Eleven Naked Emperors,” Chapter 9, “ISKCON Gurus Begin to Deviate.”

August 1980: On or around this date in history 40 years ago, the GBC approved a paper written by Satsvarupa, Jagadish, Bhagavan and Jayapataka. One section, titled “The Philosophical Understanding of Discrepancies and Their Rectification,” explained that even uttama-adhikari devotees fall down from time to time and if there are “failures and setbacks” they should be seen instead as “pillars of success.”

Three ISKCON gurus were disciplined by the GBC that year: Jayatirtha, Hamsadutta and Tamal-Krishna. Jayatirtha dasa (James Edward Immel) served as ISKCON zonal guru for Great Britain and South Africa. Among other ways, Jayatirtha tainted his position by secretly consuming LSD, a psychedelic drug strictly off-limits to Vaishnavas. “Jayatirtha had been holding twelve-hour-long kirtan sessions, during which he would laugh, roll on the ground, and cry out incoherently,” Nandini devi dasi, an Assistant Editor for ISKCON World Review, recalled. 

“He lectured about the divine love of Radha and Krishna in the spiritual world and told his disciples that he was experiencing devotional ecstasy. Only the GBC knew that his ecstasies were symptoms of a drug-induced psychosis. In Vrindaban and Mayapur during the 1980 GBC meetings he went out of control on heavy doses of LSD. Later he revealed that he had never fully stopped taking the drug, despite having been a devotee for ten years.”

Another ISKCON zonal guru who had become an embarrassment for the movement was Hamsadutta Swami (Hans Kary, aka Jack London), the zonal acharya for Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Shri Lanka, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. 

As a guru, Hamsadutta developed a keen interest in guns, women and rock ‘n roll, and eventually went berserk. He was arrested and convicted for shooting up a liquor store and Cadillac dealership showroom in Berkeley, California. Ravindra-Svarupa recalled some of Hamsadutta’s bad habits while he was an ISKCON guru, “Hamsadutta, he had problems with women, booze and guns; intoxication, with illicit sex and a special fondness for gun collecting.”

Another ISKCON guru who was disciplined in 1980 was Tamal-Krishna Goswami, the GBC and initiating guru for Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, who was remembered for his controversial tactics during his days as leader of the Radha-Damodara traveling sankirtan bus party some years earlier which had caused much consternation for Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

Tamal-Krishna was noted for his ambitious nature and forceful, dictatorial personality. He claimed to have become Prabhupada’s sole successor. A Prabhupada disciple, in a letter to Tamal-Krishna Goswami, remembered, “After his [Prabhupada’s] disappearance, you wasted no time to proclaim yourself as his sole successor-acharya in Bombay. Initially you even had a vyasasana built for yourself in the Juhu Beach Temple and it was bigger than Shrila Prabhupada’s. You also told all of your godbrothers that the only way to approach Shrila Prabhupada was through you alone, since you had become his sole successor.”

“Eleven Naked Emperors,” Chapter 9, “ISKCON Gurus Begin to Deviate.”

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August 1984: On or around this date in history 36 years ago, “Hamsadutta ran amok. Shoppers in Ledger’s Liquor Store on University Avenue in Berkeley must have thought they were in a Sylvester Stallone movie. Bullets blasted through the front window, shattering whiskey and gin bottles on the shelves. Shoppers hit the floor. When the gunfire stopped, somebody outside floored a Ford Bronco. When the cops pulled the Bronco over, Hamsadutta stumbled out, drunk on ouzo. He had just fired 18 shots through the windows of McNevin Cadillac on San Pablo Avenue. The cops found a 12-gauge shotgun, a 9 mm pistol, a semi-automatic .22 pistol and a fully automatic 9 mm machine pistol, plus box after box of ammunition. The weapons were loaded; the guru was carrying $8,200.”-- San Jose Mercury News

Hamsadutta recalled, “I was totally in despair. I didn’t know which way to turn. I was like a kid throwing rocks through windows in frustration.”

Despite the widespread media publicity regarding Hansadutta’s anomalies, most of his disciples and followers were blissfully unaware of their spiritual master’s problems. Only a select few confidential servants were privy to details about his transgressions (devotees, as a rule, didn’t watch television or read newspapers), and they thought that Hansadutta’s problems had been caused by tantric black magic curses from envious members of the GBC.

Hansadutta’s confidants believed that the curses (and not their guru’s lack of self-realization) caused their spiritual master to behave erratically. The true disciple never doubts the guru. If there are problems, they must be coming from outside and not from any perceived fault of the guru. In an attempt to counteract the alleged curses that caused their guru’s suffering, Rohini-Kumar dasa (soon to become a swami)—a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada initiated in New York City in June 1968 who had become influenced by Hansadutta—performed fire sacrifices and other rituals at the Mount Kailasa farm and behind the Berkeley temple.

“Eleven Naked Emperors,” Chapter 9, “ISKCON Gurus Begin to Deviate,” p. 190.