Srila Jokernath
[Letter To Pancaratna From Yasoda Below]
[PADA: A woman reader just wrote to ask PADA editor;
"What kind of person is thinking of sexually aggressing a young girl -- while they are both reading from 'Krishna Book'? Isn't that the sickest thing anyone could think of doing? Reading from Krishna Book -- while thinking of touching a young girl is bizarre, sick, and twisted on so many levels.
'It would be shocking except -- nothing these people do shocks me anymore, my shock levels have already been over loaded by their sick and twisted behaviors a long time ago. Still, I think PADA news should ask this question. 'What kind of person thinks of touching a child inappropriately -- while reading from Krishna Book?'
'And would that not be even more traumatizing to the victim? And isn't that what happened in their gurukulas, they mixed 'preaching' with 'pedophile behavior,' and messed up these children's brains terribly, perhaps for life. As such, is it not a miracle that Satya is such a brave and intelligent survivor. Clearly she is getting Krishna's mercy to have the tenacity -- and good arguments -- to take these evil people on.'"
Umm, yep, excellent question. Hmm, no surprise the person asking wants to be anonymous because "they already did a smear job on me." Anyway, here we go with more analysis:
Mr. Patil (Lokanath Swami) claims that he did not “consciously plan” to sexually assault Satya dasi, and that while he did touch her private part, he was immediately “overcome by regret and shame.” Of course, these are the words from the letter that was co-authored by Bhakti Charu Swami, Armarendra, and Badrinaraya Swami, so it is really anybody’s guess at who came up with the claim that Mr. Patil didn’t consciously plan to sexually abuse Satya dasi.
[PADA: Yes, this is a big mystery itself. Supposedly a letter was forged with Lokanath swami signing on, but now his followers are saying he never wrote or even agreed to this letter. Why was nothing said about this "forged letter" in all this time? And yes, what does he really say?]
Here are excerpts of one particular incident, from 4 different sources. The incident in question involves Lokanatha requesting Satya dasi to read from Srimad-Bhagavatam or KRSNA Book one morning during his visit.
Here is Mr. Patil’s account, taken from his 2010 letter of admission:
“As we sat reading together, I touched her right thigh and moved my hand between her knee and upper thigh, over her clothing. While I was touching her upper thigh region, I also touched her private part. Satya was clearly shocked and disturbed by this act, and I was immediately overcome by regret and shame at my actions.”
Here is Satya dasi’s account which was also released in 2010:
“The next day, he called me in the living room, and asked me to bring the Krsna book and read it to him. He had me sit RIGHT NEXT TO HIM, leaving no space between us. He PLACED HIS HANDS ON MY CROTCH, NOT ON MY LAP, and said I am keeping the book from touching you there, so just keep reading.
He kept his hand there, and any time my mother would walk by the room, he would QUICKLY REMOVE HIS HAND AND PLACE IT ABOVE MY HEAD (around me). He did this several times throughout the course of an hour, and after that sick feeling inside me became the most prominent thing for me, I told him I was tired, and I left the room.”
Here is an account from Satya dasi’s interview which was conducted in 1993:
Satya dasi (SD):
Satya dasi (SD):
I was in the kitchen with my mother, and so he said, “Satya dasi, come over here. You read the Srimad-Bhagavatam to me.” And he was patting the sofa, you know, meaning, “come here and sit next to me.” So, you know, I really didn’t think anything of it so I sat next to him and I for about ten minutes, and then all of a sudden he put his hand on my private area and, I guess, I don’t know…
Female devotee interviewing Satya dasi (FD): He just put it there when you were reading.
SD: Yes, he put it there when I was reading and I didn’t know what he was doing. I was really, like, shocked, and then, you know, I started getting scared, you know, think what might he do. And…
FD: Did you call anyone, or say anything or…
SD: No, because I was scared, you, I didn’t know what to do. So I finally, you know, said, I can hold this myself. And he just…
FD: What do you mean hold, hold what?
