The Opposite Rule

Blogging elsewhere

2008-10-31T00:25:00.000-04:00

Please visit my regular blog at:

http://oppositerule.govindapeacefarm.com

Krishna Priya gets a bath

2008-08-14T00:20:00.003-04:00

Hare Krishna. Our cow, Krishna Priya will be having her first calf probably within days. We thought it would be a good time to give her a bath. First there's the soapy brush...

Next is the shower rinse...

Notice the gadget hanging from my belt. That's my mp3 player (an iRiver h320) inside a speaker unit. Whenever I work at home I attach this device to my belt so I can listen to Srila Prabhupada's audio recordings while I work. I love it.

Now that she's clean, Krishna Priya gets a little grain for a treat. Actually she's getting some grain every day now for extra nutrition, since she's going to be a mother to her calf, not just to all of us!

Finally out in the sun to dry off and head out to the pasture for dinner.

Look how clean and shiny!

Hare Krishna!

Sustainable living

2008-08-12T10:12:00.001-04:00

I just submitted the following comment to the New York Times “Dot Earth” eco-blog, on the subject of sustainability:

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/wanted-young-eco-geniuses/

About 14 years ago I took a college course on sustainability with Professor Lester Milbrath using his textbook, _Envisioning a Sustainable Society_. As I recall, the basic idea was that the "dominator society" is not sustainable, and he presented an alternative that he called the "new environmental paradigm."

A paper I wrote for that class demonstrated that most of our environmental problems are caused by humans raising animals for slaughter. He gave the paper an "A" and his only negative comment was that I neglected to mention that the activity is a natural result of the dominant mentality. (Dominant in this context means forcefully assertive rather than prevalent, although unfortunately both meanings apply to our present experience.)

I later encountered Vaishanva theology, in which it is stated that the desire to "lord it over material nature" is the cause of our difficulties. This idea is exactly consistent with the concept of a dominator society. There is one famous verse in the Veda that translates, "There is one eternal, conscious living entity who is the chief. He is the maintainer of everyone else." We experience lack because of our reluctance to serve that Supreme Person, separating ourselves from Him by choice. Ultimately it is our envy of the Lord which is the root of our problems, and the only solution is to surrender to Him.

As Krishna says in Bhagavad-gita (http://vedabase.net/bg/18/66/en), "Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear." If we want to become sustainable, we have to reconnect with our source. Material adjustments will always be insufficient.

Tilak and Sikha

2008-08-11T10:46:00.001-04:00

Hare Krishna.

My oldest daughter, Radha, was visiting my parents for a week, and yesterday my mother brought her back to our house. We normally go to a local devotee-owned restaurant when my parents visit, so my parents sometimes see other devotees there. They’re not interested in visiting the temple.

I wear tilak all the time and keep a sikha with my head shaved usually twice a week. Very few men in our devotee community have a sikha. Other devotees in our community apparently only wear tilak to events at the temple. Recently we went to a devotee picnic, and I was surprised to see that I was the only one there wearing tilak. I thought these things were required. At least Srila Prabhupada required them; but I guess some of the current gurus do not consider these features very important, despite what Srila Prabhupada said.

While we were having dinner, my mother mentioned to me that she sees that other devotees don’t wear tilak and sikha (actually she doesn’t know the words for them), so apparently I don’t have to have these either. She reminded me that I’m supposed to be looking for a higher-paying job, and it these devotional features will hurt my chances of getting hired by anyone. Actually, I don’t want to work for anyone who would restrict me in that way. Wearing tilak to a job interview is a good way to not find myself working for the wrong person or company. Fortunately I’m not that desperate, and my wife and I are trying to develop our own small business to supplement our income. I’ll be writing more about that soon.

Last weekend I went to a family reunion, and there was some awkwardness around my tilak and sikha (I’m accustomed to wearing these, but I did notice some looks from relatives I met there), so I think my mother was intent upon trying to convince me to not wear tilak and to keep a regular business-oriented hairstyle. Also, when we arrived to the gathering on the second day of the reunion, I was finishing a round of japa as I approached, and I could see from a distance that my father was said to my mother about having my hand “in that bag again.” I ended up dropping that round since it would have been too confrontational to continue it in that environment. On the other hand, during the first night of the reunion, one relative I met there spent about an hour asking me questions about my faith and listening attentively to the answers.

Personally, I have many serious shortcomings as an aspiring devotee. I’ve even considered writing a post just about my faults, but I’m not sure if it would be in poor taste. Yet it makes me sad to see that other devotees don’t wear tilak and sikha. I remember when one sannyasi was giving class at the temple a while back, there was a question about sharing mercy with friends, and the sannyasi eventually said, “at least they know you’re a devotee,” so they can remember Krishna when they see you, but the questioner admitted that in fact her friends at work don’t know. It seems to me that devotees are hiding their religious faith due to fear. I’m not sure what they’re afraid of, since there is no religious persecution in our culture; but for some reason they don’t want people to know they’re devotees or that they have anything to do with the Hare Krishna movement. Is this not sad?

We are supposed to be a preaching movement, spreading Lord Caitanya’s mercy; but how can we do this if we’re afraid to let anyone know of our own attraction to His mercy? I am ashamed of some of what has been done in the name of Krishna consciousness, but even in spite of that I still want others to know I’m a Hare Krishna devotee. Even though I struggle and often fail to overcome my bad habits, still I want everyone I meet to think of Krishna when they see me. Of course, wearing signs of a devotee also makes me especially responsible to avoid doing anything that will embarrass the Hare Krishna movement, so these are an incentive for me to try to be on my best behavior, and therefore help me advance. Actually I think there is a more esoteric effect of these devotional signs, but I’m not qualified to speak on that.

Sometimes people ask me, “what is that thing on your forehead?’ or some related question, and it’s practically asking me about Krishna and bhakti yoga. I love these opportunities to share my faith in Krishna consciousness. The lack of Krishna consciousness is the world’s only defect. Everything else would become perfect if we were all Krishna conscious. Therefore spreading Krishna consciousness is our only real duty. How can we do this if we’re afraid to show our faith to others?

Hare Krishna

“The next point is that you should dress just like perfect American gentlemen, but the sikha and tilak must be very prominent. Coat, pants, necktie, and everything, Brahmacari and Grhasthas, they can put on, because you are not Sannyasi. In the temple, you can dress as brahmacari, but in order not to become ridiculous in the eyes of others, outside you should dress just like a very nice perfect aristocratic American. So there is no objection. But we must have always our tilak and sikha and there is no compromise for this purpose.” – Srila Prabhupada, letter to Brahmananda. October 6, 1968. http://www.prabhupada1968.com/2004_10_03_archive.html#109700290268903272#109700290268903272

"Enemies of ISKCON"?

2008-08-08T14:25:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna. Last Sunday we had a Gita-nagari community meeting on the occasion of the first day of our new temple president Dhruva Maharaj Prabhu from South Africa. During the meeting I noticed myself wondering if he knew what he had gotten himself into, as the two hour portion before the break was dominated by intense political disagreements. (The second two-hour portion was a little better.) I don’t know the reason for it, but a group of Bhakti Tirtha disciples on the temple board wanted one of their godbrothers off the board, but had been unable to remove him. Most of this portion of the meeting seemed like a waste of time for me. I still don’t know the cause of the dispute, but it was interesting to know that we have such a division among our community leadership.

There was also mention of another devotee, I think from Florida, who was also considered for temple president, and many in our community apparently thought him very well qualified. I have heard that he is a strong advocate of farming, which I think is greatly needed at Gita-nagari. We were told that due to miscommunication with that devotee, Dhruva was given the job and that he was also well-qualified as a devotee and due to professional experience as an engineer, or something like that. One devotee commented that many in our community were concerned that control at Gita-nagari was being consolidated to Bhakti Tirtha Swami’s disciples. Another devotee mentioned that he has never seen an annual financial report, and I added that I would like to see a list debts owed by Gita-nagari to local businesses. I also spoke of my hope for Gita-nagari becoming a place where devotees can work together producing goods from the land in a mood of devotional service instead of wasting our days scattered among the city office buildings.

The meeting was lead by our GBC, Ravindra Swarupa Prabhu, and I thought he did a good job of it, considering the difficult circumstances. We all appreciated having him there, and I hope we see more of him in the future. One of the focus points was the new bylaws that had recently been adopted by Gita-nagari, and had been sent out to the community members via e-mail the night before. The document was about 35 pages of legalese, and I only got a few minutes to look it over before the meeting. I wondered how much others had been able to become familiar with it, and we spent a substantial portion of time having questions and answers about these new rules.

Ravindra explained that the reason for the new bylaws was that “enemies of ISKCON” were trying to take control of ISKCON temples. Wow! These weren’t atheists or Christians or Muslims he was talking about; he mentioned rtvik devotees and disciples of Narayana Maharaj. He used the words, “enemies of ISKCON” twice. With the second usage, he didn’t mention the Narayana Maharaj group, but again referred to the rtviks.

This got me thinking. I don’t know much about Narayana Maharaj’s group, but I’m not quite sure what separates myself from that of the rtviks, other than a formality. I chant Hare Krishna; they chant Hare Krishna. They are devotees, as far as I’m concerned. Sure, they sometimes get angry about how things have been managed in ISKCON, but they have good reason, in my humble opinion. Does this make me an “enemy of ISKCON” according to the GBC? Borderline, perhaps? I hope not. I don’t want to be anyone’s enemy.

The standard meaning of the word, “initiation,” is a beginning. By this simple definition, Srila Prabhupada initiated me into spiritual life. He introduced me to Krishna through his purports to Srimad Bhagavad-gita and fully convinced me that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead before I even met any other devotee. All I lacked was a devotee name, recognition, and complete surrender at his lotus feet.

When I came to ISKCON, I learned that I had to accept an initiation guru from the list of approved gurus, and Srila Prabhupada was emphatically not on the list. “Sorry, he’s dead; he can’t accept you. Pick someone else.” Although Srila Prabhupada had spelled out his standard for accepting disciples, they could not accept me on his behalf. They could only reject me on his behalf and take me as their own disciple if I would agree to that.

In my heart Srila Prabhupada was my guru, without any doubt, but for the sake of name and recognition I accepted a guru whom I thought would not interfere with my relationship with Srila Prabhupada. Somehow I had mistaken that for surrender; but given my apparent options, I think I made a good choice. During my initiation ceremony, Bhaktimarga Swami told me, “Srila Prabhupada is your primary guru.” It is true, and I am grateful that he said it. If not for Srila Prabhupada, I don’t know how I would have ever accepted Krishna as God and wanted to be His servant. I don’t say that no one else can ever be a real guru in ISKCON, but I haven’t met anyone in ISKCON who could give me Krishna the way Srila Prabhupada did. I read his books and listen to Srila Prabhupada’s audio practically every day for several hours, and his words soothe the savage beast that is my lusty mind so that my intelligence can receive transcendental knowledge without interference. No one else has been able to do that for me.

I can’t help but think that these new bylaws are another sign of material consciousness in our GBC. They are taking shelter of lawyers and courts as a way of defending their property. Why can’t they maintain ISKCON’s temples by superior, convincing preaching? Are they not qualified brahmanas? My dear GBC members, you can control the temples by these methods, but you can only control Krishna by pure devotional service, devoid of material motives. What makes you think that Krishna does not reside in the hearts of His devotees, including those whom you consider your enemies? Do you think it wise to find so much fault with these devotees just because they do not agree with your forced intervention between Srila Prabhupada and those aspiring devotees who crave his shelter?

It seems to me that what the North American GBC means by “enemies of ISKCON” is really just a group of devotees who feel strongly that Srila Prabhupada wants to continue to be available to us as guru. Others who like being guru feel threatened to be in competition with Srila Prabhupada, and therefore consider the rtvik proponents as their enemies and have taken up a legal defense against them. The reality is that our only enemy is the lust in our hearts that makes us want to lord it over material nature. How much worse is the desire to lord it over Krishna’s devotees? What a dangerous trap!

Hare Krishna.

“So the Vaisnava, therefore, will have no politics. Politics means planning for one’s own happiness. That is politics. So in our society there should be no diplomacy, no politics. Everyone should be eager how to do good to others. That is Vaisnava. If he’s planning something, that “I shall be leader,” “I shall be doing something,” that is not Vaisnavism. That politics is not good.” - A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (March 15, 1974, Vrindavana)

Chain mail japa bag

2008-08-07T19:12:00.000-04:00

Here's a photo of my titanium chain mail japa bag. The strap is aluminum. The materials were expensive, and it was a lot of work to make, but I like it a lot. Hare Krishna.

(Sent from my BlackBerry)

Austerity of Speech

2008-08-06T23:30:00.006-04:00

Austerity of speech consists in speaking words that are truthful, pleasing, beneficial, and not agitating to others, and also in regularly reciting Vedic literature.
PURPORT
One should not speak in such a way as to agitate the minds of others. Of course, when a teacher speaks, he can speak the truth for the instruction of his students, but such a teacher should not speak to those who are not his students if he will agitate their minds. This is penance as far as talking is concerned. Besides that, one should not talk nonsense. The process of speaking in spiritual circles is to say something upheld by the scriptures. One should at once quote from scriptural authority to back up what he is saying. At the same time, such talk should be very pleasurable to the ear. By such discussions, one may derive the highest benefit and elevate human society. There is a limitless stock of Vedic literature, and one should study this. This is called penance of speech.
http://vedabase.net/bg/17/15/en

I have been finding self-restraint in this area difficult. I feel driven to speaking the truth, but sometimes my view is not pleasing to others. I remember a few years ago I wrote something that upset one devotee and he severely chastised me for it, but two weeks later a sannyasi said the same thing and was lavishly praised for his wisdom in saying it. The devotee actually told me that as a householder I can't say that thing, but maybe it could be accepted if a sannyasi said it. I don't really understand that. I feel like I know Srila Prabhupada's teachings well enough to explain them clearly and logically, and to defeat any opposing philosophy, but people seem to not like hearing what I have to say. It's a little frustrating trying to carry out Srila Prabhupada's instruction to preach, since it rarely seems to have any positive effect.

Speaking to devotees, one of the first things I learned that surprised me is that most have not wanted me to talk about Krishna. About five days after I started studying Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Krishna appeared and gave me my first Bhagavad-gita class. When I started coming around devotees, I assumed everyone had some kind of experience like that, and I wanted to talk to them about it; but what I found was that it just made them uncomfortable. I've sometimes wondered if many devotees don't really believe in Krishna. When I started studying Bhagavad-gita As It Is, I quickly thought that if Krishna was who Srila Prabhupada said He is, then He should come and talk to me because I had given up practically everything to find out the absolute truth, and I was confused about what path to take. Krishna apparently thought that was a reasonable assumption, and I thought devotees would devotees would have been interested to hear about it. Occasionally devotees talk about how they came to Krishna consciousness, and then I'm forced to decide whether they would be open to hearing my story or not. Ever since that darshan I've been trying to find a devotee who can understand and explain what happened, and I'm still looking after almost 13 years.

My point here is that I have a lot to say but I often feel restricted from saying it. If I see something that's not ideal, I want to help correct it, and that means talking about it; but a lot of devotees seem to take offense easily. For example, recently I had a thought that ISKCON is supposed to be a preaching movement, not a guru glorification movement. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Swami told Srila Prabhupada, "If you ever get money, print books." He did not say, "If you ever get money, build a big samadhi (or two) for me, and maybe a museum." If he'd said the latter, most of us would have never heard of Krishna. In my view, the best glorification of the guru is automatically done by disciples who understand the philosophy and principles of Krishna consciousness and teach the same to others. I'm surprised that many other devotees think differently about that, but they apparently do, and if I try to talk about it with them, they will get offended. I used to think that the bad effects of offending devotees happened via subtle energies as a result of improper criticism; but after some experience it seems to me that the bad effects happen via gossip and politics even when the criticism is valid.

The result is that I have a lot on my mind that I'm afraid to say.

Srila Prabhupada:"Sugar is intoxication."

2008-07-27T00:58:00.004-04:00

Hare Krishna.

Today we had Rathayatra at Gita-nagari. Yes, I have pictures, but we haven't downloaded them from our camera yet. I haven't even unpacked the car. That will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm far too tired now.

My family has had a vending table at the ratha yatra festivals, and the main thing we sell is the herb tinctures and salve that I make. We also have a variety of artistic creations that my wife and kids make, and this year I sold some of Srila Prabhupada's books and a Hare Krishna cookbook too. However, it's my tinctures that I want to talk about, or rather one aspect of tinctures.

Well, a little about the tinctures in general first. I've been wildcrafting herbs since I learned how to do it in college back around 1993. I had a teacher who was an herbalist, and I took all the classes he offered: Field Ecology, Ethics of Survival, Ethnobotany, and Ecology of Unique Environments. The teacher, Sandy Geffner also co-founded an environmental education group called "Earth Spirit." I learned a lot about herbal medicine from these two men, and I continued to study and practice after graduation. For about ten years I made herb tinctures and a salve for my family, and then I got the idea that I should also make medicines to sell.

The basic process is that first of all I have to know my herbs. Each herb has different properties that depend on the species, the time of year, its location, the part of the plant, and other variables. This is all in books, but I also have an intuitive knack for it, so that sometimes if I am familiar with an herb, I can guess its medicinal properties without prior knowledge. I've studied a little ayurveda, and part of this intuition is based on that science.

So I find an herb that I want, and I harvest some of what I find. This is a sacred process for me, taking a plant's life, or some of it, for healing. After some reflecting, feeling of gratitude, and prayers to Krishna, I take whatever part is medicinal, pack it in a jar, and normally pour vodka over it, 40-50% alcohol, filling it to the top. The herb sits in the alcohol, getting shaken occasionally, for at least a month, usually a few month or more. The alcohol acts as a solvent and a preservative.

(Sometimes one can find tinctures that have glycerine instead of alcohol in them, but these are made with alcohol, which is then removed and replaced with glycerine. Also, a lot of glycerine is made as a byproduct of biofuels production, which is often made from filthy substances such as chicken wing fryer grease. Glycerine tinctures usually taste better than ones with alcohol in them, but the glycerine only preserves the tincture for a year or two, whereas most alcohol tinctures last a lifetime or more.)

After the herb has soaked long enough, the liquid is decanted, sometimes the herb gets pressed to squeeze out as much as possible. This liquid is called a tincture, and I have a cabinet with about 50 such tinctures. When I want to achieve some kind of medicinal effect, I combine two or more tinctures with common properties, or for whatever I want the combination to accomplish. For example, we have one for reliving coughs, another for treating migraines, a third for reducing fever, etc. Next I decant the combinations into 2 oz. (60mL) bottles, stick a label on them, and display them on a table with our other goods at Rathayatra.

Invariably, each time one or two devotees ask me about the alcohol. Of course, alcohol is an intoxicant, and we don't take intoxicants. We even have a vow. I have to have a response to this, and of course I've given it serious consideration.

I normally start off by explaining that intoxication is a matter not only of substance but also quantity. A drop of ocean has the properties of the ocean body, but not the effect. Similarly, the amount of alcohol in a dose of tincture (usually 2 squirts of the dropper) has the properties of alcohol, but lacks the intoxicating effect. An often cited fact among herbalists is that there is more alcohol in a ripe banana than there is in two squirts of a tincture. All ripe fruit has some alohol, but we do not object to it in there. I've had cups of "nectar" at temples that had more alcohol in one ounce than is in a dose of my tincture.

I also point out that water is an intoxicant when too much is taken, and this intoxication can be deadly. Yet nobody says water is an intoxicant that we cannot take. We simply take it in responsible quantities, not for intoxication but for health.

If the water example is not convincing enough, I point out that sugar is also an intoxicant. Practically every ISKCON devotee knows what it's like to have too much sugar on occasions, whether from direct experience or watching others. Need I remind you of Govardhana Puja or Radhastami? One may argue that's not intoxication, just he natural effect of having a lot of sugar, which is a food. Indeed, sugar is a food, four (kilo)calories per gram. Alcohol is also a food, even more so, with seven calories per gram. Just ask any guy with a beer belly. Someone may argue, "No one says sugar is intoxication." Well, actually Srila Prabhupada says that. Here are a few quotes:

The ants are very much fond of being intoxicated. Therefore, they find out sweet, sugar. Sweet is intoxication. Perhaps you know, all. The liquor is made from sugar. Sugar is fermented with acid, sulphuric acid, and then it is distilled. That is liquor. Therefore too much sweet eating is prohibited.
>>> Ref. VedaBase =>Bhagavad-gita 2.19 -- London, August 25, 1973

There Srila Prabhupada distinguished according to quantity.

The ants, perhaps you know it, they love very much intoxicants. And therefore they are after sugar. Sugar has got properties intoxication. Wine is made from sugar, from molasses. So the ants, they want to be very much intoxicated. So this intoxication is not only in the human society. In the animal society, in bird society, in beast society.
>>> Ref. VedaBase => Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.1.3 -- London, August 20, 1971

The ant, the small ant, they are very fond of intoxication. You know that? As soon as there is information, "On the top of the skyscraper building, there is a grain of sugar," they will go. (laughing) Because sugar contains intoxication. The wine is made from sugar, molasses. It has got the intoxication.
>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- May 30, 1974, Rome

That sugar, they say that the ants they are very intoxicants; therefore they like sugar. Sugar is intoxication. Wine is made from sugar. Yes.
>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- November 21, 1975, Bombay

I think my point is made well enough. Yes, alcohol is an intoxicant, but not in the quantities that are associated with normal use of tinctures. Not even close. There is likely to be more alcohol in your cup of nectar prasadam than there is in a dose of one of my tinctures. You can get tinctures with glycerine in them, but they also had alcohol in there, and the glycerine may have had some connection with meat, and glycerine tinctures are not well preserved. I'm not even going to get into a comparison between herbs and pharmaceuticals, not today at least. That's a whole other story.

In any case, if you buy a tincture and don't like the minuscule amount of alcohol in a dose of it, it's easy to remove. Alcohol boils at 78 C (172 F), whereas water boils at 100 C (212 F). Simply boil some water (maybe make some herbal tea), pour it hot into a cup, then squirt in your dose of tincture. Within a few minutes, the alcohol will evaporate out, leaving your medicine in the cup.

Hare Krishna.

Srila Prabhupada's opinion, or Krishna's opinion?

2008-07-19T00:25:00.007-04:00

Sometimes when controversial subjects are discussed, I hear devotees say that Srila Prabhupada was materially contaminated with sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. Sometimes they will remark, "Where was that in the shastra?" as if Srila Prabhupada taught us mundane ideas in the guise of spiritual instruction. Here is one quote of a mataji who was trying to account for her difference of opinion by conjuring up the "human side of the guru" in reference to Srila Prabhupada:

"He relayed limited facts from a memory in his youth perhaps and offered a personal opinion." she said.

Oh, really? Recently I was listening to Srila Prabhupada's audio recordings, and what did I hear him say?

"And if, whatever little success I have got -- only for this reason. I have never said anything which is not spoken by Krsna. I never said, "In my opinion." I never said. You are so many students. I never said that to you. What is my opinion?"

Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.5.22 -- Vrndavana, August 3, 1974

Stepping Into Sankirtan

2008-07-17T13:40:00.001-04:00

Hare Krishna.

Yesterday I got a special delivery… four cases of Srila Prabhupada’s books (Krishna book, Science of Self Realization, Path of Perfection, and Perfection of Yoga), plus the Hare Krishna Book of Vegetarian Cooking. A few minutes ago I gave Path of Perfection and Perfection of Yoga to the hot dog salesman who recently started working in our office parking lot. I told him that he inspired me to start distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books, and for that I wanted to give him one as a gift. He took two and put them in his truck. I didn’t tell him that he inspired me because his meat cart was so upsetting that I wanted to quit my job and try to change the world with Srila Prabhupada’s books, so let that be our secret. I’m trying to learn the art of finding the nice thing out of the mix and saying just that.

I don’t know if he’ll actually read the books, but I don’t think Krishna will let my little service go to waste. I became attracted to Krishna consciousness first from a Radha Krishna Temple CD I bought from the used bin in a music store and then a Bhagavad-gita As It Is from the used bookcase in a new age bookstore; so I know that unless a book gets destroyed there’s a good chance someone will read it and get some mercy. Even taking one of Srila Prabhupada’s books in hand and looking at the cover counts as a beginning to real spiritual life. Maybe the guy won’t read them at all, but perhaps he has some kids who will find them and become devotees. That would be cool. One should never underestimate the potency of Srila Prabhupada’s books.

Hare Krishna.

Paper Tigers

2008-07-14T23:04:00.003-04:00

In the past day or so it has come out that Gauri das, temple president of Bhaktivedanta Manor, was found guilty of child abuse. I'm sorry to see another embarrassment for ISKCON. I don't personally know Gauri das or have any experience with either Bhaktivedanta Manor or the Vrndavana Gurukula; however, his restrictions look a little familiar. Precedent has shown that these restrictions can be easily ignored. I wonder if that is still true.

