PADA: Dear prabhu, Thanks for your question about the Jadurani situation. Yes! The Jadurani physical attack incident was a turning point in the history of post-1977 ISKCON. Practically everyone in ISKCON heard about the incident and they knew she was being targeted for retribution by these false gurus.
In sum, after Jadurani was attacked and banished, the mass of devotees now knew for sure the GBC guru program was rotten to the core, and the leaders were stepping up the levels of attacks on the Srila Prabhupada devotees -- to a much higher point than previously (where they were just harassing opponents). Now -- opponents could meet physical violence. So this was like a red flag warning to all the disciples of Srila Prabhupada, that they should join together with folks like PADA to oppose these false gurus, or else get picked off one by one, as was the case with Jadurani and other protesters.
Jadurani's position in ISKCON:
A) One of the senior-most devotees in ISKCON and Satsvarupa's ex-wife.
B) Was making important paintings for ISKCON's books.
C) Is a woman, and a very small and defenseless one as well.
D) Is well known to be a very dear friend of Srila Prabhupada personally.
Attacking such a senior-most devotee, who was doing important service, who was a woman, would normally not sound like a good idea. Yet the overall GBC wanted this attack to be known to "send a message" to the entire ISKCON community. Yes, she was the first "Monkey On A Stick" to be set up as a model example of "what happens to people who challenge the gurus."
Jadurani had been working with Kailash Chandra das, Mrgendra das and a few others on making a small booklet "The Bona Fide Spiritual Master." The booklet started out by complaining about the mistreatment of devotees under the guru regime as well as citing various crimes. Yes, it was a PADA style writing. There was a long list of complaints about GBC deviations, as well as a number of nice quotes about the qualifications of a guru. Exactly the style we have used in our early papers. So Jadurani and her associates were handing these booklets out, challenging the GBC guru regime. No wonder the regime decided to "take her down."
Instead of the other GBC leaders censuring Kirtanananda and his community for their horrific behavior, they started to say that Kirtanananda is the greatest devotee on the planet, his program is the most important in ISKCON, and so on and so forth. Satsvarupa began to write that Kirtanananda is the greatest devotee on the planet who must be respected as a pure devotee, which is very odd since Jadurani was his ex-wife.
Why would a person glorify the people who had just -- beat up his wife?
So in other words, beating up devotees, and even beating up women, was now considered as acceptable and respected behavior in the society. And for beating up women one was glorified, exalted, and moved up the GBC guru's ladder into the ranks of the "most faithful."
This was in our opinion, done on purpose -- to set an example. Anyone who opposes the GBC's gurus will be dealt with severely, even if one has been a senior - most devotee, an important servant, and personal friend of Srila Prabhupada, ... none of that now matters. You now have to cooperate with the worship of the bogus gurus and "dissenters" will simply not be tolerated. That was the message, and it worked. Jadurani was an example of how dissenters would be stomped out of ISKCON with jack boots.
Instead of forming together to revolt, now the mass of people were really reluctant to oppose the GBC gurus. The word on the street was out, you will be dealt with severely for opposing the GBC's gurus. You will be banned, you will be beaten, you will be ostracized, and of course it was pretty much known at the time that -- if they would orchestrate beating people, they could perhaps move up the next level very easily, and kill the devotees of Srila Prabhupada. Jadurani came to Santa Cruz and was distributing her paper there, and we had some nice talks with her at the time on the need to oppose these bogus gurus. She sort of joined with our little group of exiled dissenters there after 1980 for a time.
Later on, and even up to now, some devotees tried to argue that they did not know there were these types of problems going on in ISKCON. Sorry, just about everyone knew that Jadurani had been vilified, assaulted, and booted out of ISKCON. And the mass of devotees did not protest that in any meaningful way. This sort of gave the GBC gurus a "green light" to go forward and conduct further attacks on other devotees, because they realized hardly no one was going to object and protest. In other words, the leaders began to feel they could get away with anything they wanted to do, because they were getting away with anything they wanted to do.
