ISKCON ICC Team Leader Jayapataka swami
KICKS PEOPLE OUT of ISKCON
if they do not agree:
PEDOPHILES
are often in the chain of
GOD'S SUCCESSORS.
And - it looks like the karma of doing that is catching up?
ISKCON's GBC Panel has been meeting since 1978,
and still cannot decide:
Are PEDOPHILES God's successors?
Hare Krishna everyone.
The Birth of Systematic Child Protection within Iskcon.
Podcast Takeaways #3:
Feat:
Anuttama dasa.
———
AD: On June 12th, year 2000, there was a major Child Abuse Lawsuit that was filed in America in several jurisdictions; Texas, West Virginia. An Issue was filed in Federal Court, too many details to get into, but the case was actually thrown out of Federal Court. It was later re-established in Texas court. And as a result of that case the Iskcon temples that were named, there were about 11, they went through a legal process of going to the Bankruptcy Court, they declared bankruptcy.
[PADA: Well yes, the GBC spent hundreds of thousands on the most expensive lawyers so they could get to have the case removed from Federal court. Thus, instead of listening to us -- when we said they have to contain the molesting, their plan all along was to allow the molesting and then bankrupt ISKCON when it came to court. And their plan was finally executed as they had evidently intended.]
S DASA: One observation so far is Anuttama’s careful avoidance of naming the GBC as responsible for filing for bankruptcy. He simply says Iskcon or “we.” I think if “we”, the members of Iskcon were to then decide the LS case be given over to the CPO, ‘we’ would quickly be reminded of who actually is the Ultimate Authority, and therefore who alone ultimately carries the weight of the decisions and policy made in the handling of the child abuse case.
My guess is that "we," the members that make up Iskcon, were never consulted about filing for bankruptcy, engaging lawyers, etc, so in reality greater Iskcon did not decide anything, the GBC did. They cannot now hide amongst the rank and file.
ML DASI: Excellent point.
PADA: They told me to take them to court (again) after we already had them sued for molesting in 1986. they demanded to be sued, and so we had no options but to oblige. Of course we organized the lawsuit while being banned, beaten, chased with baseball bats etc. Ys pd
S DASA: Certainly Anuttama’s version of events, at least this far into the podcast, is one of the leaders falling over themselves to do anything they can to find more money for ‘the kids’!
PADA: They were talking about hiring the best San Fernando lawyers to “defeat the kids,” I was there.
ML DASI: I'm not surprised. The idea that they were doing the most they could to get money for the 'young people' doesn't ring true. He sounded like such a politician.
S DASA: Yes even this far away from North America, GBC Ramai was telling us it just happened to a few kids and others were jumping on board and putting in false claims. Ramai was painting the Gurukulis as dishonest and greedy.
ML DASI: I had someone suggest to me years ago that the Vrindavan Gurukula boys must be exaggerating. I told him that if a group boys were saying they'd been sexually molested (and I put it much more graphically to make my point), that that was not normal. It would be very unusual for any boy to suggest sexual abuse, what to speak of a group. So regardless of his point of view, there was a problem and it needed to be investigated.
S DASA: Yes, my best friend through College ended up killing himself and only after we were told by his family he had been abused by the Priests when a child. There was always something not right about him, but he never told us. Boys / men are more likely to cover their abuse up.
And our TP at the time, I presume going from the information he was given, told us one day that we may have to sell the temple because of this greedy lawyer that hated us, and the kids making false claims. I remember many of us were upset and even angry with the Gurukulis. Can you imagine. Iskcon the victim.
ML DASI: Yes, that's right: boys / men don't tell. Hide that hurt and pain inside.
My first service in the temple was looking after a sweet 3 yr old. When he was older, he was sent to Vrindavan. He suffered greatly for years, then suicided.
It is too much grief to bear.
LM: https://culteducation.com/.../12185-hare-krishnas-sued...
The original lawsuit was for $400 million, which was far beyond the total value of all the temples of North America certainly at that time. It was a lot of money. Attorneys in America, that’s kind of what they do, they throw a huge number out there and they just sue and see what they can do.
[PADA: Yes, the original idea was to have 400 victims and give them $1,000,000 each, which is normal in molesting cases. Of course various victims tell us the number of actual victims is for sure -- over a thousand, more likely close to two thousand, maybe -- more than two thousand. So if there was perhaps four thousands kids in ISKCON in 1978, and two thousand were abused, that is a 50% abuse ratio, way higher than any Catholic Church or etc.]
So the Iskcon Office determined that what we would do, Iskcon temples would go to Bankruptcy Court because what this allowed was an opportunity, three things;
1. There were initially, as I recall, 97 students or former students, Iskcon devotees, second-generation devotees, who joined this lawsuit. But in the couple of years since this article had been published, 1998, we were aware there were many, many more young people. Iskcon Youth Ministry had acknowledged there was a lot more cases that were out there, there was a lot more people who didn’t want to join the Lawsuit.
