Harivilasa 'Names Names'
BY: ROCANA DASA
June 24, CANADA (SUN) — Harivilasa das recently published an article on Chakra entitled "Those Who Gave DS Preferential Treatment are Implicated". I'm sure all those who had an opportunity to read the article were as amazed as I was to see a member of the GBC speaking so straightforwardly and forcefully concerning the circumstances surrounding Dhanurdhara and the gurukula abuses. His article began with this statement:
"The gurukula children who were tortured, maimed, raped
and used as sex slaves, starved, terrorized in ISKCON
schools were subjected to these horrors because "kali
chelas" or agents of kali entered our movement to
destroy it by torturing and molesting our next
generation. This has placed such a stigma on ISKCON
and its leadership that it may be impossible to heal
in this generation or the next."
A few days later the article suddenly disappeared from Chakra. Madhusudhani dasi, Chakra's Editor, informed me that Harivilasa das retracted the article and Chakra deleted it from their site. Of course, after reading the article one could easily imagine that Harivilasa prabhu got all sorts of intense feedback from his associates on the GBC for making comments like the following:
"To complicate matters, Dhanurdara Maharaja is
supported by prominent members of the GBC and the
movement. Those members who support him and have
effectively stopped the hand of justice from acting or
the rule of law are also implicated in the
unimaginable horror and evil perpetrated by Dhanurdara
Maharaja and others involved in the gurukula
molestation and abuse. As long as Dhanurdara Maharaja
continues to function "IN ISKCON" as an authority and
hold an honorific title, there is mud on the face of
the GBC Body. There is an indelible stain that will
not wash off."
Harivilasa rightly pointed out that when the abuser of children is in the garb of a sannyasi and he is protected by friends in high places, it is all the worse:
"In my estimation, this is pure evil when the
preceptor in the garb of a sannyasi is the torturer.
The evil continues when the torturer is protected and
his due punishment and rehabilitation is mitigated by
powerful friends not at their expense but at the
expense of ISKCON and Srila Prabhupada and the
hundreds of devotees in the USA and around the world
who are struggling to maintain the honor and prestige
of ISKCON."
It came as quite a surprise to me that Harivilasa holds such a surcharged position on the gurukula abuse issue. Prior to this Chakra article, I had never read a public statement from him on the subject. To my knowledge, no one locally knows that he's such a great champion of this particular cause. And if he is as impassioned as the article indicates, why is it that he withdrew the article due to pressure from above? Someone who's emoting in the way he is would be expected to fight to keep the article public rather than retract it. While Ananda McClure's heartbreaking demise brought the issue back into the spotlight, it's mystifying that Harivilasa wasn't outspoken on the issue all along, given the strength of the feelings he communicated in this article.
Harivilasa prabhu raised several good points about the protection Dhanurdhara enjoyed, and named the names of those ISKCON leaders he felt should be called to task for letting Dhanurdhara maintain his status:
"Did anyone mitigate Muralivadika das's due punishment.
No! He had no powerful friends that wanted to stop the
rule of law. Then why was Dhanurdara Maharaja given
such preferential treatment? We should ask the
following devotee leaders: Ravindra Svarupa das,
Jayadvaita Maharaja, Niranjana Maharaja, and others.
Please explain today in the face of so much
condemnation of ISKCON leadership and especially the
movement in the USA why you have given this man a
special status when Muralivadika das and Srutadeva das
and Mahamantra das (SDG) were summarily dealt with."
I find Harivilasa's comments on Ravindra Svarupa to be interesting. Prior to the filing of the Turley lawsuit, Nirmal Chandra shared with me stories about Ravindra Svarupa's son who, as I recall, was also a student at the Vrindavan gurukula and was abused. It comes as a surprise that Ravindra Svarupa would be willing to protect someone who victimized his own child, or his child's friends, or contributed to making their lives hellish.
"After Ravindra Svarupa das stopped the hand of justice
from acting as it should have, why did he declare that
he was going to Vrindaban to chant 64 rounds to atone
for the sins of ISKCON? Wouldn't have it been better
to release ISKCON at that crucial junction by letting
justice be served to Dhanurdara Maharaja? Why did many
more abused children join the Turley case after
Ravindra Svarupa das's intervention? They were
outraged by what seemed to be a deliberate slap in the
face of the victims. The outrage will not go away and
increase in volume more and more because the GBC does
not follow its own rules but crafts special
arrangements for privileged personalities."
Of course, we have long known that the GBC craft special arrangements when dealing with privileged personalities. And as I have personally experienced on many occasions, they also customize the rules to suit their own purposes when dealing with 'lesser devotees'. It is interesting that Harivilasa das should now be the one to point out this dynamic.
Harivilasa is the GBC in the area where my wife and I are now residing, and which is my original prabhu-datta-desa - British Columbia, Canada. We have been living in his zone in the Pacific Northwest for years. As it happens, I had a recent personal confrontation with him in regards to my involvement with the Vancouver temple, where I was once Temple President in the mid-1970's. This issue was briefly mentioned in a recent Sun Poll editorial.