So it is our opinion that the Jadurani incident was a sort of trial run on the part of the GBC guru regime to see if they could pick on a very senior person and get away with it -- and they basically did. This opened the Pandora's box for more and more awful behavior, because the leaders began to realize the mass of rank and file are not going to stand up to oppose them.
One interesting part of Jadurani's paper was an expose on the Gaudiya Matha, and there were some quotes from Srila Prabhupada about the dangers of the Gaudiya Matha and their so-called living gurus. Unfortunately, after being booted out of ISKCON Jadurani wrote to tell us that she cannot work in the karmi world, she will have to take shelter of some association, so she went to Narayana Maharaja. And he was the biggest cheer leader of the bogus guru regime. So she sort of went off into the "supporters of the false gurus" camp, and this is why she has not been taken very seriously ever since.
So after 1980 we tried to present this to some of the rank and file devotees and many of them said we should not protest, rock the boat, offend great devotees like Kirtanananda etc. They just did not think this type of thing was a big problem. They also said that discussing this will "give ISKCON a bad name."
Now we have the same thing going on as we had in 1980, the Sanat / Mukunda / Prahlad / Pancali / Nicklaus Evans group are still complaining about PADA, that since we opposed these women beating problems we have "made bad publicity. They just wanted these women to be beaten, and no one should have protested. "Its just not making good publicity to defend these women who are being beaten." Of course if one of these idiots stubs their toe on a rock in front of a market, they will go to the hospital and sue the market for neglect.
In other words, others should accept getting beaten, women and children can be abused, and we should not protest that to "save the name of the mother church," but these cry babies will be the first in line to protest if they are hurt themselves. Of course that is exactly how the GBC gurus program acts, they expect the victims to suffer in silence, no wonder then these above folks are now helping others promoting Radhanath as their messiah.
So there has been a policy of "no justice" for the victims and its amazing that some people still uphold that policy despite so many abuses in the society. Anyway, unless people wake up and realize they cannot allow these types of things, and hold the leaders accountable for these events, then there will not be much shelter in the ISKCON society. And the society will not be taken as a serious institution which looks out for the welfare of its members and citizens. ys pd
In sum, after Jadurani was attacked and banished, the mass of devotees now knew for sure the GBC guru program was rotten to the core, and the leaders were stepping up the levels of attacks on the Srila Prabhupada devotees -- to a much higher point than previously (where they were just harassing opponents). Now -- opponents could meet physical violence. So this was like a red flag warning to all the disciples of Srila Prabhupada, that they should join together with folks like PADA to oppose these false gurus, or else get picked off one by one, as was the case with Jadurani and other protesters.
Jadurani's position in ISKCON:
A) One of the senior-most devotees in ISKCON and Satsvarupa's ex-wife.
B) Was making important paintings for ISKCON's books.
C) Is a woman, and a very small and defenseless one as well.
D) Is well known to be a very dear friend of Srila Prabhupada personally.
Attacking such a senior-most devotee, who was doing important service, who was a woman, would normally not sound like a good idea. Yet the overall GBC wanted this attack to be known to "send a message" to the entire ISKCON community. Yes, she was the first "Monkey On A Stick" to be set up as a model example of "what happens to people who challenge the gurus."
Jadurani had been working with Kailash Chandra das, Mrgendra das and a few others on making a small booklet "The Bona Fide Spiritual Master." The booklet started out by complaining about the mistreatment of devotees under the guru regime as well as citing various crimes. Yes, it was a PADA style writing. There was a long list of complaints about GBC deviations, as well as a number of nice quotes about the qualifications of a guru. Exactly the style we have used in our early papers. So Jadurani and her associates were handing these booklets out, challenging the GBC guru regime. No wonder the regime decided to "take her down."
Instead of the other GBC leaders censuring Kirtanananda and his community for their horrific behavior, they started to say that Kirtanananda is the greatest devotee on the planet, his program is the most important in ISKCON, and so on and so forth. Satsvarupa began to write that Kirtanananda is the greatest devotee on the planet who must be respected as a pure devotee, which is very odd since Jadurani was his ex-wife.
