Window Quarterly Vol. 2, No. 1, 1991 Copyright 1991 [Permission is granted to use, print, reproduce this article provided the following acknowledgment is given: From Window Quarterly 2, 1 (1991); ACRAG c. 1991. *** "I didn't want to Struggle" Interview with Hare Vilas Das [Hampartzoum Terhanian] An Armenian Hare Krishna Interviewed by Armenian Sedrakian Armen Sedrakian: Tell me about your background. Hare Vilas DAS: I was born in 1946 in Philadelphia. My family belonged to the St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Apostolic Church, in Philadelphia. At that time, we were in North Philadelphia, a black neighborhood. I was named Hampartzoum Terhanian. My father came from Malatya before the massacres. And my mother went through the whole massacres. She walked from Malatya to Del-el- Zor. She was an orphan. She went through a horrendous, terrible experience. My father was a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, and I was a member of the AYF, the Armenian Youth Federation. I always appreciated my membership and my experience in the AYF. When I went to the University of Pennsylvania, I started an Armenian club there. I went to a Mkhitarist summer school [in Massachusetts] to learn a little bit of Armenian. I enjoyed that too. I went to the AYF camp in Franklin. I used to have a good time with different Armenian organizations. AS: You also had gone to Beirut? HV: Yes, after I graduated from college, I went to the Palandjian Jemaran in Beirut to really study Armenian. I spent almost a year there. At that time, it was almost like going back to the old country because in 1968-69, that was like a good time for being an Armenian in Beirut. There was a lot of cultural, communal activity. I lived there and I got a real taste for what it's like to be in a fully integrated Armenian community. I realized that being born in America, with a strong desire to be Armenian, going back to that modern type of Armenian community was very difficult. AS: Why was it difficult? HV: It was difficult because of cultural differences. I was brought up in America. When I got there at first I could speak Armenian, but not very well. It was always an uphill battle for me to be a part of or identify with that community. I tried my best. At one point I failed in my attempt. It was not their fault, but it was more my fault because I [allowed] my bad habits [to come] out like wanting to have a good time, running around, frivolous. That stopped me from getting into the community. The Armenians I thought, although I had some great Armenian friends who were locked into--at least the community I was living in--a political ideology. Because of that, they were closed in on themselves. I saw that as too stifling. I got as much out of that experience as I could. But I failed in their eyes as an Armenian. AS: When did you start your search for spiritual truth? HV: I was very disillusioned when I left Beirut and I went to Paris. ...[I] decided to stay in the Armenian House there, the Armenian student house. There I became very seriously inclined towards the Armenian church. I became friends with a young priest at that time called Father Norvan. He is a bishop now, Bishop of Lyon. He was the first Armenian priest that I saw that was actually trying to live his faith. This inspired me tremendously. And I used to go with him to church 3-4 times a week, helped him clean the altar. We used to talk about all different types of things. He used to teach me about the Mass, the liturgy, and we used to read the Bible together. We used to sit and talk.... We were really good friends, like brothers. He was a young priest. He would always feel a little tortured in his heart because he'd feel very frustrated by other priests who were not actually fired with spiritual experience, they were more perfunctory. They were more involved with politics and personal self- aggrandizement through the church. And he would try to live a pure type of experience as much as possible in a city like Paris in a student house where most of the students were pretty frivolous. I was staying near him in another room with another vartabed. He was very embarrassingly materialistic, although he was a lover of Armenian culture, a lover of the church, very nationalistic, and he knew his Bible very well. I used to study the Bible with him, too. But he would break down very easily into desiring sensual pleasures. So that bothered me a lot. There was a tremendous contrast between the two. It bothered my friend too. So as time went on I became interested not only in the church, but in other philosophies, too. I was interested in Zen-macrobiotic diets and a little bit of the Zen philosophy. And then I met Krishna Consciousness. Not only that, I was meeting all types of different [people]. I met one black man who was a writer and [a] real far out guy. He was travelling through Paris and didn't have a place to stay so I brought him back to the Armenian House. This created a sensation, especially with the priest that I was staying with. I was creating controversy in the Armenian House, bringing a black man