https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/sinead-oconnor-apology-catholic-church-child-abuse
[PADA: Yes. She called it correctly a long time ago, she said the Catholic Church is corrupt and is covering up large scale child abuse. She was then apparently vilified, shunned, banned from performing at shows, and she reportedly got threats. Its amazing that people like her, leading the charge on these issues, are given so much resistance, harassment, threats and so forth.
It seems like most people are very much concerned with "saving the mother Church" (or the mundane structure of the institution) rather than saving individuals, especially victims of corrupt institutions. This is the same identical problem we at PADA have had with the ISKCON GBC and their allies.
As soon as we began to object to the "big sannyasa guru leaders" (aka GBC) and their "guru schools" program, we were given a lot of resistance from their followers, and even a number of our own "senior" God bothers and sisters gave us a lot of grief. The good news is: a number of our God brothers and sisters -- by this time -- have apologized to us -- for their supporting the false gurus and their by-product abusive "schools" project.
Have some people, maybe only a smaller number of people, apologized to Sinead O'connor and / or PADA? Yep. And! Will many / most eventually apologize. Ever? Nope. Of course, that is because there are always going to be majority numbers of hold outs who still think that their support of the regime has been the right idea all along. All glories to the church! The church that stands for -- what?
Sinead O'conner seems to have had somewhat the same experiences as us at PADA.
Worse, we still have "hold out" folks -- like the followers of Sridhara Maharaja, Narayan Maharaja, Gaura Govinda Maharaja etc. who try to tell us these "senior advisors to the GBC guru leaders" were "just trying to keep ISKCON together" when they supported the false guru's regime. Oh yes, they were doing wonderful service ... keeping Satan in the seat of God's successor? Hee hee!
Is it "serving" the fire department -- by pouring petrol on the fire, and tripping up those of us trying to put out the flames? How is propping up the evil false messiahs project "helping" anything? Why don't they know that?
Same problem as the Church's folks. They mistook the external people dressed in robes and their buildings, or the corporate shell, for the actual essence of the religion. Its not. Its the same as mistaking the external shell of the material body for the soul. The external body is not the life essence. Its only the external shell. And the external shell will become lifeless if the essence is drained out, or taken away, just like a material body is a useless carcass once the soul is removed.
This is perhaps why an ex-gurukuli told me that the ISKCON temples are more like dead and empty ghost towns, graveyards, or mausoleums, the life force has been taken out. Are corrupted priests going in the same direction? OK there are some nice people in the institution, but can they save the institution without having the levers of power to do so? Not likely?
Another interesting parallel is that there was apparently only one main whistle blowing fellow who spear headed the Pennsylvania Church investigation. He was also ignored and shunned for many years together. He was interviewing victims and not making much headway with bringing this to the attention of the Church authority. Ditto for PADA. Me (and Sulochana especially) published complaints about the child abuse process -- and we simply made little headway. Or worse, we were banned, exiled, vilified, and in the case of Sulochana -- assassinated, for our efforts to clean things up.
Thus, the main person heading up the Pennsylvania investigation realized eventually, he would have to take the issue OUTSIDE of the Church authority to LAW ENFORCEMENT and the MEDIA. Yep, same exact thing we had to do. Oddly, many devotees tell PADA, "If there is a problem, why not go to the police, courts, and media"? Great idea! Ooops! As soon as we do that, then these same folks cry like lost puppies, why are people taking down the bogus Catholic priests and bogus GBC gurus by using external interventions? Oooh boo hoo!
So its a problem all over the Kali Yuga world apparently, the people who try to rectify women and children exploiting processes in a corrupted institution are often seen as evil agents who are "destroying the Church" and so forth. Needless to say, after we had several hundred children liberated from the GBC's program, by our making propaganda on this issue, we made many enemies from the corrupt corporate shell's worshiping program's followers.
Even way back when all of this started, people like Rupa Vilas, Visoka, and so many similar other of our God brothers could simply not believe that guys like Satsvarupa Das Goswami would have any ill intent in promoting himself and the other 10 GBC as "gurus." There has been a lot of sympathy for the leaders of the regime, and that has been the same case in the Catholic Church. "Well these leaders are doing their best" and so forth, its what we hear all the time.
In other words, there are folks that Srila Prabhupada calls "religious sentimentalists." And bogus religionists take advantage of these people who are on the sentimental plane, because they cannot fully discriminate the situation. Anyway, another interesting parallel is -- Sinead O'connor and a number of ISKCON devotees have apparently had subsequent bouts with some forms of depression, and that is natural when a person knows about the suffering of others -- and they cannot effectively challenge the situation. Its frustrating and we get that.
