A Forehead That Kisses the Floor

Every month, when the sun was at its hottest, my grandmother performed a ritual. 

She pulled out nine incense sticks—never more, never less—bundled them up and held it over the flame of a fat red candle until the ends glowed amber. 

Then she’d shuffle towards the family altar, bowing as low as her 97-year-old body would allow, her hands moving in a slow, practiced rhythm as she whispered prayers beneath her breath. 

As a Taoist, I was taught that death wasn’t the end. Our ancestors were never truly gone, just waiting on the other side. 

They lingered in the bends and swirls of lit incense, in the offerings, in the ashes of burnt joss paper. 

All our wealth, luck and success were believed to come from their protection, and in return, we owed them our prayers, food and gratitude.

One by one, each member of my family took turns bowing or kneeling before the altar, each muttering intangible sentences I could never decipher.

When it was my turn, my actions felt hollow. My hands moved without the faith my grandmother once carried; I waved my incense sticks as if they were fly swatters instead of a ritual deserving of respect.

Then I waited. I stood by the table and watched, waiting for something—or someone—to start eating. But the chopsticks stayed in place. The food did not move. 

It bothered me then, and it still does now. How and why should I believe in something I cannot see? I wanted proof. Something that could convince me faith wasn’t just an inherited choreography. 

That question never left. I tell people I am not religious, but the truth is, it fascinates me—the power it holds, the comfort it offers and the people who willingly submit themselves to the concept of a higher being. 

In my first year at university, that curiosity led me to join a cult disguised as a religious movement for a story.

Now, two years later, it’s drawn me to the Hare Krishnas—not as the cult story I expected, but as an exploration of my own beliefs. 

Chants on the Pavement

It was a day like any other in Brisbane’s city centre. The streets were crowded with the usual 4pm rush of students and office workers. Blazers, suits and ties—just another weekday blur. 

Then, a flash of orange broke through the monotony. 

Two men stood on either side of a folding table stacked with bundles of books and pamphlets, each tied with a thin, golden ribbon as if they were gifts. They wore saffron robes, their heads shaved, their feet bare. Each held a book to the passers-by, beckoning and calling out to anyone willing to stop. 

As I walked closer, I could hear rhythmic chants coming through a small speaker on the side. 

“Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare

Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.” 

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was listening to the Maha Mantra, the central chant of the Hare Krishna Movement. 

The men were members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).

ISKCON is a faith devoted to bhakti yoga—the path of loving devotion to Krishna. They see Krishna as the “all-attractive” one and the supreme personality of God. 

ISKCON was established in the United States in 1966, with around 500 centres worldwide, including seven centres across Australia. Brisbane hosts daily prayers and classes at its Darra temple. 

ISKCON Brisbane secretary Syamarani Dasi, 57, says the movement began when Srila Prabhupāda, the founder of ISKCON, brought Krishna’s teachings to Western youths. 

“He [Srila Prabhupāda] had been instructed by his spiritual master because he knew English to spread the teachings to English-speaking people. 

“So in preparation for coming over, he started to translate the books into English and brought some of the books with him,” she says.

“Once he came over, he started to translate more and more of the books. 

“That’s how the Hare Krishna movement began and he went and preached to the youth of America who had become disillusioned with materialism,” she says.

I watched the men approach passers-by, undeterred by the frequent rejections. I couldn’t help but wonder what inspires such devotion. The same devotion Srila Prabhupāda had when he dedicated his life to spreading Krishna’s teachings at his spiritual master’s request.

Is it faith, purpose, belonging…or something else entirely? 

Inside the Movement

I spoke to Inna, 30, a former ISKCON member based in Germany, who was given a copy of the Bhagavad-Gita on the streets. 

“I was going through this kind of depressive phase and nothing was making me happy… I didn’t like things that I used to like anymore. 

“I was 18 back then, and I had just started university. It was quite difficult for me. I had moved to a different city and I was sick the whole time. I didn’t like my studies, so it was not a good phase for me at all. 