in. This also highlighted another experience I had when I was young in church. Our church was in North Philadelphia, on Oxford Street, which is a very heavily black neighborhood. It was right across the street from Father Divine Mission. It was a very bad neighborhood even at that time. Of course, when the church was first built, that was a kind an Armenian neighborhood. At that time, I remember when I was 8 or 9 years old, one black man walked into the church. I was standing near the entrance. He was surrounded immediately by 6-8 of the older men. And they said, "What do you want?" He said, "Man, I want to come in here and worship Jesus." They said, "This church is not for you." "Why not, man?! I'm a Christian." They said, "Yea, but this is an Armenian church. It's only for Armenians." "What's Armenian, man? I'm a brother. I believe in Jesus." They said, "Yea, it's not that you have to just believe...." So there was a little bit of an argument. They went back and forth. Finally, the guy walked out. I saw the whole thing and it puzzled me. I couldn't figure it out at the time why I was puzzled, but it always stuck in my mind. Now, here again in Paris, I bring this black man. This black man is a controversial guy. He's outspoken, far out, freethinker, world traveller, doesn't have a penny in his pocket, and about 65 years old. Again, it created a controversy. There's this latent type of prejudice or racism which is a little bit contradictory to the spirit of Christianity. So as time went on I became a little more disenchanted with the church because I was getting so close to it, I would see the internal politics. I would see how my sincere friend was suffering because he had to deal with so many other priests who were not living the experience of the passion of Christ. So I found it to be too much of a stifling atmosphere for me. I wanted to find a spirituality that was not necessarily devoid of any rules but the rules were realistic toward the aspiration. There was an honest criterion, not a double standard -- where we're talking about the Bible and Jesus, but when we relax we're trying to find some girls, drinking, or eating basterma or soujoukh, acting like low class people. Finally, I got into the Bagravat Gita. India always seemed to me to be a frightening place, a very confusing place, philosophies... I could never get into it. But when I read the Bagravat Gita by his divine grace A.C. Swami Prabhupada, my future spiritual minister, there was this clarity coming from this vast subcontinent of confusion. I read it and realized I didn't understand much of [it]; there was a lot there that I couldn't digest. ...I saw that in the Armenian church that same purity was there, especially, in the sharagans and the liturgy. Somehow or another, it was not actualized in the behavior and attitudes of the people or many of the clergy. Of course, Father Norvan... was desperately trying to live it. Even today, many people love him very much because he tries to be as sincere as possible, but he was struggling. I didn't want to struggle. I wanted to be in an atmosphere where that was the norm rather than the exception. So that there could be a free flow of expression, spiritual expression. ...The material motivation in religion is a step down from the essence of Christ's teachings. That has to be purified, but that can not be purified just by perfunctory actions. It has to be purified by actual living of the faith and practice. And I saw that integral practice in Krishna Consciousness where you join, it is like a monastic life. And you realize I'm not the proprietor of anything, not even this body. Everything is actually the proprietorship of God. Adjusting the concept of proprietorship to me was fundamental because this whole world in a sense is divided ideologically, politically, and militarily on concepts of proprietorship. Capitalism says that the individual is the proprietor, all the laws in the country try to protect that. Communism says that the community is the proprietor or the people are the proprietors. Socialism says that the government is the proprietor. Monarchy says that the king is the proprietor, that nobles are the proprietors. Fascism says that a small group of industrialists and military men are the proprietors. Anarchism says that no one is a proprietor. When I was thinking about this, I realized that the Creator is the real proprietor. So all these other economic and political philosophies are actually wrong. Because they are wrong, if you follow something that is wrong from the beginning, that means everything else is tempered by that incorrectness. AS: You were disappointed by the perfunctory performance of Armenian clergymen. What is there to protect followers of Hare Krishna from this same perfunctory attitude? You have your traditions, you shave your head, you have your chants, you have your certain style of dress that set you apart. HV: There's no guarantee. These things have happened in the Krishna movement too. Terrible things have happened. AS: What would stop someone from being disillusioned with Krishna Consciousness? HV: The