And now some folks are feeling guilty and apologizing, and that is good, but it does not benefit me personally really. However, its good for them to do that, to get a load off their own soul's burdens.
At the same time, we would say its FAR better to be depressed, but knowing that the ship is sinking. Better to be in a realistic frame of mind -- than to be an oblivious ostrich? Better to know our situation than to start dining, dancing and partying on the top deck, as the lower decks are filling with water and the people in the below decks are dying one by one as the ship sinks gradually. In sum, I'd rather know the reality than -- not?
Then! While we have had these major league large GBC ilk sharks trying to bite our heads off, an ex-gurukuli says we also have had to deal with the minor league smaller scale piranhas chasing us, who are ALSO trying to bite our heads off, such as: Bhakta das / Swarup Hebel / Kamsahanta / Peter / Sanat / Mukunda / Prahlad / Janardan / Krishna Kirtan / Pancali / HKC Jaipur group et al. ilk and crew.
They too essentially said that our efforts to halt the abuse is "destroying the mother Church." Oh boo hoo, the molester agenda is being disturbed. Gimmee a kleenex already! Recently a devotee said the Hitler-anugas part of this group was giving him severe harassment which discouraged him from preaching. OK they are bully boys, just like the GBC.
And prominent leaders of their group started advertising that PADA needs to promote and start to listen to Bhatka das, chief apologist, boot licker, advocate and overall pal of the GBC's gurus. Bhakta das has been a big defender of the GBC's gurus like Trivrikrama, Radhanath and others. Yep, the way to fix the sewage spill mess is, to promote the people defending and supporting adding more sewage to the mess! Wasn't Bhakta das busted for selling designer drug components, and later busted for some sort of sex complaint in Puri? And some of them say -- we also need to maybe listen to Hitler? That will fix things?
Then we have guys like Kailash / Rocana / Ajit Krishna / Hanuman Croatia etc. The way to fix the first wave of bogus gurus, is to vote in another wave of bogus gurus? These guys are amazing, they seem to be saying -- just about anyone in the universe can be the guru, as long as its NOT Srila Prabhupada.
That would be the horrible ritvik deviation!
Yep, this basic idea was ALSO expressed even when Krishna was here. Sisupala said, we should worship this person, maybe that person, maybe all kinds of other people, as long as its NOT Krishna! Heh heh heh! These thinkers have been around since time began. Worship anyone, as long as its not the bona fide representative of God. In fact, some of these folks apparently think its better to worship the GBC's illicit sex with men, women and children guru parampara members -- like Bhakti Vikas swami, than to worship the pure devotee. Ya think so pilgrims?
In any case, the Bible has the story of the tower of Babel. They thought they could get to heaven by their own concocted process. Instead, they angered God and He thus condemned them and they fell into infighting and chaos, and the tower building was halted. Srila Prabhupada says; An artificial thing cannot stand; Do not go to the Gaudiya Matha; Suspend sannyasa; Make farms; Don't cheat the public; Take care of the children; Protect the women; When the leaders deviate they have to be replaced (they are not gurus), and so on.
These orders have to be taken up.
Or the whole thing becomes a deteriorated mess like the tower of Babel. Now there are many different camps competing and fighting over the left over remnants of the ISKCON society. None of these camps will have long range success unless and until the begin to follow the actual orders.
Personally, I have to say that the material energy is very amazing and totally expert at foiling various cheating efforts in the name of religion. As soon as people want to divert from the actual path, and disobey the orders of the pure devotee and Krishna, things will start to disintegrate. And then various signs of corruption will gradually over take the mission. And if Srila Prabhupada complained of being poisoned, then where does that leave things?
Therefore, all of this confusion, corruption and deviation is a sign that the superior orders are not being followed. And that means the material energy will more and more bind up the folks making these deviations, and make their situation more and more complex, and not so much enjoyable. To sum then, as soon as devotees deviate they become ensnared once again in the material energy, and this creates all sorts of problems both individually and collectively.
As we have witnessed in spades?
All glories to the Goddess of the material energy of the Lord! She keeps the conditioned souls, including materially minded so-called devotees, captured in a complex web of illusion, as long as they do not surrender to Krishna. That is the duty of Krishna's sevakas in the material world. Jaya Srila Prabhupada for helping us see through these illusions. ys pd
"So we have to be very careful in understanding Krishna Consciousness. ... To understand Krishna as He has spoken in the Bhagavad Gita or in other Vedic literatures through the right sources of disciplic succession that is our real knowledge. The idea is everyone should try to pace himself as if he doesn't know anything. His position is secure. But as soon as he says that "I know everything, and I was previously such and such...," That is actually rascal. So I know that you are trying to know things from the real source, and you are not puffed up like other fools who think that they know everything. Your humbleness is very much appreciated by me.
