“Hare Krishna Mantra Chant” (1966) – A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami * LP: Krishna Consciousness * Label: Happening Records
The charm of this 1966 album, one of the primary sources for the rise of Krishna consciousness beyond India (complete with an Allen Ginsberg endorsement on the back), is its simplicity. The message, as demonstrated in track one (presented here), and explained by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhubada himself on track two, is the inner peace one can find through chanting the holy names of Krishna. (See his widely available Chant and Be Happy.) Prabhubada made enough of a countercultural impression that observers were liable to view him as just another contemporary religious cult figure, one of the many who paraded through lifestyle avenues of the late sixties and early seventies. (He had led a two-hour chant of the Hare Krishna mantra at Tompkins Square in October 1966, in many ways kickstarting awareness of the now-familiar mantra, a few months before this album came out.) In truth, Prabhubada was a Vedic scholar and guru with a communicative flair, an eye- and ear-catching branch from the Banyan tree of Hinduism that’s been flourishing for millennia. In multiple interviews, George Harrison has credited this record for adding Krishna Consciousness to his Eastern spiritual menu.