Deprogramming
As I mentioned above, a whole class of people called ‘deprogrammers’ sprang up as a result of all the cults in the early seventies. In Atlanta, we were hearing rumors from other temples where some sweet devotee lady who was snatched by deprogrammers, was taken to a hotel room and questioned and preached to for days at a time until she gave in and went home to her parents.
Some devotees fought to get away from these trained professionals and they were able to escape through a bathroom window or another method. For those of us living in the temples, we never knew who we could trust at the time. We were protected when we went out to distribute books by a type of body guard and we were always on the look out for anyone suspicious looking in our direction.
One morning in Atlanta, we were singing our daily mantras to the spiritual master and our deities when a car drove up and two men got out and walked to the front door of the temple room. The room was covered from left to right with windows overlooking the lawn so all the devotees could see what was happening. One of the men was the father of a young devotee man who said he just wanted to talk to his son. I couldn’t hear the conversation, but saw the results plainly.
The young man and the two older men walked out to the car parked at the curb. One of our devotees who happened to be a black belt in karate, walked out slowly behind them. As the two men and the young devotee got closer to the car, they grabbed the boy while a third man in the car opened the door as they shoved him in. My karate friend was on them within seconds and injured the boy’s father with a kick in the back as he pulled the boy out and brought him back to the temple.
Needless to say, we stopped our ceremony and all were watching with fear in our hearts as they pumped at twice their normal speed and our faces turned a pale white with shock. The boy was happy to be rescued, but who knows what happened down the road. My memory is vague, but I believe the boy left the temple around six weeks later, never to be seen again. Was he successfully kidnapped? Maybe, but I think he left of his own accord in the middle of the night.
Is that not weird? To think you had the most wonderful spiritual master in the world who was completely selfless and all you wanted to do was to help him in his mission and yet you were lodged in the middle of a mind-controlling organization, and you felt like a saint one day and a sinner the next. It was enough to scramble the brain, and my brain was getting scrambled more and more daily or should I say, brainwashed by the cult.
After that incident, many classes were given explaining how these parents were actually demoniac (because they wanted their children to come home and lead a normal life) and because they were against Krishna. But these people were not demoniac at all. They were just normal moms and dads who were worried about their children and had absolutely no understanding about the mission we were on.
My poor parents came to visit me one day saying, “Why can’t you be normal? Why don’t you call us or come see us? We love you and just want you to be ok.” I was tense the whole time they were there, thinking they would try to kidnap me. When I looked back, I realized at the time I was 24 years old, married and the law would not allow them to forcibly interfere with my decisions in life. I loved them, however and hoped they would be somewhat favorable in time. That day, I invited them into the temple to see our altar and meet the devotees but they declined. I am so sorry to say, I hurt my parents, tragically. What would I do if I had to do it over again? I pray I would never do that to anyone ever again. God bless their poor hearts.
Sometimes you hurt the ones you love. You have to wonder if their pain is their karma, as our own suffering is our karma, but that didn’t make things better. As time went by, of course, I did go home to visit. By the time I finally went back to Birmingham, I had been studying these ancient scriptures for a few years and was pretty fixed in their conclusion, so I felt no fear they could take me away. And in the end, I never actually left Jesus Christ. I could never leave my first guru, the light of my life, who taught me to forgive others and ‘do unto other as I would have them do unto me.’ I would continue to celebrate Christmas in the future and go to different churches to pray. I actually made it a goal to visit cathedrals all over the world as I traveled and have been to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, St. Patricks in New York, Notre Dame in Paris, Sagrado Familia in Barcelona, and the Cathedral de Avila where St. Teresa attained union with God in Avila, Spain.
Sometimes a parent has to trust in the way they bring up their child. My parents brought me up to be kind to others and to put into practice the teachings of Jesus Christ and although I admittedly was somewhat of a failure, I tried daily to do the right thing. Everyday I repeated the simple prayer my father said when he sat down to eat, “Thank you for these blessings we are about to receive, in Jesus Name we pray, Amen.”
Deprogrammers eventually went away as they were seen to be some kind of ‘gangsters with their own agenda.’ The parents turned to them because they had no one else. Men were beginning to make a profession out of the process. They were not priests or family friends, they were muscle men, and were being exposed for their scandalous pasts. But those parents were desperate. Some kids left home at the age of 16, 17 or 18 years old, leaving school or just barely finishing high school. A young person at the age of 16 is not capable of making major decisions at that time of his life. Think of how recklessly a teenager will drive when first getting their license! Really, a parent needs to at least try to control the behavior of their children until they are of the legal age of 18. Better is 21 when a young adult has completed his or her education and can have a little more maturity under their belt. These were my realizations.
I felt so bad for those parents, back then. But you could understand from the news that times were changing. The LSD generation continued to spread and things would never be the same. Strange religions were being introduced into the mostly naive American communities, the word Karate was commonplace, when only 30 years previous, it was foreign to most. The rock and roll scene brought about a generation of rebellious kids and Chinese medicine was becoming very popular. Young people were experimenting with all kinds of natural herbs and medicines and psychedelic colors were exploding in art. Parents were beginning to accept their fate. Life as they knew it was changing.
Sometimes I thought people from the South, like my parents, had the hardest time. Not being from California where love and peace was the vogue of the day, they were astounded. They came from a situation where they were forced by the government to give up their bigotry against blacks and treat them as normal people. Now, Presbyterians like my parents were seeing their child turn to a foreign religion where people wore strange clothes and clay markings on their foreheads. They engaged in strange rituals and as far as everyone could see and were worshipping idols, something strictly against the Christian religion, ‘having no other Gods before me’. My parents were sure I was taking myself straight to hell. The devil had gotten control of me and there was nothing they could do. It broke their hearts, but they got over it, slowly, I thought. Actually, I might have been wrong. Maybe they never got over it, but learned to tolerate it. They tolerated because they saw that in spite of all the idol worship, strange language and unusual dress, their children were still good people.
Once we went home again, they knew we would never change our belief, but they were comforted by the evidence that we were still good. We were not out on the street stealing (well, not all of us) and we were good parents (well, not all of us). Krishna certainly changed for me forever, but I would always feel bad about hurting my parents. Some of the young people joining the movement actually brought their parents along with them. There was one family where all three sons joined and their parents eventually came around as well. That was exceptional. Most were overwhelmed with grief.
My mother had one good thing to say, “At least these people are clean. I have never seen such clean young people anywhere as they are here.” And, in spite of her disdain, she actually liked some of the food I brought her. “Bring me some more of that sweet rice,” she would say. And when she died, she actually came to me in one of those half awake/half asleep visions and thanked me for my courage to devote my life to God. That was real. It was not a dream.