“That’s when I received the book on the street. So I thought, you know, might as well just read it,” Inna says.

Ms Dasi says Inna’s story is not uncommon. 

“It’s predominantly young people that join, they’re in that mentality of looking for change,” she says. 

For many, she adds, “it’s comforting to know you’re following a path that’s been etched out. In the book, the founder always mentions the steps you need to follow to practice this religion. So it was very easy to kind of get into it.” 

Inna spent the next six years with ISKCON, where she found a sense of community and was an active member at the temple. 

“I started to feel like, maybe this is destiny. 

“I’m from Russia originally and half of the congregation members were Russian-speaking.

“So I instantly felt the connection, it really felt like my home from the very first day that I visited.

“I was very active in the temple, I knew people there and people knew me. I was helping with the translations of the lectures and I was helping the Pujari [the woman priest] who was taking care of the deity,” Inna says. 

It was only a matter of time before Inna saw the other side of the movement. 

Inna describes this as a gradual process. It began when she re-evaluated a conversation with a woman whom she believed to be her friend.

“I noticed she began belittling and criticising me. 

“For example, I was once wearing a skirt, a knee-length skirt, not a tight one, but not a very flowy one either. It went straight down to my knees. 

“Upon seeing me in this skirt, she said ‘Oh, why are you wearing such a slutty outfit today?’” 

Inna brushed off those comments, believing they were a joke. Looking back now, she realised the woman was not her friend. 

“This is not how you treat a friend, that was not okay. I wish I could have told her back then, but I didn’t have the guts to do it,” she says.  

But Inna stayed. Loneliness was a big factor. 

“There are many people in our ISKCON community who are lonely. People who are by themselves, who don’t have family anymore, the elderly…they’re looking for a purpose. 

“I was also looking for a purpose in life,” Inna says.  

Admittedly, these factors push me away from religion. 

Perhaps it’s that rebellious teenage spirit in me that’s never quite left. I believe that only I could determine my purpose in life. I hate being told what to wear. 

If religion demanded conformity in exchange for belonging, I would gladly find it elsewhere.

I don’t believe there is a singular purpose in life. Humans are far more complex than that. 

Our need for connection and community is human, but it isn’t limited to religious avenues. I have found my own community through shared passions, creative projects and even on drunken nights out. 

I know I belong somewhere. 

Still, I cannot deny what religion promises and often delivers. This includes structure, ritual and a path forward. 

I couldn’t help but wonder: are we predisposed to believe? 

Psychology of Belief

Ms Dasi says the Bhagavad Gita, a 5,000 year old text, outlines the four types of people drawn to the Krishna Collective.

“O best among the Bharatas, four kinds of pious men begin to render devotional service unto Me-the distressed, the desirer of wealth, the inquisitive, and who is searching for knowledge of the Absolute.”

(Bhagvad Gita (7.16))

What fascinates me about this ancient passage is how it shares common ideas with modern psychology. 

The urge to believe, to find order in chaos, seems less like an individual feature. It seems more intrinsic to our biology. 

Dr Christian Heim is the Clinical Director of Mental Health services in Australia. He is also a senior lecturer at the University of Queensland (School of Medicine). Dr Heim echoes this sentiment, he says people are drawn to religion because of our need for consistency. 

“Psychologically, religion offers stability and certainty. 

“The brain loves all of these things because if we wake up in a new city every day, our brain could not cope.

“You know, you have to go to bed, you have to wake up knowing that you’re in the same place and you’re going to engage in the same life. Religion offers more of that security.”

Dr Heim adds that the appeal of religion lies in its sense of permanence, a timeless stability in an ever-changing world.  

“The idea that God’s been going on forever and you’re part of that foreverness. That’s actually very reassuring. It makes you feel very small, but it makes you feel part of everything at the same time. 

“All major religions, from Buddhism to Christianity, will have that idea that you’re a drop of a much bigger ocean. You’re not the ocean, but you’re part of absolutely everything.” 

