Hari Vilas, GBC - “Dr. Hari and Mr. Vilas”
BY: RAMACHARANAPADMA DAS
May 15, USA (SUN) — I offer my humble obeisances unto Dr. Hari-or Uncle Harry-as he is better known. The Seattle GBC is a brilliant Vaishnava servant of Srila Prabhupada, widely respected in the Seattle area where he is credited with the expansion of the Krishna conscious movement and builder of a great ISKCON center there. But, unfortunately, I have to offer my obeisances from a distance, and here’s why.
All is not well in the kingdom of Dr. Hari, because there is another personality who, according to a growing number of devotees in the Seattle area, cares little for the sublime principles of devotional service. These devotees in their dealings with Mr. Vilas (Harry Terhanian), GBC, have tripped and stumbled upon a two-edged sword, because no one knows which personality will emerge in their dealings. Neither has the GBC body cared to note the desolate mood of Seattle ISKCON, even when serious allegations against Mr. Vilas have been reported to their august body by his own ex-wife, Parijata dasi.
The GBC has apparently ignored allegations that the GBC representative of the Hare Krishna movement in Seattle has not even chanted his prescribed rounds of the Hare Krishna mahamantra for over a decade. Further rumors from reliable sources of Dr. Hari’s insatiable predilection for renting certain low grade videos have also fallen on deaf ears.
The inscrutable Dr. Hari is also the absent-GBC for Berkeley ISKCON, where the temple program has lagged for decades…and the leaders there have even consulted lawyers to keep him away. In Berkeley, the temple is practically void of devotees, and most of the responsibility for Srila Prabhupada’s program has fallen to the fragile shoulders of an elderly and reclusive Mataji.
The same traveling preachers who caution pawns like us to avoid fault-finding also avoid Berkeley-because of the faults in management. Berkeley ISKCON is a leaderless center where GBC-leadership has only made things worse. Preaching practically does not exist in Berkeley, and whatever program there is continues only by the unseen grace of Lord Hari. Yes, Berkeley-home of the University of California, the birthplace of Free Speech Movement, a prosperous and educated Hindu community and home to more Nobel Laureates than any other town in the world. People with whom we devotees should be sharing the message of Bhagavad Gita As It Is.
In Berkeley, although the temple retired the mortgage long ago, they still struggle to pay the electricity bill. No new devotees have been made there in a decade. Yet the GBC in their collective wisdom has seen fit to expand their incompetent Berkeley representative into new areas, to Arizona, with little consideration for the debilitating effect the influence of Mr. Vilas is already having on Srila Prabhupada’s movement after only a few weeks there. What the GBC has turned a blind eye to is that for Mr. Vilas, the bottom line is not the Sankirtan movement of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, but his own indisputable absolute power.
For the sanity and sanctity of Srila Prabhupada’s glorious movement in Phoenix, it is imperative that the GBC take a second look at their decision, gird up their loins, and do the right thing for a change. Perhaps in sincere innocence some members may have voted for Dr. Hari, without knowledge of the Mr. Vilas hovering ubiquitously in the background. But what is certain is that if the local Krishna conscious leadership remains shackled in favor of a Subway-chain-owning "devotee", then the effect of this example will create a domino effect upon the entire Krishna consciousness movement. It will be the end of Hare Krishna as we know it, and the beginning of an even worse chapter in our history than the one created thirty years ago by eleven infamous zonal “acaryas”, who voted themselves in as a nuvo-pada-squad, a similar GBC blunder that permanently decimated ranks.
