Prabhupada Makes Headlines in The New York Times

It was early.  Swamiji had not yet come down for class, and the sun had not yet risen.  Satsvarupa and Kirtanananda sat on the floor of the storefront reading a clipping from the morning Times.

Satsvarupa:  Has the Swami seen it?

Kirtanananda:  Yes, just a few minutes ago.  He said it’s very important.  It’s historic.  He especially liked that it was The New York Times.

Satsvarupa (reading aloud):  “SWAMI’S FLOCK CHANTS IN PARK TO FIND ECSTASY.”

Fifty Followers Clap and Sway to Hypnotic Music at East Side Ceremony.  Sitting under a tree in a Lower East Side park and occasionally dancing, fifty followers of a Hindu swami repeated a sixteen-word chant for two hours yesterday . . .

It was more than two hours.

. . . for two hours yesterday afternoon to the accompaniment of cymbals, tambourines, sticks, drums, bells, and a small reed organ.  Repetition of the chant, Swami A. C. Bhaktivedanta says, is the best way to achieve self-realization in this age of destruction.  While children bicycled along the sunny walks, many in the crowd of about a hundred persons standing around the chanters found themselves swaying to, or clapping hands in time to the hypnotic rhythmic music.  “It brings a state of ecstasy,” said Allen Ginsberg the poet, who was one of the celebrants.  “For one thing,” Allen Ginsberg said, “the syllables force yoga breath control.  That’s one physiological explanation.

Satsvarupa and Kirtanananda (laughing):  That’s nonsense.

“The ecstasy of the chant or mantra Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare . . .

Kirtanananda:  The Swami said that’s the best part.  Because they have printed the mantra, it’s all-perfect.  Whoever reads this can be purified just the same as if they had chanted.

Satsvarupa (continuing):

“. . . has replaced LSD and other drugs for many of the swami’s followers,” Mr. Ginsberg said.  He explained that Hare Krishna, pronounced Hahray, is the name for Vishnu, a Hindu god, as the “bringer of light.”  Rama, pronounced Rahmah, is the incarnation of Vishnu as “the prince of responsibility.

What?  Where did he get that?  It sounds like something out of an encyclopedia.

“The chant, therefore, names different aspects of God,” Mr. Ginsberg said.

Why so much from Mr. Ginsberg?  Why not Swamiji?