New Delhi : After a video showed him making “derogatory comments” about Swami Vivekananda, the Hindu spiritual leader, and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the founder of the Ramakrishna Mission, preacher Amogh Lila Das (43) has been “banned” by ISKCON for a month.
With over 1.43 lakh followers on his YouTube channel, ‘Reviving Values’, which has received nearly 1.3 crore views since he started it in 2018, Amogh has made his name among a new wave of spiritual personalities to have found unprecedented fame on social media.
Amogh had criticised Swami Vivekananda for eating fish and dismissed Ramakrishna’s teaching of ‘joto mot toto poth (there are as many paths as there are opinions)’, saying that not every path leads to the same destination.
Under fire from their followers, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) Tuesday released a statement condemning Amogh, the vice-president at ISKCON Dwarka, and “banned” him for a month.
“Taking view of this serious mistake committed by him, ISKCON has decided to ban him for 1 month … He has taken a vow to go on prayaschit (atonement) for one month in the hills of Govardhan and will completely seclude himself from the public life with immediate effect,” the statement read, as quoted by news agency PTI.
Though Amogh’s comments seem to have gotten him in trouble this time, his online popularity stems from his outspoken nature.
For instance, take his review of Adipurush, a video that has garnered over 24 lakh views on YouTube. Criticising the film, he says, “Agar aapne humare epics ke saath chhed-chhad ki (if you mess around with our epics), get ready for trolling, heavy-duty trolling.”
While his videos are mostly in Hindi, he freely uses English words and phrases — terms that would be easily understood by his audience on social media. Besides deftly switching between Hindi and English, Amogh incorporates scriptures with more informal talk. One moment he is quoting the Upanishads, the next, he is cracking a joke.
“The Upanishads say that raso vai sah, meaning that the Lord is the ocean of all pleasure, but here (in Adipurush) it is niraso vai sah… why is (he) constantly upset? Kabh khushi kabhi gham, tara rum pum pum … but why does Lord Ram never smile?” he quips, criticising the decision to cast actor Prabhas in the role of Lord Ram in the film.
Born Ashish Arora in Lucknow, the 43-year-old claims to have felt a deep spiritual calling very early in his life. He completed his BTech in computer science from the Delhi College of Engineering, now the Delhi Technological University, and joined a US-based multinational company in 2004. He rose to the position of project manager before quitting in 2010, at the age of 29, to fully immerse himself in the Hare Krishna movement.
Today, Amogh is one of the most popular faces of ISKCON, founded in 1966 by AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and holds the position of the vice-president at ISKCON Dwarka. A self-described “motivational strategist and Indian lifestyle coach”, he is a spiritual guru of the TikTok age, with snippets of his lectures extremely popular on Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and other short-form media sharing platforms.
For example, in a viral 15-second video, he criticises people for marrying late, blaming the unrealistic standards they set. “Ladki sochti hai ladka safed ghode par aayega (girls think that the boy will come to them riding a white horse)… Ladke sochte hai ladkeen haseen hogi, tip-top ekdum (boy thinks the girl will be pretty, absolutely smart) … 36-24-36 (describing a woman’s stereotypical hourglass figure) … it’s a problem of unrealistic expectations,” he says.
His videos cover a wide range of topics. From discussing the “morality” of live-in relationships to talking about the need for the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, Amogh seldom misses an opportunity to touch on hot button issues. More importantly, ISKCON’s organisational structure allows him to speak his mind.
“ISKCON has an internal mechanism to train people on how to speak and guidelines on how to respectfully present ourselves — both theologically and interpersonally,” Yudhistir Govinda Dasa, the director of communications for ISKCON India,
“[But] monitoring every single lecture in an organisation as big as ours is practically impossible,” he said, adding, “Besides, there is already the training and the expectation of being respectful and harmonious.”
However, he also expressed that this is part of a learning curve and that ISKCON is looking into instituting more rigorous training and guidelines in the future. “Historically, we have shared a very respectful relationship with people from other faiths and Hindu denominations,” he said, adding, “In the coming days, a delegation from ISKCON will meet monks of the Ramakrishna Mission to further offer apologies and continue our ongoing amicable relationship.”
Bureau Report
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