Others can comment on the case of Gauri das. What I want to say is that ISKCON would appear a lot more credible as a spiritual society if we made sure these kinds of things didn't happen, but if they somehow did happen, that we not promote the perpetrators, and in any case we need to strictly enforce the restrictions on those who are found guilty.

The brief statement on Dandavats gives more space to the paragraph emphasizing his accomplishments than to the paragraph indicating his abuse of children, and of course comments are not allowed. I don't really care how much so-called service a child abuser has done, rather I consider it disservice. One cannot even guess what service would have been done by any children who may have been driven away by abuse. How many members of the innocent public won't take one of Srila Prabhupada's books because of ISKCON's reputation of promoting child abusers and other criminals? Instead of banning the whistle-blowers, we really ought to consider how much we want abusers among us. If we can't prevent child abuse in our schools, then for the sake of our children, our preaching efforts, and our own tender devotional creepers, I would say we should ask the abusers to chant Hare Krishna at home.

I can hardly believe we're still dealing, or rather being confronted, with this kind of nonsense.

NY Times: "When Human Rights Extend to Nonhumans"

2008-07-14T14:46:00.001-04:00

http://tinyurl.com/6e6z8u

excerpt:

"But given that even some humans are denied human rights, what is the most basic right? To not be killed for food, perhaps?

"Ten years ago, I stood in a clearing in the Cameroonian jungle, asking a hunter to hold up for my camera half the baby gorilla he had split and butterflied for smoking.

"My distress - partly faked, since I was also feeling triumphant, having come this far hoping to find exactly such a scene - struck him as funny. "A gorilla is still meat," said my guide, a former gorilla hunter himself. "It has no soul."

"So he agrees with Spain's bishops. But it was an interesting observation for a West African to make. He looked much like the guy on the famous engraving adopted as a coat of arms by British abolitionists: a slave in shackles, kneeling to either beg or pray. Below it the motto: Am I Not a Man, and a Brother?"

--
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Editorial: The Shame of Postville, Iowa

2008-07-14T14:25:00.001-04:00

From the Department of Irony:

Cruel treatment of illegal immigrant slaughterhouse workers...

At least the feds didn't hang them from one foot, cut their throats, and let them bleed to death.

What one person calls cruelty, another sees as the Lord's mercy.

"Don't live, don't die."

SB 11.5.14: Those sinful persons who are ignorant of actual religious principles, yet consider themselves to be completely pious, without compunction commit violence against innocent animals who are fully trusting in them. In their next lives, such sinful persons will be eaten by the same creatures they have killed in this world.

***************
A court interpreter breaks his silence after being offended by the cruelty of the prosecutions of nearly 400 undocumented workers in an Iowa meatpacking plant.<br/><br/>

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/opinion/13sun2.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

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My dilemma

2008-07-11T12:26:00.001-04:00

Sixteen years ago I sat in a 2 hour and 40 minute lecture for a class called “Ethics of Survival,” listening to a guest speaker talk about the environmental impact of eating meat. Although I was raised in a family of meat-eaters, I was overwhelmed by the evidence presented, and I resolved to quit eating meat within 2 months. It was obvious to me that I could not consider myself an environmentalist if I continued to eat meat. Six weeks later I renounced meat as a new year’s resolution while backpacking in a wilderness portion of the Great Smoky Mountains. Later that year I wrote a paper for an Environmental Sustainability college course, in which I showed that nearly all our environmental problems are primarily caused by raising animals for slaughter. I also got involved with the college animal rights group, and did some activism, handing out ghastly brochures of animal slaughter in a McDonald’s parking lot, picketing a circus, etc.

Now its 2008 and I work for a state-level environmental protection agency, in an office of about 150 people, and there are apparently no vegetarians here other than myself. In other words, there are no environmentalists, although many would be offended by that assessment.

About a month ago I composed and sent an e-mail to our office’s regional e-mail list, which would be received by about 200 employees of our department. The e-mail was in response to a hot dog sale to raise funds for an annual meat picnic, was about 1 page, and concisely presented some of the most relevant facts related to the environmental impact of eating meat. There is more information now than when I wrote my paper in college, and much of it has been reported in the popular media, although it is not emphasized. Eating meat is still considered people’s “right” and individual choice. A got a few favorable responses, although no one said they were vegetarians; and a few people told me to shut up.

One guy responded that “God said we could eat meat,” citing Genesis 9:3, and saying, ”If it’s good enough for God, it’s good enough for me.” When I looked in the Bible, I saw that in the end of the 8^th Chapter, God was lamenting how evil people are, and then in 9:2 He said all creatures would fear us, and in 9:3 said we could eat them. In 9:4, He gave an impossible restriction, that we can’t eat meat with blood in it; and in 9:5 He said we would be held accountable. When I read this section it seemed to me that God was allowing us to eat meat with the consideration that we are terribly sinful and would do it whether He sanctioned it or not. Clearly God was not pleased by this. I responded like this to the guy, and told him that my goal isn’t to live “good enough for God,” but to actually please God. I also told him that I didn’t really care for the Bible, and that if he waned to see the view of Christian vegetarians, he should look at www.all-creatures.org . I haven’t heard anything from him after that.

As a result of my e-mail, I had to meet with the regional director, who told me that one must have prior approval to address the region by e-mail. She tried to mediate the issue of my objection to the promotion of meat, but there’s not really anything that she could do.

About 2 weeks later an e-mail was sent by the business manager announcing a visit by a meat-truck called “Let’s Do Lunch.” Their menu is as follows: Hot Dog, Hot Sausage, Grilled Chicken, Meatball Parm, Cheese Steak, Tastykakes, Chips, Soda. The business manager said that if there is enough support, the truck will be here every day. Today she announced that the truck will be here every day from 11am until 2pm.

In case it wasn’t obvious enough before, I work in an office of demons. I cannot stand it. However, I am responsible for a wife and five children, plus several farm animals including a cow who will be having a calf next month. I need to earn a substantial amount of money to pay the bills. Therefore I can’t just quit, but I feel like I could go berserk. When I saw the e-mail about the meat truck today, I immediately became so upset that I had to leave the office. I chanted 9 rounds of japa before I was calm enough to come back.

Earlier this week I ordered five cases of Srila Prabhupada’s books, and I’m very eager to start distributing them. I don’t know if it’s realistic to hope that I can be successful enough at book distribution to support my family by it, or if it’s even proper to have a financial hope like that. However, I don’t know what else to do. I’m so disturbed by the hypocrisy here, meat eaters working for an environmental agency, not caring at all about their personal environmental impact, what to speak about the suffering inflicted upon the animals themselves. I want to shout out, “They’ll eat you in Hell!” but of course that would be grounds for immediate dismissal. I almost feel like that would be a good thing, but still I have to support my family somehow.

Dreaming of Self-Sufficiency at Gita-nagari (...part 1?)

2008-07-01T22:16:00.005-04:00

Hare Krishna.

Today I read the transcript of the talk, "A Self-Sufficient Darshan with HH Sivarama Swami," and it gives me a variety of feelings. I'm part of the Gita-nagari community, and while it is a very nice community that I appreciate very much, it is very far from self sufficient. The desire apparently isn't even there. Actually, it's something I very much desire, but I don't know of anyone else around who has any hope or real wish for it.

The article first reminded me of my initial encounter with New Vrindavana. Going back a little earlier, I was an environmental studies major in college when I developed two desires -- one to find out what is the absolute truth, which I sought through immersion in yoga philosophy and practice; and the other to become a farmer. Oddly enough, finding out the absolute truth proved to be easier than becoming a farmer. I had no land, no experience, and my parents had just spent many thousands of dollars putting me through college. I couldn't disappoint them like that.

Putting my farming dreams aside for while, I set out on a long (2,000 mile or 3,200 km) journey to find a suitable place to meditate, and on my way I found Bhagavad-gita As It Is, and soon after, Krishna. Thanks to Him, I gave up my intended hermit life, invited my wife-to-be to live with me, went back to Upstate New York, and started a family. About a year or so later, the urge manifested to combine my new-found desire for Krishna consciousness with my dream of being a farmer, so I looked in the back of Bhagavad-gita and saw that there were two Hare Krishna "farm communities" listed that were in my area of the world. One was New Vrindavana and the other Gita-nagari.

At that point I didn't know anything about either place. All I knew was what I read in a few of Srila Prabhupada's books that I read. I had such little exposure to devotees that I didn't know it was customary to chant japa fast, so it took me about 6 to 8 hours a day chanting 16 rounds of japa. One day I was walking to the local food co-op, and I saw an unusual-looking woman who turned out to be Mother Mahavegavati. We got talking, and I told her I was trying to decide whether to move to New Vrindavana or to Gita-nagari. She advised against Gita-nagari because of her rough history with HH Bhakti-Tirtha Swami (I won't get into that now), and said she in fact was preparing to move to New Vrindavana. That tipped the balance in favor of New Vrindavana, so my wife and I went with our baby to visit.

When we got there, we met with Nityo-dita, then-Swami, who was the temple president. He asked what I planned to do, and I told him that I read that this was a Hare Krishna farm community, and that I wanted to chant Hare Krishna and farm. He looked at me like I had just fallen from Mars, and suggested I work at the "Pie Factory." (The Pie Factory was a weird place where mostly nondevotees made potpourri pies to sell in the malls.) Giving his odd advice the benefit of the doubt, we went to visit the pie factory. We got there around lunch time, and seeing people sitting outside eating meat and smoking cigarettes, I decided not to work there.

At that time there wasn't much of a garden at New Vrindavana, and I decided I'd like to do some work with the cows. I went to visit the cow barn, but the devotee who was running things there didn't want my help. I had never worked with cows, but I'm pretty good at learning. I didn't get that chance. I had already made up my mind to go live at New Vrindavana, about a month later we moved into one of the apartments. (Thanks to living in the New Vrindavana apartments, our daughter's first word was "cockroach.") I managed to earn a little money doing odd jobs like building maintenance and some skilled carpentry. I didn't get to do anything resembling farming, and after about 8 months we had heard enough about the criminal past that we got freaked out and left.

About three months later I got my enthusiasm for Krishna consciousness back. Shortly after I got a second environmental degree, and after graduation I got job working in a USDA lab researching a corn protein. That was nice because the Philadelphia temple was just about a 2-minute drive away, so I went there every day for lunch. I gained about 20 pounds (9 kg) that year.

After a year I got job with the PA Dept of Environmental Protection, and with another a year of that I had all I could stand of living in such a populated area, so I transferred to Lancaster, PA. There we had nice, regular association of Amogha-Virya and his wife Prsni, and also Mahat-Seva, who was pretty fixed-up then but seems to have left the movement. I wonder what happened to him.

Our living arrangement in Lancaster was very difficult, due to a dishonest landlord, so we sought to move. Again we considered New Vrindavna or Gita-nagari. Each year we had visited New Vrindavna, and it seemed to improve with each visit, and we also kept some friendships there. We visited again, and I met with Kuladri. He told me there was no facility there for us, that we would have to live off the property in town, and also work in town too. HH Varsana Swami gave us a little tour of some potential dwellings, but although he obviously meant well, the places he showed us were incredibly sub-standard. Picture an old rotten trailer with a hole in the floor almost as big as a cow, and enough stuff left behind to make us wonder why someone left so quickly or if they were buried somewhere nearby. I'm being generous with that description. My wife refused to live like that, and I could hardly blame her. The farming project there was growing (no pun intended), but there was no way for me to get involved.

The next try was Gita-nagari. We visited a few times and liked it. There was no place to live on the Dhama or nearby, so we bought a house about 12 miles away, the closest place we could afford that had (almost) our minimum acreage - just under 5 acres. The house is very old, and there was a substantial shed and a building that could be made into a barn. I had hopes for doing some farm work at Gita-nagari, but there was none of that going on. Cows were protected there, of course, but not really any growing of vegetables. Most of the hay being grown was contracted to a Mennonite farmer who cut and bailed it himself for his cows and for sale. I heard that formerly Gita-nagari was a very happening, self-sufficient place, but that was not the situation when I arrived.

Since there was no realistic way I could farm at Gita-nagari, I did what I could at home. We managed to quickly get a garden in when we arrived, since we brought about 50 potted plants with us. I set up a small fenced area around the barn-to-be, and made a space for a few angora goats, since my wife liked to work with fiber, spinning, knitting, weaving, etc. Later we got a few sheep, and eventually one devotee gave me a cow. I also did some worm farming, a.k.a. vermicomposting, and our garden about doubled in size each year.

We're now in our fifth year living here, and the animals we have are one cow who will be giving birth in about a month (yes, we'll be milking before long), also two Leicester Longwool sheep, two Angora goats, a guinea hen and six keets (baby guineas), one or two chicken, two peachicks, a dog, about 5 cats, two black rat snakes (I caught them wild and introduced them to the inner walls of the house), a frog, a tank of fish (30 gallons or 113L), a blue and gold macaw parrot, and about a million composting worms.

Our garden this year has corn (2 varieties), okra, yams, peas, beans, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce (several varieties), spinach, cauliflower, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, bitter melon, tomatoes (several varieties), beets, chard, potatoes, carrots, cucumber, squash, zucchini, eggplant, daikon radishes, and regular radishes. I'm probably forgetting something. We also planted a small orchard, and expect to get several pears this year.

I was well-trained in ethnobotany in college, how to identify and harvest wild herbs, make them into medicines, and use them in treating disease. I have a cabinet of about 50 kinds of individual herb tinctures that I've made, and 7 combinations I've developed for specific health conditions. Yesterday while I was in my cubicle, the kids harvested jewelweed (Impatiens capensis), extracted the juice, and froze it. This was the first time they've done something like this themselves, so I was quite pleased with them.

Our gardening is done organically, with animals' waste consumed by the composting worms to produce excellent compost fertilizer, which I make into garden beds and till by hand with a pick. I don't like lawn mowers, so the yard is kept nice by the grazing animals, and the garden area around the beds is cut by hand with an Austrian scythe.

I really love this kind of work, and I regret that I have to drive 50 miles to sit in a cubicle for 8 hours a day. I do all this farm work about 95% myself during my so-called free time, usually quitting for dinner after dark. Although my regular job is somewhat important, enforcing environmental regulations, it's hard for me to sit in a cubicle so much. I dream of quitting so that I could just farm and sell Srila Prabhupada's books, but with such a big family I have to be responsible. Actually I'm just getting ready to begin book distribution, e-mailing the BBT about buying my first cases, but I'm very excited about it. All I want to do is preach and farm. It's a shame that there isn't facility for me to do this full time, considering that I'm part of a Hare Krishna farm community. The Gita-nagari community is very nice; I have such good friends here, but honestly few have any substantial interest in farming. I hope that if ISKCON leaders really want to have sustainable farm communities, that they will think of me and find a way to engage me in devotional service full time. It's hard work and almost nobody wants to do it, but I want to do it a lot. I know that family of two adults and five children makes for a little of a challenge, but I've learned plenty and I love to work hard, if I can convince myself that I'm doing it for Krishna. It may be that I'll never get the chance to leave the cubicle and be engaged full time directly in devotional service as my heart desires, but at least I can dream a little.

Maybe I'll get time to comment more on the Self-Sufficiency talk another day.

Hare Krishna

Introducing Our New Son (and a few other new non-walking members of our household...)

2008-06-28T10:21:00.002-04:00

Hare Krishna. A few weeks ago, on June 4, my wife gave birth to a baby boy. Here he is pictured with his four sisters. From left to right, they're Visaka, Vrinda, Radha, and Madhavi.

Laying on their laps is Caitanya Gopala Howard.

It's beyond my ability to express how wonderful it is to have this bunch of kids.

I mentioned a few other new non-walking members to our household. In the picture below, I'm holding a black rat snake that I found on one of our finished compost piles. As you might guess, this kind of snake is not poisonous, and actually they're quite docile. I was watering the garden when I found him (I think it's a him, but I'm not an expert at snake gender), and so I sprayed him with a mist of cool water to slow him down and clean him up. Then I was able to just walk over and pick him up quite easily. When he warmed up he gave my arm a few good squeezes, and eventually I released him in our attic. Yes, in the attic of our house. The idea is that he'll go up and down the inner walls of the house and eat mice. I'm not the first to think of that. One guy at work mentioned that this can be done, and we also read about it on our OrganicHomesteadingGardening e-mail group (Yahoo!groups). Our house is at least a century old, so it's a pretty nice habitat for a snake, and there are undoubtedly enough mice for him to feed upon. I think they eat about one a week.

Here I am in the picture below holding another of these snakes. This one was lucky because it was living in the cow manure pile and I found it while moving the pile with a pitchfork. It apparently had a home in the pile, which I revealed as I was digging into the pile. It could have easily been killed, but fortunately it wasn't harmed at all. I thought this might be the mate to the other one (we saw two of these snakes mating less than 10 meters from here two years ago, and I know these are two different snakes because the first one I cought was about 6 feet long, whereas the second was about 5 feet long), so I brought this one to our attic too. That should be enough.

Earlier this week, my wife called me at work to report that one of the snakes was curled up in one of the kids toy barns. I was pretty happy about it, to know that the snakes didn't just leave the house. They must be finding some good mouse meals hidden in our home. I said they should just pick up the snake and return him to the attic. It's simple, just grab behind the head and also pick up the middle of the body for support. They didn't dare try. Instead they closed the doors to the toy barn (though he/she still could easily get out) and brought the whole barn up to the attic. I'm pretty sure when Caitanya gets older, he won't mind picking up the snake.

Hare Krishna

Should women have as much freedom as men?

2008-06-24T00:56:00.004-04:00

They already do -- serve Krishna or serve maya.

What other freedom is there?

Equal rights... That's also in Bhagavad-gita:

"You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty."
Bg 2.47

The same right applies to both men and women.

Did Arjuna get to choose what was his duty?

"It is far better to discharge one's prescribed duties, even though faultily, than another's duties perfectly. Destruction in the course of performing one's own duty is better than engaging in another's duties, for to follow another's path is dangerous."
Bg 3.35

This statement is practically spoken twice in Bhagavad-gita.

Here again, very similar:

"It is better to engage in one's own occupation, even though one may perform it imperfectly, than to accept another's occupation and perform it perfectly. Duties prescribed according to one's nature are never affected by sinful reactions."
Bg 18.47

Krishna is talking about prescribed duties. "Prescribed" literally means "written before," as prior to one's birth. (Origin: 1425–75; late ME <> "Prescribed duties should never be renounced. If one gives up his prescribed duties because of illusion, such renunciation is said to be in the mode of ignorance."
Bg 18.7

Illusion means to think, "I am this body," or, "I am the enjoyer of this body." We are spirit soul; and Krishna is the only enjoyer. We are enjoined to act according to duty for the purpose of serving Krishna, not with the desire to enjoy.

Srila Prabhupada has stated repeatedly that a woman's duty is to serve her husband, taking care of the home, children, cooking, and such activities, to help him advance in spiritual life, Krishna consciousness. Instead we often see women leave these duties for sense gratification, to have the association of karmis in the workplace and to get more money. Sometimes she wants to leave her husband, feeling that to cook and clean for him is beneath her. Unfortunately, by thinking too much of sense enjoyment with women in the previous birth, she has been given a female body along with the prescribed duties suitable for such a body. That enjoying spirit is a man's disadvantage. A woman's tendency for submissiveness is her advantage for devotional service. Somehow, many women are retaining the mentality of men, which is rather unbecoming and not at all conducive to devotional service.

Hare Krishna.

Unflinching Faith

2008-06-21T23:38:00.006-04:00

"So anyone who has got unflinching faith in God and similar faith in guru, then the Vedic purpose becomes revealed to him. Yasya deve para bhaktir yatha deve tatha gurau, tasyaite kathita hy arthah. The Vedic mantras and their artha becomes revealed. This is the process."

Srila Prabhupada, Arrival Lecture -- San Francisco, July 15, 1975

Hare Krishna.

Lately it seems there has been a lot of publicity given to blasphemers of Srila Prabhupada. I keep hearing how he was wrong about this and that, kali-celas trying to undermine devotees' faith in the spiritual master. I'll come back to that.

We've been hearing and having a lot of discussion about what Srila Prabhupada was talking about when he spoke of rape, for example, and it seems like devotees have been grasping at straws trying to find some way to respond. Today I saw an article favored by the BBT attempting to explain what Srila Prabhupada means by:

"In this regard, the word vikhyatam [famous] is very significant. A man is always famous for his aggression toward a beautiful woman, and such aggression is sometimes considered rape. Although rape is not legally allowed, it is a fact that a woman likes a man who is very expert at rape."

Rupa-Vilas prabhu makes this conclusion:

I hope that it is clear that what Srila Prabhupada is describing in the Fourth Canto is the consensual attraction between lovers when aggression and even a degree of forcefulness is delighted in by both parties. He is pointing out that women enjoy this sort of aggression, although some might view it (not understanding the mentality of both parties) as rape. There is no question of rape during consensual sex, even from the standpoint of law. Certainly violent acts perpetrated upon women without their consent is nowhere glorified in the Vedas or in Srila Prabhupada’s teachings.

I'm glad they didn't put that in Srila Prabhupada's books. The difficulty I have with this explanation is that I have never seen or heard Srila Prabhupada use the word, "rape," like that. Rupa-Vilas prabhu's conclusion is simply mental speculation. (Please note that I am not saying Rupa-Vilas prabhu is a kali-cela trying to undermine devotees' faith in Srila Prabhupada. It is obvious that he is trying to serve Srila Prabhupada and his followers.)

Not only that, but it is clearly wrong. Srila Prabhupada begins the quoted section by saying, "Although rape is not legally allowed...," however what Rupa-Vilas describes, "the consensual attraction between lovers when aggression and even a degree of forcefulness," in fact is legally allowed, which he even admits.

What Srila Prabhupada is talking about is in fact what modern people would call "rape." However, he says "expert at rape." What does it mean to be expert at rape? Simply, it means that the man (presumably) wants sex and is intent upon getting it, and he does it in such a way that although the woman says "no" and really does mean "no," she more-or-less allows it and takes pleasure in it. These kinds of interactions are abundant in the arts and literature. For example there is a married couple, perhaps somewhat aristocratic, and the wife is a little bored with the husband. The husband is away on business, and a burglar enters the home, sees the wife sleeping alone, and rapes her, expertly. Although the woman objected and resisted, woman liked it. The rapist committed a horrible crime, and the woman had no choice in the matter, but in fact the woman enjoyed it. She may well have also been horrified as well. Considering that people can be quite perverted, sometimes the husband may find out and feel a thrill as well. This is the material world, kali yuga as well, and people can get pretty freaky.

Krishna Kirti prabhu located a similar example in Bought for her Baby, by Melanie Milburne, which he excerpted in his FAQ 311 paper (PDF, MS Word):

He’s got her firmly in his sights and she’s got
only one chance of survival—surrender to his
blackmail…and him...in his bed!

Srila Prabhupada was describing "expert at rape," not "brutal rapist." A man who is "expert at rape" does not need a knife on the woman's throat or a gun to her head. He gets her to do something she does not want to do and does it in such a way that she enjoys it. How can this be?

From the Lord's genitals originate water, semen, generatives, rains, and the procreators. His genitals are the cause of a pleasure that counteracts the distress of begetting.
PURPORT
The genitals and the pleasure of begetting counteract the distresses of family encumbrances. One would cease to generate altogether if there were not, by the grace of the Lord, a coating, a pleasure-giving substance, on the surface of the generative organs. This substance gives a pleasure so intense that it counteracts fully the distress of family encumbrances. A person is so captivated by this pleasure-giving substance that he is not satisfied by begetting a single child, but increases the number of children, with great risk in regard to maintaining them, simply for this pleasure-giving substance. This pleasure-giving substance is not false, however, because it originates from the transcendental body of the Lord. In other words, the pleasure-giving substance is a reality, but it has taken on an aspect of pervertedness on account of material contamination...
SB 2.6.8

Srila Prabhupada describes a "substance" on the genitals. This was somewhat mysterious to me when I first read it. It indicates that the pleasure felt by the genitals is not entirely in the mind. Of course, there is a mental component, but the word, "substance," indicates something that is present whether a person's "partner" is a lover or a rapist. We can therefore directly conclude that if a rapist is expert, he is able to activate that substance and give pleasure to the unwilling woman.

The BBT also has an article on the subject by H.H. Jayadvaita Swami. In it he says,

In essence: The male wants to conquer, and the female wants to be conquered. A woman does not want to be sheepishly asked her hand by a bashful, weak-kneed Milquetoast. She wants to be pursued and won, to be fought over by strong and eager suitors, to be “swept off her feet.”

He even mentions Krishna taking Rukmini, etc. Wow. I have a great deal of respect for Jayadvaita Swami, but I have trouble with labeling Krishna as a "rapist," even if one is using an obsolete definition. That's my personal reluctance, but objectively we should see if Srila Prabhupada ever referred to an action of Krishna as "rape." I can't find any.

