(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Matthew Stuckey here and I want to make a quick video on three common myths of the religion of Hare Kṛṣṇa. Three common myths of the religion of Hare Kṛṣṇa. And myth number one is that Hare Kṛṣṇa followers are just synonymous and identical and with Hinduism and typical traditional Hindus. In reality Hare Kṛṣṇa is quite a bit different than Hinduism. And so some people even ask this question, should we consider Hare Kṛṣṇa as Hindus? Well if you were to ask people to follow Hare Kṛṣṇa they would say that no they are not Hindus. Now if you were to look online some people have various opinions about this question but if you actually ask the people that are followers of Hare Kṛṣṇa they would say that no that they are not Hindus. Now there are some similarities between Hinduism and Hare Kṛṣṇa. There's a lot of similarities. They have a lot of similar sacred books. There's a lot of differences that make them very drastically set apart from one another. And so one major difference is quite simply this, that in Hinduism they believe in monotheism but they believe in a multiplicity of manifestations of God but their God is Brahman. And so when it comes to Brahman, well one of the three of the Trinity so to speak of Hinduism, which is very much different than the Trinity of Christianity, Vishnu is the preserver. Now here's the thing, Kṛṣṇa is the eighth avatar of Vishnu. So in traditional Hinduism, the modern religion that they have today, which is really just kind of a package of all of these different traditions and religions and mythology put together, they consider Kṛṣṇa the eighth avatar of Vishnu, which is a manifestation of Brahman. However in Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa is not an avatar of Vishnu, Kṛṣṇa is the supreme God. So in Hinduism, in Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa is the one supreme God. So they don't believe in worshiping Brahman, they believe in worshiping Kṛṣṇa. Now in Hinduism what you see is just a multiplicity of idols and you can reach God in any way and worship whatever you want, but in Hare Kṛṣṇa you are supposed to worship Kṛṣṇa. You're not supposed to worship anyone else because Kṛṣṇa is the supreme God. It's not good enough to worship Shiva or these other idols that Hinduism has, but you must actually worship Kṛṣṇa. Another big difference between this, which makes them very separate from one another and not the same religion, is that in Hinduism they do not believe in a personal God. They do not believe in a personal God that loves us and cares about us and has compassion on us and that we can pray to and relate to. In Christianity we sing the song, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, and that's very true. We believe in a God that is merciful and compassionate and that loves us and that cares about us and that we can pray to him and that he's with us. It's not really the way they look at it in Hinduism. There's a verse in Acts 17 which the people here in Athens are worshiping a religion that is very similar to modern-day Hinduism. They have a multiplicity of idols and yet they talk about this one unknown God that they're worshiping, which is just like in Hinduism. But what it says in Acts 17 verse 25 is, Neither is worshiped with men's hands as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath in all things. And so it's not men's hands that have to make idols of God in order to be able to comprehend him and talk to him and understand him because God made us. And that's what the chapter talks about for a while. Paul is addressing this issue of idolatry. And so in traditional Hinduism we have to make various idols in order to represent and understand God. And you can reach God in any way so you can kind of come to God with whatever form you want or whatever type of God you want. But that's not the same way in Hare Krishna because you must worship Krishna. They believe Krishna is the supreme God and they do believe in a personal God and that is Krishna. That's what Krishna looks like. That's who he is. In Hinduism there's really no actual look or form of God because God is more of a force that is kind of out there. Whereas in Hare Krishna that is what God looks like. And we were meant to worship Krishna who is the supreme God according to Hare Krishna. They believe in the Bhagavad Gita as their supreme and final authority. Whereas in Hinduism there is a multiplicity of sacred scriptures and the Vedas are considered to many people above the Bhagavad Gita. Now in Hare Krishna they do believe in a lot of those sacred books but the Bhagavad Gita is really the book that declares Krishna to be the one supreme God. So obviously I disagree with both religions but you can see that there's some major differences between Hinduism and Hare Krishna which actually separate them. Which is why if you're to ask people that are strong followers of Hare Krishna they would say that they are not Hindus because of these major differences. Myth number two is that Hare Krishna is a religion that just started in the 1960s. And so in the United States this religion was really brought over in abundance in the 1960s by a Swami by the name of Prabhupada if I'm pronouncing that correctly. And you know the society of ISKCON was was created as a result of him and it's the International Society of