SWAMI'S FLOCK CHANTS IN PARK TO FIND ECSTACY
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"Sitting under a tree in a Lower East Side park and occasionally dancing, fifty followers of a Hindu swami repeated a sixteen-word chant for two hours yesterday afternoon to the accompaniment of cymbals, tambourines, sticks, drums, bells, and a small reed organ... repetition of the chant, Swami A. C. Bhaktivedanta says, is the best way to achieve self-realization in this age of destruction... many in the crowd of about a hundred persons standing around the chanters found themselves swaying to or clapping hands in time to the hypnotic rythmic music. 'It brings a state of ecstasy,' said Allen Ginsberg the poet... the ecstasy of the chant or mantra Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare has replaced LSD and other drugs for many of the Swami's followers."
(From the New York Times, October 9, 1966)
Click here to see video of Prabhupada chanting Hare Krsna in Tompkins Square Park. (RealPlayer required. Click here for free download.)
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