Faulted for "Serving ISKCON"? (Krishna Kirtan das)

There are many sincere people in ISKCON

Krishna Kirtana das: Recently the memorial I designed for my mother (Final Considerations) was criticized in a forum claiming that it was propaganda for ISKCON because my mother took initiation in 1979. So I would like to quickly make some clarification in this regard.

A MEMORIAL FOR A SINCERE SOUL

This is the story of my mother, a devotee of the Lord, not my story. The purpose of this memorial was to tell her story. Please also note that I did not include anything beyond the relevant to tell her story. Pure and simple.

Please be sensitive that many sincere individuals entered ISKCON during those years, at a specific time in history and when the movement was still going very strong, and only a small handful of people knew at all what was really and actually going on behind the scenes. There was still a lot of purity in ISKCON left by Srila Prabhupada that gradually diminished over the years.

My mother Adi-lila rendered a lot of sincere devotional service in her life, preached Krishna consciousness very effectively, endured a lot of hardship because of her strength and surrender to the Lord, and she gave every drop of her life to Srila Prabhupada's mission. Please be very careful how you assess what you think you may be reading or looking at.

Although it is true that many been deceived during those years by those so called Gurus — when in fact they were only appointed to initiate on behalf of Srila Prabhupada, and effectively they did just that, although not telling anyone that's what they were told to do while appropriating the position of Guru to themselves — yet that does not and should not minimize the position of any devotee who is actually sincere.

My mother was a thoroughly sincere devotee, and I don't say this because I'm bias that she was my mother, but because it is fact that I and many dozens of others can attest to — that Adi-lila devi dasi left her body as one of the most well known and well respected devotee, as one of the most serious and sincere, at different times also having suffered at the hands of unscrupulous ISKCON authorities for her constant inquiring mind and no-nonsense approach to the practice of Krishna consciousness in her own life, as well as having touched the lives of many in the Vaishnava communities and outside. And if what I say is not true, may a thunderbolt fall on my head today.

I myself grew up in ISKCON Gurukula and ISKCON in general, and if you must also know, once I started to become more aware of all the troubles within ISKCON (and the world), I have actually turned into one of the fiercest critics of ISKCON and all the non-sense that has taken place and is taking place, without holding back anything I find to be true, without mixing truth with lies, unlike so many so-called 'truth-tellers' out there who are so experts at disinformation and distortion.

Therefore please note that this memorial, designed by me, is not propaganda for ISKCON and will never be. This is simply the story of a thoroughly sincere soul, Adi-lila devi dasi, my mother, and how she gave her life to Srila Prabhupada.

Thank you.

Krishna Kirtan (Louvalie Loyola Caju)
9 January 2015

[PADA: Very good idea -- to make a memorial for a sincere Srila Prabhupada devotee. Nice! We agree this is a good policy. There are many sincere souls who have tried to serve Srila Prabhupada's mission as best they could, even after "the troubles" started in 1978. We think Krishna will bless these persons based on their inner sincere mood to serve Him and He will not consider the externals only. After all, some great devotees also served Kamsa's empire even though they were great devotees. We are not always masters of our entire situations. 

As for some of us  being "truth tellers," according to some of our friends at the police and FBI, the crimes we were originally reporting in our newsletters were under - reported, they said the crimes were much worse than we had originally calculated. 

Yep, leave it to actual law enforcement to say PADA's reporting is on the wimpy side! Many ex-kulis also tell us the same thing, they think we were WAY too wimpy because we did not help them fast enough by complaining more vigorously about the gurukula mess. In fact a few of them shouted at me for being too much of a wimp. 

Meanwhile, many others thought our language was WAY too strong and forceful. Some actually thought our reporting was "mis-information" -- except for most of the victims, who said we only reported the tip of the iceberg. Which is why Srila Prabhupada says you cannot please the un-pleaseable. 

The good news is -- at least the the police, FBI and media etc. did believe us for the most part, and they helped us contain some of this criminality going on in the name of acharyas and messiahs by cracking down on it -- when most of the devotees simply could not and would not for whatever the reasons. Similarly, Krishna had to crack down on Kamsa, the devotees just could not do it themselves.

Anyway! At least we said something. 

In sum, many nice devotees just could not handle the criminal  take over situation and react very aggressively, and so they could not help us in counteracting the problems. And they basically went on serving and trying to think of Krishna as best they could in these awkward situations. I think we should still give these devotees credit and a nice place of memorium and so forth. 

Yes, Krishna sees the inner hearts of these people and He knows that many people loved Srila Prabhupada anyway, but they were not able to fight back very effectively. As it now stands, our idea of emphasizing Srila Prabhupada is gradually catching on regardless, and we hope the day will come when all people everywhere will actually be proud to bury their loved ones as members of ISKCON. ys pd]