Krishna consciousness. And so they believe that that this Hare Krishna this worship is a consciousness to try to to get to know who God is. They wouldn't even call it a a religion. But here's the thing this didn't actually start in the 1960s from this one man. This actually started a long time ago and you can actually go back to the 1500s when this originated. And it just got brought to America during the hippie generation which is really what skyrocketed the religion. But in the 1500s this form of Vishnu worship and these traditions that they're doing in in the modern day Hare Krishna movement was was done by Sri Chaitanya of Bengal. And he's really the one who kind of originated this. Now I'm sure to some degree as you know you have the Vedas from a long time ago people were you know doing these sorts of things or similar sorts of things. But it was really the 1500s when it came to be. So this is not something that just started in the 50 last 50 60 years. It was actually a long time before. It's just during that time period the hippie generation caught on with it. And you see it at airports and you see people on the streets in big cities. And that's when it really kind of caught on in the United States. So myth number one is that Hare Krishna are just typical Hindus. That's not true. They actually believe that Krishna is a supreme personal God. That's who God looks... that's what God looks like. They believe that as opposed to Hinduism which believes in Brahman as this one force of God and an impersonal God. Myth number two is that this is a religion that started in the 20th century. It actually started a long time before. And myth number three is this that the followers of Hare Krishna are just the the dumbest most naive idiots in the entire world. Now whenever you're looking at a cult you kind of assume and I would say Hare Krishna is definitely a cult. But whenever you're looking at a cult you would just kind of assume that the followers are just really stupid and naive to follow this. Anyway to some degree there there's definitely would be true... there's definitely truth to saying that they would be naive to follow this. But a large part of this stigma was due to the fact that the hippies really caught on with this religion. And you could tell that the people during that time period were not holy people. They weren't righteous people. They were just trying to do something new and they wanted to feel spiritual. And so they did the music and everything like that and they thought it was cool. But they didn't actually really believe in it. And those people were just idiots. They were just following it because it was entertaining. They didn't really believe in it and we understand that and everything. Now I'm not trying to make Hare Krishna sound good but I will say this. I did watch a debate between someone who exposes the the philosophy behind cults and the leaders of Hare Krishna. And whenever you look at the leaders of a cult you're gonna assume they are intelligent. When I was listening to what the leaders of this cult were actually saying, I actually agreed with a lot of what he was saying about us being brainwashed by the media, being brainwashed in the school systems, and a lot of that information is true. And in fact the Bible says that Satan is the god of this world. And so when you have institutions that were not created by God such as, you know, a lot of the forms of entertainment like the music and the movies and the TV shows, you look at the public school system which is not found in the Word of God. And the reality is people are being brainwashed by those systems. There's no question about that. And so for the leaders of Hare Krishna to say that, well there's definitely truth to that. And I believe that there's a lot of people that are out there that want to know who God is, they're trying to find out who God is, and maybe they've been exposed to some common religions such as Catholicism and they know Catholicism is false. They've been exposed to Hinduism and especially Hinduism because of the fact this is obviously, you know, a religion that's coming out of India. And you know, obviously Hinduism is wrong. Obviously Buddhism is wrong. You know, obviously some of these other big religions are wrong and they're trying to figure out what the truth is. And so I don't think that necessarily means that they're stupid for falling into this lie. I think it means they realize, well this can't be true, maybe this is true, and I'll give this a shot. The reality is what the Hare Krishna followers need is the gospel. They don't have the gospel, they're not saved, and because they're not saved and they don't have the spirit of truth inside of them, they can be tossed to and fro with just a false religion, which is what Hare Krishna is. It is a false religion. However, these are some myths of Hare Krishna. Number one, that they are typical Hindus. They are not typical Hindus. It's actually quite a bit different. Myth number two is this started in the 20th century. That's actually not true. And myth number three is that the followers are just really stupid people. I would actually say that they attract more intelligent followers than some other false religions. That doesn't negate the fact that they are a false religion, they are a cult, and those people need to hear the gospel. Thank you and God bless.