinds of people always look for the most complicated possible cause, because according to their point of view everything is very, very convoluted - and for them, it always is.
Most of us in society innocently use technology with no ulterior motives, and those who believe there is always a conspiracy involved may either suffer from a personality disorder ranging from alienation and depression to delusional paranoia or some form of serious mental illness such as schizophrenia. Yes, Big Tech wants to mine your data because that's how they make money. Yes, there are nasty people who want to screw with us, but they are probably working alone – or, much more likely, in competition with each other – rather than colluding in some sort of massive joint effort against us. Collectively they see us as a pool of resources but generally they are fighting amongst themselves to get the lion's share. There is no need for any covert conspiracy. It is all out in the open. It is all part of the two-faced society we live in - survival of the fittest and goodwill to all mankind. We all need each other to live yet at the same time we compete.
Once upon a time there lived a frog in a well. He started out life as a tadpole in the nearby lake, but later as an adult he went exploring and fell in the well. Unable to get out he survived by drinking from the small pool at the bottom. One day a sparrow landed on the edge of the well and told the frog about how she'd just flown over the Atlantic Ocean. "It was so vast," said the sparrow, "that I barely made it across". "Oh really?" asked the frog. "How big is it? Is it larger than this pool of water?" The sparrow replied, "Oh, much bigger than that". The frog asked if it was larger than the nearby lake. "Much, much bigger" said the sparrow, "you can't possibly imagine". "No I can't. I think you must be telling fibs."
Going around in circles on the same conspiracy websites reinforces the 'frog in the well' philosophy, unaware or unwilling to even look into alternative explanations and refusing to accept that there is another world outside our tiny brain's reasoning. All we need to do is accept that illusion is the work of Māyā and that the actual conspiracy is that God is hidden from us – and that whatever philosophy we invent or whatever thoughts we think, we may then believe to be the truth. It could all be nonsense - including and especially our paranoid conspiracy theories.
For me the strangest part of the whole pandemic is that not only has it highlighted the usual ISKCON devotee anti-establishment sentiment - something that has existed since the movement's beginnings in the 60s - it has exposed a completely distrustful attitude to the extent that it appears to be more like cynicism. In fact some ex-ISKCON devotees so fully embrace the whole raft of Covid-19 conspiracies without any discretion whatsoever that their clique resembles a cult more than a traditional lineage of bhakti devotion.
Some of those who become devotees are distressed - therefore qualifying as one of the four kinds of people who are attracted to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. As wonderful as the process of bhakti-yoga is, many of us struggle to rise above the platform of kanishtha, and only a few truly qualify as madhyama-adhikaris, able to quote the relevant scripture at will and thus defeat any argument put to them.
So it is not surprising that when devotees leave ISKCON, especially after the Zonal Acharya System fiasco, they may resume their former consciousness albeit on a somewhat minimally higher level, yet may be disillusioned, disheartened and very suspicious of others and the world in general.
Certainly a small number (a minority) of ISKCON devotees are genuine seekers only interested in the Supreme Absolute Truth, but generally that isn't the case. Perhaps over ninety percent are motivated by the "what's in it for me" principle. But we've only got to look at the monsters that have been exposed in ISKCON – the weirdo splinter groups, the drug fiends, the smugglers and gunrunners, paedophiles, misogynists, homosexual gurus (an oxymoron if there ever was one, as bona fide gurus are always celibate), child abusers, etc., not to forget the secretive cultish subset – to realise that some people who join the movement are really messed-up... not to mention the messed-up fringies like me that never even joined up in the first place!
It is not as simple as reciting some Holy Names over and over or repeatedly uttering transcendental sound vibrations that one's heart is totally purified at once - or even marginally cleansed over time. Certainly there is an automatic effect regardless of the chanter's proficiency due to the power of the Holy Name. But when offences are committed - like thinking about sense gratification or thinking the chanting is weak or ineffective or taking too long - then the process is nowhere near as potent and productive as it could be.
I know from personal experience that my imperfect recitation of the Lord's Holy Name millions of times has not transformed me into any kind of enlightened being or made me a powerful guru. After all, we have trillions and trillions of sins from billions of lifetimes and therefore we cannot expect immediate results from absent-mindedly mumbling a few phrases over and over. Obviously my chanting is on a very basic level as a neophyte and I ought not expect astonishing results.
Those of us who are driven by guilt may frantically chant in desperation. On the other hand some of us are merely trying to raise our consciousness up from the proverbial gutter. For those wanting instant results from performing a mystic process this is bound to be disappointing. If we are patient and sincere we will humbly accept whatever progress we make with gratitude, knowing we are one step closer to our destination. For me, to make an analogy with a journey from Australia to India, so far I may have left Point Leo on the Mornington Peninsula but I'm still to reach the outer Melbourne suburbs - let alone be airborne on a flight to Mumbai!
We all know it is very difficult to escape the clutches of Māyā and overcome illusion. But we should not avoid personal responsibility for our failures and blame conspiracy theories for thwarting our efforts at spiritual progress. There are plenty of obstacles already in place by Māyādevi's power. To dwell constantly on the faults of this world is unproductive and a waste of time. Certainly it is wise to be wary for there is always evil lurking but it should not take up any more of our brain space other than to make a note of it, be vigilant, and move on.
हरे कृष्ण हरे कृष्ण कृष्ण कृष्ण हरे हरे हरे राम हरे राम राम राम हरे हरे
Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare,
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.