In fact, Srila Prabhupada defined his use of the word, "rape," during a morning walk conversation on May 11, 1975:

“Rape means without consent, sex. Otherwise there is no rape. There was a rape case in Calcutta, and the lawyer was very intelligent. He some way or other made the woman admit, “Yes, I felt happiness.” So he was released. “Here is consent.” And that’s a fact. Because after all, sex, rape or no rape, they will feel some pleasure. So the lawyer by hook and crook made the woman agree, “Yes, I felt some pleasure.” “Now, there is consent.” So he was released. After all, it is an itching sensation. So either by force or by willingly, if there is itching, everyone feels relieved itching it. That’s a psychology. It is not that the woman do not like rape. They like sometimes. They willingly. That is the psychology. Outwardly they show some displeasure, but inwardly they do not. This is the psychology.”

He used the word, "rape," in the conventional sense that we all know and understand today.

Some devotees look at that quote and say that Srila Prabhupada was taking knowledge from a court case, but that many court decisions have contradicted that, and "we know now" that rape is a horrible thing. Yes, it is horrible, but the "we know now" is foolishness. First of all, Srila Prabhupada was not taking knowledge from the court; he was using the court to make a point.

"Guru means "heavy," or "superior." That is the law. So our process of Vedic knowledge is that we get knowledge from the superior just like Brahma, Lord Brahma."
The Nectar of Devotion -- Bombay, December 28, 1972

Is a court judge superior to Srila Prabhupada? Obviously not. The knowledge that Srila Prabhupada gave to us was received by him through disciplic succession. He used mundane authorities from time to time for examples, but they were not the sources of his knowledge. A bona fide guru is one who gives perfect knowledge received through disciplic succession. That is what Srila Prabhupada did, and what he expects us to do. We do not go to the atheistic scientists to get knowledge. We do not compare his knowledge to the so-called real world. We accept what he says, period.

In case it is not clear:

So we have to utilize in that way. Sravanam kirtanam visnoh [SB 7.5.23]. "Hear from Me." Nobody... Either you hear from Krsna or from Krsna's representative.
Bhagavad-gita 7.1 -- Los Angeles, March 12, 1970

You hear from.... Hear from whom? Hear from whom? That tad-vijnanartham sa gurum evabhigacchet: [MU 1.2.12] "Hear from guru." Who is guru? Guru. Brahma-nistham. Brahma-nistham. Guru means who knows God and fully engaged in His service. That is guru.
Bhagavad-gita 4.23 -- Bombay, April 12, 1974

How should we hear?

"So anyone who has got unflinching faith in God and similar faith in guru, then the Vedic purpose becomes revealed to him. Yasya deve para bhaktir yatha deve tatha gurau, tasyaite kathita hy arthah. The Vedic mantras and their artha becomes revealed. This is the process."

We have to have unflinching faith in God and guru. Unflinching? I learned the word, "flinch," as a kid. One boy sometimes pretends he is going to hit another boy. He punches his fist at the other boy's face, but stops short of hitting. Sometimes the other boy will move or blink, and the punching boy will say, "made you flinch." So, flinching means to draw back, due to fear or perhaps pain (sometimes the punch lands). "Unflinching faith," therefore means that when some threat comes, the devotee does not waver from the service to his guru. He has that faith in his spiritual master. To him the Vedic process becomes revealed. We have to have that kind of faith.

Not that we make a so-called "Reality Check," where the idea of reality is material nature, maha maya. For example, Mother Vrajabhumi says:

There are countless women who are very intelligent and have proved so by having won science awards for their discoveries in physics, mathematics, biology, etc. There are countless women scientists and professors today working in all fields of science, math, physics, biology, high tech etc. There are women intellectuals of all types who prove that what Srila Prabhupada said about women not being very intelligent is simply wrong. In fact more women go to college then men in the west.

Is that what Srila Prabhupada considered intelligence, winning science awards, going to college, etc.? This verse (10) from Isopanishad comes to mind:

The wise have explained that one result is derived from the culture of knowledge and that a different result is obtained from the culture of nescience.

One who is intelligent cultivates the knowledge that enables himself to be free from material nature and go back to Godhead. The unintelligent cultivate nescience to enable themselves to obtain another material body, often in the lower species of life, at the time of death.

From the purport to Isopanishad, Mantra 10:

The universities are, so to speak, centers of nescience only; consequently scientists are busy discovering lethal weapons to wipe out the existence of other countries. University students today are not given instructions in the regulative principles of brahmacarya (celibate student life), nor do they have any faith in any scriptural injunctions.

Seeing the writing ability of Mother Vrajabhumi on her Hare Krishna Women blog, she would seem quite intelligent by mundane standards. Unfortunately she uses her intelligence to blaspheme Srila Prabhupada, and therefore is duskrtina:

The atheistic plan-makers are described herein by the word Duskritina, or "miscreants." Kritina means one who has performed meritorious work. The atheist plan-maker is sometimes very intelligent and meritorious also, because any gigantic plan, good or bad, must take intelligence to execute. But because the atheist's brain is improperly utilized in its opposition to the plan of the Supreme Lord, the atheistic plan-maker is called Duskritina, which indicates that his intelligence and efforts are misdirected.

>>> Ref. VedaBase => 15: Those miscreants who are grossly foolish, lowest among Mankind, whose knowledge is stolen by illusion, and who are of the atheistic nature of demons, do not surrender unto Me.

An atheist is one who rejects Vedic knowledge, which is received through guru parampara.

Again:

"So anyone who has got unflinching faith in God and similar faith in guru, then the Vedic purpose becomes revealed to him. Yasya deve para bhaktir yatha deve tatha gurau, tasyaite kathita hy arthah. The Vedic mantras and their artha becomes revealed. This is the process."

We have to have unflinching faith in Srila Prabhupada. Each time apply our mundane so-called knowledge and judge Srila Prabhupad unfavorably by it, we take in the direction of atheism. By that process, our "intelligence" delivers us to hell. Without unflinching faith in God and guru, the best we can get is repeated birth and death.

Speaking of going to hell, one "Swami Iconoclast" commented on my blog yesterday. He has a new blog apparently devoted to introducing doubt about Srila Prabhupada to devotees. For example, he has a recent post titled, Srila Prabhupada's World War III Prophesy. Actually, I heard that one recently on my mp3 player, and I admit I wasn't sure what to make of it. None the less, as I hear Srila Prabhupada speak, I feel my intelligence becoming purified. Whatever he says, when I listen with unflinching faith, I can feel Srila Prabhupda's merciful embrace, protecting me from the bad influences of Kali yuga. With every word I hear from Srila Prabhupada's lotus mouth, I feel closer and closer to becoming Krishna conscious. His words are very pleasing to my heart, and as I listen to him, I often notice that there is love for Srila Prabhupada growing in my heart. This love is my treasure. I know my way back home, back to Godhead. It is through unflinching faith in the words of Srila Prabhupada.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

Where are my pictures?

2008-06-16T07:12:00.000-04:00

Can anyone tell me why the scythe pictures I uploaded to oppositerule.blogspot.com via Picassa did not show up on PlanetISKCON?

I'm not sure how the picture of Sri Sri Radha Damodara got there, though of course I'm happy to see it. I took that picture months ago.

I don't see anyone else having trouble with pictures. Who knows what's going on?

Hare Krishna

(Sent from my BlackBerry)

Prasada-powered lawn mower

2008-06-16T01:03:00.002-04:00

Hare Krishna. I’ve been frustrated with my Wordpress blog, with the difficulty updating the software and with posting pictures in particular, so I’m trying out my old Blogger site. These pictures are about three weeks old, which is how long it’s taken me to decide that I give up trying to do this with Wordpress. Hopefully it’ll work OK.

Here are a few pictures showing how I like to mow the lawn. (Actually most of the lawn mowing is done by the cow, sheep, and goats, but more about them another day…) I renounced the modern style of lawnmower when I was a teenager. I just hated them. So instead I got a European-style scythe. I believe my blade was made in Austria. They're forged by blacksmiths specializing in making scythe blades. Most people are familiar with the American kind. The American ones are much heavier and are sharpened on a grinder. Not this one though. Sharpening these is a two-step process, and is very graceful. In the first picture I'm peening the blade. It's a process of flattening the edge between a hammer and anvil. A scythe blade is specially made to be able to do this cold. This peening hammer has a long and narrow hitting surface. With repeated taps the metal flattens and pushes towards the edge, where it's flattened by more peening. It actually does make a sound like "peen," loud enough that I have to wear ear plugs. If I get a good rhythm going, it sounds somewhat musical. This process makes the edge extremely sharp.

In the second picture I'm honing the blade with a whetstone. This makes the blade extra sharp, so that when it slices across blades of grass, they cut with almost no resistance. While I’m out cutting grass, after about 10 minutes I usually notice that it takes a little more work to slice the blade through the grass, so I’ll pull the whetstone out of its holder, where it sits in a little water, and spend a minute honing the blade again. It’s a nice pattern of movement, cutting for ten minutes, then stopping for one to bring the blade back to its sharpest.

The third picture shows cutting in action. Here I’m in the garden, and it’s a little overgrown. There’s part of a tarp in view, which is there to keep weeds down. That’s where the garden beds will be. Under this tarp is just one small area. The actual garden bed area totals about 1000 square feet (93 square meters), not counting what’s under this tarp, which hasn’t been planted yet. (It’ll be soon.) When I’m ready to make the beds, I’ll remove the tarp and bring some compost over and spread it either in rows or wider beds. Then I take a pick (looks like what Lord Balarama carries) and till the ground through the compost, bringing up dirt and putting some of the compost down into the ground. Having the tarp helps a lot. (Mostly I use 6 mil black plastic, but this old tarp also works quite well.) Although, as you can see, the grass is growing quite tall, when remove the tarp it will be bare dirt.

The final picture shows some progress. Only a small portion of the garden is shown. It goes almost all the way back to the barn (shown in the background) and is about twice the width that you can see here.) A few garden beds from last year are exposed. (This was about three weeks ago – these are all planted now.) In the foreground to the right are pots with strawberries growing. There are more pots now, since we dug up strawberries from the area to the right of the shade tree. Lettuce and spinach are growing under that tree now, and to the right of the shade is a nice asparagus patch. On the uncut side of the fence is the yard where the kids play. They like the grass long. Sometimes I bring the cow in to take care of the yard. She likes it a lot. I'll introduce her soon.

That's enough for now. Hopefully this will look right when it gets on the web. Hare Krishna.

2008-06-15T21:21:00.001-04:00

(Sent from my BlackBerry)

OppositeRule Photoblog

2008-02-15T10:58:00.001-05:00

Sri Sri Radha-Damodara
Hare Krishna

Madhavi sleeping

2006-05-02T23:11:00.000-04:00

New baby: Madhava-sangini

2006-05-02T22:58:00.000-04:00

2006-04-13T23:55:00.000-04:00

Krishna Priya

Krishna Priya and family

2006-03-25T11:00:00.000-05:00

This blog has moved...

2005-09-04T23:13:00.000-04:00

Click below to go there:

oppositerule.naturama.us

Hare Krishna

Brahmanas?

2005-09-02T09:10:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna.

It's become quite clear that the "brahmanas" on the Gita-nagari boards whom I have been speaking with have been lying to me. I imagine those brahmana threads must be feeling quite heavy. I can almost see the Yamaduttas eager to grab these threads to pull them down to their master's court.

Mostly all this lying has been about the three or four secret meetings they had in August to impeach me.

Of course, my committing of such serious crimes requre desperate measures, so I guess I ought to expect them to lie about secret meetings... Lets review my crimes, for the record:

speaking up in defense of a young female rape victim, when the Guru-of-Gita-nagari Bhakti Tirtha Swami favored the rapist; and
trying to enforce ISKCON law keeping Srila Prabhupada as the prominent guru so that disciples of all gurus can feel welcome at Gita-nagari.

For these very serious crimes, I've been presented with papers designed (in the secret meetings) to give a method for me to be easily impeached. The gist of it is that everyone must behave as a Vaishnava, and apparently what constitues Vaishnava or non-Vaishnava behavior is decided by the other board members. Since 78% of the board members are disciples of Bhakti-Tirtha, it's clear that they will do whatever they want.

Being quite tired of associating with liar-brahmanas, I offered to resign if they would give me plausible details on the secret meetings (dates and minutes) but they can't do it. The catch is that by doing so, Jagannatha Pandit, who seems to be acting as the ring-leader of all this dirty politics, will be caught in another lie about the whole ordeal. He told me that he thought I didn't want to know about the meetings, but he knows that I told him on August 13 that I did want to meet with them, and he saw that as early as about August 3 that I had stepped up to the political plate again.

I sent an e-mail about a week or so ago sent an e-mail to all the board members asking for information about these meetings, but so far only Jagannatha pandit has replied. He provided me with the minutes of a meeting that I voluntarily skipped, and claimed that he didn't have the info about the other meetings. (Incidentally, the minutes revealed a detail that showed me that the Temple President, Advaita Acarya prabhu, had lied to me near the beginning of this month.) I went to the temple a few days ago to try to find out about these meetings, but somehow no one I asked could remember anything about them. It's strange that secret meetings convened to impeach another member could be so easy to forget, especially for brahmanas, who are supposed to have such sharp intelligence, the brain of society.

Hare Krishna.

moving to Wordpress, and a quick note...

2005-09-01T00:52:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna. I'm in the process of getting set up with Wordpress. Hopefully tomorrow I can load all these posts over to there, with comments...

Another quick note... Last night we had a 'session' with a channeled 'entity' whom we've been learning from over the past ten years. The 'channeled entity' was named by "The Woman" (as 'they' refer to her) as "Our Friends." They've explained that they're neither singular nor plural in identity, and they have no names where they come from, because there are no secrets. Upon meeting 'each other,' their complete identities are known, so names are sort of useless. Anyway, that's how they've explained it.

So anyway, we got their perspective on the stuff that's been on our minds lately. Next week we should have the tape, and then we'll work on transcribing it.

Along with the new blog site (location: TBA), we've got a new web host, and so I might even be able to figure out how to upload a mp3 of the thing, although with my super-slow dialup connection (right now 28.8 Kbps, which I call "high-speed," compared to our usual 26.4) it might take all night or more to upload.

Anyway, now I'm getting overtired. Hare Krishna.

A relief

2005-08-29T23:10:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna.

I spoke to His Holiness Bhaktimarga Swami on the phone. It was a relief. Actually I was a little afraid when he called, because I've been so freaked out over the issues, and even suffered a momentary loss of faith in him. I think that perhaps this loss of faith was a rebellion agains the mind-games that the Gita-nagari board-member Jagannatha Pandit das has been playing with me. It's complicated enough that I don't feel I can explain it right now, if I even understand it.

I do not accept what Bhaktimarga Swami says to me because he says it; I accept what he says because he has a very healthy view of Srila Prabhupada's position in ISKCON and because he is humble and devoted to Sri Krishna, and is a faithful servant of Srila Prabhupada. I felt my confidence restored by speaking with him. In the past few days I have figured out the heart of the problem at Gita-nagari, which is that Bhakti Tirtha Swami's disciples here are not honoring Srila Prabhupada properly, as a special personality whose unique position as Founder-Acarya of ISKCON is the key to maintaining unity in ISKCON throughout the ages to come. I felt that Bhaktimarga Swami could understand this, and that he was concerned and will do what it takes to help. What a load off of me!

It's about time I've been able to write something good here. I was feeling almost drowned in the problems I've been facing at Gita-nagari, but now I have hope again.

Hare Krishna.

a glimpse of the dark side of ISKCON

2005-08-27T22:33:00.000-04:00

[August 29 updates]

Hare Krishna. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I am not supposed to be writing this.

I had that meeting on Thursday with the Gita-nagari Community Board members. The following words come to mind when I think of that meeting:

deception
lies
dirty politics
mind games
betrayal
twisted
double-standards
sacrilege

Today is Srila Prabhupada's appearance day, and I feel I have no choice but to take shelter of Srila Prabhupada and pray to Krishna for protection.

At one point in the meeting I told the other two community board members that I felt that someone had betrayed me and undermined my relationship with my guru. I did not know who, nor could I guess, but it seemed obvious that someone had complained to him about me. I talked about how I felt that someone had framed the situation so that I looked bad, presenting "my views" in a way that made my guru prejucided against me and kept me from being able to get to the essence of my concerns.

They asked me what made me think someone complained and influenced him to chastise me for writing here. One of them asked why I thought someone had done that; and I told them that he had brought up issues that we hadn't talked about and he wouldn't have heard unless someone had complained to him. The devotee asked why it had to be a complaint rather than simply an issue that was brought up. That sounded ridiculous to me, since we've spent so much time talking about my offenses. (Remember that these offenses were my pointing out their guru close friendships with known child molesters, one of whom was a diabolical cult-leader and strongly believed by many to be a murderer; and his acceptance of a level of worship that is reserved for Srila Prabhupada, by ISKCON law.)

I went on about how I felt betrayed by that, and that it undermined my relationship with my guru. I think I made it quite clear that I thought it was a very bad thing for someone to do to me, to go behind my back and influence my guru to chastise me to get me to stop doing something I felt was the right thing to do. I told them that I felt someone had called him and told him to get his disciple into line. I said that I was trying to do what he said, but that I didn't fully agree with it personally. They suggested that maybe he'd been to my blog, but I explained my reasons for doubting that. For quite some time this line of discussion went on.

[August 28, 2005, UPDATE: I'm making this small because I'm embarrassed at having wrote it.] I mentioned that I tried to ask Bhaktimarga Swami earlier that day who had talked to him about me (which was an important question that I had been determined to find out from him), but after I explained to him that I was concerned that someone had gone to him and misrepresented things, he changed the subject instead of answering me. (Later Leslie and I remembered that first weird phone call about a week ago, after he brought up a 'foreign' topic, he commented, "I don't know where I heard that.")

I then directly asked if they knew if anyone had complained to my guru about me, and one devotee replied, "No." He was then visibly uncomfortable for a little while, obviously stewing in the juices of a lie, and then both of them admitted they had talked with my spiritual master (though not a complaint but out of their concern for me and my spiritual growth, was the story).

They also told me later that they (present company, not my guru) had several meetings since I had last met with them, some just the community board, and some in joint with the temple board. The obvious goal of these meetings was to lay the foundation to impeach me from the community board, as evidenced by the conduct document they wanted me to sign.

[August 28 addition: I wanted to know why I was not informed about these meetings and invited to them, as was my right. An excuse was given that earlier in the month I had said that I was so hurt by the consistend maltreatement by Bhakti-Tirtha Swami's disciples that I needed to take a break from the politics at Gita-nagari. Just a few days after I said I needed a break from BTSwami disciple politics [click here for more info], a proposed mission statement was released, which I thought was very poorly written, and so I stepped back into the political ring and proposed another. I never said I did not want to be notified of meetings. I was surprised that On August 13, almost two weeks prior to this meeting, I directly informed this board member that I was ready to meet with them again. It is notable that the Sunday Program on August 21 was cancelled without explanation (did they meet that day?), and the 'rectification plan' for my offenses and the proposed agreement for providing a means to impeach a board member were both dated August 24. I find it quite implausable that there were no meetings that I had a right to attend after I had given notification of my intent to resume my duties on the Gita-nagari Community Board.]

I feel quite clear that I am dealing with a power cult. I maintain my faith in Krishna and Srila Prabhupada, but I feel that those transcendental personalities could get no direct pleasure from the dirty politics that are going on on this corner of ISKCON, [Aug 28 update: and that these behaviors of Bhakti Tirtha Swami's disciples are not being done to please Srila Prabhupada or Sri Krishna, but only to advance these so-called devotees' personal agendas.] Under their influence, even my guru tried to deceive me, and apparently lied to me too.

How fitting that I am finding no alternative on Srila Prabhupada's appearance day but to take shelter of His Divine Grace, and desperately praying to Krishna to please again reveal Himself to me and begging for His mercy. Hare Krishna.

P.S. I'm also seeing several signs that Kirtanananda, whom I estimate to be a graduate of Satan's school of deception, is making his way back into ISKCON, and being welcomed with open arms.

a little update

2005-08-25T14:47:00.000-04:00

August 25, 2005.

Hare Krishna

I spoke on the phone with my guru maharaj, His Holiness Bhaktimarga Swami, about an hour ago. He seems quite concerned about my relationship with Iskcon and especially with the Gita-nagari community. He said that the two of us should maintain a more open dialogue with each other, so that the issues that have been bothering me can be addressed. I want to try that.

My goal is to serve Srila Prabhupada, ultimately to add what little I can to Krishna's happiness, and I've made the choice and repeatedly reaffirmed that I should do that within Iskcon. My faith in the integrity of Iskcon fluctuates quite a bit; but I do have confidence, or maybe call it hope, that it can develop into something very pleasing to Srila Prabhupada.

Obviously I see that there are problems, some of them quite serious; but I do not think I can have any real impact on them from outside Iskcon or without being trusted by other devotees within.

In a few hours I have a meeting scheduled with the other two Gita-nagari community board members. I have no idea how that will go. I would not be going to the meeting if I didn't think we could work out our differences. I'll have to wait to see if they feel like that too. I know that if we can, it would be very pleasing to Srila Prabhupada; so I will try to do my part.

Hare Krishna

Fwd: Kirtanananda exemption?

2005-08-24T11:30:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna.

Please note that I've re-structured this so that you can read it from top to bottom in the order that it was written. Ordinarily I would edit out the private response to me, except that I feel that this is a matter of public importance and the possibilty that it would be made public was (begrudgingly) acknowledged. So here it is...

---------- Forwarded message ----------

August 23, 2005
Pandu Das wrote:

Dear Tamohara prabhu,

Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

First, thank you for notifying me of the update to VPd's appeal ruling.

I'm actually writing to ask you if there was a formal exemption made to allow Kirtanananda to visit Bhakti-Tirtha Swami a few months ago (by invitation) at the IFAST "Institute House" bordering Gita-nagari. I'm under the impression IFAST is an "ISKCON-affiliated project" based on the facts that it was founded by an ISKCON guru-GBC-sannyasi, and that it's prominently advertised on the www.gitanagari.com web site.

Based on the information given here:

http://www.chakra.org/announcements/AOtherJun20_04_02.html

it would seem that this visit was in violation of the October 25, 2000, CPO decision.

Was this visit authorized by the CPO?

Hare Krishna

Yours in Srila Prabhupada's service,

Pandu das

On 8/23/05, tamohara wrote:

Dear Pandu Prabhu,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

First, I have to share my true feelings with you. At this point, I am reluctant to enter into any corresponsdence with you, as the last time I tried to discuss points with you, and provide information, you used that information to publicly attack me. I have to say I felt a little betrayed, as I thought you wanted to sincerely work with me to assist child protection. So, I am not sure what your motives are. However, even knowing that anything I say to you will probably end up on a public Internet site, I will take a chance and directly answer your question.

This is the first that I have heard of Kirtananda visiting Bhakti Tirtha Maharaja. I was never asked about an exemption, and never granted one. I know nothing about IFAST, or what its status is in regards to ISKCON.
Your servant,

Tamohara das

From: Pandu Das
Date: Aug 23, 2005 1:10 PM
Subject: Re: Kirtanananda exemption?
To: tamohara

Dear Tamohara prabhu,

Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances.. All glories to Srila Prabhpada.

Thanks for answering my question, but more important, thank you for opening a discussion of our feelings about the dealings we've had in the past few months.

I regretted putting your name at the top of my "open letter to the CPO." I'm sorry for that. However I do feel that, unfortunately, the letter was necessary. The public, especially those who are presently involved with Iskcon, have a right to know what is the state of affairs related to child protection in Iskcon. I feel this is very important.

I started reading Srila Prabhupada's books and chanting Hare Krishna in 1995. Two years later I moved to New Vrindavana with my wife and our 9-month old daughter. We had no idea that any crimes had taken place there, and had assumed, based on my reading of Srila Prabhupada's books, that it was a safe and ideal place to raise my children. After a few months we started hearing little bits of information, whispers in remote places, about the horrors that had taken place there. After 8 months we left at night, frightened that we had naively moved into the lion's den. I was entirely unable to comprehend what had happened to Srila Prabhupada's movement. Gradually I was able to restore my faith, based on continuing to chant Hare Krishna and reading Srila Prabhupada's books, which I still felt were spiritually pure. Still I was unable to figure out what happened to Iskcon. As more years passed, the issues I discovered at New Vrindavana faded into the background, and my faith in Iskcon grew; however my concerns had not actually been resolved, just forgotten.

Then there was the lawsuit and recent settlement. I was very glad that the gurukulis had sued, because I saw it as my chance to find out what had really happened, and for Iskcon to get a fresh start. I reluctantly helped raised money for Gita-nagari's share of the settlement, but I felt cynical about the whole thing. I wanted to know the truth about who had hurt so many Hare Krishna children so badly, and I felt that the settlement was offered largely to keep this knowledge secret -- to protect the guilty who remain in Iskcon. Although I was not directly affected by the child abuse, my faith in Iskcon was deeply wounded by it; and my ability to carry out Srila Prabhupada's wish that we preach and attract others to his movement is seriously hampered because I do not trust that Iskcon is a safe place.

