Reply to Bhaktipada or Bhaktifraud?
BY: HRISHIKESH DASA
Dec 21, USA (SUN) — [Please note: This is not the Hrishikesh dasa associated with Bon Maharaja. Ed.]
My Respected Rocana Prabhu, PAMHO. AGTSP. I am grateful for the opportunity to correspond with you and share my thoughts through the medium of the Sampradaya Sun, for my personal benefit and hopefully the benefit of others. I may not have great realization, but I try to always speak only the truth. Please allow me to make just a few comments about some points in your recent post Bhaktipada or Bhaktifraud?"
You wrote:
"To say, for instance, that they [NV residents] didn't
know about Kirtanananda's homosexual activities, when everyone else in the movement knew about them, is just total denial. Kirtanananda had been sleeping with Hayagriva's young son, in the same sleeping bag, for years. To say you didn't know about that is just total illusion or lying. This had been going since the 1970's, when Srila Prabhupada was here, let alone going on during the whole ten-year stretch of the Zonal Acarya period."
Yes, we loyal Bhaktipada followers were ignorant of
the terrible truth that "everyone else in the movement
knew." But if "everyone else in the movement knew"
about Kirtanananda's pedophilia, why didn't the
thousands of ISKCON devotees who came to our annual NV
festivals during the early- to mid-1980s tell us
anything about this? Certainly everyone else DID NOT
KNOW, otherwise ISKCON devotees wouldn't come out by
the thousands every year from 1979 until 1986 to chant
and dance and feast and listen attentively to lectures
by Kirtanananda.
We may have heard whispered stories and rumors from
time to time, but we did not give them credence.
Kirtanananda lived within our midst, we saw him every
day, and we did not see any improprieties. He
presented to us the persona of a renounced saint.
At a time when other ISKCON gurus may have lived in
luxurious apartments, Kirtanananda lived in a small
room on the same floor as the men’s ashram. He
insisted that chanting 16 rounds was the most
important activity of the day, and he was usually the
first to rise and enter the temple room.
I remember him waking us sleeping brahmacari and
householder men on the fourth floor of the ashram at
Bahulaban at 3 a.m. If we did not stir soon enough, he
whacked us in our sleeping bags with his cane. We
enjoyed the attention, and once when his cane was
broken on Somadas, Soma put the broken cane in a frame
and hung it on the wall of this carpentry workshop as
a worshipful relic.
Kirtanananda had many admirable qualities. He was
expert in debate and none of us could defeat him. He
was a charismatic leader. He taught us to chant
attentively, and always remember Krishna. We admired
him and grew to love him dearly.
However, when the eyes are tinged by love, it becomes
nearly impossible to see the faults of the object of
one's affection, although others may be able to see
these faults from a distance. So in this way we were
in ignorance, we were in denial, we were in love. And
I believe this is how Radhanath Swami would also
describe his early years at New Vrindaban.
"The big question that police still haven't uncovered
is who killed Chakradhari, whose body was found buried
in the creek bed at New Vrindaban? That crime has
still not been solved, and it doesn't seem like
Umapati Swami or anyone else is worried about seeing
that the person(s) involved in that are prosecuted."
Tirtha was convicted of slaying Chakradhari on
December 7, 1986, BEFORE the Sulochan Murder Trial.
Perhaps a summary regarding Tirtha and New Vrindaban
is in order. At first, the community distanced itself
from Tirtha, calling him a fringe devotee, but later
reconsidered after he proved his loyalty to Bhaktipada
by refusing to “falsely” implicate his spiritual
master in the murder, despite police harassment and
cruel and inhumane treatment, such as being stripped
to his shorts and left for days at a time in a cold
cell with an open window in winter. He was considered
a “hero” by the New Vrindaban devotees and his
articles were published in the Brijabasi Spirit. He
also wrote an account of his experiences in prison
called Meditations on the American Gulag. He said,
“They’re trying to use me to attack New Vrindaban.
They’re going to try to prove a conspiracy between
myself and New Vrindaban to kill someone. They aren’t
going to find it. I consider myself a political
prisoner.”
Tirtha also preached to the other inmates at the West
Virginia Penitentiary, and with the help of his
counselor, Umapati Das, began a regular preaching
center in the prison. Several inmates who began
chanting Hare Krishna and following the regulative
principles were initiated. New Vrindaban even sent
kirtan parties to chant and dance on the sidewalk in
front of the penitentiary for five days during May
1987 to protest the prison’s treatment of the inmates
who had become devotees through Tirtha’s preaching.