While I understood the sentiment, I could never quite grasp how people could believe so ardently in something of a higher power. This is true when it has not been proven. I always thought that if God was real, why would he stand by when millions across the world suffer? 

More selfishly, I questioned why I should believe in a being of higher power when all my prayers had gone unanswered. Did that mean it was God’s plan for me to suffer despite my pleas? My crisis did not inspire faith. It intensified doubt. 

Yet, as Dr Heim says, moments of crisis often push people toward religion. 

“A lot of people will find God after they’ve had a mental health crisis, a physical health crisis.

“In times of crisis, we come back to these big existential questions: Why am I alive? What is life all about? Does God exist? Who cares for me? 

“And science does not answer these questions,” he says.  

A striking illustration comes from a 1975 study. This study involved seven suicide survivors who jumped off the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. Nearly half of them reported intense religious or spiritual experiences mid-fall. 

“They had made this big decision and now they were responsible for nothing and they actually got into this state that we call ego death. 

“Ego death, where ‘I do not exist because I am about to die’ and in that moment, a lot of them felt like they had an encounter with God and all of a sudden, life became very meaningful for them and they wanted to live. 

“It’s a very small study, but it gives us a lot of insight into what’s important to people and how a crisis can lead to an epiphany that involves religious conversion,” Dr Heim says.  

Dr Heim says that the same principle applies outside of life-and-death situations, especially for young people. 

“It becomes easy to understand why most religious conversions happen between the ages of 14 and 30. Because as an adolescent, it’s a time of gaining your identity. It’s also a time when you are cut off from your parents, right? That’s actually a crisis for all of us. 

“As a child, you got food, you got given shelter, you’re gonna do all right. As long as your parents are all right, you’d be okay. Then somebody says to you, ‘you gotta do this all by yourself.’ Find your own food, find your own shelter, find your own way in life.

“It becomes a crisis to become a fully-fledged human being,” he said.

Most of us have experienced this crisis: moving out, shouldering new responsibilities, paying rent and utilities on time, figuring out what’s for dinner and questioning why we chose this degree or job in the first place. 

I can relate to Inna’s struggles. I moved to a new country by myself at 18, had to rebuild my community from scratch and assimilate into a new culture. I still hope to carve my own path, even if sometimes I wish life came with a manual. 

Four months ago, when I began this investigation, the question I was asked most often was: “Is Hare Krishna a cult?” 

The truth is, I still don’t know.

There are entire online forums devoted to denouncing ISKCON and its practices and I believe many of those experiences. But after reading pages of the Bhagavad-Gita and speaking with devotees, I’ve realised how complicated that label really is. 

How do you call something a cult when its sacred texts predate the very idea of what we now define a cult to be? 

Religion is not inherently bad. Few—if any—religions promote harm or domination; it is human fallibility that distorts their meaning. 

Dr Heim echoes this sentiment. He says, while most religions preach compassion and equality, they also create systems of hierarchy. 

“The higher people are imparting knowledge to the lower people and so knowledge becomes a currency of power. And that power can be used to encourage others or it can also be used to abuse others as well.” 

Our inherent human desire for power and domination changes the way we interact with religion. No longer is it about love and kindness, but it morphs into some kind of moral competition. One that condemns non-believers and asserts superiority, all in the namesake of “saving them” from a disastrous afterlife or bringing peace and moralities into their lives. 

I have always been drawn to religion. The way people find meaning in what cannot be seen. For many years, I dismissed it as foolishness; rose-tinted glasses for those who refused to see the world for what it was. I thought religion was surrender, not strength. 

Now I know better. Doubt can be a kind of worship and belief is not the absence of thought—but the courage to trust what you cannot prove. 

They turn to God; I turn to understanding. 

Different altars, same longing. 

Curious about why our brains are wired to believe? Watch this video I created where Dr Christian Heim explains how our orbitofrontal cortex plays a role in our faith.

Media Declaration: All media and sound bites in this video are either originally created/recorded by me or sourced from royalty-free libraries. Royalty-free images were obtained from [Rawpixel] under their royalty-free license, which permits reuse without attribution.