You have been given the monumental task, as director of the CPO, of helping to restore the confidence in Iskcon that has been stolen from me and so many others. I need to know that Iskcon is not a haven for child abusers. I don't expect you do do all the work; I'm doing everything I can too, but I need your help. This is immensely important to me, and I feel reasonably certain that there are many innocent devotees who are waiting for Iskcon to feel safe again for them and their children too. We are not remotely satisfied by vague statements intended to make us feel that things are being taken care of and everything's alright. We are watching closely to be sure.

I wrote that public letter to you right after I had received a public violent threat against me for politely asking if anyone knew Bhakti Tirtha Swami's opinion on Vakresvara's case. That threat was followed by about half a dozen other devotees condemning me for my question. I had also been feeling very frustrated with my dealings with you. I had been asking you questions about the case that I felt everyone in Iskcon had a right to know; but it seemed like you would only give answers in a way that was calculated to string me along and keep me submissive. I did not like having to beg for information, but that was the only thing that would work. When you finally gave me the appeal decision, I was grateful to get it, but then I realized that it said loud and clear that Iskcon does not really care whether a person is found guilty of child abuse as long as they serve the leaders nicely. I wrote the public letter to prove that. (Extending the restrictions for 2 years is like a cookie when we need a hearty meal. A man who cannot apologize for rape has no business in a spiritual society. The original decision was right about that.)

Since then, I've heard from several other devotees who have pointed to other cases that also indicate that shameful fact about Iskcon leadership. I've been at my wit's end for a long time over this, and I'm just going on day by day hoping for some realization on how to best nurture my family's spiritual lives. I am simply praying to Krishna for protection, and trying my best to keep an open mind about whom to trust. Mostly I'm looking for honesty and straightforward relationsips, so I appreciate that you have shared some of your feelings with me. I regret that I have given you a negative impression of me, but I remain duty-bound. I am committed to serving Sri Krishna through Srila Prabhupada, and I hope that you are not too offended by me, so that we can cooperate with each other for our mutual spiritual benefit and to help restore people's faith that Iskcon is a place of spiritual integrity where everyone can feel safe to develop their love of Krishna.

I hope that this should make clear my motives.

Hare Krishna.

Yours truly in Srila Prabhupada's service,

Pandu das

Comments on Vakresvara Pandit das' "Official Decision Clarification"

2005-08-24T08:29:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna

In the past day or so, a "Vakresvara Pandit das Decision Clarification" was published on the Internet. I have a few comments. The colored text, by the way, is a link to the letter and document, so I won't copy the whole thing here.

"The appeal judges basically confirmed the original verdict that he was
responsible for sexual abuse of a minor."

It's interesting to note here that it doesn't say "consentual" sexual abuse of a minor. In the 2002 official decision it was described that the sex was consentual, and in the official decision of the appeal panel the word "consentual" was used several times. I wrote publicly to the CPO with several complaints about appeal panel's decision, and one important point was that the sexual activities were not consentual.

http://www.chakra.org/discussions/GurJul25_05.html

There are certain implications in the word consent, such as the fact that the persons consenting must be sufficiently competent. In the United States and in "civilized" countries around the world, children are by law not competent to give consent to sex. In this case Vakresvara Pandit was about 40 and the girl was 13 when she supposedly consented to sex. In the USA, each state has its own laws relating to sexual crimes, and all fifty states there are no circumstances when a thirteen year old can consent to sex. In Texas, where the CPO found that Vakresvara had sex with this girl seven or eight times over a year's time, the law would have permitted him to have sex with an eighteen year old (although ISKCON supposedly has more stringent rules, of course); or two minor children can have sex with each other as long as they are both fourteen years of age or older; or if the couple is married, they can also have sex if one is an adult and the other is at least 14 years old. In every state in the USA, and in almost every country in the world, it is always rape to have sex with a thirteen year old child, so-called consent notwithstanding. Although the case, due to procedural obstacles, did not go to trial, the crimes that the CPO determined Vakresvara committed with this girl constituted aggravated sexual assault (rape) and indecency with a minor. If convicted by the state, he almost certainly would have died in prision.

So the undeniable fact is that the sex was not consentual, however the appeal panel clearly based their decision to reduce his penalty on their misunderstanding about consent. Someone may counter, "But they fixed that mistake by changing the end of the restrictions back to July 26, 2007." Actually that's not true.

"Due to a variety of circumstances that were explored at length, the judges
decided that all sanctions would end after 3 years... their intent was that restrictions should be followed for three full years, and thus, all restrictions against Vakresvara Pandit will remain in effect until July 26, 2007."

The original rectification plan began with two very important requirements. The first was that he must write a letter of apology to his victim, taking full responsibility for his sexual crimes. The second was that he was required to pay her a restitution of $3,000. Although I have been unable to get official answers about these issues from the CPO (why so much stonewalling by the CPO?), it is clear that he has done neither. The consequences for his failure to do either of these things is that he is banned from ISKCON. There was no time limit on these conditions, and the appeal decision did not address them at all.

This brings my analysis to consideration of Bhakti Tirtha Swami's welcoming Vakresvara to Gita-nagari. I have been repeatedly told by BT Swami's disciples that he did this to give mercy to Vakresvara, and this position was even echoed to me by my guru maharaj Bhaktimarga Swami. I consider it a fatally flawed argument because of the fact that Vakresvara Pandit das does not even have enough care for ISKCON to apologize for raping a girl, even when his apology is offically stated as a criteria for him to have any contact with ISKCON. If a rapist is not even sorry, if he is such a lowlife that he won't even apologize to a girl he raped when he's told that his participation in ISKCON depends upon it, then there can be no mercy given to him by anyone. Or, the effect of such mercy would change his heart so that he would apologize.

Why doesn't ISKCON care about showing mercy to the girl he raped? If Bhakti Tirtha Swami had so much mercy to give, why didn't he give some to Vakresvara's victim? What about justice? When there is lawlessness, Krishna comes as punishment (BG 10:38).

The victim wrote to the GBC Executive Committee,

"Will the original consequences stated in the decision be followed
through on once his actions of not complying are found to be true? . . . This is
all I am asking at this point. I feel that I have been very patient in this
whole process. Please let me remind you that it is still very painful for me
over ten years after it occurred. . . . It is once more a plea to please not
take any part in letting this happen again to another girl..."

Why does ISKCON repeatedly side with sexual predators and negelect the victims?

Hare Krishna

Just to clarify...

2005-08-22T21:43:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna.

Today was quite a blogging day here. I was obviously upset this morning, and I released a little of my frustration. A bunch of comments came in, which makes this all pretty exciting. For several months I was just typing to myself here as if no one would read it, but now it seems that several devotees are coming to see how I’m doing. I really appreciate all your emotional support. I hope that everyone feels free to express their disagreement with me if you feel I’m mixed up. Certainly I’m reacting to some overwhelming feelings right now, it’s not my normal personality. But they are feelings that I’ve actually been having, and I feel the need to express them whether anyone comes to read them or not. I also want you to know that each of you has been helping me in different ways, so thank you.

I want to clarify my position a little. Why have I been picking on Bhakti-Tirtha Swami? There are so many devotees out there, and also quite a lot of so-called non-devotees. Materially, there are so many faults. I see my own faults every day, up close. I'm fine with all these "ordinary" devotees and "karmis." I love it when anyone chants Hare Krishna, and I glorify the devotees in my heart, feeling bad that I cannot get the dust from their feet; and I also get along every day with all kinds of folks. No problem there.

I’ve been picking on Bhakti-Tirtha Swami because he’s been widely portrayed by his disciples and others, including himself, as a pure devotee. One of the qualities of a pure devotee of Sri Krishna is that no one can find fault with him. His disciples have been so desperate for him to be a pure devotee that they’ve been willing to condemn or even threaten me for simply asking a question about something that I saw as problematic.

"NEVER and i repeat NEVER try to implicate HIS DIVINE GRACE BHAKTI THIRTA SWAMI KRSNAPADA because this time i am able to control myself but next time i may not be able to do so and the resultant action may be very DEVASTATING to both of us."

The context is displayed here:
http://oppositerule.blogspot.com/2005/07/response-to-hari-chakra-prabhu.html

After this threat, I apologized to Hari Chakra prabhu for upsetting him (but he did not apologize for threatening me) , but then something swelled up inside of me, a response to a challenge that I didn’t ask for but couldn’t help but meet. All I wanted was to understand why Bhakti-Tirtha Swami felt it was OK to apparently contradict an Iskcon Child Protection Office decision. Between the threats and the abundant condemnation that I received, I realized that I was being told that Bhakti-Tirtha Swami was so perfect that I was not allowed to question his actions. I was being forced to believe that he was infallible. He was being given, and he’d accepted, honorific titles that are by Iskcon law reserved for Srila Prabhupada. He was being favorably compared to Vasudeva Datta and to Jesus Christ. He was being invoked with “All glories to the Sena pati, Nitya Lila Om Vishnupad Parivrajakacaryaasothara-sata His Divine Grace Srila Bhakti-tirtha Swami Krishnapada ki JAI!!!” A book is being written describing how he fulfills all the qualities of a pure devotee (although they’re having trouble getting that together).

As I quoted last week from Sri Caitanya Caritamrita, Madha Lila 10.182:, over-glorification constitues blasphemy, and I’ve felt that this portrayal of Bhakti-Tirtha Swami was inappropriate. If I had not been threatened, condemned, and told that I could not ask any pointed question, then I probably would not have gotten on this track. I would be having a good time at Gita-nagari as usual. However instead of getting the understanding I asked for, those other things happened, and so here we are.

Hare Krishna.

Your servant,
Pandu das

Sadhu Sanga

2005-08-22T11:28:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna.

Twenty-five years ago, when I was 8 years old, I decided that finding out if God was real was the most important thing in life; and that if I did find out that God was indeed real, then pleasing Him would be the most important thing.

About thirteen years ago I dedicated myself to the pursuit of spiritual knowledge. I still didn't know if God existed, but I knew something spiritual was the basis for everything.

A little less than ten years ago Srila Prabhupada introduced me to Sri Krishna through Bhagavad-gita As It Is. Based on that mystical darshan of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, I felt such faith in Krishna that I thought the word faith was too small to describe it.

I moved to New Vrindavana in 1997 with my family, completely unaware of the dark side of Iskcon. We left at night, 8 months later, shocked by what we'd learned about Iskcon's past. It took three months for me to recover.

A few years later, Iskcon's dark side crept into my mind again, and my faith waned. I remember being in a hotel for a week-long training at for my environmental job, bored, when a friend gave me a little Salvia divinorum to try. In a moment I lost my body, found my soul, and went looking for Krishna. Somehow this pinch of Diviners' Sage made me remember why I was so excited about chanting Hare Krishna. That was almost 5 years ago.

About 2 1/2 years ago, my desire to please Srila Prabhupada was strong enough that I took the vows of initiation, praying with all my heart that I would always advance in my devotion to Krishna.

In the few months that Bhakti Tirtha Swami was at Gita-nagari, preparing to die there, my faith in Iskcon hit dropped so much that I'm writing as you see below...

Despair or schadenfreude?

2005-08-22T09:30:00.000-04:00

It seems that my predominant spiritual mood has graduated from sadness to despair. I remain unable to comprehend the mercy of The Uttama Super-Duper Grandiose Ultra-Wonderful Eternal Cosmic Guru Om Sri Sri Om Sri Sri Sri Bhakti Tirtha Swami Om Krishnapada. Due to His Perfect Super-Divine Gracefulness, I have gone, in about four months, from being totally enthusiastic in pursuit of Krishna consciousness to feeling almost dead. [atma-ha]

I could not understand how a spiritual man could give preference to an unrepentant predatory child molester over his victim, and I was foolish enough to ask his disciples for help. I should have known not to question the Super-Perfect Ultra-Wonderful Guru of Unlimited Mercy. I should have known; but as an ordinary, mundane, spiritually blind, deaf, and dumb, ignorant and unsurrendered sinful fool, I could not figure out the causeless mercy that elevates an unrepentant predatory child molester to the level of a Krishna-conscious sannyasi without the molester even being sorry about his crimes. I could not figure out how forgiving and honoring unrepentant child molesters would increase the glory of Srila Prabhupada’s movement, and so now I suffer for my insubordination. I’m stuck in a deep, dark pit of ignorance, buried under tons of Vashnava guru-aparadha, with no hope in sight. Yesterday one of my goats ate most of the counting beads on my japa bag. It is truly incredible, the mercy of the Om Sri Sri Om Sri Sri Sri Ultra-Guru of the Cosmos.

The predatory sickos rise, and the wanna-be righteous fall. “You’re being so offensive, prabhu,” his disciples tell me. Well I just can’t help it.

Hare Krishna.

.anhsirK eraH

I called this blog “The Opposite Rule,” based on a realization I had on my first day of Krishna Consciousness (October 7, 1995) that spiritual life is almost the opposite of what I thought, before I heard the term “perverted reflection.” Spiritual life continues to amaze me, but not the way I thought it would. Hare Krishna. Maybe I could start a business selling crack to gurukuli kids, making them my drug-slaves; then I might qualify as the most fallen and worthy of Om Srila Krishnapada’s mercy. (Actually the things they’ve already done to the gurukulis were worse, but I can’t bear to write or think about such sickening things or even joke about doing things like that.) Presently my attachment to mundane righteousness and reason is just dragging me down and down and down. Despair.

P.S. The official Word of the Day is…. schadenfreude: a malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others.
I wonder who out there is happy to see me crash and burn like this.

Lord Balaram's appearance day. I hope He had a better day than I did.

2005-08-19T20:54:00.000-04:00

[update: August 21, 2005, 6:40 p.m... I originally posted the the entry below on Friday night, but then removed it when I woke up at around 2 a.m. with a terrible headache. I'm putting it back because my feeling of depression and critical loss of faith in Iskcon continues unabated.]

Hare Krishna.

Today is Lord Balarama's appearance day. I've been very depressed all day. Last night Bhaktimarga Swami called me on the phone, the second day in a row. We were outside and missed the call, but my wife and I called him back a short time later.

It seemed like someone had complained about me to him, and that he felt obligated to curtail the disturbance I've been making. Of course, I don't know for sure, but that's the way it seemed. He brought up topics that we hadn't talked about before, and I know he doesn't surf the internet, so it seemed obvious that someone had contacted him with some complaints. In some of the matters he was supportive, and in others he was not. Specifically, it seems that he was friends with Bhakti Tirtha Swami, and he seemed to dislike that I had a problem with him. However, in his support of BTSwami on the matter of his honoring Vakresvara Pandit, he presented points that I had considered a long time ago but felt were very weak. Others had presented the same arguments, and I had refuted them soundly. But this was my guru presenting them, so I couldn't argue. I just listened to them and tried to understand, but it made me uncomfortable. Why does Iskcon continue to support child molesters?

After we got off the phone I felt upset that I had been betrayed by some anonymous person who had come between my guru and me. It was unfair because he already had a prejudiced conception of what was bothering me, and it was somewhat off the mark. Since he apparently thought he knew what I was disturbed about, he didn't give me much chance to explain what was really upsetting me. As I said, on some points he was supportive, but it was very disheartening to hear him give easily refutable arguments on issues that I don't think about much anymore (having given up on hoping a good answer), treating them as if they were still prominent in my mind. I felt that someone else had interfered in our relationship, and that was a gross breach of human etiquette, what to speak of Vaishnava etiquette. It makes me ill to think of some lowlife undermining my relationship with my guru by criticizing me to him without my knowing who it was or what was said.

A few days ago I heard that one of my friends was betrayed in the same way by one of Bhakti Tirtha Swami's disciples. I continue to lose respect for them.

So it was a very depressing day, enough that it made me feel ill. I have a few more rounds to chant, and then I want to go to bed. Hare Krishna.

as you wish...

2005-08-19T13:30:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna.

I'm getting requests for the book I mentioned in my previous blog entry. My wife bought it off a table from a devotee supplied by Krishna Culture. I think we bought her last one. But here's where anyone can get one...

http://tinyurl.com/cbnyr

Our Srila Prabhupada A Friend to All / Early Contemporaries Remember Him compiled by Mulaprakrti devi dasi, who collected these interviews in the final years of her life. They are grouped in chapters: Calcutta From the 1920's, Allahabad from the 1930's, Navadvipa & Calcutta from the 1940's, Jhansi from the 1950's; Vrindavana, Mathura and Delhi from 1954; Radha Damodara Mandira from 1959; and ISKCON from 1967. Over 70 of his contemporary friends tell how Srila Prabhupada touched their hearts and lives. Soft, 306 pp., 120 photos, $9

an interesting quote.

2005-08-18T21:46:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna.

My wife recently bought a book of interviews of devotees who knew Srila Prabhupada mostly from before he came to America. It's called Our Srila Prabhupada, a Friend to All. We haven't read the whole book yet, but something on pages 44-45 caught our attention, in an interview with Srila Bhakti Vaibhava Puri Maharaj. I don't know anything about this devotee other than the brief introduction it says in this book. But anyway, here's the quote:

Once I said to him, 'Maharaja, you should survive for ten more
years.' He answered, 'how can I survive? You see my pulse.' I
saw that his pulse was not moving. I said, 'Unless you stay, these Western disciples won't unite. They are strong-headed and they will fight. You must put them in line with our tradition.' Previously I said, 'Maharaja, you have established some gurus but Guru must be one.' He said, 'I have not selected. Only rtviks to act in my place now.' I said, 'After your demise they will be gurus. Unless you bless a guru to sit on the vyasasana, they must go down.' He said, 'What to do? Everything is Krsna's will.' Then after some time in Vrndavana he passed away.

Hare Krishna.

reflections on a phone call from my guru

2005-08-17T15:57:00.000-04:00

This morning I was fortunate to receive a telephone call from my guru maharaj, His Holiness Bhaktimarga Swami. We had a fairly long discussion (a half-hour) about some of the difficult issues I have been confronting in ISKCON. It would be hard to summarize the conversation since I was simply absorbed in the discussion. He has always been supportive of me in my spiritual life and sense of duty, and he gave no indication of any change in that mood. I explained that I want to try to heal the hurt relationships but not neglect the issues, and he expressed his approval of that.

He spoke highly about His Holiness Bhakti-Tirtha Swami, in terms of his support of child protection and such things, and repeated that Bhakti-Tirtha Swami had expressed his high regard for my wife and me. I have also felt that mood (of protecting the helpless) from Bhakti-Tirtha Swami; which was why I was confused by his honoring of someone whom the CPO had found to be child molester and especially one who was unrepentant about it, and why I was upset by the reactions of his disciples when I asked if anyone knew his perspective on the issue.

I did not want or expect so much anger to manifest over these issues. It was all simply that I had wanted to learn a perspective that I was having trouble understanding. I was not getting answers, so I asked in an e-mail assembly. Since then, I've been repeately told that making a public inquiry was inappropriate, but I do not share that veiw. One of the things that attracts many people to Krishna consciousness is the fact that we can ask any question and expect a good answer. I tried to formulate my question in a way that I thought would be inoffensive, but obviously there was no way to ask publicly in an acceptable manner.

I wish that Bhaktimarga Swami and I could have spoken more, but I was at my job and he was calling long-distance. I regretted not realizing that I should've hung up and called him back so it would be on my phone bill. I ought to send a donation to cover the cost of the call. I was grateful to know that he has been thinking about my spiritual welfare, and I thanked him for checking up on me. Hare Krishna.

This issue for me has never really been about Vakresvara's sex life. It's about truth and justice. It's about been about Vakresvara only because his case just happened to land in my neighborhood, and my primary concern is that he gave a completely implausible, obviously fabricated story, and he continues (last I knew) to lie about it.

A significant part of our philosophy is that we are prone to make mistakes, be in illusion, have imperfect senses, and cheat. Vakresvara could have used the situation to admit that the material energy is relentlessly tempting, and that we have to be constantly vigilant against illicit engagements. He could have emerged from it as a real hero just by admitting having made a mistake. That is what I expect of a Vaishnava. An apology would have made a world of difference. Hare Krishna.

Diplomacy, Truth, and Blaspheme

2005-08-16T13:08:00.000-04:00

[Pavitraropani Ekadasi]

Hare Krishna.

I’ve been reflecting on the meeting this past Friday evening with three devotees from Gita-nagari. As we were concluding, I found myself telling them that, due to their requests, I would try to be a little more diplomatic when dealing with devotees. As I understood it, that would mean curtailing discussion of my critical observations in favor of being nicer. I said a few times that I am not very good at being diplomatic, but that I would do what I could.

It was therefore interesting to see this recently published article.

The article quotes from Sri Caitayna Caritamrita, Madhya Lila, 19.159, “Some unnecessary creepers growing with the bhakti creeper are the creepers of behavior unacceptable for those trying to attain perfection, diplomatic behavior, animal-killing, mundane profiteering, mundane adoration and mundane importance. All these are unwanted creepers.”

In the purport, Srila Prabhupada writes, “Kutinati, or diplomatic behavior, cannot satisfy the ātmā, the soul. It cannot even satisfy the body or the mind. The culprit mind is always suspicious; therefore our dealings should always be straightforward and approved by Vedic authorities. If we treat people diplomatically or duplicitously, our spiritual advancement is obstructed.”

So what to do?

One issue that seems to have created some upset is the fact that I have challenged others' use of honorific titles that, by Iskcon Law, are reserved for Srila Prabhupada. I have pondered whether I should just let this point go and not make waves about it. However, consider this statement from Srila Prabhupada’s purport to Sri Caitanya Caritamrita, Madha Lila 10.182:

“The Lord herein confirms that if one is overestimated, glorification is just another form of blasphemy. In this way He protests this so-called offensive statement.”

I do not claim the ability to see into the deep mysteries of Sri Caitanya Caritamrita. However, to my mundane vision, this confirms my feeling that one must be careful to see another’s qualifications accurately (according to their actions, for those of us who cannot directly see into anyone's heart); that it is not just that we should avoid underestimating devotee’s purity, but that we should also avoid overestimating too. Srila Prabhupada’s language is clear, “if one is overestimated, glorification is just another form of blasphemy.”

I see two primary dangers of overestimating a devotee’s purity (in addition to inflating the over-honored devotee's false ego).

The most obvious is giving the subtle material enjoyment of personal honor to the false ego.

Next is that we are strongly encouraged to surrender to a pure devotee, but if we surrender to someone who has some material motivations (even ones unknown to them), then we will mistakenly believe that our service is transcendental while making karma or worse. That is very dangerous in a multitude of ways. Devotees have literally murdered each other due to this.

The other problem is that by erroneously calling someone a pure devotee, the actual pure devotees are blasphemed by association. If someone commits abominable actions in the name of Krishna consciousness, and that person is popularly called a pure devotee, then the reputation of the whole parampara becomes obstructed. Iskcon has suffered tremendously from this type of situation. Ordinarily the actions of a disciple are taken as representing the guru, but an intelligent person can figure out that some disciples are better representatives than others. However, if someone is falsely portrayed as a pure devotee, thereby appearing to be a pure representative of their bona fide guru, the whole parampara, and of Krishna Himself, then their misbehavior is a major offense and is very dangerous. I am unable to think of a more significant impediment to our preaching mission.

Hare Krishna.

Hare Krishna from Pandu das

2005-08-14T02:56:00.000-04:00

Dear Sahadev prabhu,

Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I saw your comment on my blog. I don't know how I could share my concerns on the BTSwami list. First of all, I am afflicted by body consciousness, and I don't want to get myself killed. Second, I promised not to raise controversial issues on that list. Third, I'm pretty sure my messages to that list are subject to moderator approval, and I doubt they would approve. Also, even you have said that the BTSwami list should be safe from offensive remarks; and I think that is a view that I think is probably widely held, and one that I ought to respect.

Actually I wanted to be able to discuss my concerns with His Holines Bhakti Tirtha Swami's disciples; but this matter of etiquette and offenses, and the fear of hearing criticism of one's guru makes it practically impossible. I really do want to sort my contradictory feelings, and to understand the contradictory behaviors I see in Iskcon, but I'm just not finding a forum where that's possible. I've been writing on my web site because I can't supress my thoughts and feelings. I do love you and your godbrothers and godsisters, and I hope that this bond between us can carry us through any difficulties. Personally I have faith that it can, and I want to do my part. However I haven't been able to make my concerns go away even though I've tried. Presently I'm trying harder in my personal spiritual life, focusing on hearing Srila Prabhupada, worshipping Tulasi devi, trying to remember Krishna, and praying to Him for help. I'm also trying to keep enough of a connection with devotees at Gita-nagari so you all do not forget to pray for me.

