ISKCON Adelaide Update: Ramai Swami / Bhakta das / etc.

Ramai swami / Bhavananda and Early ISKCON History

http://www.ramaiswami.com/biography/

Ramai Swami

Ramai assistant Bhakta Das, ISKCON Communication Officer for Australia

(AUS) Bhakta das (left) with Mukunda Swami (center) -- who told Nandini he has to suppress the scandals because -- "I have a career to protect."

[PADA: There seems to be a problem in Adelaide Australia temple where a young woman reported being sexually abused and the leaders discouraged her from pressing charges with the police, among many other problems. This is an ongoing legal process and we will report on it as things develop. 

There seems to be a lot of sympathy for sexual abusers overall, and this has been a pattern for decades. Anyway, it also seems that many or most of the current leaders of ISKCON have never understood even the most basic ideas of the Vedas, ... that in order to attain Krishna we have to worship His pure devotee. The post 1977 ISKCON GBC has turned that idea on its head, and they say we need to worship their illicit sex acharyas program in order to attain God. 

We think that as part of the legal process underway there in Australia a search of their charity records and articles of incorporation papers of ISKCON Adelaide should be made, to see if there is any record of their society having the aim and object of teaching people to worship illicit sex with men, women and children as God's guru successors? Illicit sex is part of God's successor guru parampara process?

We are very confident that deviation is not found in their official legal corporate papers, and thus what they are teaching is official legal fraud. We also believe that teaching small children that they need to worship an illicit sex guru program would constitute corrupting the morals of minors, and its also illegal. 

No religious society should be allowed to teach children that God's successors are often debauchees, its corrupting them. If God's successors are debauchees, that makes God a debauchee. Its an attack on God direct. 

Its astonishing to us that so many of our God brothers think that we need to worship their illicit sex guru programs in order to attain Krishna, when this is the same major deviation Srila Prabhupada criticized more than almost anything else. ys pd]  

From a book posted on the Internet, author unknown.

It is only honest here to point out that Srila Sridhar Maharaj from the Gaudiya Math, not only supported the 11 Zonal Acaryas in ISKCON late in 1977, but also encouraged them all to be initiating Spiritual Masters in the mood of Srila Prabhupada. I witnessed this at his Gaudiya math Temple in 1978 when he glorified the new Zonal gurus in ISKCON.

Also Narayana Maharaj originally supported and encouraged the 11 gurus, regardless of what he says today. So as far as I am concerned, Narayana Maharaj is just as naive and Spiritually immature as us God brothers were who also pushed the 11 guru worship that is really just an imitation of Srila Prabhupada, just like a child imitates their hero.

[PADA: Right, Sridhara Maharaja, Narayana Maharaja, Gaura Govinda maharaja, Bhakti Caru swami, BP Puri and many others all supported the idea that the 11 are gurus. They aided and abetted this illusion. Some Narayana Maharaja folks still insist that he knew what Srila Prabhupada really wanted, and Srila Prabhupada "really wanted" 11 conditioned souls to be worshiped as Krishna's successor messiahs? NM is blaming Srila Prabhupada for the 11 guru mess he promoted. Of course Ramai was one of the biggest cheer leaders of this bogus guru program too. Its interesting that people like Ramai never seemed to have questioned why the GBC was "consulting" with the Gaudiya Matha folks?]

Also I remember way back in 1981 Ramai Swami (who was just elected the head of the GBC in 2008), got up and praised his sannyas guru Bhavananda at his Vysa Puja by saying he had specially come from Vaikuntha to save the fallen souls, Ramai had tears in his eyes as he spoke fondly of Bhavananda and was clearly very moved, he had really saw Bhavananda as specially coming down from Vaikuntha to carry on Prabhupada's work of saving the fallen, this mood he instilled to others who eventually became Bhavananda's disciples, this was video taped and I still have it in storage.

Clearly Ramai Swami had seen Bhavananda in the same light as another Prabhupada, a pure devotee put in that position by Krsna. In this way Ramai Swami, Chittahari, Balarama, Yasomatinandana, Pratapana, Hari Sauri, Subabhati, all of us Prabhupada disciples would strongly set the mood, scene and example of worship of Bhavananda as the current acharya, for his new disciples to follow, especially Ramai Swami, who was also kind of a disciple of Bhavananda as well, due to taking sannyas off him.

