Golden Gate Park | The Hare Krishna Movement

Stay High Forever

23 Dec 2014 Leave a comment

by The Hare Krishna Movement in A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Back to Godhead, BTG magizine, Hayagriva das, Prabhupada, The Hare Krishna Explosion Tags: A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Pabhupada, Back to Godhead Magazine, East Village hippies, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna Mantra, hayagriva das, hippies, Lower East Side, New Vrindaban, Old Vrindaban, Stay High Forever, the hare krishna explosion

I enjoy reading and re-reading to old issues of Back to Godhead Magazine. And it seems the older the issue the more relishable the content, as is the case with this 1969 issue…

The Hare Krishna Explosion
by Hayagriva das
Excerpted from Back to Godhead Magazine 1969 Vol. 1, No. 26

The joyful history of a dynamic transcendental movement

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare vibrates from a walkup temple on New York’s Lower East Side, from the sidewalks of Haight Ashbury, from Golden Gate Park, from a London flat, from student quarters in Hamburg and Amsterdam, from a storefront in Santa Fe, an exbowling alley in Montreal, a sprawling university campus in Ohio, from Old Vrindaban in India to New Vrindaban in the West Virginia mountains, and from Boston and Buffalo to Los Angeles, Seattle and Vancouver and across the Pacific to Hawaii.

Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. The voices chanting the magic vibrations are invariably young. The chanting, accompanied by khartals (small hand cymbals), tambourines and drums, is often loud and frenetic. The dancing is vigorous. The middle-aged and elderly usually stand in doorways or look through windows, watching in amazement, unaware that they are witnessing a process of spiritual realization that has been practiced on this planet for thousands of years. They do not understand. No one really understands. The chanting just spreads. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna …

The Hare Krishna Explosion

23 Nov 2012 1 Comment

by The Hare Krishna Movement in Free Downloads, Free eBooks, Hayagriva das, The Hare Krishna Explosion Tags: Allen Ginsberg, Golden Gate Park, hayagriva das, New Vrindavan, Paramhansa in the Hills, Srila Prabhupada, swami, the furu and the poet, the hare krishna explosion, The Hare Krishna Movement

This is the index to the Contents of “The Hare Krishna Explosion” by Hayagriva dasa. We have posted it here almost in its entirety. This index will give you immediate access to the chapters by clicking on the following underlined links.

Also for a free PDF download, you can click on link at bottom of post.

The Hare Krishna Explosion
The Birth of Krishna Consciousness in America 1966 – 1969
by Hayagriva dasa

Contents

Note and Preface

Part I: New York, 1966

1) Visitor from Calcutta
2) Transcendental Invitations
3) Who Is Crazy?
4) Second Avenue Fire Sacrifice
5) The Hare Krishna Explosion
6) Back to Godhead

Part II: San Francisco, 1967

7) Swami in Hippieland
8) Flowers for Lord Jagannatha
9) Mad After Krishna
10) Soul Struck
11) San Francisco Rathayatra
12) Passage to India

Part III: New Vrindaban, 1968-1969

13) Enter, Srila Prabhupada
14) New Vrindaban, West Virginia
15) Seven Temples on Seven Hills
16) Krishna, The Flower-bearing Spring
17) The Guru and The Poet
18) Paramhansa in the Hills

Glossary of Non-English Words
The Author

Soul Struck (Chapter 10)

03 Apr 2011 1 Comment

by The Hare Krishna Movement in Hayagriva das, The Hare Krishna Explosion Tags: Avalon Ballroom, chant, Fillmore, Golden Gate Park, hayagriva das, hippies, kirtan, Morning Star Ranch, Psychedelic Shop, Sumer of Love, Swamiji

The Hare Krishna Explosion
by Hayagriva das

Part II: San Francisco, 1967
Chapter 10

Soul Struck

During April and May, tourism and hippy fantasy soar to rare heights in the Haight-Ashbury. Like a Mardi Gras carnival, the celebration is cresting, rushing toward some indefinite Ash Wednesday.

Kirtans are wild and uninhibited. We often chant at the Fillmore and Avalon ballrooms, during intermissions between rock groups. A “Summer of Love” festival is organized, and we chant at be-in’s in Golden Gate Park, at the YMCA and Psychedelic Shop, and with hippy sun worshipers at Morning Star Ranch.

The spring passes so quickly, perhaps because its days are filled with long hours of sunshine and festivity. Youths from all sections of the nation roam and lounge throughout the park, barefoot and dungareed, leisurely creating what they hope is a new community of love and peace, a world where no one is over thirty, where there is no violence, ignorance or death. And they chant Hare Krishna because they see ISKCON as an exotic flower in the hippy bouquet, something even further removed from twentieth century America, from the political activists and their endless strife. Generally, activists and Negroes shun us, considering us on far-out trips, dabbling in the cultures of undeveloped nations.

But what do they know of Krishna? Or of Swamiji? What do any of us really know?

Flowers for Lord Jagannatha (Chapter 8)

25 Mar 2011 1 Comment

by The Hare Krishna Movement in Hayagriva das, The Hare Krishna Explosion Tags: Balarama, ephemeral glitter of psychedelia, Flowers for Lord Jagannatha, Golden Gate Park, Haight, hayagriva das, hippies, India's Brijbasi Company, Nalakurvara and Manigriva, psychedelic shops, Shyamasundar das, Subhadra, Swamiji, the hare krishna explosion, The Oracle, Vietnam War

The Hare Krishna Explosion
by Hayagriva das

Part II: San Francisco, 1967
Chapter 8

Flowers for Lord Jagannatha

The days of February are beautiful with perfect temperatures in the seventies, fog rolling off early, skies very blue and clear, sun falling bright and sharp on the lush foliage of Golden Gate Park. The park encloses the largest variety of plant and tree life to be found in any one spot on earth. We are at a loss to identify plants for Swamiji.

“When Chaitanya Mahaprabhu passed through the forests, all the plants, trees and creepers were delighted to see Him and rejoiced in His presence. Plant life is like that in the spiritual sky—fully conscious.”

“And these trees, Swamiji? How conscious are they?”

“Oh, spirit soul is there, but consciousness has been arrested temporarily. Perception is more limited.”

Swamiji strolls by men playing checkers, passes beneath the tall oaks, past the shuffleboard court, then stops and turns to speak.

Swami in Hippyland (Chapter 7)

13 Mar 2011 1 Comment

by The Hare Krishna Movement in Hayagriva das, The Hare Krishna Explosion Tags: Allen Ginsberg, bhagavad-gita, bohemians, Digger's, gathering of the tribes, Golden Gate Park, Grateful Dead, Haight Ashbury, Hayagriva, Hell's Angels, hippies, Janis Joplin, Kirtanananda, LSD, Mantra Rock, matchless gifts, Mukunda, psychedelic age, San Francisco 1967, Srila Prabhuapada, Swamiji

The Hare Krishna Explosion
by Hayagriva das

Part II: San Francisco, 1967
Chapter 7

Swami in Hippyland

January 17, 1967. When Swamiji descends from the plane and enters the San Francisco airport, he is greeted by a group of about fifty young people. As he is questioned by the press, he extends his usual transcendental invitations.

“We welcome everyone, in any condition of life, to come to our temple and hear the message of Krishna consciousness,” he says.

“Does that include Haight-Ashbury hippies and bohemians?” a reporter asks.

“Everyone, including you or anyone else,” Swamiji says. “Whatever you are—what you call an acid-head, or hippy, or whatever—what you are doesn’t matter. Once you are accepted for training, you will change.”