I also want to tell you that I treasure the friendship we have begun to develop. I have been trapped in material consciousness since beginningless time, but somehow I managed to get a taste of Krishna's mercy. Yet because of my offensive character, I seem to have lost it, at least for a long time, and so I'm just struggling to find my way back to Him. It's very hard because I feel like Iskcon has disappointed me. Eight years ago we moved to New Vrindavana, completely oblivious to the history of the place, without even a particle of suspicion of any crimes or deviations having occurred there. We were innocent new devotees, but after hearing some really crazy stories we felt like we'd moved into a lion's den. My recent troubles arose when I had thought the contradictions ( i.e. that Vaishanvas can be child abusers, murderers, and such things) were confined to history, but then the issues that I encountered in the past few months have forced me to think the same old trouble was still with us. I don't like dealing with these things, but I also feel like it's a service to Srila Prabhupada to give light to these issues. Actually my commitment to my spiritual life has even grown in recent weeks, and my faith in Krishna is unaffected or feels to maybe have grown some. But it is certainly awkward dealing with many of the devotees, and you may notice that I'm still having some insomnia over this. I also am trying to be very careful to not get too negative; actually I hope to help restore the faith that some who left once had (by encouraging everyone to help solve the problems that caused them to leave). I know what it's like to want one's faith in Iskcon to be undisturbed. My wish is that I can somehow help Iskcon to again become the pure spiritual society I thought I had joined. I don't know how a person can help fix problems without first finding faults. That's my trouble. I just hope that you and your godbrothers and godsisters can continue to be patient with me as I sort through my deep emotions, and please remember that I love each of you. Hare Krishna.

Your servant,
Pandu das

----Sahadeva prabhu wrote:

Hare Krsna,
Please accept my humble obeisances.All glories to Iskcon Founder-Acarya Srila Prabhupad.
This is my first time posting an article on your website.I am a disciple of Bhakti-Tirtha Maharaj and would wish that these comcerns of yours about the character of His Holiness be posted on the btswamilist for a broader awareness to his disciples.
Sahadeva Das.
08.13.05 - 8:41 pm

Hare Krishna update

2005-08-14T00:22:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and to all the devotees of Sri Sri Radha Krishna.

I'm just giving a little update. It seems to be a somewhat delicate time. Thursday a look at the Site Meter revealed that a few local devotees found this page. Apparently the way it went was that someone did a search looking for some nice things about Bhakti Tirtha Swami, and found my page. I do have some nice pictures of him here, and such things, but lately my comments about him have been somewhat critical. So seeing that, perhaps an e-mail was sent to a local devotee or a few, or maybe a phone call or something, and it quickly became a local ordeal. Based on what I could gather from the Site Meter, I figured something would happen soon.

So Friday Lesie got a call from one of the local devotees, a disciple of Srila Prabhupada. She wanted to come visit with another local devotee. I thought that was a good idea. When they arrived I was surprised to see a third, a disciple of Bhakti Tirtha Swami. They're three gentle matajis, so it was non-threatening, but it was obvious that having a disciple of BTSwami in the discussion would change things a little. It's considered dangerous for one's spiritual life to hear criticism of one's spiritual master, but they were all visiting specifically to discuss the situation where I was finding fault with him. We all had a long talk, addressing the major issues, but there were times when the BTSwami disciple obviously felt like there were things she didn't want to hear. We talked for several hours, so I can't really get into all the details.

Once we got started, I explained how this all started shortly after I was elected to the Gita-nagari community board, and around the same time Leslie was given a position on the child protection team. At that time Bhakti Tirtha Swami had been talking about how he could die any day, and he asked Vakresvara Pandit to come and lead kirtan for him. Due to our new responsibilities, Leslie and I felt we should know what was the deal with Vakresvara, whom we'd heard had a record with the Child Protection Office. We found that he had been determined guilty of having an ongoing sexual relationship when he was 40 with a 13 year old girl, and that much of the Iskcon leadership couldn't accept the CPO's conclusions. We felt that this situation was a real problem. The CPO was being undermined right Iskcon was recently bankrupted and paying a $9.5 million child abuse settlement. I am still completely unable to understand what child molesting and such things have to do with devotional service. Next time I get to talk with Krishna, I'll probably ask Him, but I don't know when that will be.

I explained how some personal conflicts developed between Vakresvara and me, which didn't really have anything to do with the his child molestation case. I emphasized that I felt this issue was basically just dropped into my lap, and so that's why I took it on. The big problem I had was that I felt this was a clear sign that Iskcon really doesn't take child protection very seriously. When one considers the child abuse problems and the way Iskcon protects the perpetrators, it appears to be a corrupt and perverted leadership.

As I explained my view of the problems, I observed a lot of agreement from our visitors. I thought my positions were reasonable, and appreciated that they felt so too. There was one point when we got on the topic of what happened with Kirtanananda, and the fact that he retained so many close followers while he seemed to be acting like a madman. Leslie and I have been feeling somewhat concerned that two very prominent leaders, BTSwami and Radhanatha Swami, were Kirtanananda's close followers. I casually referred to them as having bewildered by Kirtanananda, and there was an objection to the use of that word. However no explanation was given as an alternative. [update: actually an explanation that was given was something to the effect of "Sometimes you don't do anything," but I didn't find that very satisfying.]

We also raised the issue that BTSwami had invited Kirtanananda to Gita-nagari a few months ago. Leslie and I feel this was irresponsible at the very least. The response was that he didn't go to the temple, but to the 'institute house,' and that the institute house sits on private property. We countered that the institute house is a stone's throw away from the temple (actually about 200 meters) and it's an "Iskcon-related project" from which Kirtanananda is banned too.

I noticed somewhat rapt attention when I made the point that being gentle with a perpetrator of serious crimes is contrary to their spiritual advancement, to that of the victim, and to the preaching efforts as a whole. Srila Prabhupada explained several times that it is mercy that a murder is executed by the government, and in Bhagavad-gita 10:38, Krishna declares, "Of the means for suppressing lawlessness, I am punishment." Krishna comes to criminals as punishment, and thus the Iskcon leaders are handling the whole situation wrongly. I also commented that I wish the gurukuli lawsuit would've had its day in court. It seemed like the settlement was all about protecting the guilty rather than protecting the temples, etc. I said that I felt it would be better for Iskcon to have had Iskcon lose the temples in the lawsuit; and that I believe the Deities would prefer to be served by sincere devotees in their homes, and that Iskcon would be stronger if it were rebuilt from grassroots efforts of sincere devotees.

It was pretty interesting to note that while we all agreed that there were some serious problems, we were unable to agree that the leaders had responsibility for them. For instance, if I had some general criticism, it was accepted as a real issue, but if I named a guru who was guilty of an impropriety in a real issue, it was not accepted. It was considered an offense. So the conclusion is that there are real problems, and it's not OK to suggest that the leaders have any fault in bringing them about. Nor can we suggest that any guru has made mistakes. That seems to be the conclusion. Somehow there is a power structure in Iskcon that is clearly designed to protect the leaders from the consequences of their actions. I am able to look at this situation in a way that makes it seem all spiritual, but I can not sustain that vision. It keeps coming back that there are some really screwed-up things that many of the leaders are doing but which are beyond question. This whole thing started with me because I merely asked for Bhakti Tirtha Swami's point of view on a controversy, and the clear response was that it's not OK to ask. Once a person is given a high position, such as a guru or a GBC, he is assumed to be without material motives, and questioning him is forbidden. That is a problem.

Hare Krishna.

Welcome local visitors

2005-08-11T21:55:00.000-04:00

August 11, 2005
Hare Krishna.
Dear fellow Gita-nagari community inmates,
Hare Krishna. I noticed that several of you came to visit today. Welcome to my free-speech zone. This is where I go to express my thoughts and feelings. Feel free to introduce yourself and say ‘haribol’ in the comments section.

Hare Krishna
Your servant,

Pandu das

2005-08-11T10:45:00.000-04:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

UPDATE:
It's been removed. It didn't work the way I'd hoped.

Guest Blogger: my wife Leslie.

2005-08-08T14:05:00.000-04:00

Pandu: Hare Krishna. It seems that we've been developing a theme lately. Yesterday morning I had a bad dream about Kirtanananda, and this morning Leslie had one of her own. She narrates below, and follows with some commentary. Hare Krishna.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

I woke up from a very freaky dream this morning. It started with finding my family in a big hotel run by Kirtananada Swami. We had recently gotten there and wanted to be a part of some sort of protest and hoped to escape in that way. My husband went, but I wasn't ready to go yet. As I was getting ready I became too afraid to go because I was pregnant, so I stayed behind. I was worried about all of the security guards. Somehow the protest was handled in a way where they acted like it wasn't a big deal, but I'm not sure what they did about it. Later on my family was in a different area of this hotel. There was such a strong feeling of being manipulated that pervaded the entire dream. Those in control acted like they weren't doing anything against your will, but I was sure they were, although there were different scenes like where someone asked if we were OK and my husband said "yes," even though we weren't. So Kirtanananda or someone like him came into the room and asked if we needed some shoes. We wanted to leave so we said, "yes". First my husband went. Then I realized I needed some too. There were two elevators in different places on each floor. I tired to remember where my room was but I had a lot of trouble and ended up wandering all over this vast hotel. Everyone was dazed. I wandered through a big dining hall with a bar where rich people were eating. In the dream I thought they were the rich ones who were benefited from the subjugation. I saw a man sitting at a table's face go sort of blank and his dish of food slid onto his lap. I figured he was drunk or something but thought it was strange. I wandered more through the crowded messy corridors. The elevators were very rough. Once I found myself near the entrance of the hotel. A hostess walked up to me and asked in a sickly sweet voice if I was lost or something. I was very paranoid and ran away from her. At one point I was back in the room with my kids where we were asked about our shoes and I gave our full names to a lady. Everyone talked real nice, but there was this manipulation that was just above what I could conquer. I did not mention they had a very old address for us which gave me a little relief. Eventually in my wanderings I found my husband. He showed me where our room was and I got some shoes. We started talking and together began to figure things out a little bit. We looked out the window and it was raining, but on closer inspection noticed that the clouds were moving too fast. Everything started seeming like illusion. Next we were driving around in a car, still within this "hotel" like place, and feeling ready to break out. I said, "let's get the kids!" First we went to get our oldest. I said, "Radha is in high school, what nonsense!" We went to the school and saw a girl I thought may be her. I asked her her name and it was "Radha Howard". She didn't recognize me. Then I woke up and found I was very emotionally freaked out.

Comments:

A big turning point in the dream where I felt I was under an influence I couldn't beat was when our family got split up, and it was very cleverly done as was all the manipulation. I have often thought of all the people serving in New Vrindavana under Kirtanananda. How could they allow themselves to be so controlled by him? Couldn't they see how wrong things were? I would often think that I would never put up with such a thing as the many stories of people just doing what they're told by very misguided sounding leaders as I've heard told of in the "old days". There is a very strong guiding light for both my husband and myself, so that is likely true, but this dream helped me understand how confused and trapped in a situation people can become. And as the "hotel" in the dream became bigger and bigger I realized that this was maya- illusion and actually spans the entire human experience. The soul's usual perception is filtered through the body to make this shared reality we live in. But we are capable of connecting more with the greater knowledge and guidance our soul has access to and ultimately connecting with Krishna and His representatives.

But what of ISKCON with figures like Kirtananada looming at us from the recent past and currently biding his time gathering a following in New York City ? We lived in New Vrindavana during 1997-98 and nearly all of the devotees there except for the Bhakta program attendees had been there with Kirtanananda (K) for the entire ride, "interfaith period" and all. I became friends with them. And then there are our current leaders like Radhanatha Swami and the recently departed Bhakti- Tiritha Swami who were great followers of K. All of those people seem nice and I've been especially inspired by Radhanatha Swami's etheric nature, but my gosh what have they just been through? How can that not affect them? Pandu told me this morning that 90% of Prabhupada's disciples have left the movement. I've personally experienced a baffling attitude about the child abuse. People would always just brush it off when it was mentioned like, "Oh, yeah the child abuse thing". Someone mentioned to us that this is because the people are mentally sort of screwed up over having been in the movement during that time. They were also partly responsible. Then we were told that things like questions about child abuse (like with Vakresvara) should only be taken up with management so as not to disturb others. Even some of those 'others' expressed they didn't know anything about it and shouldn't be asked. Don't they want to know? One devotee told my husband that those who killed Sulochana were just being kshatriyas! Either he really didn't know what he was talking about or was very philosophically confused.

Then Pandu gets criticized for being to negative. We should be positive. Example: Question: If you are sending your child to Mayapura gurukula wouldn't you like to know that the headmaster, Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami thinks homosexual sex between boys there is normal? Answer: Their son will be with others boys there they know well and another mother will also be present for sometime. Now, that sounds pretty good, but maybe I'm too idealistic or something but wouldn't it be better if a group of parents got together and refused to send their sons to the school so long as an irresponsible man who was abusive himself to children at least in the past and did nothing about sexual abuse that was rampant in the school at least during different times was still in charge? Why should he keep his post?

I do think I know what they mean about negativity and fault finding. I just recently was having a really great inspiring time attending our local temple, a very positive time. But then, sooner or later, seemingly a part of the spiritual process, some problem smacks you in the face in such a way that to ignore it seems obvious folly. So, one goes about working on the problem. Others say they don't want to think about it or it is just being negative. Suddenly one finds oneself plunged into a whole new subculture when we find another who cares about the problem. Well, there are a lot of other problems, too that were ignored and suddenly we are inundated with all of ISKCON's trash, and likely may actually become negative and fault finding due to the strain. I have a theory about diapers that may apply here. A baby makes a lot of dirty diapers. We can choose to send dirty disposable diapers to the landfill where they sit and wait for someone to deal with them eventually, like our children, or we can personally clean each diaper ourselves, right when it gets dirty, and be done with the mess (which is also easier to clean when its fresh). The phenomenon with negativity and ISKCON reminds me of discovering a big old pile of dirty diapers. If we deal with our mistakes at the time and thus learn from them we could further Prabhupada's mission in a more pure way. There is no time like the present to begin!

a dream about Kirtanananda

2005-08-07T10:08:00.000-04:00

August 7, 2005

I had a dream about Kirtanananda this morning.

It started that I was in a supermarket, and I saw a man pushing a cart while chanting aloud a portion of the Panca Tattva mantra in repetition. Then the next moment I saw someone else nearby chanting another Hare Krishna mantra, I don’t remember exactly what. The person was sitting nearby, and I figured they must have noticed my tilak and japa bag, although the person hadn’t said anything yet. Then the person spoke. Somehow I got talking about my history with the Hare Krishnas. I explained how I had moved to New Vrindavana with my wife and 9 month old daughter back in 1997, and all I had known about Iskcon was what I had read in Srila Prabhupada’s books. The person was amazed to hear that.

I’m unclear whether it was a man or a woman to whom I was speaking. (S)he asked about the hurricane. At first I didn’t know what the person was talking about, but then I remembered a dark hurricane from when we first arrived at New Vrindavna. (This was a feature of the dream rather than of my waking memory.) As I remembered the hurricane, I somehow found myself in New Vrindavana. It seemed a sort of anachronism. I was soon talking with another man, who was quite thin and seemed very strange. He was Kirtanananda, although he looked different. We got talking about the murders there, and he was adamant that there had been no one killed. As we were talking, I could see the mutilated body of a boy. I exclaimed, How he could say no one was killed when here’s the bloody body!

After a brief moment, I was attacked by someone else. I managed to get a weapon, a long-bladed butcher’s knife, which I used to defend myself. I was using the back of the blade to parry off the attacks. Soon there were more attackers, and they all seemed like different kinds of psychopaths. Somehow I managed to protect myself, and after a few minutes of this I somehow found myself with him in a tiny hut in the same place. The other attackers were outside, doing something else. He showed me a paper, a page pulled out from scripture. He pointed out that on the same page, just a few lines apart was “advaita” spelled differently in both places. One was spelled "addvaita," and the other "adwaaita." Obviously they were both spelling errors. He said that his purpose was to fix this sort of thing to make the scriptures perfect.

I said it was perfect as it is. I exclaimed that what Srila Prabhupada had given was exactly perfect, that Srila Prabhupada had already given me Krishna in spite of such superficial errors. Suddenly I found that I was completely naked, and horrified to see Kirtanananda look down at my private parts. I exclaimed, “Give me my clothes, you homosexual!” as I backed out of the shed covering my privates with my hands. I kept shouting to him that “Srila Prabhupada gave us Krishna, Srila Prabhupada gave us Krishna. It’s perfect as it is.”

Then I woke up.

Hare Krishna.

P.S. I should note that Srila Prabhupada introduced me to Krishna with a 1983 edition of Bhagavad-gita As It Is that I had found in a used bookstore. Hare Krishna.

Going crazy?

2005-08-04T01:08:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna. All glories to ISKCON Founder-acarya His Divine Grace Abhaya Caranaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

I would guess that there are some Hare Krishna devotees who may come across my little place on the Web, and think that I've gone crazy. Well, I would have to beg to differ. I'm feeling more serious about my spiritual life than I've felt in a long time. I feel real. I feel like I'm not afraid any more. I feel like finally I'm doing meaningful service, and it's about time.

Eight years ago I moved to New Vrindavana, expecting that it was a pure Hare Krishna farm community, as Srila Prahbupada would've wanted it. I suppose now you know I'm totally crazy, if you know all the "spiritual" stuff that went on there for so many years. Well, I'd been reading Srila Prabhupada's books, and that's pretty much all. I didn't have any connection with the temples; my wife and I would comb through the used bookstores looking for anything by Srila Prabhupada that someone might have dropped off there. Yeah, those were the days.

Once I got to New Vrindavana it all changed. I spent the first three months without stepping one foot off the Dhama. Gradually I started hearing things, things that I never in my worst nightmare could have imagined. It was the end of my innocence, and it hurt my spiritual life. It hurt my enthusiasm. I learned that ISKCON could not be trusted. I was robbed of that trust.

But I came back because Sri Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and I owe everything to Srila Prabhupada for showing me that. Not for telling me, but for proving it to me. He gave me the eyes to see my beloved Lord, my One-And-Only. For that I owe him my life; I owe him my soul.

And now I'm finally beginning to pay him back. Hare Krishna!

Evidence

2005-08-03T11:35:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna.

In my previous entry, a copy of an e-mail reply I sent to a Hare Krishna devotee and friend, I informed him (and now you) that it seemed to me that Bhakti Tirtha Swami enjoyed fame and kept a portion of worship for himself that should have been transferred to his guru, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. As objective evidence, I refer to the my blog entry immediately preciding the most recent, the one regarding honorific titles.

The honorific title "His Divine Grace" is designated by ISKCON law 6.4.8.2 to be reserved only for Srila Prabhupada, as are honorifics ending in "-pada." Bhakti Tirtha Swami clearly accepted these titles, and the name "Krishnapada" can be seen on at least some of his books published after that 1999 resolution. This constitutes a theft of worship that should be properly given only to his guru.

The result of this apparent desire to enjoy personal worship was apparent in his admitted suffering due to his bodily condition as death approached. The every material body that has been born eventually contacts with disease, old age, and death. However, a liberated person, a pure devotee of Krishna, does not suffer from these sensations even though the body undergoes them. Even while typing this, I'm hearing Srila Prabhupada say the same into my ear. "When he stops his bodily activities and he begins his spiritual activities, then he'll be cured. So for bodily pains and pleasure, that will be automatically cured when he understands that he is not body." - Srila Prabhupada, Conversation, Paris 1975-06-13. It may be that this suffering enabled him to finally transcend bodily consciousness, but if that occurred, it was only after publishing so many books and giving so many classes while falsely posing as a pure devotee, thus setting many of his disciples on a train of thought, at least from my perspective, that their guru is equal to or better than Srila Prabhupada in the matter of spiritual realization.

It may be that this is primarily an issue between he and his disciples, but he has also claimed to be in ISKCON in spite of his blatant disregard of the ISKCON rules of worship regarding honorific titles. This has brought about a feeling of division whereby disciples of other ISKCON gurus, when visiting Gita-nagari, are forced to externally accept Bhakti Tirtha Swami on the same level of spiritual realization as ISKCON Founder-acarya His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. I have been able to tolerate this for a limited time, but my patience with it is reaching its limit.

Hare Krishna

RE: Haribol from [...]

2005-08-03T09:09:00.000-04:00

Dear [...] prabhu,

Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

It's nice to hear from you. Thanks for checking up on me and expressing your warm regards. It truly has been a difficult time for me lately, but I feel like I'm getting through it OK. Contact with Bhakti Tirtha Swami's disciples, many of whom are my friends, has been very strenuous on my feeling of spiritual health; so I'm presently staying away from Gita-nagari and devoting my extra energy to worshipping Srimati Tulasi devi.

Regarding the issue of Vakresvara Pandit and Bhakti Tirtha Swami, I don't really find the isolated issue of Vakresvara Pandit to be of much importance. My real concerns are actually what I consider to be the larger issues. Specifically:

1) why Bhakti Tirtha Swami would give such outstanding honor to someone who has been determined by the ISKCON Child Protection Office to be an unrepentant child molester whose case shows him to be a perpetual liar. When I consider this issue, it puts my mind into a dilemma. I cannot find any way out of it that does not lead to a serious problem. Unfortunately what I've seen suggests that Bhakti Tirtha Swami erected a false image of being a 'pure devotee' around him, which is a conception that, as I've been threatened, could result in a violent reaction against me. I understand a guru's role as handing transcendental knowledge from his guru to his disciples, and handing their worship up to his guru; but from what I've seen it appeared that Bhakti Tirtha Swami enjoyed fame and kept a portion of worship for himself. The result is a cult of fanatacism that undermines the integrity of Iskcon and directly threatens my spiritual life in as much as I seek Vaishnava association at Gita-nagari.

Naturally it's appropriate to honor a man's final wishes, but the wish itself seemed very inappropriate. I also learned recently that he invited and met with Kirtanananda at Gita-nagari shortly before his passing. I consider these actions to be dangerous to Iskcon, and I was surprised that Bhakti Tirtha Swami would put Iskcon into such a situation. Kirtanananda is presently banned from Iskcon, and Bhakti Tirtha had no right to invite him to Gita-nagari. I was also very disturbed by the behavior of BTs' disciples, threatening violence and condemning me when I sought help to understanding his perspective on this important issue.

It's nice to think that Bhakti Tirtha Swami would want to help his old friend Vakresvara become purified, but it seemed too much to put him into such an honored position. I believe it to be quite dangerous for Vakresvara Pandit's spiritual life. On May 29, 2005, for the final class of Bhakti Tirtha's "Beggar Series" classes, Vakresvara Pandit was invited to sit in a big cushy chair in a line of six sannyasis in a temple room full of a few hundred Vaishnavas sitting on the floor. What fool would want such honor?

2) why the CPO found that it was appropriate to effectively issue a pardon to Vakresvara Pandit for his child molestation and his purposeful failure to follow the CPO's prior rectification plan for him, especially in the immediate wake of a child abuse lawsuit that bankrupted Iskcon. This pardon, which was entirely based on blatantly false premises, shows the world that child molesters can thrive in Iskcon as long as they make friends with the leaders.

I don't expect you to answer these questions; nobody seems to have any good answers. Hare Krishna.

Your servant,
Pandu das

Honorific Titles

2005-08-03T08:31:00.000-04:00

The following is a quote from a recent message on the BTSwami yahoo!groups e-mail list:

> All glories to the Sena pati, Nitya Lila Om Vishnupad Parivrajakacarya
> asothara-sata His Divine Grace Srila Bhakti-tirtha Swami Krishnapada ki
> JAI!!!

This usage of honorific titles is commonly seen on the e-mail list and seems to be standard amongst Bhakti Tirtha Swami's disciples.

ISKCON law 6.4.8.2 states, "No one in ISKCON will be addressed either publicly or privately with honorific title "His Divine Grace" or the honorifics ending in "-pada". Disciples may address their ISKCON diksa or siksa gurus as "Gurudeva" or "Guru-maharaja"."

http://www.vnn.org/world/WD9903/WD31-3455.html

Hare Krishna

An exerpt from the madhya-lila of Abhaya Caranaravinda Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

2005-08-01T23:31:00.000-04:00

August 1, 2005.

Hare Krishna. Rently I've raised issue of the recent failure of the ISKCON Child Protection Office in carrying out their duty to impose appropriate discipline on a child molester. My actions were met with criticism by some of the local devotees. A criticism that I received from a disciple of Srila Prabhupada ("Abhaya Caranaravinda Prabhu, in the quote below") was that it's improper to bring these issues out in the open, that they should instead be handled within.

Two days ago my wife bought a book, _Our Srila Prabhupada, A Friend to All_ "Early Contemporaries Remember Him." Early in the book is an interview with Srila Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Goswami Maharaja. There are a lot of interesting things that he'd said therein, this being one of them:

"Later Abhaya Caranaravinda Prabhu wrote another dramatic article -- this time about some of the leaders in the Gaudiya Matha. The article explained how the institution was coming apart after Srila Prabhupada's departure. Grihasthas were giving up their wives and loving others' wives, and in the name of developing the mission, some were putting all the money collected into their own pockets. Sannyasis, even those who had been with their [Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati] Prabhupada, were making buildings and sending all the money to their sons in their former homes to go to high school and university, or to go to England and America to study law and other things. He wrote about this situation and the first part was published in our Bhagavata-patrika and Gaudiya-patrika. At once a big storm broke out in the whole Gaudiya Mission. Although only about three pages were printed, letters began to come from many Gaudiya Mathas.