Srila Prabhupada Letter to Janardana (January 21st 1968)
"Our, this life, this conditioned life in the material world is just like the ocean of ignorance, ocean of ignorance. So Lord Caitanya, therefore, He prayed to Śrī Kṛṣṇa like this, ayi nanda-tanuja patitaṁ kiṅkaraṁ māṁ viṣame bhavāmbudhau: "My dear Lord Kṛṣṇa, I am just fallen in the ocean of ignorance." So we are in the ocean of ignorance. Now, in the ocean, if you get a very good boat or very good ship, as you can cross over, similarly, if we have the ship or the boat of perfect knowledge, then there is no fear. We can cross the ocean very easily. We can cross this ocean very easily."
Bhagavad-gītā 4.34-38
New York, August 17, 1966
"As for your next question, can only a few pure devotees deliver others, anyone, if he is a pure devotee he can deliver others, he can become spiritual master. But unless he is on that platform he should not attempt it. Then both of them will to go to hell, like blind men leading the blind.”
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, December 14th, 1972)
”Leaders who have fallen into ignorance and who mislead people by directing them to the path of destruction [as described in the previous verse] are, in effect, boarding a stone boat, and so too are those who blindly follow them. A stone boat would be unable to float and would sink in the water with its passengers. Similarly, those who mislead people go to hell, and their followers go with them.”(Srimad-Bhagavatam 6.7.14)
”And the rascal, blind leaders are leading everyone to hell. They are simply misleaders. People do not like to accept any authority. Still, they have accepted these rascals as leaders and are being misled. In this way both the rascal leaders and their unfortunate followers remain bound up by the stringent laws of material nature.”(The Laws of Nature, chapter 1)
”Generally a fashionable materialist engages a so-called spiritual master without any profit. The pseudo spiritual master flatters the so-called disciple, and thereby both the master and his ward go to hell without a doubt.”
(Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.19.37, purport)
[PADA: Yes. She called it correctly a long time ago, she said the Catholic Church is corrupt and is covering up large scale child abuse. She was then apparently vilified, shunned, banned from performing at shows, and she reportedly got threats. Its amazing that people like her, leading the charge on these issues, are given so much resistance, harassment, threats and so forth.
It seems like most people are very much concerned with "saving the mother Church" (or the mundane structure of the institution) rather than saving individuals, especially victims of corrupt institutions. This is the same identical problem we at PADA have had with the ISKCON GBC and their allies.
As soon as we began to object to the "big sannyasa guru leaders" (aka GBC) and their "guru schools" program, we were given a lot of resistance from their followers, and even a number of our own "senior" God bothers and sisters gave us a lot of grief. The good news is: a number of our God brothers and sisters -- by this time -- have apologized to us -- for their supporting the false gurus and their by-product abusive "schools" project.
Have some people, maybe only a smaller number of people, apologized to Sinead O'connor and / or PADA? Yep. And! Will many / most eventually apologize. Ever? Nope. Of course, that is because there are always going to be majority numbers of hold outs who still think that their support of the regime has been the right idea all along. All glories to the church! The church that stands for -- what?
Sinead O'conner seems to have had somewhat the same experiences as us at PADA.
Worse, we still have "hold out" folks -- like the followers of Sridhara Maharaja, Narayan Maharaja, Gaura Govinda Maharaja etc. who try to tell us these "senior advisors to the GBC guru leaders" were "just trying to keep ISKCON together" when they supported the false guru's regime. Oh yes, they were doing wonderful service ... keeping Satan in the seat of God's successor? Hee hee!
Is it "serving" the fire department -- by pouring petrol on the fire, and tripping up those of us trying to put out the flames? How is propping up the evil false messiahs project "helping" anything? Why don't they know that?
Same problem as the Church's folks. They mistook the external people dressed in robes and their buildings, or the corporate shell, for the actual essence of the religion. Its not. Its the same as mistaking the external shell of the material body for the soul. The external body is not the life essence. Its only the external shell. And the external shell will become lifeless if the essence is drained out, or taken away, just like a material body is a useless carcass once the soul is removed.
