The Big Lie
BY: ROCANA DASA
Sep 6, USA (SUN) — Kirtanananda, a/k/a Bhaktipada, was previously known as the founder/acarya of New Vrindaban. He has once again made the news, this time here in the Sampradaya Sun. I suspect that Kirtanananda's return to the headlines has caused many old memories to resurface for my Godbrothers and sisters, as they have for myself. In particular, I am reminded of the incredible peripheral damage caused to Srila Prabhupada's movement by the actions of this individual.
Being involved in the technology industry, we were interested to watch a recent TV documentary produced for CNBC by David Faber, entitled "The Big Lie: The Rise and Fraud of WorldCom". "The Big Lie" examines how Bernie Ebbers built WorldCom into a telecom giant that had competitors scrambling, until he was ultimately prosecuted for having committed the nation's biggest act of accounting fraud. Bernie Ebbers, the CEO of WorldCom, was recently sentenced to 25 years in prison. The comparison I hope to make in this article is between Kirtanananda during his 20-year reign as the dictator of New Vrindaban, and the fraud perpetrated by Bernie Ebbers at WorldCom.
ISKCON historians refuse to paint an accurate picture of this history, in part because Kirtanananda was one of the original eleven Zonal Acaryas. In reality, he was a Zonal Acarya long before Srila Prabhupada departed. In some respects, the other Zonal Acarya imposters modeled themselves after him.
The Kirtanananda story begins early on in Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON lila period. Srila Prabhupada had a certain degree of influence with Kirtanananda, and there were many circumstances wherein he had to use his power to set things right in New Vrindaban. Unfortunately, his oldest disciple, Kirtanananda, asserted his independence at every opportunity. By the time Srila Prabhupada departed, New Vrindaban's unique mood, methods, and mentality were in full swing. In the minds and hearts of most of the inhabitants, there was equal if not more attachment to their local leader, Bhaktipada, than to Srila Prabhupada.
Just how and when all the varieties of nefarious activities took root and fructified, I will leave to the historians who are dealing with this history at a more granular level. What I can say, in all certainty, is that the coming into being of the “women's parties”, which Kirtanananda assigned to Dharmatma dasa, marked a major escalation in the illegal pastimes that slowly spread throughout the movement.
Kirtanananda's "hook or by crook" rationality, under the philosophical guise of using everything in Krsna service, was introduced in the early days. At that time, only a few insiders were privy to the drug smuggling, money laundering and phony bookkeeping, which later evolved into a well-organized money collection army. Book distribution was never part of their program. They were focused solely on collecting mass amounts of cash. Kirtanananda was in complete control of the purse strings. No one knows were all that cash ended up. It is certainly conceivable that the high rise in New York came from secret accounts set-up during that period.
There is a striking similarity between Kirtanananda's illegal activities and the greed and fraud at WorldCom, which was propagated by self-interested executives who were “cooking the books”. While it's easy to see the basic parallels between these two scenarios, there is a much more important similarity for us to understand.
By engaging in fraudulent accounting practices, WorldCom successfully created a huge myth (The Big Lie), that the Internet was doubling in size every few months, and that the demand for related technology services was multiplying proportionately. This illusion caused a mad stampede of Internet related start-up companies which were financed by Wall Street venture capitalists who later watched their ventures go bust.
From New Vrindabin, Kirtanananda deployed both male and female traveling parties throughout the North American continent. The infamous “women's parties” miraculously and consistently out-preformed all other temple traveling programs. On the surface, all aspects of Kirtanananda's traveling parties appeared to be identical to those staged by the other temples. Groups were going to the same events, selling the same paraphernalia, pitching the same lines, and wearing similar dress. But somehow, the women from New Vrindaban were getting double and triple the results in dollars collected. Naturally, news of the disparity in success traveled far and wide, and fostered an intense mood of competitiveness.
Dharmatma das, in charge of many traveling parties, didn't allow his surrogate “wives” to associate with other fellow disciples, nor did he allow them to visit other temples. After most events they would simply disappear, being propelled non-stop to another gig. Back at the farm, Bhaktipada was busy concocting bogus philosophical explanations about how his women worked so long and hard because they were absorbed in the mood of the wife selflessly serving the husband, infused on a transcendental level by the powerful shakti and pure love of Bhaktipada. As a result, they got a double dose of love, both material and spiritual, and voila! There were amazing monetary results.
Without questions, the other GBC were completely taken-in by his materialistically tainted philosophy. They soon established identical programs, both in Berkley under Jiva's control, and in LA under Yujamanu's control. Later on in Seattle, where I was the Temple President, Jayatirtha instructed me to create a women's party modeled after New Vrindaban's. I was ordered to get trained-up by Dharmatma's first disciple, Jiva. This was the point at which I got a look behind The Big Lie. In the first place, these men were being encouraged to have sex with the women under their control. Even if you bought into the polygamy hoax, there was no official marriage and certainly no 64 rounds. So it was a total deviation from our siddhanta and the practices established by the Sampradaya Acarya, Srila Prabhupada.