"It was like a revolution. Our guru maharaja and Abhaya Caranaravinda Prabhu were talking and smiling very secretly together. Prabhu said, 'We should publish more of it. Why not?' Guru Maharaja was also in favor of publishing it. However many of the godbrothers exclaimed, 'Oh, Kesava Maharaja, what are you doing, printing this? Then everyone will know and will criticize the Gaudiya Matha. These are our private family matters.' Even Pujyapada Srila Sridhara Maharaja, who was highly respected by all, was consulted. Many godbrothers came to Mathura at that time and Abhaya Caranaravinda Prabhu was residing here in our matha. Srila Tirtha Maharaja andother devotees asked, 'What are you going to do? If you print this then our present institution will be smashed.' Guru Maharaja and Abhaya Caranaravinda Prabhu were smiling and asking each other, 'Oh, what to do?' But when requested by so many godbrothers they decided, 'Later on we may publish the articles, but for now we should obey their orders.'"

Is this not what we have been doing?

Hare Krishna

FW: Dear devotees,

2005-08-01T23:08:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna. Yesterday there was a temple/community joint board meeting that I was expected to attend. Due to the recent emotional trauma I’ve been experiencing on account the denial of my rights to freely question apparent improprieties, I’ve decided to take a few steps away so that I have the space I need to heal and allow my moral compass to find its true bearings. Instead of attending the meeting, I sent this letter. Hare Krishna

-----Original Message-----
From: Pandu das
Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2005 1:15 PM
To: (fellow Gita-nagari temple/community board members)
Subject: Dear devotees,

Dear devotees,

Hare Krishna.

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to ISKCON Founder-acarya A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada.

I have learned a great deal about relationships in Iskcon in recent times. Much of that has been a cause of sadness for me. I have learned that there is a small box within which I am given permission to think and feel, but the actual truth is that some important parts of my spiritual understanding exist outside that box. These feelings in no way contradict what I’ve learned from Srila Prabhupada. Yet, in order to maintain the status quo, I have been subjected to intimidation. In order to maintain as many positive relationships as possible, I have had to buckle under the pressure, to give in, to forgo some of my convictions about spiritual life and my understandings of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings. Yet when I awake each morning, I find that many of the root causes of my feelings, specifically my understanding of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings, remain.

If anything is clear to me about my life, it is that I need time right now to heal. My inner sense of well-being tells me that this would be a dangerous meeting for me. I feel seriously wounded by many devotees in the past few weeks, by their responses to my perceptions of spiritual life, or what they’ve told me are misperceptions. I would do myself injustice and further harm by putting myself into a political environment in such a weakened state. I find it unfortunate that this meeting is scheduled at such a delicate time. If I were to attend, I would immediately motion that it be adjourned, but I do not expect to be taken seriously. That is precisely why I don’t think it wise for me to be there today. I do not believe that being coerced into agreement, whether subtly or grossly, is healthy. Spiritual life for me is natural and irresistible, but in recent times I have felt oppressed. That is something I cannot allow. I love all the devotees at Gita-nagari, I love the Holy Dhama itself, and I love Sri Sri Radha-Damodara. However, like a ball that must float on water, if I am pushed down in one place then I must rise in another. Perhaps someone may think this is a feature of false ego, however I am not about to delve into this philosophically right now. My heart has recently suffered many deep wounds, and to heal I need time. I believe that there is much that I can offer to the Gita-nagari community, and but I believe that the best offerings are those that come from within one’s own heart. Right now my heart is telling me to take the time I need to heal, and to tell you why. I hope you will understand.

Hare Krishna

Your servant,

Pandu das

2005-07-31T22:37:00.000-04:00

Up Govardhana Hill, Gita-nagari, PA, U.S.A.

2005-07-31T22:36:00.000-04:00

Friends in Krishna consciousness, Hare Krishna

2005-07-31T22:27:00.000-04:00

Gauranga Mahaprabhu says Haribol!

2005-07-31T22:25:00.000-04:00

Jagannatha, Baladev, & Subhadra

2005-07-31T22:22:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishnas on parade at Gita-nagari

Two weeks in review

2005-07-31T20:01:00.000-04:00

July 31, 2005

Hare Krishna.

These past two weeks have been beyond intense, a real emotional rollercoaster. About a week-and-a-half ago (maybe Wendesday or Thursday), I sent a letter to the BTSwami yahoo!groups e-mail list, asking for help in understanding why a known child molester had been invited to Gita-nagari. It was a difficult time for Bhakti Tirtha Swami’s disciples to hear such a question, due to his departure from this world, but the incident itself was closely tied to that departure. I had been upset by that situation for more than two months already, and was suffering loss of sleep, illness, and such things due to the stress that situation had caused. So when I asked about it, it was because I felt I could wait no longer.

An uproar ensued, and I became the target of condemnation and a threat of violence. Quickly my vision of the group I was dealing with changed from a spiritual family to a dangerous cult. I had asked a pointed question to try to understand the mind of His Holiness Bhakti Tirtha Swami, but instead of being helped with that, I was immediately treated as an attacker and the enemy of his disciples. I have made Gita-nagari the spiritual home of my family and me, and so most of our friends are disciples of Bhakti Tirtha Swami. Suddenly I was cast as an enemy and practically cut off from our temple.

First the threat had come, and then the condemnation of my character followed. I felt that the condemnation increased the danger that someone would become violent. One senior devotee recommended I report the threat to the police, but I wanted to consult with others first. On Saturday, I tried to reach my guru, His Holiness Bhaktimarga Swami, but he was traveling and calling him proved unsuccessful. Then I tried a few other GBC members, but they also were unavailable. Finally I called Advaita Acarya prabhu, the Gita-nagari temple president, and talked with him for about an hour. He helped me to be more at ease. After speaking with him, I wrote another letter to the BTSwami list, telling them how I felt about being cast as their enemy, and how I felt it could affect my life. A few sympathetic responses came.

Sunday followed, and with it the Sunday program at the temple. It was hard for me to go, but I felt it was needed. It took some time to break the ice, and emotionally I was very withdrawn. I spoke to a few devotees, and gradually I became more comfortable. After the program was over, one devotee asked me to remain in my seat, and two others came by. Three of us were those who comprised the community board, and a third was a disciple of Srila Prabhupada. As a group, they were somewhat intimidating. It felt like them against me, and it seemed like their goal was to teach me about how I was wrong. When I speak to people, I don’t like to interrupt, and I appreciate being given a turn; but most of my turns to speak were interrupted. At one point I had to outright declare, “you’re intimidating me.” I did not appreciate the meeting.

Monday morning I felt again inspired to write something to the BTSwami list, something that I felt would explain my perspective and inspire a little balance there. It was taken as a gross offense by one devotee with whom I’ve had a developing friendship with, and I was astonished by that response. I felt a variety of emotions about it, which eventually settled into sadness. Wednesday evening after work I went to the temple and broke down into tears that kept increasing; until about an hour and a half later the pujari came, scooped me up from the floor, and walked me to the prasadam hall to get a plate of maha prasad. Even then it was quite some time before I was able to speak or to eat. It was a relief to tell him about why all this had happened, and he promised to help straighten out the misunderstandings by writing a letter on my behalf to the BTSwami list. I’m still waiting for that, but yesterday he reassured me that it would come.

Yesterday, by the way, was the Rathayatra festival at Gita-nagari. I wasn’t really looking forward to it that much, as I normally would, and I felt a little down during the parade. Through some good fortune, I got the opportunity to serve water to the devotees just when everyone was most thirsty, and that was a real highlight of the day. I talked to a few devotees who were sympathetic, and also to the one who wrote the last e-mail I mentioned. It was very nice to exchange some nice words with him.

That’s all for now.

Hare Krishna

2005-07-30T22:49:00.000-04:00

Rathayatra visiting the cows

dando damayatam asmi

2005-07-29T12:28:00.000-04:00

Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Bhagavad-gita As It Is 10.38

dando damayatam asmi
nitir asmi jigishatam
maunam caivasmi guhyanam
jnanam jnanavatam aham

SYNONYMS
dandah -- punishment; damayatam -- of all means of suppression; asmi -- I am; nitih -- morality; asmi -- I am; jigishatam -- of those who seek victory; maunam -- silence; ca -- and; eva -- also; asmi -- I am; guhyanam -- of secrets; jnanam -- knowledge; jnana-vatam -- of the wise; aham -- I am.

TRANSLATION
Among all means of suppressing lawlessness I am punishment, and of those who seek victory I am morality. Of secret things I am silence, and of the wise I am the wisdom.

PURPORT
There are many suppressing agents, of which the most important are those that cut down miscreants. When miscreants are punished, the agency of chastisement represents Krishna. Among those who are trying to be victorious in some field of activity, the most victorious element is morality. Among the confidential activities of hearing, thinking and meditating, silence is most important because by silence one can make progress very quickly. The wise man is he who can discriminate between matter and spirit, between God's superior and inferior natures. Such knowledge is Krishna Himself.

FW: RE: child abuse

2005-07-28T22:38:00.000-04:00

Dear [...] prabhu,

Hare Krishna. Please accept my obeisances. All glories to Srila
Prabhupada.

Thank you for your letter. For some, a letter like yours would be hard
on their faith; but for me, it helps me feel stronger. That is
something I appreciate very much right now.

Back in 1997, about 2 years after I started chanting Hare Krishna, I
moved to New Vrindavana with my wife and 9 month old daughter.
Everything I knew about Iskcon was from Srila Prabhupada's books, and I
thought I was moving to a genuine farm community that was part of an
ideal society. We visited one weekend before moving, and noticed some
strangeness, but not enough to set off alarms. Eight months later,
after gradually hearing a variety of awful stories, we left in the
night.

Within a few months I was chanting Hare Krishna again, wearing tilak,
etc., out in the world, and gradually we made our way to settle near
Gita-nagari. One thing I noticed while away was that my Krishna
consciousness seemed stronger while away, and now I'm beginning to
understand why.

My faith in Krishna and Srila Prabhupada are rooted in a mystical
darshan from before I met any devotees (I bought Bhagavad-gita As It Is
in a used bookstore), so I don't feel that there's a risk of giving up;
but in the past 8 years I've been, at times, trying to understand what's
wrong with Iskcon. I think knowing more will help my spiritual life a
lot. I'm ready to hear anything, good or bad, as long as it's true. I
look forward to hearing from you again.

Hare Krishna.

Your servant,
Pandu das

> -----Original Message-----
>
> Dear Pandu: please accept my obeisances.All glories to Srila
> Prabhupada.
>
> My name is [...] dasa. I ... only just recently got caught up with the
> situation that you have found yourself in.I have [...] children of my
> own[...] So i understand your concerns.
> Firstly,can i just say that i totally applaude your actions and
> constant perserverance in the issue that you had taken on.The one
> thing to realize is that no matter how much things may make sense in
> your head,the decisions of the GBC will always be coming from
> somewhere else,and due to so much corruption will most likely not
> make sense.It is not until you leave a scene like this that you can
> realize how crazy it all is,not that i am advocating
> anything,although i strongly advise you to keep following your heart.
> The reason that you have had such a backlash is that old-school
> iskcon members traditionally and historically protect their own even
> when the most disgusting of things happen.It is one of the "perks"
> you could say of living in a closed society.whats worse is that they
> are all so in denial that they would rather cover things up because
> i think they see it as a challenge to the greater society and the
> leadership of that society when guys like that are exposed.That is
> one reason that you got such a radical response from certain members.
> The iskcon that you have found yourself in is nothing like the
> society that SP intended but rather how it evolved in its unhealthy
> state.
> Nonetheless,try not to let these different things effect your own
> spiritual life too much.
> There are a lot of things that you may be a little naive about,but
> that is not a strike against you,it just means you have a pure heart.
> I won`t go on much more,because i am not sure if you welcome this
> correspo. but please feel free to write back.
> my main address is: [...]@pamho.net
> y/s servant and well-wisher [...] dasa

RE: Open Letter to the ISKCON Child Protection Office

2005-07-28T00:08:00.000-04:00

July 27, 2005

Dear Tamohara prabhu,Hare Krishna. Please accept my most humble obeisances. All glories to ISKCON Founder-acarya A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada.As I said last night, which you have hopefully seen before reading this, I do not want to put more aggressive energy into this. I need to heal now, and I am praying for healing for others too. I do, however, want to answer your letter, which I will do below. I hope you received the e-mail I sent you last night, wherein I explained how much I appreciate your service. Herein I am offering some constructive criticism, and I pray that you find it welcome.

> -----Text From CPO removed -----

Your loss of your property in Montreal was most unfortunate, but I also saw it as proof of Krishna's favor upon you; although I must admit I am not prepared for that kind of mercy! It was also a big disappointmet that we could not meet. We were looking forward to it for several weeks. By the time I wrote my open letter to your office, I had been suffering a significant loss of sleep for more than two months. I am accustomed to about 6 hours; but due to stress over this issue, I was usually getting less than four. So I was at the end of my rope, and I had to do something.

I don't see child protection in Iskcon as simple, isolated issue, but a far-reaching one. Naturally we want everyone to become Krishna conscious, including all kinds of perpetrators. However, my perception (or misperception due to faulty senses) is that for every child molester or abuser whom we keep in Iskcon, there may be 1 or 3, 5, or 50 good people who will reject Iskcon. Of course, anyone can repent and be redeemed by the descent of mercy upon them, but when individuals do not repent, but instead add insult upon injury against their victims, and are then given great honor; then I worry that we may be seen very negatively by ordinary good people, who will avoid Krishna consciousness due to such perceptions. This is the conflict that drives me on this issue.

Imagine if devotees all the devotees had behaved themselves for the past 30 years. Nobody would be able to resist joining Srila Prabhupada's movement.

One can partially justify abuse by calling it the victim's karma, although actually it's our duty to raise each other up above karmic reactions by encouraging each other in devotional service; but that justification does not hold up when such abuse gives us such a horrendous public image that our preaching efforts are rejected by good, innocent people. Most unfortunately, due to these views of mine, I have been unable to understand the thinking of His Holiness Bhakti Tirtha Swami related to his honoring of Vakresvara Pandit. What I thought was a polite inquiry about his thinking on these matters has proven to be an offense against him, and thus my spiritual life is in a very precarious position. I have been very afraid for my spiritual life because of this, and so my foremost priority now is to devote myself to whatever service that his disciples may give me to do.

> -----Text From CPO removed -----

Based on your discription of your role in the appeal process, I don't hold you directly responsible for the panel's judgement or misjudgement. However, as I described in my public letter, the panel's determination that there was no cause for punishment was based on errors, at least as seen through my material perception. My letter was a call to rectify what I saw as a decision, paragraph 2 in the document, that could not be justified. The appeal panel claimed that their decision was unappealable, claiming 'final authority,' and you've also said that nothing can be done to change that. If I have any spiritual knowledge at all, the I know that Krishna is the final authority in all matters. Feeling troubled by the panel's decision, I prayed to Him, and the feeling that came in response was to take up the matter publicly, so that is what I did. It would be a difficult challenge for me to accept that such an injustice could not be rectified. In fact, mundane society has found that the infamy that comes with public notification of sexual offenders is a very effective deterrant to such crimes and is a good accompanyment to other forms of punishment. I've exchanged a few e-mails with Bhaktin Miriam, but I don't think of it as a coordinated effort. I didn't like the way she personally criticized you, and I recommended to her that she apologise. It looked to me that she was too fired up to give much of an apology, but I tried my best.

I'm really torn up over this. On one side, there's the fact that Srila Prabhupada expected his movement to be populated by first class ladies and gentlemen, or at least to become that. Many are. However, there is a deviant aspect of our society that is very troublesome. I don't understand why the leaders allow this to continue. Gita-nagari is suffering so much for lack of funds. Lord Jagannatha's rathayatra route is changed and shortened this year because it took so long to raise money to repair the road that it won't be done in time, and almost all of that money is coming from Harrisburg. Those devotees wonder why we locals don't have anything to contribute. Last year we gave $35,000 to the child abuse settlement fund, and the locals are all even more upset at us now because the temple owes money to so many businesses. They knew we raised a bunch of money in a public auction (we had to auction off a lot of farm equipment to "save the temple"), and that they didn't get paid. Who wants to tell them it's because we beat and rape our kids? Yet, if I speak up or question, I'm committing guru aparadha, and my life gets threatened. Speaking up about child abuse means that my kids don't get to go see their friends at the temple. I need to go on to the next topic because I'm getting angry.

By the way, I was personally opposed to the settlement. I would have rather seen the matter dealt with in court, in broad daylight. I would rather have had the temples all sold with the Deities put into the care of loving devotees in their homes until we could rebuild ISKCON from the grassroots efforts of sincere devotees carefully following Srila Prabhupada's books. I think such integrity would have been very beneficial for the long-term growth of ISKCON.

> -----Text From CPO removed -----

I apologise if I had some confusion about what the compromise was. The perception my wife and I felt was that the was as compromise as I described in my public letter. If that was not what you meant when you had written about it, then I am sorry that I misquoted you on that. Apparently I misunderstood you due to conclusions we had already reached, although I admit I haven't looked back to see just what you wrote. In the matter of confidentiality, I sent you an e-mail some time ago wherein I had some important questions in boldface, including one asking about confidentiality. You did not respond to that question, among others. Because you had informed me that you could not share information on various subjects relevant to the case, i was under the impression that you were not giving me any confidential information. I would recommend that if you do share confidential information according to how you judge as appropriate, make sure it is clearly designated as such. If you did that, then I apologise for misunderstanding. Presently I don't have the time or energy to look back to try to find who was at fault with that. In the matter of your influence on the decision, I am reminded of the issue about attorney representatin. It appears that the mataji did not have an attorney representing her in the appeal. Is that correct? If so, in the interest of fairness, could you have appointed one to act on her behalf? It would seem very unfair to have Vakresvara represented by an attorney who is a member of the GBC, while the mataji had none.

> -----Text From CPO removed -----

Consent or non-consent is not a matter of legal wording. It is the difference between ordinary illicit sex and rape. Based on the appeal panel's wording and decision, it appeared that they considered it to be simply a case of misjudgement and illicit sex, but that illicit sex was aggravated sexual assault, commonly known as rape. According to the appeal panel's wording, which was repeated in various parts of the document, they based their decision in large part on the idea that it was consentual. It is a major error. Also, the fact that the mataji erroneously claimed she had consented stands as very strong evidence of her truthfulness. If her motive was to hurt Vakresvara with a false claim, then common sense psychology indicates she wouldn't have said she consented to sex as a 13-year old child. Coupled with all the other testimony that I've seen, this seals up the matter of guilt beyond a doubt; although I personally felt no doubt even before my wife raised this point. And again, it wasn't simply a matter of one error. Every justification the panel gave for reducing the sentence was false. It appeared that the conclusion was pre-determined, and they had to find some reasons to base it upon, and didn't really care about their validity.

[Note: Italicized text below is quoted from the June 8, 2005 Appeal Decision]
"However, in many years of service to Srila Prabhupada..."
This may be the sole redeeming factor. While I cannot speak transcendentally on the matter, my mundane vision calculates service as the balance between the positive (work done) and the negative (harm done). I have heard not only of VPd's sexual misconduct, but also I was notified by a devotee who claimed first-hand knowledge that he was removed from a temple Vice Presicent position due to drug dealing, and I've heard of allegations of theft of money while he was the Temple President and GBC Representative for Puerto Rico (while he was officially banned from ISKCON). From what I gather, this may have something to do with the restrictions that are currently active upon him. When I mentioned the group of young matajis he keeps with him to the Gita-nagari temple president, he remarked that he has indeed had some difficulty with enforcing their curfews. Clearly there is something wrong, but I cannot say to what degree. I'm not in a position to weigh how much he is in Iskcon to serve Srila Prabhupada versus serving his senses.

"...it appears that Vakresvara Pandit dasa has only this one incident..."
The finding of guilt was of seven or eight counts of statutory rape ("aggravated sexual assault," each count a first-degree felony) over one year. It was not on incident, rather one girl (whom we know of). Many children (I've seen statistics around 40%) are molested in the society at large, but few report it, and even fewer are convicted. From what I've read in [....]das' letter, this girl wasn't an irresistable knockout, but a classic victim. That leads me to suspect that there may be others, because his picking of this girl seems calculated. Also, I wonder if they had done it 25 times over 4 years, whether they would still have dared to call it one incident. In my understanding of the proper use of this word, one incident would have been a one-night-stand, not a year-long "relationship."

"...of consensual sexual relations with a minor on his record."
The fact that this statement exists in the appeal decision is clear indication that she did not have a competent attorney, or more likely none at all. The fact that she indicated her 'consent' in her original complaint vouches strongly for her truthfulness; but she should have been corrected in this matter. First of all, a counselor should have informed her that she did not consent, because consent necessitates a certain degree of understanding about a situation, which she claimed she did not have. An attorney should have also informed the Appeal Panel of this fact. This is supported by the Texas Criminal Statutes, which defines their sexual intercourse as aggravated sexual assault, not a simply moral lapse. This was a case of statutory rape, which is not a lesser kind of rape, but simply a different kind than forceful rape. It can harm the child psychologically just as much as forceful rape, although the inner feelings may be somewhat different.

"He has already lived with this decision against him since July 26, 2002,..."
A quick internet search can easily show how ridiculous this claim is. He was a temple president in Puerto Rico during the time his failure to comply with the first paragraph of his rectification plan had him banned from Iskcon. The first time I ever saw him was at New Vrindavana in 2003 (Janmastami?), where he lead kirtan and gave a Srimad Bhagavatam class. His name was has been publicised on the Internet as an honored guest at other Iskcon events, and he is pictured leading kirtan in places. I am trying not to put too much energy into this right now, but I could give references if needed. Anyway, the restrictions such 'no leading kirtan' were never an issue because the stipulated penalty for failure to follow paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Official Decision (an apology letter and a $3,000 remuneration) was his being banned from all Iskcon activities and properties. This was clearly stated in the document, as was his requirement to obey the document during his appeal. It was his responsibility to notify local temple authories of the restrictions, although the fact remained that the document required that he could not enter Iskcon property without at a minimum provinding a letter of apology to the mataji, given to the CPO for delivery. This aspect of the appeal panel's claim is thus an absurdity and an insult especially to the mataji and the CPO.

Now that the statute of limitations for the crimes has passed, it is an ideal time for Vakresvara to write that apology letter to the mataji.

"which the appeal panel believes to be sufficient restriction."
As stated above, any restriction he may have followed was completely haphazard and had nothing to do with the actual restrictions stipulated in the 2002 official decision. The appeal panel's decision in this matter was about a 99% pardon.

> -----Text From CPO removed -----

It would have perhaps been more acceptable if somehow in the appeal he was found innocent, although the verdict would be very hard to believe. However, finding him guilty, but deciding that it doesn't warrant any punishment, is like giving him (or anyone, or is it anyone with the right friends?) permission to have sex with children. It's difficult not to use vulgarities in describing what he did. Quite simply, the decision has a very strong appearance of corruption. This isn't a matter of pleasing everyone. In my mundane vision, it's a matter of justice. Do you think Srila Prabhupada is pleased with this decision?

> -----Text From CPO removed -----

I agree that prevention is crucial. What does Krishna say about it?

dando damayatam asmi
"Among all means of suppressing lawlessness I am punishment..."

And Srila Prabhupada's commentary, "There are many suppressing agents, of which the most important are those that cut down miscreants. When miscreants are punished, the agency of chastisement represents Krishna." B.g. 10:38.

There's not much else to say. I guess this is ISKCON's way of keeping perpetrators of sex crimes out of Krishna consciousness.

I beg your forgiveness for offenses I have made in my service, and I hope that we can continue to work together in the future. Hare Krishna.

Hare Krishna

Your servant,
Pandu das

Re: Open Letter to the ISKCON Child Protection Office

2005-07-25T00:52:00.000-04:00

Dear Tamohara prabhu,

Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I just got home from the temple a few minutes ago, quite late; so I'm very tired so could only glance over your letter right now. I have to wait to consider what you wrote. Instead, right now I want to say what I wanted to say to you earlier today but didn't have the time.