main thing, the saving grace whether it be in Krishna Consciousness or Christianity is faith in the spiritual mentor. When you say, "My neighbor is a hypocrite, I'm also a hypocrite; but Jesus wasn't a hypocrite. Therefore, there is hope for me." My god-brother in Krishna Consciousness is a hypocrite, I'm also a hypocrite; but my spiritual master, Swami Prabhupada was not a hypocrite. (Prabhupada literally means the master at whose feet many masters are sitting.) AS: Is Swami Prabhupada alive? HV: No, he left this world in 1977. AS: Who is now leading the Krishna Consciousness movement? HV: He left physically, but he's still here. He's still directing this movement in every way. He left in place a governing body commission of, let us say, his secretaries, about thirty of them. I'm one of them. They are supposed to manage his organization according to his wishes. There is no one unique successor. He taught everyone to be his successor. AS: When one become a member of the Krishna movement, does one disown personal property? HV: One disowns the idea that I am the proprietor. One becomes like a cashier in the bank. In the morning, the cashier comes to the bank, the cashier receives the cashbox, performs all the operations during the day, at no time does the cashier consider that the money belongs to him, and yet they handle the money as if it belongs to them, they have physical possession, at the end of the day they return the cashbox with the accounts balanced, then they go home. There are two types of householders. One is the dependent one. He lives at the temple and accepts on a voluntary basis with his wife's consent anything the temple can offer him. And he does not try at all for economic development. The other ... due to his wife's objection or his own personal preferences does not want to live like that. He wants to have his own things, is not satisfied with what the temple can provide. Therefore, he lives outside, but with the spirit of renunciation. In other words, he doesn't increase constantly his material needs to where he is at the point that he has no time for spiritual life. There's always voluntary self-restraint. But he is not restrained enough to accept what the temple offers. So he wants a little more than that. AS: What is the difference between Christian and Krishna spirituality? HV: The only difference is between a Webster's Pocket Dictionary and a Webster's International Dictionary. ...It is one of completeness of information. And I see Christianity as comparable to the pocket dictionary, and Krishna Consciousness as comparable to the international dictionary. There's a tremendous amount of elaboration, scientifically verifiable details, about spiritual life in Krishna Consciousness that are there in germ form or in a budding form in Christianity but have not been clearly explained or elaborated. Therefore, the Christian faith is one that is evolving. [An] unfortunate philosophical mistake in Christianity is thinking that human beings only have souls and animals don't. If we look at the question objectively, from the Vedic point of view an ant, a microbe, a tree, an elephant, a monkey, a human being; they all have souls. The soul is not lesser in an ant than it is in a human being. The only difference is one of consciousness. In the body of the ant, the soul is more profoundly covered with this ignorance about the truth of his situation than in a human body. But there is no guarantee because you have human beings who act and behave no better than an ant as far as knowledge of their souls are concerned. AS: You brought this up earlier. Why did the genocide happen? HV: The answer is very simple. Because there are many parts of the theology of Christianity that are missing, we have an incomplete understanding of purity or clean spirituality. When we kill animals and eat them we are committing a sin. But according to Christianity, it is not a sin because the animal doesn't have a soul. But from the realistic point of view, there is a great crime being committed. So Armenians don't understand. "What have we done wrong that God should punish us like this?" There are many other instances like this, but this is a fundamental example of suffering that is coming from the ignorance of reality, from illusion. What is that overriding arrogance that says that the animal doesn't have a soul and the human being does? AS: Do plants have souls? HV: Yes. AS: But you eat plants. And you kill plants. HV: Yes. ...But let's look at the perfect human couple, Adam and Eve before they fell from the Garden of Eden. What were they eating? AS: They were eating the meats of fruits. HV: Fruits of the tree. Were they killing the tree? And when you eat a fruit you spit out the seeds. Each seed could produce another tree with hundreds and thousands of fruits and millions of seeds. This is the principle of non-violence. They were living in brotherhood with the animals. AS: Are you fruitarians yourselves? HV: We're vegetarians. AS: But you're eating plants that were killed. HV: Yes, on this basis. Krishna says in the Bagravat Gita, the 9th chapter, "Offer