Got Gas???
BY: JANMASTAMI DAS
Oct 24, WEST VIRGINIA, USA (SUN) — In a fashion typical of those belittlers and their mentors, "Madhava Gosh" has taken
exception with a simple request for more devotee opinions on a matter of concern to all
those who strove to pay for and maintain a "place of pilgrimage, New Vrndaban Community", which many have seen co-opted from KRSNA consciousness over the years.
The request for open honest settling of accounts on the New Vrindaban Community (NVC) matter, a simple enough request to comply with, has been denigrated as "the petty quibbling of some psuedo devotee". For "Madhava Gosh" to pose himself as an authority on who is a "psuedo devotee" and who is not is only fitting and just. Who could be more authoritative on such matters than this "Gosh" personality, assuming this is the same one who acquired land from the New Vrindaban Community management board that he was a member of.
These personalities should be made to account for all real estate deals that have been transacted, post-Kirtanananada leadership. Many of those of us "NVC watchers" would like to see the resolution of all those accounts. We would like to know how Kamalavati and Tapah Punja Swami (from the Sulocana assassination) come to own so much of NVC property (by a 99 year lease, nonetheless!), and how it is that her progeny by other liaisons are also the inheritors of vast tracts of roadside NVC frontage, when they don't even live in the same state? Was any of this legal, other than in the back rooms and under the cover of darkness? Don't all of these "behind closed doors" property sales invalidate their 501(c)3 status? Most tax attorneys we've spoken to think that it does.
The issue, as this "Gosh" personality frames it, is whether raising funds by the methods
suggested here, in this case the sale of the mineral rights to the land, long one of Srila
Prabhupada's maxims for all ISKCON ownership, whether this form of "fundraising" is valid or not. Let us examine his logic.
First, he has accused Tattva das (there were at least three of them that went through NVC) of invalidly comparing skamkirtan with the plundering of the mineral rights of The Holy Dham for the financial welfare of so few. While the "Gosh" person has not proven that it is not similar, he has rather proven his opponent's point by showing that, in his never too humble opinion, "The key to many of us is yukta vairagya — how the money will be used", as it is to many of the rest of us as well.
This "acquire by any means", BUT it's justified by the goal is the EXACT MENTALITY that Tattva das spoke of. Point proven for the opponent, and the "Gosh" personality further proves it with his analogy of a thorn, a not good thing, being used to "do good". In his opinion of "good", no doubt.
Second, like so many other issues that Srila Prabhupada had directly spoken to, when it
interferes with the sense gratification of the management making the leadership decisions, if they are not spiritually fixed up, the results will be devastating. If any ISKCON watchers follow the "trail of tears" left by the fallen sannyasis in ISKCON's history, they know what is spoken here is the truth. Even now, as these rings of the tree produce branches, if the branches are of the asara version, if they are useless, if they are like water spouts on a fruit tree that must be cut out for the tree to produce at it's best, then so be it. Let the cards fall where they may in this regard.
Still, full disclosure being a REQUIREMENT BY LAW and not "an option", we humbly request a posting of all real estate transactions, post-1986. In our own case, that appears to be the year that Radhanath has terminated our ISKCON Life Memberships. Just as NVC has encouraged, financed, and engaged in deer slaughter throughout these many years now, since it went all artsy fartsy, the point of the demoniac nature of the drilling process (google 'Srila Prabhupada on oil drilling') is now deemed "acceptable" by the current "divinely inspired and directed" management of this chapter of the society, in defiance of Srila Prabhupada's expressed desires.
On this issue, where a GBC statement accepting or rejecting this proposal is required, the GBC remains woefully silent. Can we get a response from some authorized person speaking for the GBC or the NVC, and not just the opinion of those whose bead bags are mythical objects?
Third, in his discourse, this "Gosh" person accuses that NVC was built with funds "naively collected" and since he was never a party to any such activities, we must assume, at least in his judgment, that monies given to unqualified persons, or at the wrong time and place, cannot be seen as devotional service. Nay, even as in the mode of goodness, in which case the onus would be upon him to prove that putting one million dollars in a trust fund would somehow benefit 100 cows (that's $10,000 per cow… devotees didn't get treated that well in the past) in perpetuity and not go the way of the last ISKCON settlement, the lawsuit trust fund that is out of cash reserves. Perhaps he is trying to avail himself and his land grabbing cohorts of some more of those "naive collectors" that he has told us much about. Also, does he have the written assurances of anyone handling that much cash that it will be monitored? Sounds like a government bailout program for those not able to handle their current financial obligations.
"Gosh" has told us:
"New Vrindaban has land, labor, and organization to do these things. The key lack is capital. Especially for vaisya activity capital is required; food production and cow protection are vaisya activities."
When Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati told us that the only real scarcity was KRSNA consciousness, we were ready to agree with that. Having seen the management of NVC, up close and personal, we are all the more ready to agree that this is the only scarcity.
Fourth, this "Gosh" person has said:
"Srila Prabhupada said that one day people will come in great numbers to our farms. While many devotees are comfortable in ignoring this, there are some of us at New Vrindaban who take that to heart and are seriously looking at what it will take to accommodate them. The capital produced by gas drilling will provide the means by which we can prepare for this influx."
And in so doing has taken his stated goal, cow protection, the whole reason for selling off
the mineral rights on the land, and he himself has already "other avenue" appropriated these funds to other projects. Among those that he mentioned:
"A very partial list would be root cellars, grain storage and grinding facility, alternative energy production and acquiring the equipment essential for low-impact food production."
If the conceiver of the plan already has alternative plans for the funds, which they obviously intend to acquire, regardless the hue and cry, then what possibility of honest devotees getting a fair hearing or treatment?
About the only thing that we can agree with the "Gosh" personality on is his contention that, "The sad fact is that New Vrindaban is already an industrial area", and that would come more from the course chosen by the current leadership and residents rather than by
pedophiles of more than two and a half decades ago. They are the ones who drive into town every day, for shopping, not even for food, and they are the ones that are asking to be given the right to plunder the resources of The Holy Dham to support their current life
style schemes. It is a shame that they would feel the need to malign "someone writing under the pseudonym of 'Tattva das'", in order to push their agenda through without an open and thorough discussion. We can only assume that if they continue with their "end justifies the means" philosophy, KRSNA will arrange for them exactly what they are deserving of.