Umapati Das began visiting Tirtha weekly first at the
Marshall County Jail and later at the West Virginia
Penitentiary in Moundsville. Umapati was initiated by
Bhaktipada into the sannyasa order at New Vrindaban on
May 12, 1987, and Umapati Swami, in turn, officiated
at the ceremony in which Tirtha received sannyasa
initiation (although Bhaktipada was Tirtha’s actual
sannyasa guru) at the penitentiary two months later on
July 22. “He’s preaching up a storm,” said Umapati.
“He has attracted a lot of interest among prisoners
who want to know about Krishna consciousness.”
Tirtha wanted to take sannyasa, not as a reward for his
actions but for his own spiritual benefit, as he was
certain he would be executed very soon. He wrote, “I
thought it [taking sannyasa] would be appropriate,
since I was facing the death penalty in California and
thought I would likely be executed. My intent at the
time was to plead guilty and explain it was for a
cause. So in my mind, I wanted to renounce and it was
suggested that I take sannyasa, as my life was likely
coming to an end.”
Why did Bhaktipada allow a convicted murderer to join
the highest spiritual order? “Bhaktipada says Drescher
[Tirtha] went from a ‘fringie,’ one who strayed from
Krishna tenets, to a ‘good devotee’ since being
imprisoned a year ago, and deserved becoming a Swami.”
Regardless of the crimes of Tirtha or Kirtanananda or
anyone else, I believe we should hate the sin and not
the sinner. For instance, why cannot Tirtha--who will
spend the rest of his life behind bars--be allowed to
preach Krishna Consciousness and tell other inmates
about Krishna, under the auspices of ISKCON or not?
During his last 20 years of incarceration he has
gradually realized the seriousness of his sins, and
has expressed remorse for his heinous actions. He has
tried to turn his life around and purify his
consciousness by chanting Hare Krishna, faithfully
following the four regulative principles, reading
Prabhupada’s books, associating however possible with
devotees, and writing his own realizations.
I'm not saying Tirtha is free from illusion; I am only
saying he should be encouraged to chant Hare Krishna
and preach to the best of his abilities. Whether
ISKCON itself should publish his books is another
matter. You should know that the funding for Tirtha’s
books has NOT come from ISKCON nor New Vrindaban nor
Radhanath Swami, but from two of his sympathetic
godbrothers who have known him since 1970. And Tirtha
doesn't have access to the Playboy channel or the
Internet.
"I have to applaud Navadvipchandra dasa's excellent
presentation on this whole thread, although Umapati
Swami, and now Hrishikesh dasa, disagree with what he
has said. I assume they also disagree with what I've
said."
Why assume? Why not ask? I agree with some points, and
disagree on others. I only ask that a responsible
writer refrain from exaggeration and gossip and rumor
and stick to factual data. If one wishes to express
their own opinions, please acknowledge it as such.
"Hrishikesa dasa claims that there were 700 people
living there who were in total ignorance of what was
going on. He says just a few people knew, and they
were the leaders. Supposedly the leaders concluded
that it was best to keep the grassroots devotees in
illusion about what lay below the surface there. This
is almost like the defense given by inhabitants of the
towns near the concentration camps in Nazi Germany.
They didn't have a clue what was going on just a few
miles away… which of course is nonsense. The fact is
that they would have ended up like Chakradhari or
Sulocana had they recognized what was right in front
of them and confronted it."
Not a good analogy. The fact is, and the prosecutors
at the 1991 trial understood this, that the majority
of Kirtanananda's followers would have left his
service if they knew for a fact he was molesting boys.
This mass defection actually happened in 1993 after
the Winnebago Incident when the community split into
two camps.
However, as you know, there were people who knew about Kirtanananda's pedophilia earlier. In 1986 two 17-year-olds boys were molested, as they reported at the 1991 trial. One boy eventually confided to Kuladri in these activities probably late in 1986 or early 1987, and shortly after both left the community. Around 1983 inappropriate behavior by Kirtanananda was said to have been reported by one of the teenage
girls.
In 1979 one gurukula boy reported to his mother that
Kirtanananda had "fondled my genitals," but the mother
did not believe her child, and chastised her son for
making up stories. This is not uncommon behavior when
a child reports sexual molestation by an uncle,
grandfather, or other family member; the parents often
disbelieve the child. This behavior is confirmed by
many studies of child molestation.