[PADA: OK a few, maybe a lot, or maybe even all of these people knew that Bhavananda had fallen down in 1976. How did he become the acharya one year later? Is that normal, a person is fallen one year, and the next year he can be a diksha guru and absorb sins like Jesus? What were these people thinking? Yet this is correct, a lot of senior devotees like Ramai, Hari Sauri and others were promoting these 11 gurus, and giving all sorts of pressure to the new people to accept these 11 as their "eternal spiritual masters from heaven." Thus a lot of these God brothers are co-responsible for all the ensuing mayhem.]

Anyway, the extravagant worship of some of these God brothers created for Bhavananda would last until 1986, when unfortunately the whole "guru" thing sort of came crashing down on our heads, resulting in utter confusion and chaos for ISKCON, where at least one devotee I know of committed suicide.

[PADA: Right. A number of devotees, ok almost all of the original ones, have left ISKCON; a number have committed suicide; many have died prematurely; many crimes were going on; many temples are now empty ... and so forth, but there seems to be little or no accountability -- because the same people who promoted the false guru infrastructure all along are still the big leaders? Including Ramai?] 

Personally, I never ever went that far to see Bhavananda as specially sent from Vaikuntha, because to me he was just another God brother who was supposed to represent Prabhupada. I thought at the time however, how Ramai's "over the top" glorification of his Sannyas guru was eerie but I never said anything.

[PADA: This is the first problem, people often saw things that were very much off from Srila Prabhupada's teachings, or there were deviations that were criminal -- or just plain totally out of whack -- like some gurus taking drugs and having affairs -- "but I never said anything" -- and that is how these deviations were empowered and enabled. Hundreds of "senior devotees" would see Kirtanananda dressed in silk while sitting on a big golden seat, and they saw that many bad things were going on at New Vrndavana, but (as Sulochana complained) they did not want to protest. Sulochana called them "the mindless zombies."]

Bhavananda might not have saw himself as a great devotee, he probably knew he was playing at the guru role, believing that imitating Prabhupada was his service, he believed that in time he would become purified and gradually become stronger and stronger in his sadhana, so that he could truly act as a Guru. He told me this when he sent me to see an old friend of his and present a garland to him (The famous singer Peter Allen).

[PADA: We keep hearing this "he was doing the service of being a guru." OK so being another Jesus-like guru is the same as being "a brain surgeon in training," we are "doing the service" of brain surgery already, without the proper credentials and training? OK, and people are going to die because we are not qualified to do the actual surgery yet? 

A hospital janitor does not "do the service" of being a brain surgeon, he has to be totally trained, skilled and qualified FIRST. First we need to be qualified, then, we need to get the specific order from Krishna or our guru to take the post of guru, that is the system in our parampara. Being another Jesus is not "a service" like washing the pots is "a service" and its foolish to keep promoting this idea.]

Later he told me what Ramai had said is simply not true, "I am no pure devotee" telling me the story of how he suffered as a young boy. Yet unfortunately, as years progressed, Bhavananda became more and more intoxicated by his lavish, luxurious, magnificent and wealthy worship that his God brothers had set up and supported, strongly encouraging any new devotees to follow suit. So gradually, he became more and more inebriated, proud and arrogant, more than he already was.

[PADA: OK so Bhavananda was already trending to be inebriated with power, if not proud and arrogant. And he had a tendency to fall down, and all this was known way before he was a "diksha guru." And these trends and tendencies just got worse after he was made their diksha guru. This is the qualification of a diksha guru? His contamination just gets worse? That means he was already contaminated beforehand. Why did they say he was a diksha guru -- if he was already known to be contaminated way before he was an alleged diksha guru?]

I already knew in India back in 1978 of Bhavananda's problems with homosexuality, his incident in Mayapur a few years previous was well known in India, but Srila Prabhupada tried to forgive him for his fall down and he worked very hard, doing amazing service in Mayapur, to again get Prabhupada's favour.

Could it happen again? One could ask. Those questions were not ever asked back then by anyone like it is today. I did not know in 1978 if he would again have problems in that area when I was Temple commander of Vrndavan, but as early as 1982 I did know, I just knew he was again having the same problems, I think a few of us did, I know Chittahari prabhu did, Bhavananda confided in him. Anyway who was I to judge others? I was struggling myself and ironically everyone knew about that to.

[PADA: So there were a number of people who knew these gurus were deviating, and yet "those questions were never asked." OK so that means people intentionally promoted deviants as gurus, despite they knew better. They knew the emperor had no clothes, but did not want to point that out, lest they lose their spot in the prasadam line?]

No one back then knew what to do with anyone who was having a sexual problem, it was mostly ignored and never talked about. 

