So long as you love your Guru...
The main Web site of freelance writer
Jeremy Josephs is at www.jeremyjosephs.com Please check there if you might be interested in
engaging him as a writer. Many of his articles are available online. Please
check the sitemap for a complete list.
All rights belong to Jeremy Josephs.
Permission is granted to make and distribute complete verbatim electronic
copies of this item for non-commercial purposes provided the copyright
information and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. All other
rights reserved. To correspond with the author, send email to josephs@crit.univ-montp2.fr Comments welcome.
A marquee has been specially constructed. The
Château de Petite Somme had never looked more resplendent. The wedding day had
at last arrived. Gaura Gadhadara and Bhaja Radhe would shortly be wed. Srila
Bhagavan Gosvami Maharaja (also known as Guru Dave) the Spiritual Master of the
International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKON) for Western Europe had
travelled all the way from Paris to the Belgian Ardennes to preside over the
proceedings and consecrate the marriage. But this was to be no ordinary Krishna
wedding. For Gaura Gadhadara, Bhaja Radhe and Guru Dave are all of them Jews –
English, Israeli and American respectively. Three Jews whose spiritual
loyalties have turned away from the Old Testament and towards the Bhagavad-Gita
(the holy book of Hindu and Hare Krishna alike) with a passion and
single-mindedness which any aspiring Yeshiva student would do well to imitate.
The Brit among them is my brother, Mark
Josephs, the name our parents gave to him over thirty years ago but which has
for some time now been distinctly out of favour. Mark Josephs is now Gaura
Gadhadara, devotee of Krishna, and you had better believe it.
Bhaja Radhe’s parents do not believe it. The
consequence of not facing up to their new reality is a combination of valium,
grief and a nightmarish escape to the past. Photos of their beloved daughter,
born Bella Moshe in Israel in 1957, are constantly trundled out. Photos of
yesteryear, Bella bearing the body of a little girl, a body and mind that she
has long since abandoned. The time has surely come to accept the new reality.
No. Not yet. Surely one day she will return. Her room awaits – ‘we’ve left it
just as it was’. We all await. But Bhaja Radhe is sure of one thing above all
else – that she is not coming home. She is at home. Krishna is her home and
Krishna is her host. The price for Bella’s parents is high. And it hurts. She
is their only child. They fled from Romania when the country was overrun and
made their way to Palestine. A hazardous journey, but one which saw their
Zionist dream fulfilled. God has spared them the fate of cousins and friends.
They settled in Ruchavot, not far from Tel Aviv; worked, grafted, saved, loved,
cried, fought and battled hard to ward off poverty and deprivation. They wanted
the best for their daughter. She would receive the benefits of a proper
education. Having completed her army service, she gained admission to
University in Tel Aviv. So proud. University in Tel Aviv! Then one summer, she
left for Europe where, unexpected and unannounced, she joined the Hare Krishna.
That was eight years ago. Bella Moshe was lost and gone forever; Bhaja Radhe
had arrived.
And what of Mark? I’ve only seen him three
times in the last ten years. He’s been busy; running, searching, travelling and
moving along again. The kibbutz. Lots of kibbutzim. But never really happy;
always searching and striving until one day he was caught in a police clean-up
of drifters in the south of Spain. Mark decided that jail was the place where
God meant him to be. Consequently he took no steps to liberate himself. Next
stop Amsterdam, one of the Krishna strongholds in Europe. Mark joined the Hare
Krishna. The searching was over. This time the answers were forthcoming. It had
been a long ten years.
The Josephs family arrived for the wedding
ceremony. There was chanting in the air. Krishna, Krishna, Rama, Rama, Krishna,
Krishna, Hare, Hare. Drums were furiously beating away – the tune is so catchy
you can’t help but to sing along. Although it was fairly evident that most of
the families of the five brides and grooms succeeded in restraining themselves.
Bella’s childhood photographs were being circulated once again, as if in a last
ditch attempt to stop the impending marriage.
Mark and Bella’s turn had come. They were
summonsed to the Guru. The Master made an attempt at a quip by asking if anyone
had a wineglass to hand. We all knew what he meant – of how broken glass,
followed by hearty cries of mazeltov! are the hallmarks of a
Jewish wedding. More on our minds though was the unanswered question of how on
earth had these three Jews, from three different corners of the globe, with so
many thousands of traumatic and tragic history of their own -–how on earth had
they come to be undergoing these alien marital rites in the name of Krishna
Consciousness.
Still, so long as they are happy. But are
they? I know I came away from Belgium with the distinct impression that both my
brother and his bride had a good deal of ‘unfinished business’, as the
therapists would put it, to sort out. No one doubts the depth or sincerity of
their belief in Krishna, yet I felt that there remained many issues related to
their own personalities with which they had still to come to terms. In other
words the personality crisis which my brother began when he left his Essex
public school at the age of 18, had still to run its full course.
Of Bella’s story I know I good deal less. But
in both cases, if true and spiritual fulfilment had indeed been found, then
surely that is the time not to shun but embrace your families, parents and
friends. Yet both Mark and Bella alike have made a concerted effort, most
usually by omission, to do precisely the opposite. From these two children
there is no tolerance or process of mutual learning. Instead, there is anger,
haranguing, sermons and snubbings. For Mark and Bella it appears as if they
suffer not. But for those of us left at home it has hurt, it does hurt and
doubtless will continue to hurt a great deal. Personality crisis or not, Gaura
Gadhadara now bears a contented expression on his face, but in the process of
acquiring it he has succeeded in making miserable several of those once close
to him. It is not the Krishna, the philosophy, or even the Guru with whom we do
still battle, but with Mark – our beloved Mark – who to this day leaves no room
for any of us in any moment of his life.
Jeremy Josephs
February 1986
Postscript: Within five years Mark, Bella and
Guru Dave had all left the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
Mark and Bella subsequently divorced. Both have renewed contact with their
families.
Mark’s Story:
The rhythm was cold showers at 4am, temple
ceremony at 4.30, prayer beads from 5 to 7, then scripture study, and more
ceremony, before breakfast at 8. The day was dedicated to service, punctuated
by various rituals, and governed by extensive and intricate regulations. A
shaven, robed, vegetarian, celibate Hindu was not what a nice Jewish boy like
me had ever expected to become.
I did it because I wanted Truth, and for me,
then, Reform Judaism was modernist and compromised, and Traditional Judaism was
fanatical. But inadvertently, innocently, I became a Traditional Hindu fanatic
instead. I found timeless Spirit, and lost my personality. I found eternity,
and lost my life on earth. I became a blissed-out, hollow follower ~ and an
avid opinionless preacher.
And now, having de-robed and reclaimed my
mind, my intelligence, my body, my heart ~ I am unable to return to Judaism. I
have travelled too far. I cannot accept a dominant, solitary male God, or one
revelation only, or chosenness, or tribalism of any sort. I can respect others
who can, but I can't.
Instead, I have founded 'Balance', to
experiment in developing holistic community structures ~ for myself, and for
others who feel alienated from their ancestral cultural inheritance. We work
with groups of local people interested in health foods, therapy, growth-work,
meditation, green awareness, etc.. We help them develop a sense of travelling
together, of a shared journey of wholeness ~ and to develop structures to
ground those feelings. Finally I'm beginning to feel nourished. And peaceful. And
fully me.
The main Web site of freelance writer Jeremy
Josephs is at www.jeremyjosephs.com Please check there if you might be interested in
engaging him as a writer.
Many of his articles are available online.
Please check the sitemap
for a complete list.