On a recent episode of The Namarasa Podcast, Sukhavaha Devi Dasi, a disciple of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, reflects on her experiences joining the Hare Krishna movement in the early 1970s and the spiritual journey that followed. First encountering Bhagavad-gītā As It Is while a college student at Penn State in 1971, she recalls being immediately captivated by its teachings. That discovery led her to begin chanting, adopt a vegetarian lifestyle, and eventually travel to the rural West Virginia community of New Vrindaban, where she became deeply involved in devotional life during ISKCON’s formative years.
The podcast conversation with host Venkata Bhatta Dasa explores both the inspiration and the challenges of those early days. Sukhavaha describes the intense zeal of many young converts, including her own youthful fanaticism, and how the movement’s rapid growth sometimes emphasized expansion over personal care for devotees.
She also recounts a dramatic episode in which her parents arranged for her to be forcibly “deprogrammed,” a controversial practice used in the 1970s to remove young people from new, overzealous “religious movements.” These groups were referred to as dangerous cults because members often sacrificed their thoughtful discernment to follow a strong leader. Her experience, though traumatic, later became part of her broader spiritual understanding of identity, faith, and the complexities of religious commitment.
Read more: https://iskconnews.org/kidnapped-for-deprogramming-a-vaishnavis-early-iskcon-story/
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