I've encountered two Hindu monks at my university that belong to a particular sect of Hinduism...

Well he did say it was a strange way to talk about him

Former member of said cult here.

>Hinduism
Hare Krishnas (or bhaktas, as they prefer to call themselves) don't usually consider themselves Hindus because they reject the caste system and various other appurtenances of Hinduism. They're a monotheistic religion centered on Krishna (specifically not on Vishnu, who fills a sort of father-god role and is considered an avatar of K.). They sometimes bill themselves as a "lifestyle religion," which is by definition cultish. In my experience, I saw very little of the normal creepy cult things, like outright brainwashing, bilking of money, personality worship. Srila Prabhupada is long dead (well, everyone is immortal in Hare Krishna, but from a secular perspective dead), so you don't have to worry about Manson-style cult of personality, unless you're in Hawaii where a fringe Hare Krishna sect has enormous political and social power, and its own spiritual leader.

>As It Is
How much did you pay for Bhagavad-Gita As It Is? I've been to temples all around the northeast and some abroad and all of them sold the book at practically production cost, i.e., about $10 for a 500-page book. It's also totally free online at asitis.com. So I doubt you were being bilked as far as the donation is concerned.

>Translation
It's pretty great, actually, but only if you want to know the deep spiritual side of the Gita, not the straight literary side. (I'm a Sanskritist, btw, which I got into in part because of Hare Krishna, which I joined as a teen, but have kept up with long since leaving the cult.) The nice thing about As It Is is that there's the original Sanskrit text, then a word-for-word translation, and then a fair translation. This means that even if you just know a little Sanskrit, you can practice with it, and it's extremely helpful for keeping track of words that have multiple meanings, such as atman.

But as Prabhupada said, what mattered was not the translation so much as the "purport." That's the semi-arcane term he uses for his commentary. The translation of a given verse might be 150 words long; the purport is often thousands. That's why I say you have to want to learn the deep spiritual side of the text. He's not presenting it as "a scene from the Mahabharata," but rather, the central philosophical text for all Indian (or actually world) religion. So he cross-references dozens of other Sanskrit documents and includes his own essays in there on how you ought to live your life, the shape of the cosmos, the functioning of karma, etc. If you're interested in religion and philosophy, you'll probably get a good kick out of it.

Because the Hare Krishnas sell this edition at such a low cost, it is probably the most comprehensive and yet affordable edition of the Gita out there, but just keep in mind that you'll be studying the text "from the inside," as written by a fervent practitioner of yoga, not a Western academic.

Only if it doesn't work.

nice info. why are you a 'former' member? what changed that made you want to quit? sounds like you still have an affinity for Vedic thought, just curious.

Being a hormonal teen, not to mention a kind of wild personality, I found it hard to keep to the intense purity requirements, viz.
>no drinking
>no drugs
>no smoking
>no sex
>no meat
>no caffeine

I am still fascinated by Indian religion, culture, and literature, but to be quite honest desu after reading Nietzsche I could never be a member of any monotheistic religion focused on purity & punishment ever again. I do still think that it's a beautiful cosmology, and the philosophy is surprisingly self-consistent for something that is so abstruse and complicated. Nowadays I call myself a pagan when I'm being jocular, or just a humanist when in polite company. (For the record, my snooty prose style is autism and not a holdover from the yoga lifestyle.)

>How much did you pay for Bhagavad-Gita As It Is?

I actually was able to get that one for free after I told the first monk I encountered that I didn't have any money on me (which I didn't). The second monk I encountered gave me Journey to Other Planets, The Perfection of Yoga, The Science of Self Realization, and The Journey of Self Discovery and I ended up giving him $15.

It was just a little weird that he put the books in my hands before he mentioned a donation, making it weird if I declined. I gave the second monk a donation anyway partly out of guilt for not giving the first monk anything.

But that info is fascinating.

As a indian hindu i would suggest you to steer clear off ISKCON , here we see them as a cult they aren't even hindus to begin with.

Secondly regarding Gita and it's translation i would aware you that there have been a lot of controversies around it . First of all GITA have been a subject to interpretation various schools of thoughts(dualist/non dualist etc.) in hinduism have appropriated it for millennia . However in recent times with the colonization of our country and during the struggle for independence it have been butchered by the political/ideological influences and lingual/cultural disparity.

It's weird man.

I came across one of the monks in the streets and he handed me a book. I told him I was broke and tried to give it back but he recommended that I keep it.

Another monk, two years later, stopped me for a chat in the street. There wasn't even much of a cause. He knew my name, despite the fact I hadn't told him and we exchanged words for a while and then parted ways.

Very, very surreal.

I had a dream the night i started reading A.C.'s Gītā. I was in another planet talking with krsna. Don't remember about what, tho

It's cool to see Hinduism and its literature/philosophy discussed here, I'm Hindu, specifically into Advaita Vedanta, and have never seen anyone on Veeky Forums discuss this religion/philosophy before.

>Former member of said cult here.

Any interesting stories from the inside?

I had to teach one of the monks the story of Valmiki chanting "mara mara", but the book deal was good.

My friend's ex roommate, after years of being a NEET stoner, went to live in one of their temples. All he had to say when I asked about his religion was "the buddha came to teach us to not eat meat, maaaan"

Overall I'm not impressed

Indian philosophy actually has a great deal of really interesting insights. Blows the fuck out Chinese Philosophy at any rate

Both will always be inferior to the Christian tradition though

Hare Krishna are a weird sect of Hinduism, as an analogy maybe think of Christian revivalist movements like 7th Day Adventists. They're pretty hardcore in some ways that a lot of Hindus aren't, and they certainly don't represent Hinduism in general.

Their leader's Bhagavad Gita translation will have a sectarian bias. From my own research, the J.A.B. van Buitenen translation is pretty academic and reliable. Eknath Easwaran's and Graham M. Schweig's translations are probably easier to read, but as both are spiritual teachers, their interpretations will be somewhat biased as well.

That's cool, man. I'm going to learn about Hinduism, currently on Christianity. Do you know of good paraphrases in English of the Mahabharata and Ramayana? I've heard the C. Rajagopalachari versions are popular in India, but he was a politician rather than a Sanskrit scholar so I'm not sure about them.