Was this sexual element the Big Lie? No! It was only the tip of the iceberg. What eventually sank the ship lurked below the water's surface. The women in these parties were performing such great heroic feats because they were being fed a cocktail of performance enhancing drugs before every event… commonly known as “speed”. For the most part, they weren't encouraged to chant their rounds, nor were they engaged in regular sadhana practices. In other words, they were used and abused, like common prostitutes are by their pimps, in order to generate their required daily quota.
The fraud WorldCom perpetrated in artificially inflating the numbers was similar to the fraud Kirtanananda perpetrated. In order to stay competitive with what appeared to be Worldcom's great success, Sprint and AT&T resorted to drastic measures. They fired thousands of workers, laid off countless others, and harassed members of their management team to the point of tremendous psychological distress. Many lives were ruined along the way. Business profits decreased, and individual shareholders paid the price.
WorldCom's $11 billion dollar fraud almost ruined an entire segment of American Industry, and was a major factor in the dot.com bust. In a similar way, Kirtanananda's Big Lie at New Vrindaban had a chilling effect on ISKCON. Kirtanananda's artificially inflated success in collecting money sparked other temples to engage in passionate, often illegal activities in an attempt to replicate his success. Materially speaking, there was little comparison to the $11 billion fraud but from a spiritual viewpoint, the impact was far greater than all the material damage caused by WorldCom.
I could write yet another sensational book exclusively on this different angle of historical review, and perhaps someday I will. Today's article is just the reader's digest version. But let me list a few of the prominent negative impacts on ISKCON that can be traced directly back to their roots in Bhaktipada-land.
Many of the women devotees who participated in these activities left the movement soon after, thereby leaving Srila Prabhupada's service. Many suffered long term psychological depression, and some committed suicide.
Aside from the severe karmic reactions that resulted from all the offenses committed by the women's parties, we have to consider Jiva's unsolved murder, suspicion for which fell on another ex-Zonal Acarya, Hansadutta.
Kirtanananda's programs also spawned multiple manifestations of GBC condoned criminal tactics such as the 'change-up', lies about charitable organization status, lies that the donations were going to some bogus cause, copyright infringement on music, sports paraphernalia and other intellectual property, and the list goes on. Thousands of sincere devotees throughout the world were motivated by leaders/gurus to lie constantly, all day, every day, for years. Is this sort of activity conducive to their development of Krsna Consciousness?
Did Srila Prabhupada know of and approve these methods? Of course not! Did GBC leaders outright lie directly to Srila Prabhupada to cover it up? Yes, they certainly did. You can go into the Vedabase and read the transcripts during from the annual Mayapura GBC meetings in 1975 and '76, where the GBC were reporting to Srila Prabhupada that they were putting an end to all cheating techniques as well as the women's parties. They made it sound to Srila Prabhupada like the problem wasn't widespread and they now had it fully under control. There was no truth at all to these statements.
In fact, a group of GBC spearheaded by Kirtanananda prevented me from delivering a comprehensive report on the women's parties to Srila Prabhupada in Mayapura. Having seen these parties for what they actually were, I refused Jayatirtha's order to replicate a similar women's party at Seattle. Instead, I went to work with Suta dasa, the head of the BBT in LA, to research and co-write a damning investigative report on the women's parties. Our report was sidetracked by the GBC, who chose to bury it rather than deal with it. As a result, Suta dasa left the movement soon after in utter disgust. He went on to help Robin George sue ISKCON. The money she won nullified all the extra collections that were generated by the many questionable efforts. I've previously written on this episode in "Srila Prabhupada's Perfect Plan".
After Srila Prabhupada departed there was no Sampradaya Acarya to stem the tide. We all know, or should be made aware of, the many horror stories of abuse that marked the dark Zonal Acarya era. It is now our responsibility to keep these events from happening again. We can only do that by making sure the history is well known and philosophically understood.
In the light of day, we can see that Kirtanananda‘s evil influence played a primary role in the cancerous infection known as the Zonal Acarya era. The recent reports from New York indicate that his influence is still not eradicated. We must again be fearful of the Bhaktipada factor. He is like Medusa, the many-headed monster of Greek mythology. Like King Jarasanda, he will keep coming back again and again to attack Krsna's Army, unless he is completely banned and is avoided like the plague.
I suggest we follow Lord Sri Krsna's example, and situate ISKCON in a Dwarka-like fortress, protected once and for all from this personification of evil. Any and all, regardless of rank, who have come under his sway should be dealt with decisively and appropriately.
