Left in the Dust
BY: SURESH DASA
Feb 18, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA (SUN) — Dear Gurukrpa Prabhu, I apologize if it seems my facts are inaccurate, as you contend. I did not serve on your particular Sankirtan party in Japan; however I have spoken a number of times with one of your top collectors who did serve on your party in Japan. He related to me that you did, in fact, fry many of the devotees on your party, driving them to leave ISKCON and destroying their spiritual life and happiness in the process of your money collecting efforts for Srila Prabhupada. This is what I based my story on.
Regarding your contention that when I spoke to your step-daughter, she was referring to her natural father, and not you - she iN fact stated that it was her father, whose name is Gurukrpa, who is suffering from a heroin addiction. What I left out was that she said her father, Gurukrpa (forgive me if I am mixing you up with someone else with your same name), served in Vietnam, and suffers regular nightmares from witnessing the horrors of war. If that is you, I do not fault you Prabhu, but in fact sympathize with your suffering from what you saw and experienced. At the same time, Srila Prabhupada stated his disciples are to observe “No Intoxication”, so how can I offer you respect or follow you as a leader of the devotees if that principle is not being observed?
Then there is the reality that in fact, your party was kicked out of Japan. No one really has ever been allowed to know the facts behind why you and your members were forcibly removed from Japan, or what you did to deserve it. There has always been some talk about the “Pens”, but no one has ever been allowed to know the whole, true story.
There is only the hearsay evidence I have found on the Internet in searching about the pens: “Siddha’s men were also involved with Gurukrpa in collecting money for building a temple for Srila Prabhupada from stolen Japanese pens”. I have heard about the pens many before, and the devotee from your party also confirms that pens were involved.
It is not abnormal that many illicit dealings were involved back at that time by many of the sankirtan collecting parties, all over the world, not just yours. We all did it. Whoever could steal the most money and turn it over to Srila Prabhupada seemed to receive the greatest glory and accolades in ISKCON at that time, so who wouldn’t do it? Somebody told us that we should distribute books and collect laxmi for ISKCON “by hook or by crook”, so we made that our anthem. Any means was acceptable in collecting for ISKCON and Srila Prabhupada. It was really a competition back then to see who could be the greatest swindler and rip-off artist. It seemed to be authorized from the highest sources. My only question is what does that have to do with Bhakti yoga, or the principles in our books that we stand behind and seem to represent? If that makes me an offensive devotee, I truly apologize. Even after thinking about it for decades now, I can’t come to a resolution in my mind how our actions were moral, socially correct, or a solution to Kali-yuga and the present ills of society.
I remember in the L.A. Temple, as an example, one year during the Christmas Marathon we all collected money for “UNICEF”. The Sankirtan leaders created large coffee cans and painted them bright red. Then a large plastic laminated card was attached to each can. On the front of the card was a picture of devotees feeding children in Mayapur. Above the picture in big, bold letters read "UNICEF", and in tiny, little, almost unreadable letters, “endorsed by”.
For the first couple of weeks of December that year we collected thousands of dollars, all over the L.A. area for “UNICEF”. Then before the last 10 days of the Christmas Marathon started, an urgent letter came from Srila Prabhupada, ordering us to stop collecting for “UNICEF” at once. I personally witnessed Tulsi dasa (then the Temple President) and Ramesvar read the letter from Srila Prabhupada, in Tulsi dasa’s office. They deliberated about it carefully, and then decided to keep the collecting going for the rest of the Christmas Marathon, since the last 10 days are the best. They filed away Srila Prabhupada’s letter, and after the marathon was conveniently over, they told all of us that Srila Prabhupada did not want us to collect in this way again. Of course, not one penny of the money we collected actually went to feed the poor or to UNICEF, but instead all of it went into the BBT coffers. I never said anything either, to any of the devotees at that time about what I saw. You kept your mouth shut back then if you wanted to stay alive. It was the way it was back then.
For a short time I collected on one of the New Vrndavan teams. I was told that Kirtanananda Swami intended to break all of the regulative principles to build the Palace of Gold, because that is how the great cathedrals of Europe were built. I personally could not get behind breaking the regulative principles to build a temple, so I left that party. I was kicked off the Radha Damodhar party as well, because I refused to rip off my parents.
I personally witnessed devotees such as Tripurari doing the “Change-Up”. The change-up was a popular collecting technique back then in ISKCON. You went up to a karmi and asked for change for a $20.00 bill. I watched Tripurari take the $20, give the man back $5 and a book, and then run down the street. I watched a female devotee in the Chicago airport steal a man’s wallet and then run into the women’s bathroom and not give it back.
I am not singling you out, Gurukrpa Prabhu. It was common for all of us to do what you did, and I did it as well. All I was upset about was how the individual devotees on your party were treated in the collecting of your money, based on what one of the biggest collectors from your party told me about his experience and how he feels, even today. I remember living in the kinds of conditions like you described too, and that’s why I wrote. I never said anything about staying in fancy hotels. I asked you why your devotees couldn’t have been put up in the cheapest MOTEL room. Back then you could have packed 10 devotees into a tiny motel room for maybe $10 a night. You would only have spent $1 per day on the typical devotee’s well being, plus food of course, instead of sleeping on the ground and bathing in rivers. Couldn’t you have offered your devotees in your charge a warm room and a hot shower in return for their free service to ISKCON and Srila Prabhupada? Especially, when the average sankirtan devotee collector was never going to see the Krishna Balaram Mandir, be allowed to visit Mayapur, see or interact with Srila Prabhupada personally, or enjoy private quarters at any of those places.
I guess that’s what my beef is with ISKCON leadership. They ground us into the dust to collect their money, and then became millionaires themselves, with private bank accounts, and cushy lifestyles, while the average devotee was left in the dust with nothing.
