Its Official, ISKCON Failed its Children

Manjari Liberman

PADA: First of all, lets review a comment made about the recently departed ISKCON-born "Vaikuntha child" Manjari Liberman Dasi:

R Dasi: Manjari, It BROKE MY HEART how literally NO ONE cared about you or the fact of your complete poverty. You were literally living on streets and forced to sell yourself to survive.

PADA: How could any of our ISKCON "Vaikuntha children" end up in such a terrible plight? Especially since she is the daughter of a prominent ISKCON member, Amarendra das, the GBC's fix-it lawyer. 

Recently GBC defender Mayesvara chastised me for criticizing Amarendra, saying I don't know about his great service. Well maybe, but we DO know he defended the regime over the molesting. We DO know his daughter ended up being a victim of the regime. We DO know many other kids were victims of the regime he defends. We DO know he acted as a GBC fix-it man on the poison issue.

Anyway, so Manjari is not alone in being a victim. Many other ex-ISKCON / ex-gurukuli children had a severe problem adapting to their lives after often being neglected and / or mistreated. Neglected, apparently often by both devotee parents and the ISKCON society itself. We have heard this complaint from other ex-youths and often, "while we were suffering and NO ONE CARED (parents or leaders)." 

Something is very wrong with this picture. 

And we also know other former gurukulis who tell us, they are essentially "locked out" of having any position in the society. One of them killed himself here some years ago after leaving behind a note, "there is no place for me in my religion." He sort of died from being ignored and neglected. There was no alert issued by anyone after that, ok he was right, no one cared? Or what?

There are so many examples of "alienated ex-youth" and / or their horror stories, it would be hard to detail many of their stories in a short article like this. A few examples are: 

* some of them now eat meat and curse at the religion; 

* some / many of them ran off to other sanghas like Sridhara or Narayan; 

* some of them had severe mental issues from the entire imbroglio, including PTSD type symptoms; 

* some of them did not even learn how to read and write properly, and they still struggle with spelling and grammar; 

* some of them fell into illicit sex and drugs, sometimes severe drug issues; 

* some of them were at times homeless, sleeping in a vehicle etc. and some of of them still are; 

* some of them told me they were happy to have a job at Mc Donalds hamburgers because -- "Mc Donalds will take better care of me than ISKCON ever will";

* some of them have had medical issues but no money to help the issue;

* and some of them died of depression, neglect, drugs and suicide etc.

* One devotee was always against me for "being negative." And then his 17 year old daughter tried to stab his wife to death with a big kitchen knife and she had to be sedated by an ambulance crew. That poor girl has had mental problems ever since. The father later died of alcohol poison. 

So, he was thinking -- it is going to be more peaceful not to fight, but that did not happen. Just the opposite, just as Krishna says in the Gita. If we avoid the fight, it will go on anyway and we will be branded as weak and compromised, and we could end us worse than if we had fought for justice. 

Also imagine, the poor daughter's feelings -- that her dad just checked out -- right at the time of her crisis. So the Gita says, if we do not fight, the battle will still overwhelm us anyway, and it will overwhelm our family members too. Then his wife ran off to the Gaudiya Matha, same people who defended the 11 as gurus in the first place. 

There are so many other examples like these ... 

That is not a happy picture. 

Now some people have argued with me this is the result of a "dysfunctioning" society. Wrong. This society functions -- very well indeed -- for the elite sannyasa and guru leaders class. As a group, the leaders seem to have no problem getting nice houses, cars, servants, expensive medical care, new Mac computers and so on and so forth. So it functioning perfectly well -- for them. Certainly none of them are homeless people living in a vehicle with no good income? 

And that is why some ex-children students told me "we were in the "Auschwitz concentration camp for kids, while the leaders lived like Jet set princes." Children reported being starved, beaten, molested, threatened with death for speaking up etc. The unfortunate other part of the problem is, the leaders often had many vociferous back up defenders / enforcers / cheer leaders from the adults and parents who would take me to task and give me grief for objecting to this process. 

For example, Hanuman Croatia's guru Sridhara swami was was one of these people. As soon as Sridhar swami found a devotee was distributing our (molesting exposing) PADA news, he told the devotee's wife she needs a new husband and PADA is "anti-ISKCON." So anyone who objects to their molesting program is "against ISKCON." And Hanuman still says all these crimes against all these children, aided and abetted by his bogus -- molester guru boot kissing guru Sridhar -- have not been proven by me. Sorry, there are tons of victims who will testify to the problems they have had with these folks.