Why would a person glorify the people who had just -- beat up his wife?
So in other words, beating up devotees, and even beating up women, was now considered as acceptable and respected behavior in the society. And for beating up women one was glorified, exalted, and moved up the GBC guru's ladder into the ranks of the "most faithful."
This was in our opinion, done on purpose -- to set an example. Anyone who opposes the GBC's gurus will be dealt with severely, even if one has been a senior - most devotee, an important servant, and personal friend of Srila Prabhupada, ... none of that now matters. You now have to cooperate with the worship of the bogus gurus and "dissenters" will simply not be tolerated. That was the message, and it worked. Jadurani was an example of how dissenters would be stomped out of ISKCON with jack boots.
Instead of forming together to revolt, now the mass of people were really reluctant to oppose the GBC gurus. The word on the street was out, you will be dealt with severely for opposing the GBC's gurus. You will be banned, you will be beaten, you will be ostracized, and of course it was pretty much known at the time that -- if they would orchestrate beating people, they could perhaps move up the next level very easily, and kill the devotees of Srila Prabhupada. Jadurani came to Santa Cruz and was distributing her paper there, and we had some nice talks with her at the time on the need to oppose these bogus gurus. She sort of joined with our little group of exiled dissenters there after 1980 for a time.
Later on, and even up to now, some devotees tried to argue that they did not know there were these types of problems going on in ISKCON. Sorry, just about everyone knew that Jadurani had been vilified, assaulted, and booted out of ISKCON. And the mass of devotees did not protest that in any meaningful way. This sort of gave the GBC gurus a "green light" to go forward and conduct further attacks on other devotees, because they realized hardly no one was going to object and protest. In other words, the leaders began to feel they could get away with anything they wanted to do, because they were getting away with anything they wanted to do.
So it is our opinion that the Jadurani incident was a sort of trial run on the part of the GBC guru regime to see if they could pick on a very senior person and get away with it -- and they basically did. This opened the Pandora's box for more and more awful behavior, because the leaders began to realize the mass of rank and file are not going to stand up to oppose them.
One interesting part of Jadurani's paper was an expose on the Gaudiya Matha, and there were some quotes from Srila Prabhupada about the dangers of the Gaudiya Matha and their so-called living gurus. Unfortunately, after being booted out of ISKCON Jadurani wrote to tell us that she cannot work in the karmi world, she will have to take shelter of some association, so she went to Narayana Maharaja. And he was the biggest cheer leader of the bogus guru regime. So she sort of went off into the "supporters of the false gurus" camp, and this is why she has not been taken very seriously ever since.
So after 1980 we tried to present this to some of the rank and file devotees and many of them said we should not protest, rock the boat, offend great devotees like Kirtanananda etc. They just did not think this type of thing was a big problem. They also said that discussing this will "give ISKCON a bad name."
Now we have the same thing going on as we had in 1980, the Sanat / Mukunda / Prahlad / Pancali / Nicklaus Evans group are still complaining about PADA, that since we opposed these women beating problems we have "made bad publicity. They just wanted these women to be beaten, and no one should have protested. "Its just not making good publicity to defend these women who are being beaten." Of course if one of these idiots stubs their toe on a rock in front of a market, they will go to the hospital and sue the market for neglect.
In other words, others should accept getting beaten, women and children can be abused, and we should not protest that to "save the name of the mother church," but these cry babies will be the first in line to protest if they are hurt themselves. Of course that is exactly how the GBC gurus program acts, they expect the victims to suffer in silence, no wonder then these above folks are now helping others promoting Radhanath as their messiah.