This is perhaps why an ex-gurukuli told me that the ISKCON temples are more like dead and empty ghost towns, graveyards, or mausoleums, the life force has been taken out. Are corrupted priests going in the same direction? OK there are some nice people in the institution, but can they save the institution without having the levers of power to do so? Not likely?
Another interesting parallel is that there was apparently only one main whistle blowing fellow who spear headed the Pennsylvania Church investigation. He was also ignored and shunned for many years together. He was interviewing victims and not making much headway with bringing this to the attention of the Church authority. Ditto for PADA. Me (and Sulochana especially) published complaints about the child abuse process -- and we simply made little headway. Or worse, we were banned, exiled, vilified, and in the case of Sulochana -- assassinated, for our efforts to clean things up.
Thus, the main person heading up the Pennsylvania investigation realized eventually, he would have to take the issue OUTSIDE of the Church authority to LAW ENFORCEMENT and the MEDIA. Yep, same exact thing we had to do. Oddly, many devotees tell PADA, "If there is a problem, why not go to the police, courts, and media"? Great idea! Ooops! As soon as we do that, then these same folks cry like lost puppies, why are people taking down the bogus Catholic priests and bogus GBC gurus by using external interventions? Oooh boo hoo!
So its a problem all over the Kali Yuga world apparently, the people who try to rectify women and children exploiting processes in a corrupted institution are often seen as evil agents who are "destroying the Church" and so forth. Needless to say, after we had several hundred children liberated from the GBC's program, by our making propaganda on this issue, we made many enemies from the corrupt corporate shell's worshiping program's followers.
Even way back when all of this started, people like Rupa Vilas, Visoka, and so many similar other of our God brothers could simply not believe that guys like Satsvarupa Das Goswami would have any ill intent in promoting himself and the other 10 GBC as "gurus." There has been a lot of sympathy for the leaders of the regime, and that has been the same case in the Catholic Church. "Well these leaders are doing their best" and so forth, its what we hear all the time.
In other words, there are folks that Srila Prabhupada calls "religious sentimentalists." And bogus religionists take advantage of these people who are on the sentimental plane, because they cannot fully discriminate the situation. Anyway, another interesting parallel is -- Sinead O'connor and a number of ISKCON devotees have apparently had subsequent bouts with some forms of depression, and that is natural when a person knows about the suffering of others -- and they cannot effectively challenge the situation. Its frustrating and we get that.
And now some folks are feeling guilty and apologizing, and that is good, but it does not benefit me personally really. However, its good for them to do that, to get a load off their own soul's burdens.
At the same time, we would say its FAR better to be depressed, but knowing that the ship is sinking. Better to be in a realistic frame of mind -- than to be an oblivious ostrich? Better to know our situation than to start dining, dancing and partying on the top deck, as the lower decks are filling with water and the people in the below decks are dying one by one as the ship sinks gradually. In sum, I'd rather know the reality than -- not?
Then! While we have had these major league large GBC ilk sharks trying to bite our heads off, an ex-gurukuli says we also have had to deal with the minor league smaller scale piranhas chasing us, who are ALSO trying to bite our heads off, such as: Bhakta das / Swarup Hebel / Kamsahanta / Peter / Sanat / Mukunda / Prahlad / Janardan / Krishna Kirtan / Pancali / HKC Jaipur group et al. ilk and crew.
They too essentially said that our efforts to halt the abuse is "destroying the mother Church." Oh boo hoo, the molester agenda is being disturbed. Gimmee a kleenex already! Recently a devotee said the Hitler-anugas part of this group was giving him severe harassment which discouraged him from preaching. OK they are bully boys, just like the GBC.
And prominent leaders of their group started advertising that PADA needs to promote and start to listen to Bhatka das, chief apologist, boot licker, advocate and overall pal of the GBC's gurus. Bhakta das has been a big defender of the GBC's gurus like Trivrikrama, Radhanath and others. Yep, the way to fix the sewage spill mess is, to promote the people defending and supporting adding more sewage to the mess! Wasn't Bhakta das busted for selling designer drug components, and later busted for some sort of sex complaint in Puri? And some of them say -- we also need to maybe listen to Hitler? That will fix things?
Then we have guys like Kailash / Rocana / Ajit Krishna / Hanuman Croatia etc. The way to fix the first wave of bogus gurus, is to vote in another wave of bogus gurus? These guys are amazing, they seem to be saying -- just about anyone in the universe can be the guru, as long as its NOT Srila Prabhupada.
That would be the horrible ritvik deviation!