[PADA: Everyone knew what to do, they should protest, and try to put a stop to deviants sitting in the Vyasasana seats in ISKCON. They didn't act in most cases, since they were apparently afraid of losing their post or social standing, so they went along with "the big lie." "The emperor's new clothes."]  

Of course that all changed in the mid 1990's. Anyway in Vrndavana and Mayapur, Bhavananda would get me to convince any new devotee that he should be chosen as guru. This was happening all over the world with all the appointed gurus. It seemed back in those early immature years, to have a `hero', then worship him as a pure devotee, even if he is not qualified, was more important at the time than having no hero at all.

[PADA: Right, we need to worship someone, even if he is a rascal. That made for a very dangerous personality cult atmosphere.]

This is because the search for paragons is a natural phenomenon within human society, if we cannot find one a qualified Guru, then we unfortunately manufacture one. After Prabhupada left us, we actually carried on the Guru worship to these conditioned souls, but we knew they were not qualified to be Gurus, and so did Sridhara Maharaja and Narayana Maharaja.

[PADA: Good!]

The appointed gurus were not qualified on the level of Prabhupada, yet we would worship them anyway ON THAT LEVEL with the hope they would become qualified, that's how foolish and innocent we were, but we genuinely believed that in time, due to the purification process of Bhakti-yoga, they would become pure devotees under the test of time.

[PADA: No matter how hard we wish our kindergarten child to be a brain surgeon, its not going to happen until and unless he takes all the proper training and certification. Its certainly not going to happen by hoping and wishing alone, and its not going to happen when the child only understands a few kindergarten concepts and nothing further, he will need considerable more time and training to make progress. 

Worse! As has been already noted in a number of cases, many of their gurus dropped almost all their so-called sadhana -- just after being made a guru -- and they drifted off into worse deviations, often staying in private houses, hotels and living basically aloof from the society, while taking funds from the society for their opulent lifestyles.] 

We all quoted Prabhupada to support this by saying that Prabhupada gave Brahmin initiating to devotees saying, "Now that I have given you Brahmin initiation, now become Brahmana"

All of us God brothers put a new twist on Prabhupada's comment - "Now that I have given you the authority to become initiating Guru, now become Guru"

I was too uneducated in Spiritual life and very insecure at the time to say anything, so I just went along with the 'chosen guru' thing for the ride, most of us Prabhupada disciples did because we knew nothing else, we knew no better, the oldest devotees in the movement back in 1978 were in their thirties, it was kind of an innocent way we did this, our intentions were good, there was no plan to cheat anyone, we all wanted to see ISKCON grow. It's a shame many tried to imitate Prabhupada back then rather than simply follow him. Back then we simply didn't know any better.

[PADA: We did not know better? We did not know that promoting deviants as Srila Prabhupada's successors is wrong? Sorry, most of us did know, but most folks chose to go along with the bogus program to maintain their status in the false "society, friendship and love" program, and keep their temple position, sleeping room, maintenance, food and source of income going along.]

You know, the preaching on the streets back then was way way better and more effective than it is today, the devotees back then were very dedicated selling books, not that they are not today however back then EVERY TEMPLE DEVOTEE AND GUEST was into selling books.

[PADA: Selling books, and then telling people they have to worship deviants as their acharyas?]

The fact is IF most of these gurus had never fell down, it could have worked, IT WAS WORKING, AT LEAST IN AUSTRALIA. 

[PADA: Cheating always works -- for awhile, then after time it is exposed and it collapses.]

But that was destined to eventually not be, it was destined to fail because of the way they were glorified. They were worshiped like Prabhupada, actually even more than Prabhupada was. It therefore failed because clearly none of them were anything like Prabhupada.

As another old saying goes, "No lie can live forever?

Another point that should be made to shut up the critics is, even the paraphernalia selling by devotee back them, like oil paintings, were necessary as it assisted preaching. Those who criticize such selling are wrong because so many preaching programs where financed by such selling, like putting one and a half million copies of a Hare Krishna magazine in all Australian Newspapers plus supporting the campaign to free Soviet devotees from jails.

[PADA: What is the use of preaching if we are telling people they need to worship deviants as their acharyas? What are we preaching?]

Tirtharaj Prabhu once went out selling paintings and collected $800 in one day and donated all the money to the Prahlad and the Krishna kids project, so they could help other devotees around the world in the campaign to free Soviet devotees locked up in Russia, in early 1986 before they got the EMI contract.