OK so the children's fried out if not dead bodies are piling up at their doorstep, and they can't see any thing? Yet the karmi courts can see the whole thing, and they have ISKCON sued for all this.

Thus many of the parents told me "you should not criticize prabhu" -- as all of this was unfolding and going on left, right and center. And so, only a few of us -- like me and Sulochana -- were actively making public written complaints about the children's plight. And we were getting stiff resistance from many parents and leaders collectively. In fact Sulochana was killed, and I would have been killed without FBI intervention -- for our mentioning these topics.  

What did Srila Prabhupada expect?

Self-evidently he thought the USA devotees would make sure the other citizens of the society were going to be treated well. He assumed that the devotees knew the USA laws and they would follow and enforce these laws, if required. I don't think he ever expected that all sorts of criminality would be allowed to happen without mass protest of the disciples, and / or having them call in the legal authorities when required to have various criminals arrested and removed. 

In short, he expected ISKCON would operate like any other legal USA charity society, illegal behavior would be checked by the members. If the priest in a Church is stealing money, and having illicit sex with congregation ladies, the congregation folks will call in the cops. That is what Srila Prabhupada or anyone else would expect the Church elders to do. Certainly women and children abuse should be contained.  

Leaders were our worst opponents

Of course we mainly blame the leaders. They were the ones telling the ISKCON congregations to avoid reading our protest papers, and to help them keep us dissenters banned and removed from the society, so the criminal program could go on. And they were the people removing us and bringing in criminals to replace us with. The leaders were systematically creating a criminal regime, direct or de facto.

Fast forward to now, and we have big leaders like Giriraja swami living in Carpinteria California, where they have many millions of dollars homes and a number of movie stars live there in $25,000,000 or more homes. Hrdayananda was -- first of all -- swami 90201 living in Beverly Hills, apparently now he lives in a condo in Venice Beach. Also not a cheap area. Harikesha allegedly had a big Villa in Europe, and apparently he has no money problems now. Bhavananda was wearing expensive jewelry and he is well cared for now in Mayapur.  

After the rumor started that Laksmi was getting an inheritance, Hansadutta ordered her to divorce and marry him. Hit the jackpot! The ISKCON children? Who cares! 

Jayatirtha first set up his "peace Krishnas" in Marin, one of the most expensive areas of San Francisco. Bhagavan was allegedly cleaning out the safe before he blooped out. Jayapataka has many servants and top notch hospital care, and a spare $20,000,000 to sue Bangalore. Bhaktivedanta Manor folks have alleged huge salaries, and so on. OK the peons? Not so much.    

Meanwhile, as these foxes were watching the hen house full of ISKCON children, the hens were mysteriously dying and disappearing left, right and center? Maybe the foxes were having something to do with the disappearing hens / children? 

Or did the foxes eat the hens slowly, one by one, so it was not being noticed? Anyway this is another problem. There does not seem to be hardly any notice because no one keeps track -- like a registry -- of who these children are, where these children are, what is their life like, do they need assistance now or anything of the sort. No one cares, just as they tell me?

When one of them dies, they might place their photo on the altar for a day in some sentimental departure ceremony, but while they were here and alive, hardly anyone notices? Its very strange? They were also going to kick Aindra out of Vrndavana temple, then all of a sudden, he is their main wonderful kirtan guy -- after he dies? 

Hee hee, a devotee told me -- PADA, you will become very famous --about 100 years after you are dead. Yep, that is great, except placing a photo on the altar or giving someone glorification -- after they are dead -- is not too useful to these children, right now? 

Same trouble we have had with Sanat / Mukunda / Prahlad / Dayalu Nitai's HKC program. As soon as they find out the suicides are reduced, they are infuriated! Someone is shutting down their wonderful program of tossing children into a wood chipper! Boo hoo! Children are going to live and not die? Then they ganged up with Radhanath's program's lover Bhakta das, and Bhavananda's bucket boy (and their new history writing authority) Hari Sauri. Did I forget to mention Sulochan said Hari Sauri is trying to get us killed by demonizing us? 

Even Mula Prakriti, Gopa Vrndapal and their whole Badger gang ran off to worship Tamal's biggest defender and hand maiden -- Narayan Maharaja. And they siphoned a whole bunch of our kids off to worship NM, the chief cheer leader of the molester messiahs program. How does that help? We tell our ISKCON kids to worship the biggest rasika advisor / helping hand maiden of the molester and poison issue? 