[PADA: Yes, the original idea was to have 400 victims and give them $1,000,000 each, which is normal in molesting cases. Of course various victims tell us the number of actual victims is for sure -- over a thousand, more likely close to two thousand, maybe -- more than two thousand. So if there was perhaps four thousands kids in ISKCON in 1978, and two thousand were abused, that is a 50% abuse ratio, way higher than any Catholic Church or etc.]
So the Iskcon Office determined that what we would do, Iskcon temples would go to Bankruptcy Court because what this allowed was an opportunity, three things;
1. There were initially, as I recall, 97 students or former students, Iskcon devotees, second-generation devotees, who joined this lawsuit. But in the couple of years since this article had been published, 1998, we were aware there were many, many more young people. Iskcon Youth Ministry had acknowledged there was a lot more cases that were out there, there was a lot more people who didn’t want to join the Lawsuit.
[PADA: Right, as soon as we said there is a molesting problem in 1980, the GBC banned us, but at that point there were maybe 97 victims, they evidently wanted to expand the numbers of victims and some of the victims tell us "it is several thousand." So their plan was to remove the people protesting the molesting, and expand the molesting, which they did exponentially.]
By going to the Bankruptcy Court, that allowed us to open the door and try to find any other young people who had been abused as kids, to help them also get some money, not just the 97.
[PADA: 97 was always a ridiculously low estimate and they knew that all along, or should have.]
The second thing was we understood that the way the Courts worked in the United States was if you go in front of a Jury they don’t necessarily understand the details of the case the way a Judge does. Bankruptcy Court it goes to a Judge. A Judge looks at everything very scientifically, very specifically with his legal knowledge and they can really assess, “how much money can this organisation come up with to make sure it’s a fair settlement?“
Because we were concerned that there was a lot of communities, temples where there was no abuse, but there was a potential that they could be drawn into the case at a later time.
[PADA: Every official ISKCON community has been involved if they are all promoting the GBC's program of worship of pedophiles / de facto pedophiles as Krishna's gurus. People tell me that all the time, well our temple was only promoting the overall GBC worship of illicit sex with men, women and children process, but we were not actually engaging in that activity here specifically -- at our particular temple. Yes, but it is your collective karma -- you are what you promote and support.]
So we wanted to make sure the maximum number of young people were helped. We wanted to make sure it was fair. And we also knew that without going to Bankruptcy Court it could be a long, drawn out legal case which literally means you’re spending millions of dollars with attorneys, that’s just the way it works.
[PADA: Right, instead of charging the leaders with criminal neglect and having them take the hit for all the problems, the leaders decided to save themselves and toss ISKCON under the bus. ISKCON had to suffer, not them. They used ISKCON as a shield to protect their illicit sex messiah's program.]
Bankruptcy Court means you go and say, “yes your honour, we had a problem, many of our children were abused, we want to help them, at the same time we need the Judicial System to look at the case and decide what’s the maximum appropriate money that can be raised for this.“
And also in this particular case, something that I don’t know happens a lot in Bankruptcy Court, but it allowed us to go out to other temples around Iskcon and ask for voluntary contributions to increase the amount of money that was there for the young people.
I want to clarify; any abuse, even one person, one child being abused is horrible, it’s unacceptable, and we have to prevent that, but, having had it happened we also needed to try and deal with it in a systematic and fair way.
At the end of this decision which came out in the year 2005 I believe, there was about 10 million initially given to the bankruptcy, then we went back and sued(?) some of our insurance companies trying to get more money for the kids.
ML DASI: Perhaps it's just me, but every time he said "young people", I cringed. I'm not even sure what else he could have said, only that it felt cringey. I find it interesting that he denigrates the jury system, saying that a jury may not understand the details.
CH DASI: I don't think would be just yourself, I myself thought exactly the same thing. Anyone that generally has a caring nature would feel the Same.. It's actually quite Sickening to hear.. I feel the hurt of sooh many of these young Devottees. My body goes into shock ... I feel all choked up in my throat ... I shall leave it at that. As it's Radhastami & had pleasure of Doing a tiny bit of service to Radha, Praying always for These Horrendous Behaviours to be Addressed..
[PADA: 97 was always a ridiculously low estimate and they knew that all along, or should have.]
The second thing was we understood that the way the Courts worked in the United States was if you go in front of a Jury they don’t necessarily understand the details of the case the way a Judge does. Bankruptcy Court it goes to a Judge. A Judge looks at everything very scientifically, very specifically with his legal knowledge and they can really assess, “how much money can this organisation come up with to make sure it’s a fair settlement?“
Because we were concerned that there was a lot of communities, temples where there was no abuse, but there was a potential that they could be drawn into the case at a later time.