[PADA: Meanwhile, the kids in the gurukulas were reportedly being abused and even molested. Why wasn't the children of ISKCON program the biggest priority? All these other society wide projects became the priority, except, taking care of the children of the society? That means people were diverting the assets away from the children to many other diverse programs ...]

Also in 1987-8 we collected 140,000 signatures around Australia on our Bus, (also financed by selling oil paintings) and along with the Krsna kids campaign, it helped secure the religious freedom in the Soviet Union, granted by the Soviet Government in 1988.

[PADA: Freedom to preach that gurus are often debauchees?]

Anyway, back then I gradually learned what was going on behind the scene, Bhavananda was struggling to handle the extremely high level of worship he received, he certainly wasn't the pure devotee we all made him out to be to his disciples, but I was just struggling along myself, who was I to point the finger?
So I just glorified him like Ramai and all of my Godbrothers did, we had no idea the chaos of imitating a pure devotee would cause back then.

[PADA: But Srila Prabhupada says worship of false gurus takes the bogus guru and his followers to the lowest regions of the universe, what could go wrong here? Plenty!]

Back then we all thought we knew everything, well I certainly didn't, stronger minded God brothers arrogantly made sure of that. (Actually now when I think about it now, it was only Bhavananda who stood up for me when other Godbrothers wanted to put me down) I therefore just followed my God brothers like Ramai Swami, who was totally innocently convinced he knew absolutely everything, only so I could do the media service I was good at.

[PADA: If Ramai swami thought Bhavananda was a pure devotee, he has no discrimination, and he should not be placed in a post of authority.]

It's funny you know because Ramai had no choice in the matter in 1980, he was told by Bhavananda to take me travelling with him. In all fairness though, Ramai Swami took me on board himself in mid 1987 so I could help the devotees in both the Soviet preaching and the Hall programs we were having in Towns and Villages all over Australia.

[PADA: Ramai had no choice but to promote Bhavananda? He had plenty of choices, he could have helped us promote Srila Prabhupada.] 

In reality back then, we had the 'frog in the well' mentality, puffed up with the little knowledge we had, especially Ramai Swami, he thought he knew everything, but now we can see how blind we all were back then, Ramai Swami had no idea how to lead and protect the lives of others. 

He did not know how to deal with or handle so many basic issues he knew about, he knew me better than I knew myself at the time but still had no idea how too deal with me or anyone else for that matter. I was too insecure to not go along with it all, after all, ISKCON was my only family.

[PADA: Why do people keep saying worship of deviants is ISKCON?]

Personally Bhavananda treated me fine, over all the years he was always kind and encouraging to me, he never ever demanded worship off me; in fact in all fairness to him, it was his Godbrothers, including myself, who saw him as a substitute 'Prabhupada' so to speak, and then treated him like Prabhupada, building him up to be a 'Prabhupada' we called 'Vishnupada'. His God brothers gave him that name; he certainly never gave it to himself.

[PADA: Probably true, a lot of the God brothers helped these bogus gurus promote themselves with huge titles, seats, pooja etc.]

People can say what ever they like about him, but as far as I am concerned, I saw his love for Prabhupada and his sincerity. We have to take some of the blame for it all, as the saying goes, 'It's not just the bad people who cause problems in the world, but rather, it is all the good people who stand by and do nothing, letting bad things happen and just go on year after year'.

[PADA: The good people did not stand by, they often supported these gurus.]

Devotees knew what was going on in the 1980s, but did nothing. It is certainly not "all' Bhavananda's fault either; his God brothers lavishly glorified him first before he had any disciples. Also he never ever demanded respect and worship from people like me, although Ramai Swami always would DEMAND it with threats to kick you out of the Temple if you did not fall at his feet, or Bhavananda's feet, he was very arrogant, demanding and secretive and no-one could ever get too close to him, he always treated me impersonally and always patronised me and others. 

[PADA: Right, so it was not just the bogus gurus who were the trouble makers, many God brothers like Ramai were kicking people out of ISKCON if they did not worship these 11 gurus. So -- many God brothers became the enforcers for the bogus guru worship. And many God brothers thought we "dissenters" were offenders for challenging the worship of the GBC's 11.]

On many occasions Ramai would say "get down and bow when you see me coming", he would demand proudly. Sadly he was a clever bully to those who were not submissive to him.

Anyway I never experienced that same bullying and impersonalism with Bhavananda. It's like Ramai had this invisible shield around him. I traveled with him for years like this and his 'coldness' was very frustrating. Even now he remains aloof from everyone -- even if he is with them, right in the middle of all the GBC men. Bhavananda was not like that. His God brothers, including myself, are to fault by taking his worship way over the top.

