r/KrishnaConsciousness

I saw a lot of posts on reddit on what to do with fable if you don't code. I kind of do, but that's besides the point. My goal here was to do something on spirituality. If you follow what I've been doing on my account it's primarily stuff with chemistry student communities and also spirituality - the Hare Krishna thing.

So from a long time I've been trying to find an offline way of just searching through a database. May sound really simple, but the goal is to not have anything extra added on to it so strictly whatever's in the database and nothing out of it.

There was a program called folio that exists from I think 80s and 90s. We bought the program back then that had all the work of Srila Prabhupadam the founder of ISKCON his books that he had authored, his words, his letters, conversations all of it in one place.

The querying on folio is amazing but it's a little difficult to run a program that's 25 years old on a smartphone. It's possible to do it on a Mac with some hacks and Windows as well.

Anyway I wanted an offline thing that anybody can search. Specifically me and yeah my dad, he can search easily.

So uh it did it in literally couple of minutes. I stuck to one book initially just the Bhagavad Gita as it is. uh just a simple html search of just keywords retaining the diacritic marks for sanskrit words. Perfect.

The next version of this was: how do I search for something a little bit adjacent like if I remember a certain idea that I heard this or I read this somewhere about this particular thing. That's the next thing it's working on and it's already got a few searches right.

It's done pretty well so far. I'm so impressed because this is something I wanted to do the moment AI came out and I tried running this on a local LLM LM Studio. It didn't stick to the facts it kept doing a little bit extra.

So yeah the tech stuff is may seem really basic to you tech guys but this was awesome. I don't know if my system can handle all of this cos building the 'semantic index' made it hang a bit, but I'm really looking forward to this offline build and then maybe putting it onto discord. But yeah I love it. This whole post is a voice note, I'll just transcribe it and leave it here as a message *(for this transcription part Gemini is way better LOL)*.

*P.S. i have used opus in the past to build an html file that classifies and links all the high school JEE/NEET doubts that are crowdsourced on my discord server (linked to answer over flow and also back to the actual discord doubt), that itself was pretty cool and useful!*

*P.P.S it used one 5 hr session completely and 29% of my daily Fable limit.*

As an ex Hare Krishan, I recently read PureBhakti’s article “Did Srila Prabhupada Know?”, and it helped me understand something disturbing about how harm can be rationalized inside this movement.

The article discusses whether A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada knew about the abuse that happened in ISKCON gurukulas. Instead of treating the abuse first as an institutional failure, the article explains it through karma, guru theology, and the idea that Prabhupada could not truly be at fault. It even suggests that the suffering of abused children was a reduced karmic reaction because they had come into contact with a pure devotee.

To me, that is extremely disturbing. It creates a religious framework where the guru remains protected, the institution remains protected, and victims’ suffering can be explained away as karma.

Source: PureBhakti – “Did Srila Prabhupada Know?”

This matters to me because I have serious concerns about a temple called Bhakti Yoga Lima, in Lima, Peru, and its broader PureBhakti/Bhakti Yoga environment.

I do not want to disclose my identity publicly because the temple and its network may have influence. But I want people to be aware of allegations involving Madhavi Dasi, associated with Bhakti Yoga Lima, in Lima, Peru.

According to what I learned, Madhavi Dasi allegedly brought a very young woman named Nandini from a vulnerable situation, possibly a homeless shelter. Nandini was reportedly around 16 or 17, or at least not older than 18. Madhavi Dasi, who was around 50 or older, allegedly entered into a sexual and romantic relationship with her inside the temple environment.

If accurate, this would not be a normal relationship between equals. It would involve a major power imbalance: an older temple leader, a vulnerable young person, spiritual authority, possible dependence on housing/community, and a religious environment where obedience, surrender, and guru authority are heavily emphasized.

I was also told that after the relationship deteriorated, Nandini was allegedly emotionally mistreated, abandoned, and later expelled or pushed away from the temple. I was told that Sripad Bhaktivedanta Damodara Maharaja allegedly justified her removal by saying something like it was “not her karma” to stay.

That kind of language deeply worries me because it resembles the same pattern I saw in the PureBhakti article: harm is not confronted directly; it is spiritualized. Instead of accountability, people are given explanations involving karma, spiritual destiny, or guru authority.

I am not presenting this as a court judgment. I am asking for attention, documentation, and investigation from people who understand cult dynamics, spiritual abuse, grooming, power imbalance, and institutional cover-ups.