to me in love and devotion a leaf, water, fruit and flower and I will accept it." So on the permission of Krishna, not only do we pick apples without killing a tree, but we might pick a cabbage. That is killing. But by this principle of preparing the food for the pleasure of Krishna with love and devotion. And offering to Krishna so that he accepts it. The fact that he accepts it, the soul in the vegetable is elevated much quicker to the human form of life. When I eat that vegetable that is offered to Krishna, my life and my consciousness is sanctified. AS: Why isn't thanking God for the life of the slaughtered lamb analogous to eating a head of cabbage? HV: Because Krishna doesn't accept it. Krishna was a cowherd. He protected cows and calves. He protected the lambs; he never ate them because they're developed beings. The soul in the body of the plant is very profoundly covered by ignorance. The soul in the body of the animal is developed. He perceives happiness and distress. The plant does too, but in a much more restricted sense. The animal definitely perceives happiness and distress, definitely has feelings, definitely perceives the unjustness of him being slaughtered for the greedy palate of the human being. AS: Who is Jesus Christ in your opinion? HV: Jesus [is] the son of Christ; Jesus [is] the son of God. And Krishna is his father. AS: Do you believe he is the only begotten son? HV: Well, we believe that he is the son of God. When you say "the only begotten son of God", no, because we are all the sons of God. But he's special because he was surrendered to the will of his father; we're not. AS: So you don't believe that Jesus is God? HV: He is godly. AS: But he is not God? HV: He is as good as his father because he is surrendered to him. But there is a difference. As an Apostolic Armenian, we also admit that there is a difference between God the father and God the son. There are three distinct individuals with one nature. That's the monophysite belief. AS: What is your role now in the Armenian community? HV: For some years my work was to translate. I started that in 1982. When I was in Paris, I had a friend of mine whose name was Professor Kegham Shahinian. He had been a professor in Soviet Armenia. He was originally born in Syria. He agreed to do this translation work. He did a very good job. I worked closely with him. So we produced about 4-5 Armenian books. The main work was the Bagravat Gita. At that time, I had no idea how I was going to distribute them. It was all done in the Eastern Armenian dialect which precluded its distribution amongst Western Armenians who have some kind of prejudice against the alphabetical changes. Professor Shahinian was very correct in his point of view that it should be done in the Eastern Armenian dialect because that's where the future of the Armenian language is. So I agreed with him. He's a very highly educated man. The only trouble with Shahinian was that although he could understand very well, assimilate and translate these philosophical concepts, he just couldn't assimilate it himself into his own life. It remained unfortunately only academic for him although he appreciates very much Krishna Consciousness. I guess basically living in the Soviet Union, in an oppressive atmosphere, he had this natural hesitancy and a little bit of an abhorrence of anything that's a little bit authoritarian. In 1989 when there were some dramatic changes in the Soviet Union, we were able to have all the books imported into the Soviet Union and distributed in Soviet Armenia. Of course, the Armenian devotees, in '87-'88, were printing these translations, that I had done, in a clandestine way through clandestine presses. During the earthquake, they distributed 10,000 books that they had printed in the country itself. The copy of the book: Beyond Birth And Death. About a year ago, I purchased a computer so that the Soviet Armenian devotees could do the work themselves. Soviet Armenia has sent one devotee to Sweden where we have an international set-up for translating books into Soviet languages. He's working there. Soviet Armenian devotees are themselves translating. Of course, I was doing it all in Paris before, but now there are a whole bunch of Soviet Armenian devotees. At least 100 dedicated people there. They are doing all the work there and having it produced in Sweden. AS: How many Armenians are following the Krishna movement now? HV: We have about a hundred initiated devotees, but there are many others that follow but maybe are not convinced enough to take initiations yet. Some of the Armenians have been martyred already before the change of attitude in the Soviet government and, of course, the puppet government in Soviet Armenia. AS: How did the Krishna movement initially get its start in Soviet Armenia? HV: That is another reason I think there was an earthquake in Armenia. AS: You mean the fact that the Hare Krishnas were persecuted in Armenia? HV: Yes! And one or two of them were killed...