“We are all part of God — he is in our heart. The God of love is Krishna. The one and only goal of life is to experience the pure love of God.”

Pretty intense, I know. But I found this philosophy of the Hare Krishnas to be very beautiful. I do not consider myself religious or belonging to any religious group, I choose to accept all religions because all of them contain universal truths. And the Krishnas have a lot of beautiful truths. In 2018 I volunteered for 3 weeks at Varsana — a Krishna temple near Bogota, Colombia. Many of the philosophies I learnt about on my travels I found again in the Krishna Temple.

The 4 Dont’s

1. Do not eat meat — follow a vegetarian diet. All things inhabit a soul, and you should not take any soul’s life.
2. Do not gamble.
3. Do not have sex before marriage, or only in a spiritual relationship. Sex distracts your soul from the yogic path.
4. Do not consume any drugs, coffee, tea, tobacco, alcohol or natural medicines (like marihuana, ayahuasca etc) as these substances cloud your vision.

The Krishnas are very strict when it comes to the rules they follow. Yes, they seem very radical, but in the end, they have as a goal the elevating of the consciousness. And let’s be real here — bad food…