I want to offer you my most humble obeisances again and again. I do not envy your position as CPO director at all. I have been telling devotees that I think your job is probably the most difficult one in all of ISKCON. Although I don't know you personally, I believe that you are extrordinarily dear to Sri Sri Radha Krishna. The fact that They arranged for you to lose all your belongings is undeniable proof of that. My gurudev, His Holiness Bhaktimarga Swami, has repeatedly praised you when speaking with me. So I want you to understand that my letter was not about you personally; it is with the CPO, of which you are the director. It appears to me that there are some powerful individuals in Iskcon want your office to not be overly concerned with some people or places. I don't have access to the inside dealings of Iskcon, but this is the way it looks from my perspective. Also, the issue really isn't about Vakresvara Pandit either; it's just that he's a good example for several reasons, and one which I've been able to get a good amount of information. The problem I have with his case was that in spite of the findings of guilt, which appeared very clear in the documents I read, there was virtually no punishment. When the issue arises, Vakresvara tells everyone that he didn't do it and portrays himself as the victim of a woman whose sexual advances he resisted and who hates him for it. He has found a haven as a sexual predator in Iskcon, which I find unacceptable. Spiritual principles are being perverted in a cult-like fasion by him and his supporters. I am driven to help make Iskcon a place of integrity, as my own integrity depends upon it. This specific case was forced upon me when Bhakti Tirtha Swami invited him to Gita-nagari. As you saw, I simply asked why he did that, and the result was an uproar dominated by hatred, including a threat of violence. One has to tiptoe around with following strict rules of etiquette, but spiritual etiquette is based on integrity, which is based on sastra. Otherwise that etiquette makes for easy prey. Predators can get away with sickening atrocities due to the demand that others follow etiquette and not be offensive. They know how to game the system, at least until Yamaraj gets a hold of them. It may look like I have taken up a position as an enemy of Vakresvara Pandit, but I believe strongly that justice is built into the world, and that one does a favor to both the perpetrator, the victim, and the public by imposing punishment quickly and firmly upon the guilty, because often that punishment can reform a person. As Krishna says, "...I am punishment." By allowing Vakresvara to avoid punishment, he is avoiding Krishna. How can we cheat people like that, allowing them to come inside Iskcon, commit crimes, and let them avoid Krishna when He comes in the form suitable to them? I'm trying to do Vakresvara a favor, although I expect he won't apprecitate it for a long time. Or perhaps if that punishment, Krishna, does come; it will pierce his heart in a way that will open it to love. Often it's very difficult to determine who is a friend and who is an enemy. After Vakresvara apologises to that woman he raped and do those to whom he lied about it, I want to be the first one to take the dust from his feet to decorate my head, because then I'll know he's found Krishna.

Now I've got to go to sleep.

Hare Krishna.

Your servant,

Pandu das

Open Letter to the ISKCON Child Protection Office

2005-07-25T00:04:00.000-04:00

July 24, 2005

Dear Tamohara prabhu,

Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to ISKCON Founder Acarya Srila Prabhupada.

As you know, Vakresvara Pandit das, who is both famous and infamous as a kirtan leader and in other roles in ISKCON, was found by an ISKCON Child Protection Office (“CPO”) Committee to have been guilty of numerous sexual molestations of a female child over a period of about one year in or around 1993. The finding of guilt was stated in a CPO Official Decision dated July 26, 2002, and was affirmed by a CPO Appeal Panel (“AP”) decision dated June 8, 2005. In the state with jurisdiction over these crimes, the sexual molestation of a child constitutes “aggravated sexual assault,” and “indecency with a minor,” each of which are felonies in the first and second degree, respectively. The criminals who are found by the State to be guilty of these crimes routinely die in prison. The findings of the CPO reveal Vakresvara Pandit das (“VPd”) as a sexual “predator,” as described by one criminal defense attorney and ISKCON member who was requested by your predecessor to review the CPO findings.

As you also must know, VPd has repeatedly denied the allegations; but directly told the Committee that his responses should not be believed, that he would lie to defend himself. The findings of the Committee revealed that the child victim gave a testimony that withstood a very high degree of scrutiny for truth, while VPd’s testimony was obviously constructed of falsehoods. The previously mentioned attorney commented in this regard that, “As a prosecutor, I would take this case to trial and count in large part upon VPd to help convict himself.” VPd’s failure to honestly repent for his sexual crimes stands as strong evidence that he is a serious danger to ISKCON and its members.

Undoubtedly, you are consciously awaiting the passing of July 26, 2005; as, in spite of the AP having affirmed guilt, they chose to truncate VPd’s restrictions in ISKCON so that they terminate on that date. The AP's decision in this regard shows a strong appearance of impropriety, which must be addressed if the ISKCON CPO is to maintain credibility.
In spite of the repeated findings of guilt, the AP (under coercion?) effectively decided that VPd’s crimes did not merit any punishment at all, and that there was no need for VPd or various ISKCON leaders to have obeyed the earlier dictates of the CPO. One need only consider the parties representation to see the injustice. VPd was represented by an attorney who is a GBC member (an obvious conflict of interests), while your failure to respond to several requests to identify the victim’s attorney indirectly reveals that she had no attorney at all.

The panel's justification for practically negating VPd’s punishment, saying that he'd already lived with this decision against him since July 26, 2002, was ridiculous. It is public knowledge that Vakresvara Pandit, and several ISKCON leaders, clearly disobeyed the CPO’s prior order. If there was any confusion, it was purposefully created by VPd, as the order clearly stated his responsibility to obey the ruling and to inform the president of every temple he visited of the decision. The panel’s statement that it was one incident was also false. The CPO found that the victim was truthful in her claim that, over the course of nearly a year, "We did have sex around seven or eight times;" not one incident. Finally, as you've agreed, there was no legal consent. Indeed, in every state in the USA, the stated so-called “consent” to sex given by a thirteen year old child is legally void; and sex with a child constitutes rape. Tolerance for such rape can only exist far outside the bounds of Vaishnava conduct. Each and every reason stated in the AP’s justification for reducing the sentence was false.

While you have admitted that the AP’s falsely stating that the child consented to the sex required correction, it does not appear that you have fully considered the ramifications. You cannot simply alter the AP’s Official Decision to erase that portion, or any portion of the justifications for reducing VPd’s punishment. The only legitimate adjustment of an Official Decision is to treat any conclusions based on known falsehoods as null and void. This is a logical imperative.

This point must be made clear, which I beg you to carefully consider: The responsible authorities both found that guilt was clearly established according to the accepted rules. The AP's negation of the rectification plan, in spite of that guilt, marked “a compromise” (quoting you) between the authorities' findings and those who refused to accept them. That makes clear the weakness of the ISKCON Child Protection Office and sets a precedent wherein the denial of the CPO's authority is an acceptable and effective means of countering its decisions.

The Official Decision of the AP sets a clear precedent with the potential to eliminate virtually all punishment for child molestation, freshly in the wake of a $9.5 million child abuse settlement that bankrupted ISKCON. The world is watching, as is the LORD, and the credibility of the Child Protection Office and of ISKCON is at stake. The armies are beginning to assemble on both sides, and it is time for you to consider whether the Child Protection Office will fight on behalf of the predator or his victim. Please choose wisely. Hare Krishna.

Hare Krishna

Your servant,
Pandu

§ 2706. Terroristic threats.

2005-07-22T01:08:00.000-04:00

Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes
CRIMES AND OFFENSES (TITLE 18)
CHAPTER 27. ASSAULT

Section 2706(a) of Title 18 P.S. § 2706 (pertaining to TERRORISTIC THREATS) states, in pertinent part:

(a) Offense defined.
A person commits the crime of terroristic threats if the person communicates, either directly or indirectly, a threat to:

1. commit any crime of violence with intent to terrorize another;

--------------

The following message appears to be a terroristic threat against me. See the previous entry for context.

> If he has a problem with Vakresvara Prabhu, [which i
> think will be stupid on his part if he does],he shold
> NEVER and i repeat NEVER try to implicate HIS DIVINE
> GRACE BHAKTI THIRTA SWAMI KRSNAPADA because this time
> i am able to control myself but next time i may not be
> able to do so and the resultant action may be very
> DEVASTATING to both of us.

This is an example of cult behavior.

Which is worse?

1. That I ask about Bhakti Tirtha Swami's thoughts in maintaining a close friendship with and giving high honor to a person who was found by the ISKCON Child Protection Office to be guilty of child molestation...

or

2. That a disciple of Bhakti Tirtha Swami makes a terroristic threat against me for asking that question.

(For the exact quotes, see the previous entry.)

I would propose that making fanatical, cultish, violent threats is a far worse insult to one's spiritual master than asking about the guru's thoughts regarding his honoring one found by the CPO to be a child molester.

As I said, it's up to us to decide whether we want our society to be one of cult fanaticism or spiritual association.

Hare Krishna

Your servant,
Pandu das

response to Hari Chakra prabhu

2005-07-22T00:10:00.000-04:00

Dear Hari Chakra prabhu,

Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

As His Grace Purusa-sukta prabhu has wisely requested continuing discussion of these topics to be made off the list or forwarded to him, I am replying to you privately. I am also copying to Purusa-sukta.

Purusa-sukta prabhu: This is in response to my being unjustly defamed and threatened in a public forum; and if you consider it fair that I should be able to voice my reply in the same forum, then I would appreciate if you would forward it.

I tried to ask my questions in as inoffensive a way as I could while providing only the necessary background so that others could understand what I was asking. It was my sincere effort to simply obtain a proper answer to my question in as inoffensive a way as possible. I feel very strongly that protecting the children of Gita-nagari, and ISKCON in general, especially from those officially found guilty of child molestation, is a necessary service. Obviously I have accidentally offended you in my service, and so I now offer you my humble apology and request your forgiveness. I do believe that your guru maharaj is now directly in Krishna's association or performing pure devotional service in separation if that is the arrangement that he and Krishna have made. I certainly do not want to offend His Holiness, or Your Grace, or any Vaishnava or jiva soul. I have only asked these questions to understand your His Holiness Bhakti Tirtha Swami's mind, so that I can better understand the issue. I was very appreciative of the mature preliminary response by His Grace Purusha Sukta prabhu, and I am awaiting his answer. I don't think there should be any need for you to make threats against me. If you would like to speak with me as a gentleman Vaishnava, I would be happy to do that. I believe we are both trying to serve Srila Prabhupada's society according to our understandings, and I hope that if we cannot cooperate that we can at least serve Srila Prabhupada’s mission peacefully amongst each other. Thank you. Hare Krishna.

To briefly address your other question, I see the undisturbed forest as extremely beautiful in its natural state, which is why it had never occurred to me to mow it down. Actually I cried with heartfelt sorrow when I saw it done. To me, cleaning means removing garbage and filth. One of my favorite pastimes is to gather wild herbs from the forest, which I use to make medicines almost exclusively as the means for keeping my family's health. I see the herbs of the forest as living jiva souls, and I feel empathy with them and appreciate them very much. Hopefully we can learn to see our different ideas of beauty as parts of the variagatedness of Sri Krishna's creation. As I said, I would be happy to discuss philosophy with you as gentlemen and Vaishnavas, if you like.

Hare Krishna.

Your servant,
Pandu das

--- In BTSwamiList@yahoogroups.com, faustina yaa-baffoaa <yasodadevi25@y...> wrote:
> Hare Krishna Prabhus, please accept my humble
> obeisances at the dust of your holy feet.All glories
> to His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada and all glories
> to His Divine Grace Srila Krsnapada.
> Sometimes i some sort of became bewildered when i
> here or see people call themselves devotees and yet
> are unable to exibhit basic vaisnava etiqete. For
> Pandu to have said he was sorry to disturb everyone
> was enough to have kept him quiet but because there is
> a biblical saying that 'A FOOL TAKES NO PLEASURE IN
> UNDERSTANDING BUT ONLY IN EXPRESSING HIS OPINION' he
> went ahead and talked. Was it not this same Pandu who
> criticised Vakresvara prabhu for cleaning and
> beautifying the temple area? Something he cold'nt even
> think of doing all this time of his stay in the Dharm?
> If he has a problem with Vakresvara Prabhu, [which i
> think will be stupid on his part if he does],he shold
> NEVER and i repeat NEVER try to implicate HIS DIVINE
> GRACE BHAKTI THIRTA SWAMI KRSNAPADA because this time
> i am able to control myself but next time i may not be
> able to do so and the resultant action may be very
> DEVASTATING to both of us. Your Fallen Trying To Be
> Servant Hari Chakra Das.

> --- Pandu das <Pandu108.bms@g...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances.
> > All glories to Srila
> > Prabhupada.
> >
> > I'm sorry to disturb you all, but I have a question
> > that's been on my
> > mind for quite some time now, and I think this may
> > be the only way I can
> > obtain an answer.
> >
> > Several weeks ago, the issue of Bhakti Tirtha
> > Swami's request for
> > Vakresvara Pandit to lead kirtan for him arose here.
> > It's a point of
> > controversy because Vakesvara was found by the CPO
> > of having been guilty
> > of child molestation, and that finding of guilt was
> > recently upheld on
> > appeal. That guilt raises other important issues,
> > such as Vakresvara's
> > trustworthiness. I've been left to wonder what
> > Bhakti Tirtha Swami's
> > perspective was on this, and because I did not have
> > the good fortune to
> > know him personally, I hope that I can lean the
> > answer here. I've
> > figured three basic possibilities:
> >
> > 1. Was Bhakti Tirtha Swami unaware of the CPO's
> > findings?
> >
> > 2. Did he know, but believe those findings to be
> > mistaken?
> > 2a. If he thought the CPO mistaken, what was the
> > basis for that belief?
> >
> > 3. Did he believe the CPO's findings were
> > unimportant due to the
> > circumstance of his imminent departure?
> >
> > Please forgive me for my insensitivity in raising
> > such a potentially
> > unpleasant issue here. This has been bothering me
> > for many weeks, and
> > I'd really like to understand it better. Hare
> > Krishna
> >
> > Your servant,
> > Pandu das

2005-07-19T00:53:00.000-04:00

First-aid for a webbed hummingbird on my shirt. I removed a little bit of webbing from under his (her?) wing, after which the bird flew away. Hari bol!

2005-07-19T00:52:00.000-04:00

A hummingbird saved from a sticky spider's web, but still stuck in spots and unable to fly. Leslie's finger makes a nice perch.

2005-07-19T00:42:00.000-04:00

This devotee holding the mic lead some very sweet kirtans. Hare Krishna.

2005-07-19T00:41:00.001-04:00

Here's Vrinda, our middle daughter, in a pack on my back. I took this picture; not bad aim, I think.

2005-07-19T00:41:00.000-04:00

Lady Subhadra and Srila Prabhupada riding in Her chariot.

2005-07-19T00:39:00.000-04:00

Radha, our oldest daughter, pulling Lady Subhadra's chariot.

2005-07-19T00:38:00.000-04:00

Leslie (my wife) holding Visakha (our youngest daughter) at the Toronto Rathayatra

2005-07-19T00:37:00.000-04:00

Janardana prabhu leading kirtan

2005-07-19T00:35:00.000-04:00

Jagannatha on His ratha in Toronto, July 16, 2005.

Spiritual association, or destructive cult? It's up to us.

2005-07-12T14:26:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna.

About 2 weeks ago I got a nice little web counter for the bottom of this page, and thanks to that little piece of code I've learned that I actually get some visitors here. I had been feeling like this was just my little space for talking to myself once in a while, since only about 3 comments have been posted since I started this page back in February 2005. So now I feel a little responsibility to say something new, since people are always interested in the new thing. Unfortunately, my little web counter doesn't give me any more time, but I'll do my best to make time some other way.

So what's been going on lately with me has been a rather challenging ordeal requiring a lot of soul-searching on my part. It's probably a safe assumption to think that nearly everyone who knows about the Hare Krishnas also knows that we've had a problem with child abuse. Our society is presently paying a $9.5 million settlement to the kids who have been abused, and my local temple community, Gita Nagari contributed about $35,000 last year to that fund. I don't know about the rest of Iskcon, but around here we're all financially poor.

I started chanting Hare Krishna back in October of 1995 (my story here:)
http://oppositerule.blogspot.com/2005/02/fools-rush-in.html
and as far as I know, all this abuse occurred before I came into the picture.

Almost two years after I began chanting Hare Krishna, I moved to New Vrindavana with my wife and our 9-month old daughter. (We now have three girls... so far.) I looked in the back of Bhagavad-gita As It Is to see about the farm communities, and noted that there were two within a reasonable range, Gita-nagari and New Vrindavana. We chose New Vrindavana for reasons that I'll share at a later time. We first went for a weekend visit, and met with Nityo Ditta Swami (now Prabhu). He asked what I would do there for a living, and I replied that I figured everyone was farmers, since it said in the back of Bhagavad-gita As It Is that it was a farm community. (And I knew that Bhagavad-gita only told the absolute truth.) He said maybe I could work in the pie factory. I was a little confused, especially when I learned that they made 'potpourri pies' there, and that most of the workers had no interest in Krishna. I decided not to work there, and instead did odd jobs around the community to try to earn enough to pay my rent and such things.

Gradually I met some of the "fringe" devotees, a few grown ex-gurukulis, and learned about the dark side of Iskcon's history from them, things like child abuse of all varieties and perversity, murder, stealing, etc. Pretty much everything I had previously known about Iskcon came from Srila Prabhupada's books. I was an idealist, and I went to New Vrindavana to live that ideal. I gradually learned that I had brought my family to a place that wasn't entirely safe. We ended up leaving in the night, 8 months after we had arrived. Of course, I couldn't leave Krishna...

Seven years later...

We live near Gita Nagari, the other farm community in our region, from the back of Bhagavad-gita. There's not a lot of farming here either, but a nice garden and hay sold to a local Amish fellow (which itself has been controversial). I don't know much of the history of this holy dhama but that His Holiness Bhakti-Tirtha Swami came here with his disciples some years ago to serve the holy dhama, keep it viable, and help it to grow. Because of this, I'm friends with many of Bhakti-Tirtha Swami's disciples, but sadly I haven't been fortunate enough to adorn my head with the dust from their feet. Also, I've never had the opportunity to personally meet Bhakti Tirtha Swami himself except the first time I saw him, at a children's birthday party, for a brief hello and a few friendly words. A few months ago my spiritual master, His Holiness Bhaktimarga Swami, met with him and later told me that Bhakti Tirtha Swami spoke highly of my wife and me, which was nice to hear. Apart from that, I wasn't really sure he knew us.

So finally I'm getting to the point... Bhakti-Tirtha Swami apparently had a long-time friendship with a devotee named Vakresvara Pandit prabhu ("VPd"). About 3 years ago, VPd was found guilty of child molestation from an ongoing sexual relationship he had with a girl who was 13 (yes, thirteen) years old during most of the time. Drawing from my memory here, that was about 10 years ago, but the woman didn't report it until she'd become an adult. At the time when he was having sex with this little girl, VPd was about 40 years old or in his early 40's (the document I read wasn't precise on his age). She reported that he basically seduced her and they had sex about 7 or 8 times over the course of almost a year. This girl was in middle school for most of that time. So we're talking about a middle-aged pervert who'd been with the Hare Krishnas for maybe 15 years already, having vowed "no illicit sex," among other things.

VPd's response to the allegations, acording to a renowned forensic written content analyst, and according to obvious contradicitons and inconsistencies revealed in the July 26, 2002, "Official Decision" by the Iskcon Child Protection Office, was to lie about the whole thing and say that the woman had filed a false claim. Having read the Official Decision, I found no room for doubting VPd's guilt apart from my not having witnessed the dirty deeds myself. The Official Decision prescribed a set of restrictions, beginning with an apology and $3000 restitution; and failing to meet those terms he would be banned from Iskcon until they were met. If he were to follow those two conditions, a set of restrictions would have been in place to regulate his activity in Iskcon for five years. Instead of apologizing, VPd appealed the decision, calling the woman a liar, and continued to operate in Iskcon as if nothing had ever happened. Due to his friends in high positions in Iskcon, he continued to receive respect as if he were a saint. I contacted current director of the Iskcon Child Protection Office a few weeks ago and was told by him that the appeals panel "basically upheld the original conviction, but reduced the restrictions to three years." (The part after the comma in that quote is parapharazed, and the three-year limit expires two weeks from today.) There is abundant evidence on the Internet to show that he never actually had any restrictions, as he was named as an honerd guest at a variety of Iskcon functions and was even a temple president during his period of being officially banned fron Iskcon. Although I've made several requests to the CPO director, he has not provided the details of the appeal decision.

In this article:
http://www.chakra.org/discussions/GurAug01_04.html
VPd is referred to as "Devotee A."

part 2 of the article is here and is quite relevant although not about VPd:
http://www.chakra.org/discussions/GurAug02_04.html

Just over two weeks ago, His Holiness Bhakti Tirtha Swami passed on to the spiritual world, having had his body ravaged by cancer. One of BTSwami's wishes was to have VPd chant Hare Krishna for him while he was preparing to leave his body. I don't know what BTSwami thought about the child molestation issue, but it would appear that he decided VPd was innocent or maybe that it wasn't important. I don't know what he based that decision on, but I'm going to try to find out. At present, my best guess is that he asked VPd if he did it and VPd said he did not. I feel strongly that this would have been a despicable lie.

As I've said, Gita Nagari is my home temple, and that this is where Bhakti Tirtha Swami chose to part with his body. VPd has been a frequent presence here, and based on Bhakti-Tirtha Swami's affection for VPd, BTS's disciples hold VPd in very high regard. He is a favorite kirtan leader (although I personally find his kirtans distasteful, largely due to his tendency to break down the mahamantra into irregular combinations of holy names and even degrading into just plain noise). I cannot tolerate the presence of an unrepentant child molester and liar at the temple that is my home-away-from-home. I consider his special treatment to be a part of a cult mentality wherein the friends of those in power are specially protected and even honored. (At BTSwami's lecture on Sunday May 29, 2005, VPd was invited to sit at the end of a line of sannyasis in big, cozy chairs, while well over a hundred vaishnavas sat at their feet on the floor.) My attempts to enforce justice and bring a sense of security to our local Hare Krishna temple has been met with significant resistance by several disciples of Bhakti Tirtha Swami whom I've interacted with in relation to VPd, enough so that I am feeling alienated from the community even while being an elected community leader. At present I am not confident that this community is a safe place to raise my children, although two years ago I bought a house in the viscinity, intending to spend many years attending this temple. I am very disturbed over this issue, and it has made me lose several nights sleep in the past few weeks, and has given me headaches and other feelings of illness due to the stress of it.

So presently, although I have personal and direct knowledge that Sri Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and although I have full faith in Srila Prabhupada for delivering me to Krishna even before I had once visited a Hare Krishna temple, I am feeling like a member of a destructive cult. I can imagine no excuse for child abuse in a so-called spiritual society.

My feeling about this lately is that there are two bodies of ISKCON, one that is fully spiritual, and one that is material. The spiritual society is one of pure love, and the material society is one of forced control. Naturally there's a lot of overlap in between the two, and I've found that I can go from the spiritual to the material without even noticing. Actually, it's probably the same nescience that obscures our spiritual vision as makes us not notice the transition. But when we enter into the spiritual again, it's brilliant and wonderful.

I am fully aware that the material "Iskcon" has instituted laws that prohibit criticism of its leadership, and that this kind of writing, dwelling on the atrocities such as child molestation, may get me expelled if the wong people find this. The only way I can see that as a bad thing is because I have hope that the mundane cult of Iskcon can be purified and merge with the real, spiritual Iskcon some day. (Also I regret that it may put my spiritual master, Bhaktimarga Swami, in an awkward position; although I am quite confident that he is a genuine spiritual man of integrity and would be continue to guide me in my spiritual life.) I pray that the cult aspect of Iskcon will become purified very soon, and I hope that Krishna will allow me to serve toward that goal. Spiritually, I have no fear. No material condition can stop me from loving Krishna and from serving Srila Prabhupada's real mission, and I already have Krishna's expressed promise to take me with Him back to Godhead when this body is finished. Knowing how fallen and unqualified I am at present, I have faith in Krishna's mercy, that He will deliver all the sincere souls who want to engage eternally in His service. I hope to see you there. Hare Krishna

Your servant,
Pandu das

Please chant:

2005-06-18T01:10:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

It is the Supreme Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Chanting Hare Krishna costs nothing but gives everything. It is the original perfection of all living entities, and this chanting fulfills all wishes.

Here's verse 29 from Brahma Samhita, translation and purport by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Srila Prabhupada, courtesy of http://vedabase.net

http://brahmasamhita.com/5/29/en

Chapter 5: Hymn to the Absolute Truth
Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrī Brahma-saḿhitā 5.29

cintāmaṇi-prakara-sadmasu kalpa-vṛkṣa-
lakṣāvṛteṣu surabhir abhipālayantam
lakṣmī-sahasra-śata-sambhrama-sevyamānaḿ
govindam ādi-puruṣaḿ tam ahaḿ bhajāmi

SYNONYMS
cintāmaṇi — touchstone; prakara — groups made of; sadmasu — in abodes; kalpa-vṛkṣa — of desire trees; lakṣa — by millions; āvṛteṣu — surrounded; surabhiḥ — surabhi cows; abhipālayantam — tending; lakṣmī — of goddesses of fortune; sahasra — of thousands; śata — by hundreds; sambhrama — with great respect; sevyamānam — being served; govindam — Govinda; ādi-puruṣam — the original person; tam — Him; aham — I; bhajāmi — worship.

TRANSLATION
I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, the first progenitor who is tending the cows, yielding all desire, in abodes built with spiritual gems, surrounded by millions of purpose trees, always served with great reverence and affection by hundreds of thousands of lakṣmīs or gopīs.