So there has been a policy of "no justice" for the victims and its amazing that some people still uphold that policy despite so many abuses in the society. Anyway, unless people wake up and realize they cannot allow these types of things, and hold the leaders accountable for these events, then there will not be much shelter in the ISKCON society. And the society will not be taken as a serious institution which looks out for the welfare of its members and citizens. ys pd
HARE KRSNA--Prabhu,I was wondering if you could direct me to a site where I could read "A BONA FIDE SPIRITUAL MASTER" -- or is this booklet lost/forgotten over time.Thank you & ALL GLORIES TO HIS DIVINE GRACE A.C.BHAKTIVEDANTA SWAMI SRILA PRABHUPADA!
ReplyDeletePADA: I do not have a copy and do not know who does. If anyone knows where a copy exists, let us know. This booklet had a few quotes from the letters because Ramesvara allowed their group to read some of the letters, before the GBC gurus banned everyone from reading the letters and they locked them up. ys pd
ReplyDeletePlease be fair, basically Jadurani is not an isolated / singular case. Fact is Jadurani never joined NM because of spiritual reason. Hard facts are that for many devotees fear of being ridiculed by their relatives was significant factor of this move. With quite good reason! In order to become an initiated disciple of Prabhupada you had to cut so many ties. Education, family, relatives, friends, heritage, occupational career. For many this scenario became worse than death - after 10-15 years to go back and tell your family, hi, I'm back, it was all an error, I fell for some cheaters line. Does it add up? Agreed, there were devotees who had a total destroyed family situation. But there were others were family members suffered terribly when someone joined ISKCON. Many parents and siblings were traumatized for years. And then after ten years to go back? So plz be rational. These devotees would rather have committed suicide than to make a complete fool of one's self. In other words (end of text)
ReplyDelete[PADA: OK, most devotees could not and did not go back to their families, that is true. In fact, most devotees had already left their families and moved somewhere else to live as hippies / new agers in the 1960s and 1970s.
There was already a break down in the family of most of the original devotees, way before they became devotees. Our question is, what gives a license to the GBC to harass and attack these devotees? Whether or not they could (or could not) go back, that is no excuse to have them banned, beaten and assassinated?
So yes, the GBC / gurus knew that many of the devotees were vulnerable, they had left the material society to take shelter of ISKCON, so by their policy of removing the mass of devotees from ISKCON, these devotees would face severe hardships. We get all that.
Yes, anyone who goes off to join a religion and leaves the family behind will have a hard time coming back, the GBC knew all that, so that means they were intentionally trying to upset these people's lives and make them suffer severe punishment of being removed and not having shelter to go back to. Yes, that means the GBC gurus were making an economic warfare on their brothers and sisters, they wanted to starve them out and have them in a place where they had no shelter.
Of course this has back fired on them big time -- since literally thousands of people then left the GBC gurus and ISKCON and they ran off with: Jayatirtha's peace and love group, Sridhara's group, Naranyan's group, the ritviks, and so on. So their program of making people leave has created all kinds of competing groups that are taking money and manpower from ISKCON.
Most people did not go back to their mother, they formed other groups and associations and spawned giant competition groups for ISKCON. Jadurani is one of thousands of examples of people who left and joined other groups and associations, that are competitors to ISKCON. But she is one of the original "cause celebre" examples because her being stomped on was well known all over ISKCON, she was a prime example of these behaviors. ys pd
I never heard of Jadurani's book. I wish I had. All we were told was a bunch of false lies about what happened to her, while the Prabhupada disciples were able to find out, we were not. We were fed lies from beginning to end. And I'm glad to see what you said is true, by kicking out so many devotees now there are so many other groups they have to fight that they have no rest, they have no peace, they have no money, and they have less women to exploit. Still, as one devotee told me, they would rather have even ONE disciple who is convinced they are bona fide and will give everything they have to them, life and soul, then have a thousand who are not.
DeleteThese Greedy Bastard Club boys will take take take and never give a penny in return. They will hold on to the last penny of Krishna's that they can even past the point of death, thinking that if they get a bigger samadhi than somebody else maybe more prayers will be said for them. Who knows what they are thinking? Do they even have a brain at all?