Kshamabuddhi Dasa: He (Prabhavishnu swami) won't be the last guru to go down either. There will be more and more in the future of ISKCON. Srila Prabhupada could foresee that coming when his sannyasis started falling away. So, he said "no more sannyasi" and established his rtvik system. That is why I have been a rtvik proponent since 1979. Old school Vaishnavas could not accept or understand and created much disturbance and and obstruction to the rtvik system.
PADA: Right. And Indradyumna swami is now being criticized by some of the followers of Prabhasvishnu swami because he knew that Prabhavishnu was fallen maybe ten years ago, but he covered it up, just like Indradyumna covered up for Umapati and Param Gati for years and so on, he is being criticized by some of the followers of Prabhavishnu for his covering this deviation up for so long. That is the main thing the Prabhavishnu people are upset about, this was covered by the other GBC men for so long of time. ys pd
January 8, 2012
ReplyDeleteHare Krsna. I’ve appreciated reading Sanaka prabhu’s articles, and the various postings commenting on what he wrote. Prana prabhu wrote “Well put. So what do we do? Is there any possibility of dealing with this phenomena?”, and Yaduvendu prabhu wrote “The reoccurring problem of child abuse in ISKCON is due to the lack of accountability of its leaders…” Based on my experience, I definitely concur that accountability is a key issue. In response to Prana’s question “…what do we do…”, I might suggest beginning with stopping to pretend that there is a reasonably functional accountability structure in the ISKCON organization, in relation to child protection issues, stopping to make believe that there are minimally effective “proper channels”.
Sanaka’s writings amply illustrate this. Still, I refer readers to the June 30th, 2004 Report on the Status of the ISKCON Child Protection Office (http://www.chakra.org/discussions/GurJun15_06_02.html), and particularly to the sections in that report entitled Favoritism and the Appeal Process, and Culture of Accountability.
As those sections describe, persons in leadership positions in ISKCON do sometimes act with responsibility, care and common sense in relation to child protection. This happens, though, in a system that lacks a culture of accountability. I write here in the present tense, though it is true that I really haven’t been closely involved with child protection in ISKCON for more than seven years. It may be that the situation has markedly changed for the better, and I hope that is the case. Based on the relatively little involvement I have had in recent years, and practically everything I’ve heard from others, I doubt that significant improvement has occurred, and in fact I get the sense that regard for accountability in the organization, with respect to child protection, has deteriorated.
For example, on May 14, 2010, I wrote A Festival of Red Flags - http://www.chakra.org/discussions/GurJun15_06_02.html, which points to many issues related to basic accountability in the organization. One of them, for example, is described in the excerpt below:
“I wrote to Campakalata: ‘I'm wondering whether part of your training and preparation for your service as director of the child protection office included reading the report on the Bhaktivedanta Gurukula Village that I wrote in 1999, and otherwise closely familiarizing yourself with what happened in Mayapur from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. From my perspective getting to closely know and understand the history of the child maltreatment in Mayapur, and the attempts at responding to it, would seem to be essential for your service, not just in relation to Mayapur, but with regard to ISKCON at-large.’
“She responded ‘In my training during the handing over process, I was never informed about what happened in Mayapur.’
“Based on my experience as director of the Association for the Protection of Vaisnava Children from 1998-2004, the child maltreatment in Mayapur from the late 1970s through the early 1990s was the most severe in the history of ISKCON. I believe that anyone with even a vague awareness of the history of child abuse in ISKCON would agree that that statement says a lot.”
Respectfully,
Dhira Govinda dasa (David Wolf)