Open Letter to B.A. Paramadvaiti Maharaja

Open Letter to B.A. Paramadvaiti Maharaja

BY: LILANATH DASA

In a recent letter published by the Sampradaya Sun written by B.A. Paramadvaiti Swami, addressed to Hrdayananada Das Goswami on March 16, 2014, I was dumbfounded by the discovery that my legal name had been libelously implicated in very grave accusations that have no credible source of reference nor concrete evidence to substantiate them among my God-brothers and God-sisters, much less in a court of law.

27 years ago on March 14, 1987 I left the Colombian Yatra with my wife and infant son. There are a variety of factors that played a vital role in motivating my decision to leave, namely the adverse consequences that arose as a result of a power struggle between the GBC's interests in the region, your interests in the Yatra which had thrived under your supervision, and the interests of "so called" representatives of Srila Bhakti Raksaka Sridhara Deva Goswami Maharaja. In retrospect, I realize it was a power struggle in which I was a pawn.

[PADA: Right, the post-1977 ISKCON manager's history has been largely a power struggle and has had little to do with "preaching to save the fallen souls." "So-called" representatives, yup!]
The explicit purpose of this letter is to emphatically and categorically deny your untruthful statements regarding my involvement and association with armed military groups in Colombia, my supposed legal plight to have you incarcerated, as well as the bombing of an ISKCON temple in Medellin. In order to present such serious allegations, a responsible person would corroborate their claim with a significant amount of scrutinized evidence, as an accusation of this magnitude requires a high burden of proof before being disseminated through such a public forum. I humbly ask the readers of this letter to carefully consider and distinguish between subjective opinions proposed in a disgruntled letter, and the documented historical events that occurred during that era.

[PADA: We have heard that there has been some connections to drug lords and the movement in Columbia, not substantiated, but which was used to sort of "create an atmosphere of fear" to silence various critics with threats that "we know the drug lords."] 

You can imagine my surprise when after reading your open letter to Hridayananda Maharaja (Dated March, 16th), I immediately recalled our meeting at your Vrinda Temple in Miami, (towards the end of March 2014), during which no mention was made of said letter that had already been written and prepared for publication. Naively, I fell under the impression that our seemingly warm encounter was an opportunity to heal wounds that were predicated upon misunderstandings in the past that came as a result of a power struggle, from which you arose victorious.

[PADA: Guru means "heavy." And victory goes to, the heaviest guru, hah hah, at least so said Hansadutta. Heavy also means a goonda from the gangsters, he is "a heavy." Apparently some folks confused heavy guru and heavy goonda. The people who rose to the top, were they the most heavy pure, or most heavy thugs? What type of heavy were they? Heh heh heh!] 

While honoring prasadam at your Vrinda Temple in Miami we spoke about our time serving our Guru Maharaja: His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in the Colombian Yatra. We spoke in particular about a very significant event that played a pivotal role in the early development of the Krishna consciousness movement in Colombia. That event entails a donation of $50,000 USD, kindly donated by Padjavaly Dasi's sister, as a result of my preaching effort while serving as President of ISKCON Colombia. 

What is clear and substantiated by legal documents I hold in my possession, is that I transferred the title of the property purchased through this donation to ISKCON Colombia. The trajectory of this donation, from its original source to a bank account in Florida in the name of the regional GBC secretary of Colombia at the time, was a topic of conversation. You told me that you were the person responsible for rescuing the donation and bringing it back to Colombia. 

You did not mince words when explaining the aggressive tactics by which you were able to bring this donation back to our Colombian mission. You said: "I confronted and challenged him with the prospect of returning the funds to our Colombian Yatra, or being publicly denounced to the GBC body." As a result of the donation being restored to its original cause, we were able to finally purchase the farm in Granada, Cundinamarca (Near Bogota). 

The farm now stands as the heart and headquarters of the Vrinda mission and is home to Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Vrajesvara. It is important to note that the preaching efforts that brought this accomplishment to fruition, could not have occurred without the collective endeavor of hundreds of sincere Colombian devotees, who were brought to Krishna consciousness by ISKCON Colombia at the time. The groundwork and inception of the Colombian Krishna consciousness movement was a direct result of my Guru Maharaja's success in establishing ISKCON, a global movement that has fostered the spiritual principles set forth by Caitanya Mahaprabhu in the lives of millions of aspiring devotees.

[PADA: Ooops, another ISKCON property was being diverted off to the Gaudiya Matha?]

During our encounter in March, We also discussed how you felt practically forced to leave ISKCON as a result of the GBC's coordination of a covert operation to hold meetings with you, while simultaneously pulling political maneuvers in other Bogota temples with the intent of taking control of them. There was also a hidden agenda orchestrated by "so called" representatives of Srila Sridhara Maharaja, to take the farm and place it under the banner of the Sri Caitanya Saraswat Math. 