Yep, this basic idea was ALSO expressed even when Krishna was here. Sisupala said, we should worship this person, maybe that person, maybe all kinds of other people, as long as its NOT Krishna! Heh heh heh! These thinkers have been around since time began. Worship anyone, as long as its not the bona fide representative of God. In fact, some of these folks apparently think its better to worship the GBC's illicit sex with men, women and children guru parampara members -- like Bhakti Vikas swami, than to worship the pure devotee. Ya think so pilgrims?
In any case, the Bible has the story of the tower of Babel. They thought they could get to heaven by their own concocted process. Instead, they angered God and He thus condemned them and they fell into infighting and chaos, and the tower building was halted. Srila Prabhupada says; An artificial thing cannot stand; Do not go to the Gaudiya Matha; Suspend sannyasa; Make farms; Don't cheat the public; Take care of the children; Protect the women; When the leaders deviate they have to be replaced (they are not gurus), and so on.
These orders have to be taken up.
Or the whole thing becomes a deteriorated mess like the tower of Babel. Now there are many different camps competing and fighting over the left over remnants of the ISKCON society. None of these camps will have long range success unless and until the begin to follow the actual orders.
Personally, I have to say that the material energy is very amazing and totally expert at foiling various cheating efforts in the name of religion. As soon as people want to divert from the actual path, and disobey the orders of the pure devotee and Krishna, things will start to disintegrate. And then various signs of corruption will gradually over take the mission. And if Srila Prabhupada complained of being poisoned, then where does that leave things?
Therefore, all of this confusion, corruption and deviation is a sign that the superior orders are not being followed. And that means the material energy will more and more bind up the folks making these deviations, and make their situation more and more complex, and not so much enjoyable. To sum then, as soon as devotees deviate they become ensnared once again in the material energy, and this creates all sorts of problems both individually and collectively.
As we have witnessed in spades?
All glories to the Goddess of the material energy of the Lord! She keeps the conditioned souls, including materially minded so-called devotees, captured in a complex web of illusion, as long as they do not surrender to Krishna. That is the duty of Krishna's sevakas in the material world. Jaya Srila Prabhupada for helping us see through these illusions. ys pd
"So we have to be very careful in understanding Krishna Consciousness. ... To understand Krishna as He has spoken in the Bhagavad Gita or in other Vedic literatures through the right sources of disciplic succession that is our real knowledge. The idea is everyone should try to pace himself as if he doesn't know anything. His position is secure. But as soon as he says that "I know everything, and I was previously such and such...," That is actually rascal. So I know that you are trying to know things from the real source, and you are not puffed up like other fools who think that they know everything. Your humbleness is very much appreciated by me.
Srila Prabhupada Letter to Janardana (January 21st 1968)
"Our, this life, this conditioned life in the material world is just like the ocean of ignorance, ocean of ignorance. So Lord Caitanya, therefore, He prayed to Śrī Kṛṣṇa like this, ayi nanda-tanuja patitaṁ kiṅkaraṁ māṁ viṣame bhavāmbudhau: "My dear Lord Kṛṣṇa, I am just fallen in the ocean of ignorance." So we are in the ocean of ignorance. Now, in the ocean, if you get a very good boat or very good ship, as you can cross over, similarly, if we have the ship or the boat of perfect knowledge, then there is no fear. We can cross the ocean very easily. We can cross this ocean very easily."
Bhagavad-gītā 4.34-38
New York, August 17, 1966
"As for your next question, can only a few pure devotees deliver others, anyone, if he is a pure devotee he can deliver others, he can become spiritual master. But unless he is on that platform he should not attempt it. Then both of them will to go to hell, like blind men leading the blind.”
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, December 14th, 1972)
”Leaders who have fallen into ignorance and who mislead people by directing them to the path of destruction [as described in the previous verse] are, in effect, boarding a stone boat, and so too are those who blindly follow them. A stone boat would be unable to float and would sink in the water with its passengers. Similarly, those who mislead people go to hell, and their followers go with them.”(Srimad-Bhagavatam 6.7.14)
”And the rascal, blind leaders are leading everyone to hell. They are simply misleaders. People do not like to accept any authority. Still, they have accepted these rascals as leaders and are being misled. In this way both the rascal leaders and their unfortunate followers remain bound up by the stringent laws of material nature.”(The Laws of Nature, chapter 1)
”Generally a fashionable materialist engages a so-called spiritual master without any profit. The pseudo spiritual master flatters the so-called disciple, and thereby both the master and his ward go to hell without a doubt.”
(Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.19.37, purport)
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