The problem arose as a result of several editorial pieces I published in the Sun regarding Kirtanananda's re-manifestation, and questions about Radhanatha Swami's association with him. These articles apparently offended one of Radhanantha's local devotees, whose husband complained to Harivilasa on her behalf, saying that I had written "offensive" things on the web about her guru. Without even reviewing the articles in question, Harivilasa immediately banned me from giving class at the temple, suggesting that we hash the issue out with the complainers. Harivilasa promised to organize a meeting for one week hence to settle the matter. Not surprisingly he never followed through and didn't return email or phone messages. That was months ago, and it was the last I heard from him on the matter. He is either oblivious to the impact his decision had on my ability to serve locally, or he simply doesn't care. Indications are, it's the latter.
When I initially met with Harivilasa to discuss this problem, his message to me was clear: you can complain all you want behind closed doors, but do not name names publicly regarding anything in ISKCON history or current events that can be construed as 'negative'.
Harivilasa was the second of two recent GBC personalities who privately stated an almost identical message to me. The first was Bir Krishna dasa Goswami, who blew us out of the downtown Portland temple on the same grounds - because a grand-disciple in the community took offense at statements I made on my website about the activities of certain personalities in ISKCON. As Bir Krishna dasa Goswami reminded me, speaking publicly is absolutely taboo.
Clearly, the GBC enforce a heavy-handed policy when it comes to publicly speaking the truth about ISKCON. It is forbidden to "name names", even when talking about leaders who played an unarguably negative role at certain points in ISKCON's history, let alone those who are enmeshed in current 'situations'.
I find it quite hypocritical that Harivilasa das so casually banned me from giving lectures at the Vancouver temple because I had "named names" of senior personalities within ISKCON, then felt free to do the very same thing himself a short time later on the front page of Chakra. Harivilasa obviously felt quite passionate about the matter at hand and apparently thought he was justified in naming names. He apparently concluded that my statements were unjustified… although he hadn't read them.
Harivilasa recently described to me how he came to be a member of the GBC, saying that he'd showed up at a GBC session and they very unexpectedly asked him to be a member. Prior to that time his level of involvement had not been 'upper echelon' within the society's leadership. Of course, it was well known that he had made a lot of money, and the GBC had a great need for funds. They arranged to make Harivilasa an instant-GBC, sending him to North America to bail out the west coast scene. His personal money helped to shore up at least two of the neglected temples in this region. It seems that his number one pre-requisite qualification for becoming a GBC was that he had enough money to rescue a crisis temple scene.
While his business acumen has certainly helped several of the temples in North America, Harivilasa told me personally that everyone on the GBC strongly dislikes him for his outspoken nature. This nature was clearly evident in his recent Chakra article on the GBC's implication in the Dhanurdhara situation. At the same time, his personal method of dealing with the devotees is very ISKCON-like, and is reminiscent of the heavy-handed management style of a religion rather than the bhakti-like leadership of a spiritual movement.
I found it quite ironic that in his article, Harivilasa quoted Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur's famous writing on religion, and churches being the staunchest upholders of the grossest form of worldliness. Harivilasa is undoubtedly on the right-wing side of ISKCON, and is what one would call a "hard liner". He is well known for dealing with the devotees very, very harshly if they speak up against the "religion".
Judging from his recent article, it's as if Harivilasa prabhu is just waking up for the first time on this particular circumstance with Dhanurdhara and what's been going on in ISKCON for decades. His own personal circumstance is such that he has always been a businessman, and carries on his personal business to this day, regardless of the fact that he is a member of the GBC and serves as a Temple President of four - count 'em, four - ISKCON temples: Portland, Berkeley, Seattle and Vancouver. How that arrangement is viewed by the GBC as being part of Srila Prabhupada's program, I can't fathom.
Due to the extreme load of running a business and four temples simultaneously, Harivilasa das has had little time to deal with problems at the local level. Regardless of the fact that the Vancouver temple is in serious need of leadership, even when 'TP material' devotees like myself arrive on the scene, he makes no attempt whatsoever to engage them in any capacity. Never mind that I was trained by Srila Prabhupada to perform that function, while Harivilasa was never trained and was never a Temple President during Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON lila. Yet he was willing to ban me from giving classes simply because I am willing to publicly name names when circumstances merit.
ISKCON leadership has a dim history when it comes to judiciously dealing with individuals and problems, both at the local level and at the top of the management structure. In his closing remarks, Harivilasa suggested that the abusers of power in the Dhanurdhara case should beg forgiveness or perhaps be forced to resign:
"Those who stopped the hand of justice and the rule of
law should acknowledge their involvement and ask for
forgiveness from the GBC Body and the devotees in
ISKCON for all the harm it has cost ISKCON and still
is. If they refuse to do so, then the GBC Body should
consider what should be done with a range of options
from forced resignation to limiting sanctions on the
execution of authority in the movement according to
the degree of their involvement."
As we wait for news of the GBC's official reaction to Harivilasa's recent act of heresy, and wonder whether or not they'll suspended him for ''naming names', we can't help but notice that instant karma seems to be at play.