For context, some members of this broader network are connected with Sri Sri Krishna-Balaram Mandir, in the Seva Kunja area of Vrindavan, India.

Please do not harass anyone. Please do not threaten anyone. But if you have relevant information, screenshots, testimony, public records, archived pages, or knowledge of similar cases, please document it carefully and share it with people who can investigate responsibly.

Links:

1. https://www.instagram.com/bhakti_yoga_lima/
2. https://www.facebook.com/groups/587463685815792

If this resonates with you, or if you have information about similar experiences, please consider coming forward with a formal complaint or testimony. Even a carefully documented report can help protect vulnerable people and prevent this kind of abuse from being hidden behind spiritual language.

I have a sincere question that has been troubling me.

I chant the Maha Mantra every day with faith and persistence. Yet, instead of seeing improvement, both my inner state and my external life seem to be getting worse and worse. My mental suffering is increasing, and my daily circumstances and environment are also deteriorating.

This makes my daily chanting feel like I'm making a fool of myself. It begins to look meaningless, even ridiculous.

Please don't tell me that I should simply ignore material suffering or become detached from it. I am not a saint or a liberated soul. I still have to live in this world and face its hardships every day.

If the Lord is truly all-powerful and infinitely compassionate, why wouldn't He help remove at least some of these ordinary worldly difficulties? Compared to lifting a mountain, resolving the problems of an ordinary devotee should be effortless for Him.

So my question is: Why does sincere daily chanting sometimes seem to coincide with a life that becomes progressively more painful instead of more peaceful? How should I understand this without resorting to "just tolerate it" or "ignore material suffering"?

See this might provoke some people

But I'm a curious teenager with a lot of interest in my religion😋

Going through spiritual enlightenment

Need someone to guide me properly...

So my questions are

1. Why should a person worship the Supreme Lord, Sri Krishna, according to the Bhagavad Gita?

2. Why should one become free from the cycle of birth and death ,why not live life and also what happens when someone achieves eternal moksha?

3. Why should one attain liberation (moksha), and what joy does liberation bring according to the Bhagavad Gita?

4. What is life according to the Bhagavad Gita and Hinduism?

5. Why should I unite with the Supreme?

6. Why should I perform my duty (dharma)?

7. What is my duty(i know i should discover it but)?

8. Why was I born in Hinduism?

9. Why was I born in this age (Kali Yuga) and not in Treta Yuga or Satya Yuga?

10. Why am I just a human while some beings are gods?

11. Why am I in this world?

12. What is the purpose of life according to Hinduism?

13. What does Hinduism say about the multiverse?

14. Why are Rama, Krishna,Vishnu and other avatars of vishnu worshipped separately if they are all Vishnu?

15. How do I practice the four yogas described in Hindu philosophy?

Karma Yoga

Bhakti Yoga

Jnana Yoga

Raja Yoga

16. How did ancient devotees (bhaktas) live and practice spirituality?

17. What meditation and spiritual practices improve the mind, memory, intelligence, and willpower?

Please be polite to me I know these questions are a bit rude

But I'm 17

Haribol! First, I’d like to thank all of you for your continued posts and participation since we’ve reopened the subreddit. It means so much to see the sincere questions and responses that are being shared

We’re seeing an influx of posts that appear to be AI-generated, including music, images, and written content. Before making any firm moderation decision, I wanted to get a sense of the community’s feelings on this.

My initial instinct as a moderator is to remove obvious AI-generated posts, especially when they are presented as original art, music, or writing. At the same time, this can become a slippery slope. Determining what is or is not AI-generated is not always easy, and moderators could make mistakes.

The concern is not simply “AI bad.” The concern is that the ISKCON community includes many amazing artists, musicians, writers, and devotees who create great art - it feels a bit cheap to bypass them for AI works.

That said, there may be some reasonable uses of AI, such as assisting with formatting, translation, accessibility, or brainstorming, especially when the final contribution is meaningfully guided by a devotee. (Full disclosure, I’ve used AI to help hone this post, so I’m not a doomer/anti-ai advocate!)

So I’d like to ask:

How should we handle AI-generated content in this subreddit?

Should obvious AI-generated posts be removed?

Should AI-generated content be allowed only if clearly disclosed?

Should devotional AI art/music/text be allowed freely?

Should there be a separate flair for AI-assisted content?

Please share your thoughts respectfully.

>"I’m not an ISKCON devotee, but I’ve been reading the ex-Hare Krishna group's rants. As devotees, how do you reconcile Prabhupada’s controversial quotes?"