To sum then, this is a collective failure. Almost all resources go to the top crust and the bottom is dying and rotted out, just like North Korea has wonderful life for the elites and the peons eat weeds. And all sorts of people either were part of the victimizing, or they acquiesced with it, and that is how it came to pass. I think Manjari's departure has really hit me hard, its so tragic, although people think I am a tough jack ass with no feelings. 

She simply did not deserve the mal-treatment she got. People can die from a lack of enthusiasm to live, my nurse friend calls it "failure to thrive." And she says, any person who has that symptom -- will almost always die. 

Anyway, hopefully all this was a good lesson for future generations of Vaishnavas. I might be coming back here again in a future birth. And so I hope and pray that my future Vaikuntha birth in a devotee family here does not end up like Manjari's. ys pd  

Wow! I get to visit the town of the Movie Stars!

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U Dasi: Manjari was crying out for help all the time. And neither her family nor her temple people really heard her desperate pleas. Of all the people they should have cared for, a child born into ISKCON should have been cared for by her family and her temple. First and foremost, the children are the first priority for any society.

That was simply not happening despite so many tragic problems she was having. She did not get the support system she needed. And she was practically begging for help. ISKCON has turned into a wasteland of a few rich sannyasa living like Kings. The help and support system meant for the common people is all dried up and is going to these few top level men. So there is no good support left to take care of the common people at the bottom. The resource is dried up at the bottom to all go to the top.

It has not helped that many of her friends and peers are sympathetic to the gurukula victims. And so they did not like that her dad was being the public defender for the wealthy sannyasa snobs, the same people causing the victimizing mess in the first place. She was thereby alienated from many peers who should have been there as part of her support system as well.

She will be listed as dying form some illness or other, who can say. I know what she really died from, a broken heart that lost the will to live. I will never forgive the people who did that to her, ever. And I don't think Krishna will forgive them either. This breaks my heart as well. Surely she is in a better place now, because anyplace would be better than what she had with them. She wanted to serve Krishna, and its very sinful the way she was neglected and ignored. Hare Krishna.

R Dasi: Manjari, It BROKE MY HEART how literally NO ONE cared about you or the fact of your complete poverty. You were literally living on streets and forced to sell yourself to survive.

[PADA: The leaders and parents failed her something awful. Horrible human beings. And these folks are the people we need to accept as our living gurus? This is a crime against a child, and certainly this crime is among thousands of other crimes against thousands of other ISKCON children. These crimes will be taken up in the court of Yamaraja in due time. And Hanuman's gestapo officer guru Sridhara has already gone to that court and has been presented with all this evidence of all these children abuse and neglect crimes, including they banned, beat and murdered us when we reported their crimes against these children in our writings.

Manjari was part of their whole process of child neglect, abuse and mistreatment. May God give peace to her soul and the countless other soul victims. This mess was 100 percent avoidable, and so were almost all their other crimes. All those who participated in this process will pay the piper, and pay dearly. Horrible human beings! ys pd]

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KD: Are they responsible when Srila Prabhupada's books to be changed under their leadership?

"Therefore we have created these GBC. So they should be very responsible men. Otherwise, they will be punished. They will be punished to become a śūdra.Although Yamarāja is a GBC, but he made a little mistake. He was punished to become a śūdra. So those who are GBC's, they should be very, very careful to administer the business of ISKCON. Otherwise they will be punished. As the post is very great, similarly, the punishment is also very great. That is the difficulty. You can see from this example, Vidura. He was immediately punished. He did little mistake. Because the ṛṣis, the munis, they will curse."

Prabhupada Srimad-Bhagavatam lecture 1.13.15 in Geneva on June 4, 1974

--- Many people just go with the flow, we have been told for many years, that we should just follow authorities, and that's a good sastric instruction, however sometimes authorities are wrong, as we've seen with the zonal acaryas, children being abused etc. and now the book change. When that happens, it is the duty of all followers of Srila Prabhupada to stand up and protect Srila Prabhupada's legacy. Srila Prabhupada states in B.g 4.34 P: " both blind following and absurd inquiries are condemned."

RD: Come on be realistic, without a court of Law, you can do nothing in this day, all justice within Iskcon died a tragic death after Srila Prabhupada departed.

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