{a world apar t }
Once, Paramadvaiti went five years
without speaking to his own mother. His love of Krishna often has over- whelmed his capacity (or his care) to deal with a family that does not share his faith. As much as my uncle admon- ishes the material world, though, he also needs to navigate it. As such, he carries a BlackBerry. And that’s how he learned of my desire to visit. In late September 2008, I e-mailed
him and explained that I was a 26-year- old reporter who loved a good excuse to travel. I wanted to witness his world and learn about his life. Description of my daily animal protein intake was categorically avoided. About two weeks later, Paramadvaiti wrote back.
Dear chico, Haribol. That means: all glories to the supreme lord in Sanskrit. Yes, I am pleasantly surprised. You can stay with me, travel with me any time. That is a standing invitation. Some locations being more amazing then oth- ers. A pilgrims life. For details contact Kalki. In Miami… He is available in our meditation garden.
He sent me a telephone number for
Kalki, his assistant, and links to a few blogs about vegetarianism. I booked a flight to India. Then, finally, I started asking questions about the uncle whose blood I share but whose world I did not understand. I wondered how he’d transformed, and to what end. My grandmother had learned to see the
virtue in his radical life, because now, in their rare visits, the son who was so combative and miserable as a teen seemed “exuber- ant” and “very loving,” she says. Paramadvaiti’s devo-
UNLESS ONE IS INQUIRING
tees view him as pious and pure, and they travel the world to meet him. But their absolute devotion raised suspicions in my mind. I’d always joked to my friends, describing my uncle as a comic figure, a could-be cult leader who doesn’t have sex. But the reality was more serious. Was he selfless or a fraud? Was he peaceful or danger- ous? And what did I, a bit of a wanderer myself, have in common with him?
AS TO WHY HE IS SUFFERING, HE IS NOT A PERFECT HUMAN BEING.”
‘‘
A.C. Bhaktivedanta
Swami Prabhupada,
a Krishna spiritual master
To hear my family tell it, my uncle’s
world had always been two parts ex- treme, one part exasperating. Born Oct. 12, 1953, Ulrich Harlan almost always seemed bothered by something, be it asthma or chronic sickness or jealousy of his older brother. Ulrich was the second-born of four siblings, all raised in rural northern Germany. Though close in age, my father and
uncle were as much rivals as friends. My father, studious and compliant, gained the favor of his teachers. My uncle, wild- eyed with curly hair and a penchant for Che and Marx, drew the ire of authority. He ignored his father and paid plenty of attention to drugs. Once, the police ar- rested him under a bridge as a loiterer. He told his mother: “I just wanted to find out what it feels like when you have no money.” He thought about suicide, got kicked
swami Bhakti aloka Paramadvaiti with the author, his nephew Chico harlan, at a temple in Vrindavan.
out of school and spoke of moving to Nepal. “Where did I go so wrong?” my grandmother, who still lives in Ger- many, wrote in her diary back then. One afternoon, terrified of losing her connection with her son, then 17 or 18, my grandmother, a good Lutheran, sat with him at the kitchen table and got high on LSD. Not long afterward, my uncle found a Krishna ashram — in essence, a de-
12 The WashingTon PosT Magazine | may 16, 2010
crepit apartment of hip- pies in Dusseldorf. The small group of devotees lived in the attic. The place didn’t have running wa- ter, but Paramadvaiti em- braced the extreme auster- ity. “Now at the age of just 18 I had found a monas- tery without roots in the west,” he later wrote on his personal Web site. “All was new. [T]he way we dressed, the music, the master, the food, the books, the daily routine, the haircut … And I loved it.” My uncle’s worldview
had found a match. The Krishnas acknowledge the unhappiness of existence.
In fact, much of their belief system was founded upon it. “Unless one is inquir- ing as to why he is suffering, he is not a perfect human being,” wrote A.C. Bhak- tivedanta Swami Prabhupada, among the most well-known Krishna spiritual masters. “Humanity begins when this inquiry is awakened within the mind.” Krishnas accept as a basic tenet that their spirits are trapped in their body, in the material world, in a labyrinth of impure distractions. The goal is to break free, end an existence of reincarnation and join Krishna in his eternal kingdom. My family knew of Paramadvaiti’s
conversion in part because he attempted furiously to convert them. Several times each year, especially in the 1970s, my uncle wrote letters lecturing his mother about her empty life. In one, penned in 1973, he spent about 500 words in- structing her to stop cooking meat and start chanting the holy mantra. Then, just before signing off, he suggested she buy from him high-grade rosewood oil and incense. A decade of my grand- mother’s resistance did not dull Para- madvaiti’s preaching (he has relented only in recent years). Each letter began, “Hare Krishna!
All Glories to Srila Prabhupada.” He no longer signed his name, “Ulli.” He was, in all respects, no longer a Harlan.
When I got off the plane in New Delhi,
India, it was 3 a.m. White soot clouded
PHOTOGRAPHS BY GOPAL VILAS
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