[PADA: Yep, taking over disciples, taking over buildings, same as occurred in the Gaudiya Matha.] 

By preventing all of this from happening, I believe it was your sincere belief that you were protecting your service to Srila Prabhupada. I also believe that if the GBC would have treated you in a more compassionate way, and would have been more understanding of your vision and aspirations for the Colombian Krishna consciousness movement, rather than part ways, a coalition could have been established. 

Unfortunately that was not the case. We all encounter personal experiences that encompass certain determining factors that do not lie within the confines of our ability to control or decide their outcome. The Supreme controller Paramesvara oversees our destiny to a certain degree. Even the falling of a leaf from a tree bears His divine intention. He also provides for a vacuum of divine intervention in which human will and self-determination are allowed to exercise their forces freely, regardless of whether they are guided by worldly or divine aspirations.

After a recent trip to Colombia, I was left very happy and impressed by the fruit of your service to our Srila Prabhupada. It is especially impressive that throughout your service career, you have constantly striven to make a point for harmony among vaisnavas and have emphasized creating harmonious and respectful relations among them. This was made evident in my association with many of your followers there.

I recall when I personally went with you to His Divine Grace Bhakti Vaibhava Puri Maharaja to humbly ask for his signature, in order for him to become the president of the "World Vaishnava Association." You adopted the original idea given by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur to create harmony and respect among vaisnavas. Ironically, the same breathe with which you speak of this shares an antonymous hand that wrongfully accuses me of being the person who denounced you among the Colombian authorities for alleged illegal activities. 

Again, I DECLARE THIS TO BE COMPLETELY UNTRUE. It has taken 27 years for you to publicize what has been harbored in your mind regarding my actions during that time. It is interesting that during those 27 years, you have never made any mention to me of it. Not even a call to discuss it. However, you have on multiple occasions in the past, reached out to me regarding a property adjacent to the farm in Granada which was never signed over to ISKCON Colombia. It seems to me that your spiritual and managerial aptitudes are more efficiently exercised when "rescuing" funds in foreign bank accounts, than when a loyal servant of the Krishna consciousness movement in Colombia is ostracized by the very same political tactics you speak against.

It also seems Maharaja, you were both victim AND perpetrator of these wrongs. I know how it feels to be quarantined by the very institution one has rendered his sincere devotion to, because I was subjected to the same treatment by you. You mention in your letter to Hridayananda Das Goswami that when he directed you to the "village" of Colombia there was no leader there. Well, in the same way that Hrdayananda Das Goswami was not able to, or maybe did not want to recognize you as successful leader in Brazil, in that same fashion you failed to recognize my activities in the field of preaching in Colombia. 

I will not say that your arrival in Bogota was opportunistic. Rather, it coincided with two promising factors. 

1) An already established spiritual program with more than 60 devotees. This was only possible by the work of Havi Prabhu, whom I consider to be the original father of the movement in Colombia. He laid the very first stone of the movement's foundation. Before him there was nothing. With his sincere and arduous work, along with the help of many vaisnavas who participated in the movement's early stage, we were able to establish the first Colombian Yatra. All this occurred prior to acquiring the farm. 

2) The $50,000 USD donation that was already promised by the donor, but had not yet materialized. When you arrived in Colombia I was the Temple President and had the serious commitment of obtaining a donation for the farm that today stands as evidence of that endeavor. Regardless of how various outside forces implemented coercive tactics to influence the development of a movement still in its infancy, I believe you and I agreed that what was being presented to us by these forces had a fundamental flaw. It did not align with our respective conception of the principles presented to us by Srila Prabhupada.

I find it unnecessary to enter into the historical details about the unfortunate political turmoil and mob-stricken circumstances in Colombia at that time. You know the truth about them. Hrdayananada Maharaja knows the truth about them. All the devotees who lived in Colombia in that time know the truth about them. What many seem to lack knowledge of is: Quietly in the background of these unfortunate events, ambitious hands from rival factions were reaching left and right across the table, in an attempt to grasp the prospect of appropriating themselves of Prabhupada's Yatra in Colombia. 

Who was really entitled to it? There will never be a consensus on this issue until your wish of propagating harmony among Vayshnavas comes true. By the grace of Providence, or by the grace of turmoil and manipulation, you seem to have won that table challenge. Why not then "create harmony and respect among vaisnavas", as opposed to publishing a politically opportunistic letter with dubious accusations?

Sincerely,
Lilanath dasa

[PADA: Tip of the iceberg in terms of "property manipulation"? ys pd]