And still there were other residents and parents, who
knew about or heard about child molestation at New
Vrindaban in the late 1970s. These people decided to
simply leave the community and move elsewhere. This is
the group of people whom Sulochan gathered much of his
material for his "Guru Business."
"The way that Hrishikesh presents Sulocana speaks
volumes about how he feels. He basically suggests that
Sulocana deserved to die due to his "poor
scholarship". But if it was such a crazy book, then no
one would have listened to him, so why were they all
so afraid of what he had to say? It is an undisputed
fact that Kirtanananda interfered with his marriage,
taking his children away. That's a whole story in
itself. I don’t believe many husbands wouldn't hate
the person who did that to them, so we can understand
Sulocana's anger."
I never implied that Sulochan deserved to die; I
merely suggest that he didn't get all his facts
straight. I spoke to his former wife a few months ago
and asked her a few questions about this same matter.
She said that she left Sulochan because he was
impossible to live with; always moving here and there;
making her live in a van, no stable place for her
infant children. She liked New Vrindaban and thought
it was a good place to raise her family. She claims
Kirtanananda didn't force her to stay; he offered her
shelter. Is it wrong for a woman who feels abused by
her husband to protect herself and leave his company?
Sulochan believed Bhaktipada had stolen his wife and
children, but perhaps that is because he could not
accept the possibility that he was such a terrible
husband and father? Maybe he was just as much in
denial as the other residents of New Vrindaban, in his
own way. He refused to consider that his broken family
might be a result of his own personality disfunctions.
"Hrishikesh is stating a fact when he explains how
Srila Prabhupada's Palace of Gold made a big positive
impact from a media point of view when it first
opened. It was a labour of love from the point of view
of the devotees who helped build it. But it was
essentially a house of cards. While it first drew
media attention to New Vrindaban, when Kirtanananda
was exposed and the Monkey on a Stick book came out,
all the media turned in the opposite direction. It's
hard to determine whether it just neutralized all the
positive things that this long-term resident of New
Vrindaban likes to believe made it all worthwhile."
Certainly the widespread positive preaching
opportunities generated by Prabhupada's Palace were
short-lived. I explain in my forthcoming book: Tourism
to the Palace declined so drastically due to the
unfavorable mass media publicity about New Vrindaban’s
murders, contagious diseases, child abuses, etc., that
one of the new Palace marketing directors wrote, “More
buses came in October 1985 than in ALL of 1988.”
"The main point that Navadvipchandra dasa makes is
lost on both Umapati Swami and Hrishikesh dasa, and
that is that ISKCON today has been influenced in the
way that it operates on account of the mentality and
attitude injected collectively by all the people that
were at New Vrindaban. They impacted how ISKCON is
operated today, and it is not positive."
I do not argue this point. New Vrindaban has always
been, from its earliest days, the BLACK SHEEP OF
ISKCON, and perhaps it still is.
"Once Kirtanananda was free of any ISKCON influence
after they threw him out, he launched into his 'great
experiment', as Hrishikesh dasa likes to call it. But
no one, not Umapati Swami, Hrishikesh, or any of the
others I hear from, admits or reflects upon the fact
that Kirtanananda was always on a 'great experiment'."
Yes, this is pointed out in my forthcoming book;
Kirtanananda's Christianization of the Temple Services
was a continuation of the same which he attempted in
1967 in New York. You must understand however that
very few devotees at New Vrindaban were aware of this
1967 transgression. Perhaps only Umapati and
Hayagriva. Everyone else, including Radhanath,
Kuladri, Devamrita Swami, came into the Movement years
later after 1967. And at this time in the mid-1980s
Prabhupada's letters were kept in secret by the BBT. I
did not see these letters from Prabhupada condemning
Kirtanananda's actions until the 1990s, a few years
after they were first published.
"The inhabitants, or what Kirtanananda liked to call
the 'inmates', where under the whammy, almost mass
hypnosis, because Kirtanananda was a true cult
leader."
Actually Srila Prabhupada was the first to call the
residents of New Vrindaban "inmates," as seen in
several of his letters. I do not argue that we were
members of a cult: "The Cult of Kirtanananda."
Thank you for the opportunity to express my thoughts.
I wish you the best.
Sincerely,
Hrishikesh dasa
