There was recently an article published on some devotee news sites about the environment and how simply by chanting Hare Krishna all of the environmental woes will disappear.

Many articles like this are floating around. The author finds a serious and news-worthy problem and then says “Simply by chanting Hare Krishna, this problem will go away!” I recently saw one about eating disorders. That’s pretty reckless.

I think articles like this make it appear like we aren’t really concerned about whatever problem we’re supposedly addressing. It looks like we just want to convert the masses and that we’re superstitious and woefully short-sighted.

The thesis of this particular article was that all of our environmental problems can and will be solved by chanting. However, the Srila Prabhupada quotes that were used only address water. And while water is important, drought is only one small piece of the environmental problem.

Srila Prabhupada has never said that simply by chanting Hare Krishna all the environmental disasters will cease. He never said that simply by chanting Hare Krishna you suddenly won’t be anorexic or subject to racism or have a fully belly. He never said a good deal of things like that.

The real problem with this mentality is that it allows us to be lazy, to not care. Sure, we think we’re caring because we are telling people to chant Hare Krishna, but that is not how it’s going to be seen. If we tell people that our mantra can save the environment and they see that we aren’t doing jack to help the environment (reduce, reuse, recycle, buying local, composting, etc.) we will never be taken seriously, they will think we’re frauds.

It brings to mind a “bait and switch” that happened to me while hiking at Gettysburg Park this past summer. It was the hottest day of the year and there was a group of people giving away free bottles of ice water. I pick one up, thank them and open it. As I was taking my first sip, a man walks over and asks me if I’d like to drink from the “living water.” “You’ll never be thirsty again!” Of course, he was speaking of Jesus, trying to convert me. But at least they were solving my material problem (thirst) while addressing my spiritual problem.

We can do that too!

We are already chanting Hare Krishna. We do it a lot and can certainly do it more. But we also need to start addressing the material problems as well. We aren’t experts, so we probably can’t solve them. But we definitely don’t have to be part of the problem.

For the environment specifically, we can focus on our vegetarianism. Vegetarians have a much smaller environmental footprint. We are already eating this way, so why not use it?

Acting like these material problems can automatically be solved by chanting is setting up our audience for failure. If things get better, they might think “hey, maybe it works!” But if things get worse (and it being kali-yuga, I’m betting it’s going to get worse), they might think “where is your god now?” What a gamble!

And if people see that we are trying (in this case) to help the environment and we are still chanting Hare Krishna, going on harinam, etc while doing it, they will have a much greater respect for us. They won’t think that we’re some freaky little cult. And who knows, they may just start chanting Hare Krishna along with us no matter what happens with the environment!

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Note: I wrote this last week about a specific article. Since that time Sita-pati prabhu has posted his articles about Harinams for Climate Change. While some of the points are the same, this was not written about those harinams. There is never a bad reason to have harinam.

Related posts:

1. But isn’t chanting enough?
2. Alan Ginsberg chants Hare Krishna
3. Classic ISKCON Tapes #11 – Caracas Temple Kirtans
4. I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon…
5. Original Sin vs. THE Original Sin