SD: Hold the Srimad-Bhagavatam by myself. I didn’t need him to hold it for me and put his hand in my private area to support the book.
FD: Oh I see, that was how he…
SD: Had done it.
FD: He put his hand to support the book, you mean?
SD: Yes, supposedly, but, you know, I could feel his hand, you know, on my private area, and I just felt…
FD: It just rested there, as if he was holding the book, or was he actually doing something, or…
SD: It just stayed there, but, you know, still, it shouldn’t have been done.
FD: Okay. I was just asking to be clear. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be too pushy about it. Okay, so then what happened? You were scared.
SD: So I finally got the courage to say, “I can hold this myself.” And he just smiled and he said, “Yes, okay, read, keep reading.” And I was so scared, and you know, finally, about a half and hour later, I guess, I don’t know how it ended. I guess he let me go, or I don’t know, but I felt very disgusted and terrible. I can’t describe the feeling, it’s just like I felt very dirty and I told my mother, I was crying to her, and she didn’t think anything of it. She just like, oh yeah, ok, because, you know, I was only a little kid. And…
FD: What was everybody else doing during that half an hour?
SD: My mother was in the kitchen and everybody else had - no one else was home. And his servant, his disciple, was upstairs, I don’t know - reading or I don’t know what he was doing. But his disciple had been reading prior to that and I guess he asked his disciple to, you know, go do something, so meanwhile he asked me to come over and read to him, and that when this incident occurred. -
Here is the GBC’s official statement, released in 1999, concerning this same incident:
“However, the incident that most distressed the girl took place one morning in the living-room. The two sat close together on a couch reading from a volume of the Krsna book, with Lokanath Swami's servant going in and out of the room and the girl's mother cooking in the adjoining kitchen. As they sat reading together, Lokanath Swami's hand touched and moved across the girl's upper thigh over her clothing.
The psychologists who evaluated this matter had no doubt that the girl had undergone a disturbing and even traumatizing experience. When questioned, Lokanath Swami could recognize the various individual episodes that had caused her disturbance, and he confessed to the emergence in himself, during the incident of reading together, of shameful feelings.” -
The GBC’s official account of the molestation of Satya dasi by Lokanath also includes the following statement:
“It's conclusion, arrived at after much discussion, was that Lokanath Swami's fault quite exactly exemplified what Srila Prabhupada termed an "accidental" mistake (B.G. 9. 30-31).
Lokanath Swami's transgression was not planned or premeditated. It was, to use Prabhupada's terminology, unconscious, not willful, unknowing. (See for example, the conversation of May 10, 1969, in Columbus, Ohio and the morning walk of January 9, 1976 in Madras.)”
In reference to the GBC’s version of events, Badrinarayan dasa (co-author of Lokanatha’s admission of guilt letter) said the following in a private correspondence in 1999…
“It was more than this. His hand was palm down, it was over her private area, he moved it away when the mother or other family member came in the room and then moved it back when they left. The girl moved his hand and he moved it back. I want to let Lokanath Maharaj off the hook and I know this is a disaster for him, but with this version, I think we (including Maharaj) may all lose whatever credibility and good will we have left.”
Looking through these various descriptions of what took place we can see that while the GBC’s official account and Lokanath Swami’s account depend on his portrayal as mostly innocent; subject to an accidental blunder and unknowingly committing some wrongful action, Satya’s account, her interview and
Badrinarayan’s account (intended as a private communique in 1999) reiterate a much more graphic and horrifying scenario.
Simply, the act of pulling his hand away from her crotch as Satya’s mother would walk by implies that, in his mind, he knew that what he was doing was completely wrong and would land him in an awful lot of trouble. The GBC’s official statement that “Lokanath Swami's transgression was not planned or premeditated. It was, to use Prabhupada's terminology, unconscious, not willful, unknowing.” is a blatant distortion of the truth.
The specific effort to hide his activity by suggesting his disciple to leave so he could be alone with her, by pulling his hand away when other adults were close by, by committing to repeated instances of sexual abuse over the course of his visit all suggest that Lokanath Swami knew that what he was doing was completely wrong, and that in order to avoid getting caught and punished, he had better take appropriate action to conceal his activities.
