We believe that God exists, and that we are not these bodies, but eternal spiritual souls, who have lived before this life and live on after death. We believe that Krishna is God, and that we are His eternal servants, who can only be happy by serving Him.

We believe we originally come from Krishna’s eternal spiritual world, but have fallen into this temporary material world, in a cycle of birth and death, because we have broken off our relationship with Krishna, and that we can return to our eternal situation by re-establishing our relationship with Krishna, by developing love for Him and serving Him.

We are not quite sure, since we don’t have a member list. When we say there are a couple of thousands who identify with Hare Krishna in Denmark, it is merely an approximation. There is a core of around 50 very active devotees, plus a number of people who, to varying degrees, follow what Hare Krishna represents.

Again an approximation – around 10 million people are today involved with ISKCON. This number, however, does not include those related to other traditions and organisations, who also worship Krishna. Of those there are hundreds of millions of people in India alone.

Older than anything else we know in the world. Its foundation is the Vedas, which are at least 5000 years old, and in reality much older even than that.

ISKCON itself (the International Society for Krishna Conscousnes) was founded in 1966 by Srila Prabhupada. ISKCON however, is simply a continuation of the organisation called Gaudiya-math, which his spiritual master had started in India in the 1920’s.

Gaudiya-math traces its roots back to the 1500-hundreds to the great Bengali saint Sri Caitanya, who started the worship of Krishna through singing and dancing, as we also practice in Hare Krishna today.

So Hare Krishna as a tradition and philosophy goes back a long way. In Denmark Hare Krishna has been present since 1979.

Because we do not wish to harm any other living being. You could also look at it from the perspective of karma – what we do to others comes back to ourselves, either in this life or in the next.

Those who eat meat run the risk of becoming animals and be slaughtered in their next life, as a reaction to their participation in the slaughter of animals in this life, which in itself is a good reason for becoming vegetarian. You may wish to read further about the advantages of being a vegetarian here.

In reality though, we are more than vegetarian. Our principle is, that we only eat food that has been offered to Krishna first, and Krishna only likes food that is either vegetarian or comes from cows milk.

The real reason we do not consume meat, fish, or eggs, is, that they are items Krishna would not wish to receive as offerings.

For one thing it is clean. Secondly – traditionally it represents renunciation. Women are usually not shaved however.

It is a tradition we follow, like our dress and other things.

All of these things help us to identify more like spiritual people, and hopefully remind others, that there are people who believe, that spirituality is the most important element of life.

They are called tilak, and they are decorations meant to show, that the body is a temple of God.

And again it shows others what tradition we follow.

Not everyone does, only unmarried men. Orange, or saffron as we like to call it, is the colour of renunciation, showing others that one lives in celibacy.

Married men, on the other hand, usually wear white cloth, and women dress in sarees.

Again, we do these things out of respect for our tradition, partly because modern clothes are usually not designed to promote spirituality, but rather to make us more bodily conscious.

The traditional Krishna dress reminds us, and others, of our spiritual purpose.

All real religions speak of the same God, and the same universal truths.

We acknowledge every religion, that has not been tarnished by human speculation.

We believe that any religion, that teaches its adherents to love God, is a real religion, and we respect such religions completely, even though we do not follow their external forms of expression.

Yes and no. We are hindus in the sense, that our traditions come under the huge religious umbrella term called hinduism.

But the word “hindu” is not found in the Vedic texts. Hinduism is a new term, that gained real popularity only as late as the 1800’s.

The word hindu is an imported term, referring to the Indus river. Originally, muslims used the term to describe any religion that was found on the other side of the Indus river.

That is the actual meaning of hindu, and nobody can say exactly what it means to be hindu. Therefore we do not identify ourselves as hindus.

In reality it would be more correct to define hinduism as the Vedic religion, since all hindus accept the Vedas, even though the interpretation of it may differ. In this connection you may like to read this text on hinduism by Hridayananda Goswami.

No not at all. Philosophically speaking Buddhism is diametrically opposed to what Hare Krishna and Krishna consciousness represent.

We acknowledge a personal God, and say that behind everything the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, is found.

Buddhism, on the other hand, is a voidist philosophy and a form of atheism, that does not recognize the existence of God as real, but believe, that ultimately there is only void and nothingness at the heart of everything.

Initiated devotees recite the Hare Krishna mantra for a minimum of 16 rounds on a string of 108 beads.

That comes to a total recitation of 1728 mantras a day, which takes approximately two hours. This mantra has a purifying effect on the consciousness.

The more we recite it, the purer, and more blissful our consciousness becomes. Ultimately this sound vibration has the power to give us pure love of God.

We recommend everyone to meditate or recite the Hare Krishna mantra as much as possible:

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna,
Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama,
Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

To initiated by a spiritual master, or guru, one must take vows to recite at least 16 rounds of the Hare Krishna mantra daily, as mentioned previously, and follow the four regulative principles of refraining from the consumption of meat, fish, or eggs, refraining from intoxication including alcohol and tobacco, refraining from sex outside of marriage, and within marriage only for procreation, and finally refraining from gambling.

We rise early – around 4 in the morning. The hours before sunrise are especially favorable for spiritual activities.

At 4.30am we have a morning ceremony called mangala arati. We sing some songs and the Hare Krishna mantra in front of our altar, where various forms of Krishna are standing.

Thereafter we meditate, by reciting the Hare Krishna mantra on our meditation beads. At 7.30am we sing again and have a class on philosophy and discussion on Srimad-Bhagavatam for about an hour. After that we serve breakfast.

During the rest of the day we perform various services for Krishna until evening, when once again we sing in front of the altar, and then read and discuss from Bhagavad-gita or other literatures.

We usually go to be around 8 or 9pm. This daily routine is general for all initiated devotees as far as practically possible, especially in our temples.

Some do. Some devotees’ children attend the Krishna movement’s own schools around the world.

We do not have a Krishna school in Denmark though. It is up to every parent and child to decide which form of primary education they prefer.

Ideally we would like our children to receive a Krishna conscious education, where they learn the basic things that other children also learn, but also are given the undestanding, that the purpose of life as human beings is to develop love for God, Krishna.

As everyone else, meaning with common sense, love, and a certain amount of dicipline.

Besides that we teach them about spiritual life and religion as we practice it, and we tell them that material wealth and sense enjoyment cannot make us truly happy.

Receiving a new name is part of being initiated by a spiritual master. Initiation is a sort of “second birth.”

The new name is either one of Krishna’s names or the name of a great Krishna conscious person, followed by dasa for men and dasi for women.

Dasa and dasi means servant. The initiated name thus reflects one’s eternal identity as the servant of God.

In India

Yes we do hold weddings.

We have a ceremony with a fire sacrifice, where the bride and groom are beautifully dressed and decorated.

Mantras are sung and recited, and at one point the couple give wedding vows, which are very similar to regular church weddings.

The couple also exchange flower garlands as a symbol that now they are married.

In our experience there is no specific type that chooses to follow Krishna consciousness.

We have members from all walks of life and professions.