[in psychiatric wards]. The Soviet Armenian government tried to fanaticize the people against Hare Krishna. They did a program on television proving that Hare Krishna was the enemy of the Armenian nation. That it's taking children away from their mothers and convincing them not to fight for its homeland. They brought in a lot of Armenian psychologists and Soviet psychologists speaking how Hare Krishna philosophy deteriorates the mental faculty. AS: How did the Armenians first get exposed to Hare Krishna? HV: My spiritual master, his divine grace A.C. B. Swami Prabhupada went to Moscow in 1972. At that time, there was one Russian person that actually was very attracted. A boy that was met by accident on the street in Moscow. He became a devotee, and he started preaching actively. From his preaching, the movement spread all throughout the Soviet Union, including Armenia.... Little by little, the movement spread. Now it has taken root. The only problem in Soviet Armenia like in Georgia and Azerbaijan are the nationalists. They're very fanatical. AS: Are there Azeri converts to Hare Krishna? HV: Yes. ...The Azeri Turks are translating Prabhupada's books into Azeri Turkish. We have devotees in Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, not so many in Turkey. All throughout the Soviet Union, there must be about 600-1000 devotees. The Soviet Armenian devotees are very, very well liked and respected because they are very good devotees. They were persecuted, many of them were in jail, and subjected to international attention as a persecuted religious minority. They were not afraid to stand up for their faith. That's why they are very good devotees. This is like a heroic beginning, and I think it has a great future in Soviet Armenia. Obviously, the more things develop politically and economically, our people are going to suffer tremendously. They are going to look for some relief. The relief is going to come by breaking down the ethnic barriers. In the Soviet Union that's a major problem. It's a major problem in the United States too. But we sort of try to cover it over. AS: What closing statement would you like to make considering that the readers are very interested in the Armenian church? HV: My auntie who was actually very dear to me, my great aunt, she was from Malatya. She was a survivor. She taught me the Armenian prayers. Grigor Naregatsi.... One day we were talking. I said to her, "Auntie, you know that Jesus is Jewish? He's not Armenian." She said, "No, my son. That's not right. Jesus is Armenian." It broke my heart to pursue the discussion. I realized that this was pinnacle to her faith. "Jesus is Armenian, not Jewish." Another thing that she said that really inspired me, she told me, "In our church in Malatya, the priest's feet would not touch the floor during the liturgy." I was thinking how unfortunate I was growing up and missing that type of vision and faith. The dilemma was that faith ignorance or something else, was it purity? This is the question we have to ask. I maintain that loss of purity leads to ignorance. The knowledge that we're learning today betrays our purity and leads us into ignorance. I'd like to tell the Armenians to go back to simplistic faith and resist the sting of modern education whether it is socialism, political ideologies, economic strategies, adulation of the Jews. Whatever. Resist all that. Stick to simplistic faith. ------- Final Comments by the interviewer I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. --Matthew 11:29. Legalism and spirituality don't mix. Yet, legalism permeates nearly every non-Christian and Christian "cult". For example, Krishna Consciousness takes a legalistic and inconsistent position on food and the eternal soul. Why does Krishna (God) permit the killing of a cabbage but not the killing of a lamb if they both have equivalent souls? In contrast, Jesus, supposedly respected by the Hare Krishnas, broke many, many Jewish laws and traditions. In fact, he said that what goes into the mouth does not matter as much as what comes out of it. Furthermore, the two greatest commandments are the love of God and the love of neighbor. Do we need to make more man made regulations? After spending four hours with Hare Vilas, I'm convinced of his sincerity and agree with him that we must return to our simple faith and avoid the seduction of technology and materialism. I would also like to apologize to him if, during editing, I misrepresented him in any way. Finally, hypocrisy unfortunately exists everywhere. Hare Vilas said he turned away from Christianity because of the hypocrisy of its so called members. But he also admits to hypocrisy among the Krishna movement. So looking for perfection in any religious organization will lead to disappointment. But to all of us who call ourselves Christians we must remind ourselves, "but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea." --Matthew 18:6. *** =================================================== _ _ _ _ _ |_| ___ _| | ___ _ _ _ | | | | | | _ / _ \ / _ | / _ \ | | | | | | | |_| |_| || |_ | | | || |_| || |_| || |_| |_| | \_________/\___||_| |_| \___/ \___/ \_________/ View Of The Armenian Church ===================================================