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PADA: Thanks ***** Dasi: Right, when politicians or priests are exposed in serious wrong doings, they often resign very quickly and step down from posts of authority. One famous example just now happened when a Governor resigned. In short there has to be some sign of recognition of faults, admission, remorse and so on. Right now the Lokanath program is doing the exact opposite -- doubling down in defense mode -- he is the white cowboy hat good guy. The victim is the black cowboy hat bad guy. The people helping the victim are assistants of the bad guy etc. Lokanath did not write that letter, someone else did; the victim is making exaggeration etc. OK.
We need to encourage people to do the right thing, but after waiting for decades, eventually people figure out -- these people are not interested in doing the right thing, hence they are doubling down in fight mode, and trying to paint the victim as the evil doer. That is called re-victimizing the victim. The post of guru is way past GBC manager, he is supposed to be God's pure representative, that means he is not "making mistakes" like falling into sexual predator activity. LNS followers are writing me and others insults, false info, and attacks, they are not interested in mature dialogue, at least not yet. First, he has to step down, then we can work out the details from there. ys pd
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PAMO AGTSP
Your understanding of what Lokanatha Maharaja did is inaccurate and I fear will be disasterous and viewed as a cover up if presented as such.
He did not touch her thigh. He had his hand on her genital area, not once. but twice. He caressed her thigh during bhajanas. He playfully smacked her on her fanny. He would move close to her when her mother was in the kitchen and pull away when her mother came in.
The girl fully felt sexually betrayed and violated. To portray it is anything less than this would be a disservice to her and her family. My concern is that your presentation of things might incite them more since they were outraged and appalled by Maharaja's behavior.
What the evaluation showed was that Maharaja is infantile in his sexual. development. He did what he did and the girl's reaction to it was normal and justified. The trick here is to understand a very sophisticated clinical concept, ie, that although he did commit these deeds , he did them without paraphiliac tendencies due to his arrested sexual development.
I don't envy you this task. I was the one who evaluated the girl and her family in her home. I saw first hand how she felt sexually violated and how her family felt betrayed. I had to struggle to digest and understand the results of the evaluation, what to speak of a layman.
Also, please note that it was not only Maharaja's sexual development that was arrested. His understanding and empathy for the girl and her family was sorely lacking. My guru and I had to ghost write his apology letter to her since he didn't quite get how his actions shook them to their cores.
Good luck!
Your servant,
Yasoda
LD: When Lokanath followers say "we never knew about this" ... that is false. A friend challenged Lokanath at a festival. He denied the whole thing. Altogether false accusations! Then his violent goons chased my friend around and harassed him. They knew this issue was out there ... and they helped cover it up. They knew ...
ReplyDeleteNow! We finally know other big leaders like ... Amarendra, Mukunda swami, Sridhar swami, Ravindra Swarupa, Badrinarayana, Tamohara, Satsvarupa, Hrdayananda ... and maybe all of them ... seem to combine to cover up molesters posing as gurus. And as they are "forgiving and kind" to their Krishna Book reading ... but p*ssy grabbing gurus ... they never forgive us ... and want us to be part of ISKCON. The hypocrisy here is ... astonishing. Shocking!
Too late. I agree with the lady who says she is no longer shocked and astonished at anything they are doing. My shock meter broke a long time ago. What would really shock me right now? Is ... if LNS stepped down and the GBC declared their their gurus stink like dog sh*t.
Of course ... that is probably not going to ever happen ... because they almost always defend their bad gurus to the bitter end ... no matter how bitter and bad the story ends. Instead of fixing the fire they made in their own movement ... they almost always want to pour more petrol on it. It would be most shocking if their mold was broken and they did something different. Same time ... this is good. They can no longer stay in denial. They made this problem ... and the ball is with them to either fix it ... or look like people who support pedophiles as their gurus. There is only one good option now.