[PADA: Every official ISKCON community has been involved if they are all promoting the GBC's program of worship of pedophiles / de facto pedophiles as Krishna's gurus. People tell me that all the time, well our temple was only promoting the overall GBC worship of illicit sex with men, women and children process, but we were not actually engaging in that activity here specifically -- at our particular temple. Yes, but it is your collective karma -- you are what you promote and support.]
So we wanted to make sure the maximum number of young people were helped. We wanted to make sure it was fair. And we also knew that without going to Bankruptcy Court it could be a long, drawn out legal case which literally means you’re spending millions of dollars with attorneys, that’s just the way it works.
[PADA: Right, instead of charging the leaders with criminal neglect and having them take the hit for all the problems, the leaders decided to save themselves and toss ISKCON under the bus. ISKCON had to suffer, not them. They used ISKCON as a shield to protect their illicit sex messiah's program.]
Bankruptcy Court means you go and say, “yes your honour, we had a problem, many of our children were abused, we want to help them, at the same time we need the Judicial System to look at the case and decide what’s the maximum appropriate money that can be raised for this.“
And also in this particular case, something that I don’t know happens a lot in Bankruptcy Court, but it allowed us to go out to other temples around Iskcon and ask for voluntary contributions to increase the amount of money that was there for the young people.
I want to clarify; any abuse, even one person, one child being abused is horrible, it’s unacceptable, and we have to prevent that, but, having had it happened we also needed to try and deal with it in a systematic and fair way.
At the end of this decision which came out in the year 2005 I believe, there was about 10 million initially given to the bankruptcy, then we went back and sued(?) some of our insurance companies trying to get more money for the kids.
ML DASI: Perhaps it's just me, but every time he said "young people", I cringed. I'm not even sure what else he could have said, only that it felt cringey. I find it interesting that he denigrates the jury system, saying that a jury may not understand the details.
CH DASI: I don't think would be just yourself, I myself thought exactly the same thing. Anyone that generally has a caring nature would feel the Same.. It's actually quite Sickening to hear.. I feel the hurt of sooh many of these young Devottees. My body goes into shock ... I feel all choked up in my throat ... I shall leave it at that. As it's Radhastami & had pleasure of Doing a tiny bit of service to Radha, Praying always for These Horrendous Behaviours to be Addressed..
LM DASI: To answer your question, No, of course not. They were not looking to help as many abused gurukuli spirit souls as possible? "Having had it happened we also needed to try and deal with it in a systematic and fair way." Fair? Fair?!... Ha!
S DASA: One observation so far is Anuttama’s careful avoidance of naming the GBC as responsible for filing for bankruptcy. He simply says Iskcon or “we.” I think if “we”, the members of Iskcon were to then decide the LS case be given over to the CPO, ‘we’ would quickly be reminded of who actually is the Ultimate Authority, and therefore who alone ultimately carries the weight of the decisions and policy made in the handling of the child abuse case.
My guess is that "we," the members that make up Iskcon, were never consulted about filing for bankruptcy, engaging lawyers, etc, so in reality greater Iskcon did not decide anything, the GBC did. They cannot now hide amongst the rank and file.
ML DASI: Excellent point.
PADA: They told me to take them to court (again) after we already had them sued for molesting in 1986. they demanded to be sued, and so we had no options but to oblige. Of course we organized the lawsuit while being banned, beaten, chased with baseball bats etc. Ys pd
S DASA: Certainly Anuttama’s version of events, at least this far into the podcast, is one of the leaders falling over themselves to do anything they can to find more money for ‘the kids’!
PADA: They were talking about hiring the best San Fernando lawyers to “defeat the kids,” I was there.
ML DASI: I'm not surprised. The idea that they were doing the most they could to get money for the 'young people' doesn't ring true. He sounded like such a politician.
S DASA: Yes even this far away from North America, GBC Ramai was telling us it just happened to a few kids and others were jumping on board and putting in false claims. Ramai was painting the Gurukulis as dishonest and greedy.
ML DASI: I had someone suggest to me years ago that the Vrindavan Gurukula boys must be exaggerating. I told him that if a group boys were saying they'd been sexually molested (and I put it much more graphically to make my point), that that was not normal. It would be very unusual for any boy to suggest sexual abuse, what to speak of a group. So regardless of his point of view, there was a problem and it needed to be investigated.
S DASA: Yes, my best friend through College ended up killing himself and only after we were told by his family he had been abused by the Priests when a child. There was always something not right about him, but he never told us. Boys / men are more likely to cover their abuse up.
And our TP at the time, I presume going from the information he was given, told us one day that we may have to sell the temple because of this greedy lawyer that hated us, and the kids making false claims. I remember many of us were upset and even angry with the Gurukulis. Can you imagine. Iskcon the victim.
ML DASI: Yes, that's right: boys / men don't tell. Hide that hurt and pain inside.
My first service in the temple was looking after a sweet 3 yr old. When he was older, he was sent to Vrindavan. He suffered greatly for years, then suicided.
It is too much grief to bear.
LM: https://culteducation.com/.../12185-hare-krishnas-sued...
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