[PADA: Well, if we knowingly take stolen money, it does not matter a whole lot of we did not rob the bank ourselves. Its still illegal to take pooja that is not meant for oneself. None of these 11 had the authority to take this level of pooja, and none of the God brothers had the authority to promote and endorse this level of pooja for these 11, nor endorse it for anyone else except the pure devotee acharya. So Bhavananda was nice to a few people, and his gurukulas were full of misery, abuse and mistreatment of children, that means he was nice to a few people so he could cover up his other crimes.] 

Once again, when Bhavananda was away from his disciples, he was a reasonable person; he never ever raised his voice in anger to me, even though he did to others. Ananda Prabhu should have been warned.

[PADA: OK so Bhavananda was raising his voice to others, right, he had the reputation for being a tyrant. So why didn't the GBC curb his position? Instead, after the GBC found out that Bhavananda was having sex with taxi drivers, they reinstated him back to the post of acharya.]

I remember one time I became disturbed by what he did when I was Temple Commander of Vrndavana Temple in 1978. We used to go around to all the rooms in the Temple and Gurukula to see if they were clean in the morning, on this occasion, Bhavananda came for the inspection, all the Gurukulis were supposed to be in the Temple room chanting. 

However, there was one room where two Gurukulis were still sleeping, Bhavananda went into a rage when he went into their room, picked one of the boys, Ananda Prabhu, who was 10 or 11 years old at the time, and threw him into the wall, then picked him up and did it a second time. I stood by and watched in surprise as I did not know nor experience that side of Bhavananda, after all his role as Guru had only just begun .

[PADA: OK so Bhavananda was displaying cruel behavior towards children right at the start of his guru program. Why were people encouraging him to be a guru when he was being cruel to children? And how would he look after the welfare of children if he was himself abusive towards them? And why were Ramai and others encouraging this man to be a guru?]

What could I do, that's just how it was in those days because that how we were treated when we went to school in the 50s and 60s. (I was 17 when I first went to the Temple in 1971) Bhavananda then turned to me and said "these boys need discipline, this place is not a free motel, make sure no one is in any of these rooms during the morning program" .

[PADA: But some of these gurus themselves were living in motels and hotels and watching TV, among other deviations?]

In my mind I was thinking I should have warned the boys that Bhavananda was inspecting the gurukuli rooms with us as I new they were resting. Afterwards I went back to see if Ananda was alright, he had a hobby of reading books on airplanes and jets, which he was reading when I went into see him, he just carried on like nothing had happened'.

Ananda Prabhu had a gash to his head that I treated and bandaged and some bruises on his body, I told him what had happened to him shocked me because I did not know Bhavananda could get so violent, as I was talking to him, Danavir, his school teacher, came in and yelled at him more for not attending the morning program.

Later I took him down Loi Bazaar in Vrndavana and we had a kumba Lassi drink (the best place in the world to get this drink) and checked out all the shops, he knew so much about Vrndavana, showing me the best places to buy dhotis, shirts and Deities, then we visited Prabhupada's room at the Radha Damodar Temple, Ananda Prabhu told me how early in the morning Srila Prabhupada would translate Srimad Bhagavatam and then chant his rounds. 

Afterwards walking around the samadhis of Jiva Goswami and Rupa Goswami chanting Hare Krishna. We then went to Davanala Kund and swam with others boys, on the banks of the Kund was a Shiva lingum and Ananda Prabhu and an older boy named Dvarkadisha das ACBSP explained how the young girls from the village came to worship the lingum. I remember thinking what the early British Christian missionaries must of thought on seeing such worship. I remember someone took photos of us all swimming at Davanala Kund, love to see those photos now.

Anyway my memory of Ananda Prabhu is that he had so much knowledge about Vrndavana, he spoke Hindi fluently but also loved to read his books on planes. Other Gurukulis at the time would remember this, they where terrified of Bhavananda after this and so was I back then, why? Because I had nothing else and nowhere else to go. After all, I was only a lost and a pissed off teenager towards the world myself when I joined ISKCON. The movement became everything to me and today it still is".

[PADA: Is this the same Ananda who committed suicide seeing that the orchestrators of his abuse are still leaders and gurus? If so, all of these above people are responsible for his untimely death. Of course others have committed suicide and these leaders are all collectively responsible for all this suffering, misery and death as well. To sum, Ramai has been a pillar supporter of the problem makers, he has no right to act as a leader now. ys pd]