An Authentic Life 1.1 for pdf - Universalist Radha-Krishnaism

ics, was senior editor. Cover articles featured Dr.
Spock and the Beachboys. I wrote articles about "The
Real Revolution," "Drugs and Ecstasy," a review of
Bhaktivedanta Swami's Teachings of Lord Chaitanya,
and others.
I lived in the first American temple Swamiji
started at 26 Second Ave. near Houston Street on the
Lower East Side. We regularly chanted and danced in
procession on the streets. Sometimes at night, along
Fourth Street on the way to Greenwich Village, people
threw tomatoes and bottles off rooftops at us. Drunks
regularly attacked us, sometimes grabbing one of the
female devotees, some of whom were high school
girls. Male devotees fought them off.
Friday and Saturday nights were especially
good to go out and chant. The streets were packed.
Devotees fit right into the wild New York scene. Men
dressed in traditional Indian clothes called dhoties,
and most had shaved heads with a lock of hair at the
crown. Women wore saris and braided their hair, often
keeping their heads covered with the sari. Devotees
wore a white clay mark on the forehead indicative of
their religious order.
We marched along chanting Hare Krishna and
dancing. We stopped at busy corners, lined up to
gather a crowd, and stayed in one place until the cops
came and told us to move on. When a crowd gathered,
one of the devotees gave a talk, invited people
to the temple, and asked them to buy a magazine.
Devotees circulated among the crowds with "Back to
Godhead" magazines and big conch shells to collect
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