PURPORT
By the word cintāmaṇi is meant "transcendental gem." Just as Māyā builds this mundane universe with the five material elements, so the spiritual (cit) potency has built the spiritual world of transcendental gems. The cintāmaṇi which serves as material in the building of the abode of the Supreme Lord of Goloka, is a far rarer and more agreeable entity than the philosopher's stone. The purpose tree yields only the fruits of piety. wealth, fulfillment of desire and liberation; but the purpose trees in the abode of Kṛṣṇa bestow innumerable fruits in the shape of checkered divine love. Kāma-dhenus (cows yielding the fulfillment of desire) give milk when they are milked; but the kāma-dhenus of Goloka pour forth oceans of milk in the shape of the fountain of love showering transcendental bliss that does away with the hunger and thirst of all pure devotees. The words lakṣa and sahasra-śata signify endless numbers. The word sambhrama or sādara indicates "being saturated with love." Here lakṣmī denotes gopī. Ādi-puruṣa means, "He who is the primeval Lord."

Hare Krishna

a clue

2005-06-18T01:08:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna.

One thing I remembered after writing last night was that Krishna had said when I'd see him again, in the final moments of my life, I'd see that painting restored to one piece. I haven't the faintest idea where that piece is, although I'd guess its somewhere between or around Pugut Sound and Mt. Rainier. Well, Krishna certainly can do whatever He wants. He had been manipulating time every which way, and so I'm fairly certain He meant that He would correct it to the same as it was when it was new, and show me His active spiritual form again. He also expressed that He wants to bring Leslie, who's now my wife but could have been just a woman I loved but had known for just a few weeks or months and whom I'd just left back in New York when I set off on my spiritual quest. I remembered to ask Him for a joyful life, and He is giving me that. Hare Krishna. When I could only fail to imagine how I was getting all this, He directed my eyes down and I saw the word "mercy" there. Hare Krishna. Thank you Govinda.

I also remember that when I had come to the dialogue in Bhagavad-gita when Arjuna was overwhelmed by Krishna's inconceivable potencies, he asked Krishna what His mission is; the Lord then showed me the inverted green heart on His helmet. As He did this my heart became alive again and filled with love for Him. He said, "My mission is love." Who could believe that I was seeing God face to Lotus Face. I saw that there was the vibration of Vedic mantras in praise of Him forming a lotus around His face. There was also unimaginable beautiful forms of all kinds appearing from His body, and I watched the world springing forth from Krishna blowing on His flute.

All I wanted to do was to serve Him and chant: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare... Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare... Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. One thing was very clear: the key to my seeing the Lord Sri Krishna Himself was the mercy of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami for his pure presentation of the Bhagavad-gita, and his instruction to take up chanting Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare, and never stop. The way, as I remember, to seeing God's real face, His whole form, the pinnicle of all beauty, the one and only God is eternally chanting:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

Please read Srila Prabhupada's books. Chant: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. It is the supreme perfection of life. Hare Krishna...

Hare Krishna.

2005-06-16T23:44:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna.

Hare Krishna. This is probably my favorite picture of all time. One notable thing about it is that it's torn into several pieces, all crinkly, and a small piece (the cow's nose) is missing. I mounted it on white cardboard. This is the painting that stopped my heart, then melted it in ineffable love. I tore it one night, described earlier, when fear of God came over me. He was going to completely wipe me out of existence and take me back to Godhead right then and there. He told me that my mom wouldn't know I ever existed, that I would never have been born, and that was just about as much as I could handle. As He said this, the painting caught fire near the top-right corner, and started to burn down, while I continued to chant Hare Krishna as if it were the end of the world. Somehow though, I wasn't ready. I freaked out, panicked, and attacked Krishna. Of course, He disappeared, and I just ended up tearing the painting. As He left, He told me to "Always chant My names, and get some association of My devotees." He promised He would come back for me when I was ready to die. He also told me that if I wanted to learn about Him, I should read Srila Prabhupada's books. Hare Krishna.

Hare Krishna.

Today is Varuthini Ekadasi.

2005-05-04T18:59:00.000-04:00

About every two weeks is a holy day called Ekadasi, 11 days after the full moon or the new moon. Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu emphasised His desire that we observe Ekadasi, and His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Srila Prabhupada said we should do that by fasting from grains and beans on that day and try to chant the Hare Krishna mahamantra

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

as much as possible especially on Ekadasi and every other day.

It was also noteworthy for me today because I was told that I had been elected to a position as a community boardmember at the Gita Nagari Hare Krishna farm community. It is a very responsible position, so I pray to Sri Sri Radha Damodara that They do as They wish and deliver Their mercy to everyone, and that They please not allow me to make any offense. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

So today I got an e-mail about Varuthini Ekadasi. I think it's ok to share, so here it is:

Varuthini Ekadasi
from Bhavisya-uttara Purana

Sri Yudhisthira Maharaj said, "Oh Vasudeva, I offer my most humble obeisances unto You. Please now describe to me the EkAdasii of the dark fortnight (krishna paksha) of the month of VaisAkha (April-May), including its specific merits and influence." Lord Sri Krishna replied, "Oh King, in this world and the next, the most auspicious and magnanimous EkAdasii is VarUthinii EkAdasii, which occurs during the dark fortnight of the month of VaisAkha. Whosoever observes a complete fast on this sacred day has his sins completely removed, obtains continuous happiness, and achieves all good fortune. Fasting on VarUthinii EkAdasii makes even an unfortunate woman fortunate. Upon anyone who observes it, this EkAdasii bestows material enjoyment in this life and liberation after the death of this present body. It destroys the sins of all and saves people from the miseries of repeated rebirth. "By observing this EkAdasii properly, King MAndhAtA was liberated. Many other kings also benefited from observing it - kings such as MahArAja DhundhumAra, in the IkshvAku dynasty, who became free from leprosy resulting from the curse that Lord Shiva had imposed upon him as a punishment. Whatever merit one obtains by performing austerities and penances for ten thousand years is achieved by a person who observes VarUthinii EkAdasii. The merit one achieves by donating a great amount of gold during a solar eclipse at Kurukshetra is gained by one who observes this one EkAdasii with love and devotion, and certainly attains his goals in this life and the next. In short, this EkAdasii is pure and very enlivening and the destroyer of all sins. "Better than giving horses in charity is giving elephants, and better than giving elephants is giving land. But better still than giving land is the giving of sesame seeds, and better than that is giving of gold. Still better than giving gold is giving food grains - for all the forefathers, demigods (devas), and human beings become satisfied by eating grains. Thus there is no better gift of charity than this in the past, present or future."
NOTE: "Yet learned scholars have declared that giving away a young maiden in marriage to a worthy person is equal to giving away food grains in charity. Moreover, Lord Sri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, has said that giving cows in charity is equal to giving food grains. Still better than all these charities is teaching spiritual knowledge to the ignorant. Yet all the merits one can attain by performing all these acts of charity are attained by one who fasts on the VarUthinii Ekadasi." "One who lives off the wealth of his daughters suffers a hellish condition until the inundation of the entire universe, Oh BhArata. Therefore one should be especially careful not to use the wealth of his daughter. Oh best of kings, any householder who takes his daughter's wealth out of greed, who tries to sell his daughter, or who takes money from the man to whom he has given his daughter in marriage - such a householder becomes a lowly cat in his next life. Therefore it is said that whoever, as a sacred act of charity, gives away in marriage a maiden decorated with various ornaments, and who also gives a dowry with her, obtains merit that cannot be described even by Chitragupta, the chief secretary of YamarAja in the heavenly planets. That very same merit, however, can be easily achieved by one who fasts on the VarUthinii EkAdasii. "The following things should be given up on the Dashami, (the tenth phase of the Moon), the day before the EkAdasii: eating on bell-metal plates, eating any kind of urad-dahl, eating red-lentils, eating chick-peas, eating kondo (a grain that is primarily eaten by poor people and that resembles poppy seeds or agarpanthas seeds), eating spinach, eating honey, eating in another person's house/home, eating more than once, and participating in sex of any kind. "On the Ekadasi itself one should give up the following: gambling, sports, sleeping during the daytime, betal nuts and its leaf, brushing one's teeth, spreading rumours, faultfinding, talking to the spiritually fallen, anger, and lying. "On the DwAdasii the day after EkAdasii (the twelfth phase of the Moon), one should give up the following: eating on bell-metal plates, eating urad-dahl, red-lentils, or honey, lying, strenuous exercise or labour, eating more than once, any sexual activity, shaving the body, face or head, smearing oils on one's body, and eating in another's home." Lord Sri Krishna continued, "Whoever observes the VarUthinii EkAdasii in this way becomes free from all sinful reactions and returns to the eternal, spiritual abode. One who worships Lord JanArdana (Krishna) on this EkAdasii by staying awake throughout the entire night, also becomes free from all his previous sins and attains to the spiritual abode. Therefore, Oh king, he who is frightened of his accumulated sins and their attendant reactions, and thus of death itself, must observe VarUthinii EkAdasii by fasting very strictly. "Finally, Oh noble Yudhisthira, he who hears or reads this glorification of the sacred VarUthinii EkAdasii obtains the merit earned by donating one thousand cows in charity, and at last he returns home, to the Supreme abode of Lord Vishnu in the Vaikunthas."

Hare Krishna

2005-05-04T18:49:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

2005-04-30T16:55:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna
When my wife, Leslie, was taking this pic, she was too far away for the flash to work, so this flash is from someone else�s camera. All the other pic�s she took were dark, but this one is nice.
Hare Krishna

2005-04-12T09:34:00.000-04:00

Hare Krishna

After some delay, I'm continuing (part 2 of ?) with a little description of the astonishingly beautiful form of the Personality of Godhead, as described in Srimad Bhagavatam (available at www.krishna.com and elsewhere),4th Canto, Chapter 24. Lord Siva has been offering a prayer to Lord Narayana, glorifying His gorgeous bodily features. Look a few posts below for the previous entry. These are copied here from www.vedabase.net in hopes that you will be enticed to visit that ocean of nectar. Hare Krishna

TEXTS 47-48:

prīti-prahasitāpāńgamalakai rūpa-śobhitam

lasat-pańkaja-kiñjalka-dukūlaḿ mṛṣṭa-kuṇḍalam

sphurat-kirīṭa-valaya-hāra-nūpura-mekhalam

śańkha-cakra-gadā-padma-mālā-maṇy-uttamarddhimat

SYNONYMS
prīti — merciful; prahasita — smiling; apāńgam — sidelong glance; alakaiḥ — with curling hair; rūpa — beauty; śobhitam — increased; lasat — glittering; pańkaja — of the lotus; kiñjalka — saffron; dukūlam — clothing; mṛṣṭa — glittering; kuṇḍalam — earrings; sphurat — shiny; kirīṭa — helmet; valaya — bangles; hāra — necklace; nūpura — ankle bells; mekhalam — belt; śańkha — conchshell; cakra — wheel; gadā — club; padma — lotus flower; mālā — garland; maṇi — pearls; uttama — first class; ṛddhi-mat — still more beautified on account of this.

TRANSLATION
The Lord is superexcellently beautiful on account of His open and merciful smile and His sidelong glance upon His devotees. His black hair is curly, and His garments, waving in the wind, appear like flying saffron pollen from lotus flowers. His glittering earrings, shining helmet, bangles, garland, ankle bells, waist belt and various other bodily ornaments combine with conchshell, disc, club and lotus flower to increase the natural beauty of the Kaustubha pearl on His chest.

PURPORT, by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhuapda: The word prahasitāpāńga, referring to Kṛṣṇa's smile and sidelong glances at His devotees, specifically applies to His dealings with the gopīs. Kṛṣṇa is always in a joking mood when He increases the feelings of conjugal rasa in the hearts of the gopīs. The conchshell, club, disc and lotus flower can be either held in His hands or seen on the palms of His hands. According to palmistry, the signs of a conchshell, club, lotus flower and disc mark the palms of great personalities and especially indicate the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

2005-03-21T18:01:00.000-05:00

Sri Sri Radha Damodara at Gita Nagari

2005-03-21T17:56:00.000-05:00

Their Lordships Jagannatha, Baladev, and Subhadra at Gita Nagari

apology

2005-03-21T11:00:00.000-05:00

Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to
Srila Prabhupada.

Over the past few months I have written a few scathing letters to the
Chakra editorial staff (a recent mild one noting the anonymity of this
staff) because of Chakra's publishing of some articles that I have
perceived as being blatantly contrary to Vaishnava principles and
offensive to Srila Prabhupada. I am concerned that in doing so, I was
not acting properly. I have heard that Sri Krishna does not see the
'faults' of His devotees, and I rely heavily on my faith in this
principle of His in my own life. When Sri Krishna does not see faults
in Vaishnavas, it is certainly unwise for me to do so. I doubt that
Krishna's 'failure' to see His devotees faults is only a matter of His
mercy, but also that such faults that fallen souls like myself
perceive are in fact nonexistant in truth. Thus my faultfinding is
actually a gross failure on my part. It's a wonder that I can see
anything at all with such a mountain of my own faults right in front
of me.

While I disagree with some of the views published on Chakra (such as
the recent harsh criticisms of Krishna prasad, upon which I am greatly
dependent upon for my spiritual elevation), it is undoubtedly a burden
on my soul that I have criticised your editorial staff for publishing
these views. You have also published many articles that have touched
my heart and given me a momentary taste of Krishna bhakti. I hope
that I am not wrong in my present faith that you are publishing these
divergent views with the ultimate goal of increasing Sri Krishna's
pleasure, and I also hope that all those who present themselves as
Krishna's devotees through your web site also have that transcendental
goal foremost in their minds when the articles are composed. I need
to increase my faith that He is guiding the events of this world in
such a way that all of us fallen souls with our crooked minds shall
eventually find our way back to His loving service, and I am trying to
do that although it is very difficult for me.

I know that the way of things in this material world are easily seen
as contrary to Krishna's pleasure, but that this is due to mundane
vision. All of Krishna's energies are fully engaged in His service,
and my failure to recognize this is my own fault. None the less, those
of us who have to some degree surrendered to Srila Prabhupada have a
responsibility to advance his mission, and we should always encourage
each other in this effort. I was wrong to include sharp criticisms of
Vaishnavas, the dust of whose feet is worshippable to me, as a method
for advancing this goal. Thus I am deeply sorry, and I humbly request
that you accept my apology for these offenses.

Hare Krishna.

Your servant,
Pandu das

The stunningly beautiful form of the Lord

2005-03-12T12:35:00.000-05:00

Hare Krishna

Slowly but steadily, I've been reading Srimad Bhagavatam (available at www.krishna.com and elsewhere), and currently I'm in the 4th Canto, Chapter 24. Lord Siva has been offering a prayer to Lord Narayana, glorifying His gorgeous bodily features.

For those who may not know, a brief introduction is in order. God can be understood as personal or impersonal. Those who emphasize His impersonal aspect are really missing out, because His personal form is most wonderful. God's personal body is identical with Himself, and is eternal and fully spiritual, the complete form of bliss and knowledge. Actually He has unlimited personal forms, and They are all wonderful. I don't want to get technical with this, but it should be understood that there is one form of the Lord who is original and supreme, Whom we derive great pleasure in addressing as 'Krishna.' He multiplies Himself into innumerable plenary expansions (who nonetheless remain Himself, but appearing in different places and times, sometimes enacting different pastimes, and exhibiting all varieties of fully spiritual characteristics). Each of Them are categorically known as Vishnu and are one with Himself, and in the verses that shall soon follow, Siva is glorifying the attractive bodily features of Vishnu, Narayana. In His original form, Krishna is far more attractive, but we won't go there yet.

So, without further ado, let's begin:

TEXTS 45-46:

snigdha-pravrd-ghana-syamam sarva-saundarya-sangraham
carv-ayata-catur-bahu sujata-rucirananam
padma-kosa-palasaksam sundara-bhru sunasikam
sudvijam sukapolasyam sama-karna-vibhusanam

SYNONYMS
snigdha--glistening; pravrt--rainy season; ghana-syamam--densely cloudy; sarva--all; saundarya--beauty; sangraham--collection; caru-- beautiful; ayata--bodily feature; catuh-bahu--unto the four-armed; sujata-- ultimately beautiful; rucira--very pleasing; ananam--face; padmakosa-- the whorl of the lotus flower; palasa--petals; aksam--eyes; sundara--beautiful; bhru--eyebrows; su-nasikam--raised nose; su-dvijam-- beautiful teeth; su-kapola--beautiful forehead; asyam--face; sama-karna-- equally beautiful ears; vibhusanam--fully decorated.

TRANSLATION
The Lord's beauty resembles a dark cloud during the rainy season. As the rainfall glistens, His bodily features also glisten. Indeed, He is the sum total of all beauty. The Lord has four arms and an exquisitely beautiful face with eyes like lotus petals, a beautiful highly raised nose, a mind-attracting smile, a beautiful forehead and equally beautiful and fully decorated ears.

PURPORT, by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhuapda: After the scorching heat of the summer season, it is very pleasing to see dark clouds in the sky. As confirmed in Brahma-samhita: barhavatamsam asitambuda-sundarangam. The Lord wears a peacock feather in His hair, and His bodily complexion is just like a blackish cloud. The word sundara, or snigdha, means "very pleasing." Kandarpa-koti-kamaniya. Krsna's beauty is so pleasing that not even millions upon millions of Cupids can compare to it. The Lord's form as Visnu is decorated in all opulence; therefore Lord Siva is trying to see that most opulent form of Narayana, or Visnu. Generally the worship of the Lord begins with the worship of Narayana, or Visnu, whereas the worship of Lord Krsna and Radha is most confidential. Lord Narayana is worshipable by the pancaratrika-vidhi, or regulative principles, whereas Lord Krsna is worshipable by the bhagavata-vidhi. No one can worship the Lord in the bhagavata-vidhi without going through the regulations of the pancaratrika-vidhi. Actually, neophyte devotees worship the Lord according to the pancaratrika-vidhi, or the regulative principles enjoined in the Narada-pancaratra. Radha-Krsna cannot be approached by the neophyte devotees; therefore temple worship according to regulative principles is offered to Laksmi-Narayana. Although there may be a Radha-Krsna vigraha, or form, the worship of the neophyte devotees is acceptable as Laksmi-Narayana worship. Worship according to the pancaratrika-vidhi is called vidhi-marga, and worship according to the bhagavata-vidhi principles is called raga-marga. The principles of raga-marga are especially meant for devotees who are elevated to the Vrndavana platform.

The inhabitants of Vrndavana--the gopis, mother Yasoda, Nanda Maharaja, the cowherd boys, the cows and everyone else--are actually on the raga-marga or bhagavata-marga platform. They participate in five basic rasas--dasya, sakhya, vatsalya, madhurya and santa. But although these five rasas are found in the bhagavata-marga, the bhagavata-marga is especially meant for vatsalya and madhurya, or paternal and conjugal relationships. Yet there is the vipralambha-sakhya, the higher fraternal worship of the Lord especially enjoyed by the cowherd boys. Although there is friendship between Krsna and the cowherd boys, this friendship is different from the aisvarya friendship between Krsna and Arjuna. When Arjuna saw the visva-rupa, the gigantic universal form of the Lord, he was afraid for having treated Krsna as an ordinary friend; therefore he begged Krsna's pardon. However, the cowherd boys who are friends of Krsna in Vrndavana sometimes ride on the shoulders of Krsna. They treat Krsna equally, just as they treat one another, and they are never afraid of Him, nor do they ever beg His pardon. Thus the raga-marga, or bhagavatamarga, friendship exists on a higher platform with Krsna, namely the platform of vipralambha friendship. Paternal friendship, paternal service and conjugal service are visible in the Vrndavana raga-marga relationships.

Without serving Krsna according to the vidhi-marga regulative principles of the pancaratrika-vidhi, unscrupulous persons want to jump immediately to the raga-marga principles. Such persons are called sahajiya. There are also demons who enjoy depicting Krsna and His pastimes with the gopis, taking advantage of Krsna by their licentious character. These demons who print books and write lyrics on the ragamarga principles are surely on the way to hell. Unfortunately, they lead others down with them. Devotees in Krsna consciousness should be very careful to avoid such demons. One should strictly follow the vidhi-marga regulative principles in the worship of Laksmi-Narayana, although the Lord is present in the temple as Radha-Krsna. Radha-Krsna includes Laksmi-Narayana; therefore when one worships the Lord according to the regulative principles, the Lord accepts the service in the role of Laksmi-Narayana. In The Nectar of Devotion full instructions are given about the vidhi-marga worship of Radha-Krsna, or Laksmi-Narayana. Although there are sixty-four kinds of offenses one can commit in vidhimarga worship, in raga-marga worship there is no consideration of such offenses because the devotees on that platform are very much elevated, and there is no question of offense. But if we do not follow the regulative principles on the vidhi-marga platform and keep our eyes trained to spot offenses, we will not make progress.

In his description of Krsna's beauty, Lord Siva uses the words carvayata-catur-bahu sujata-rucirananam, indicating the beautiful fourarmed form of Narayana, or Visnu. Those who worship Lord Krsna describe Him as sujata-rucirananam. In the visnu-tattva there are hundreds and thousands and millions of forms of the Supreme Lord, but of all these forms, the form of Krsna is the most beautiful. Thus for those who worship Krsna, the word sujata-rucirananam is used.

The four arms of Lord Visnu have different purposes. The hands holding a lotus flower and conchshell are meant for the devotees, whereas the other two hands, holding a disc and mace, or club, are meant for the demons. Actually all of the Lord's arms are auspicious, whether they are holding conchshells and flowers or clubs and discs. The demons killed by Lord Visnu's cakra disc and club are elevated to the spiritual world, just like the devotees who are protected by the hands holding the lotus flower and conchshell. However, the demons who are elevated to the spiritual world are situated in the impersonal Brahman effulgence, whereas the devotees are allowed to enter into the Vaikuntha planets. Those who are devotees of Lord Krsna are immediately elevated to the Goloka Vrndavana planet.

The Lord's beauty is compared to rainfall because when the rain falls in the rainy season, it becomes more and more pleasing to the people. After the scorching heat of the summer season, the people enjoy the rainy season very much. Indeed, they even come out of their doors in the villages and enjoy the rainfall directly. Thus the Lord's bodily features are compared to the clouds of the rainy season. The devotees enjoy the Lord's beauty because it is a collection of all kinds of beauties. Therefore the word sarva-saundarya-sangraham is used. No one can say that the body of the Lord is wanting in beautiful parts. It is completely purnam. Everything is complete: God's creation, God's beauty and God's bodily features. All these are so complete that all one's desires can become fully satisfied when one sees the beauty of the Lord. The word sarva-saundarya indicates that there are different types of beauties in the material and spiritual worlds and that the Lord contains all of them. Both materialists and spiritualists can enjoy the beauty of the Lord. Because the Supreme Lord attracts everyone, including demons and devotees, materialists and spiritualists, He is called Krsna. Similarly, His devotees also attract everyone. As mentioned in the Sad-gosvamistotra: dhiradhira-jana-priyau--the Gosvamis are equally dear to the dhira (devotees) and adhira (demons). Lord Krsna was not very pleasing to the demons when He was present in Vrndavana, but the six Gosvamis were pleasing to the demons when they were present in Vrndavana. That is the beauty of the Lord's dealings with His devotees; sometimes the Lord gives more credit to His devotees than He takes for Himself. For instance, on the Battlefield of Kuruksetra, Lord Krsna fought simply by giving directions. Yet it was Arjuna who took the credit for fighting. Nimittamatram bhava savyasacin: "You, O Savyasaci [Arjuna], can be but an instrument in the fight." (Bg. 11.33) Everything was arranged by the Lord, but the credit of victory was given to Arjuna. Similarly, in the Krsna consciousness movement, everything is happening according to the predictions of Lord Caitanya, but the credit goes to Lord Caitanya's sincere servants. Thus the Lord is described herein as sarva-saundaryasangraham.

Five pics of His Holiness Bhakti Tirtha Swami, by request... (They're very nice; take a look!)

2005-03-04T21:26:00.000-05:00

Hare Krishna. Bhakti Tirtha Swami is dancing in kirtan here. Krishna's mercy!

2005-03-04T21:22:00.000-05:00

Hare Krishna

2005-03-04T21:20:00.000-05:00

Hare Krishna

2005-03-04T21:13:00.000-05:00

Hare Krishna

2005-03-04T20:38:00.000-05:00

Hare Krishna

2005-03-03T08:54:00.000-05:00

Here's a better pic of Vrinda and Visakha at the Hare Krishna temple.

2005-03-02T23:39:00.000-05:00

Here's my three little girls at Sri Sri Radha-Damodara temple, Gita Nagari. That's Radha in the back, Vrinda in the middle, and Visakha in front.

2005-02-28T00:09:00.000-05:00

This was as close as I could get to Bhakti Tirtha Swami right then, but take my word for it, he was dancing up a storm, and I was a little worried that we were all going to fall through the floor! He was in the middle of where everyone's looking, and I got a video clip of his white hat bouncing up and down as he danced back to his vyasaasana.

2005-02-27T23:46:00.000-05:00

In case anyone wonders whether I had a good time at Bhakti Tirtha Swami's vyasapuja festival...

Bhakti Tirtha Swami vyasapuja festival. Gita Nagari, February 26, 2005.

2005-02-27T00:00:00.000-05:00

Bhakti Tirtha Swami drumming to Hare Krishna. February 26, 2005.

2005-02-26T23:56:00.000-05:00

A jovial Bhakti Tirtha Swami, February 26, 2005.