January 1986: On or around this date in history, 36 years ago, “Back to Godhead” magazine published an article by Satsvarupa dasa Goswami titled “Tribute to a Pure Devotee” in which Satsvarupa compared Kirtanananda Swami, who had received severe head injuries from a spontaneous attack at New Vrindaban three months earlier by a mentally unstable devotee (Triyogi dasa—Michael Shockman), to other saintly devotees who had been unjustly persecuted: Haridasa Thakur, Prahlada Maharaja, the five Pandava brothers and Jesus Christ.
Satsvarupa wrote: “We should take care lest we forget how rare Vaishnavas like Srila Kirtanananda Swami are. . . .
Srila Bhaktipada is a truly outstanding leader and teacher of Krishna consciousness. . . .
New Vrindaban is quickly becoming one of the most prominent and important places of religious pilgrimage in the world. New Vrindaban . . . is a hallmark of Srila Bhaktipada’s pure God-conscious vision.”
Puranjana remembered Sulochan’s response to Satsvarupa’s article: “The January 1986 Back To Godhead magazine contained the article ‘A Tribute To A Pure Devotee’ which glorified Kirtanananda’s ‘pipe on the head attack’ as something similar to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The article said that Kirtanananda was attacked just like Jesus Christ, Haridasa Thakur and Prahlada had been.
For me and Sulochan this article looked like a method of getting us attacked, perhaps even killed. We were both saying that Kirtanananda is a homosexual, he is a deviant, and he is certainly not a guru. Meanwhile, the GBC was saying: here is a person like Jesus? That was easily interpreted as: me and Sulochan are envious blasphemers of Jesus, or someone equal to Jesus?
Sulochan said, ‘Puranjana, did you see this? This article by Satsvarupa, it paints a big bull’s eye target on my back. He is making it look like I am criticizing Jesus, Haridasa Thakur and Prahlada.’ So we discussed this and began to call this article, ‘Our Death Certificate.’ It was the GBC’s way of fanning fanatical action against us, and it could be severe.”
Killing For Krishna, Chapter 9, “The Keystone Cops Surveillance Team,” p. 221.
See http://henrydoktorski.com/Killing4Krishna.html
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A journalist (laughing). I don't think so.
PADA: Yes mother DD, this is a question I get a lot. Didn't a lot of the seniors like Brahmananda, Gargamuni, Hansadutta, Jadurani, Guru dasa, Jayapataka, Acyutananda, Syamsundar, Malati, Satsvarupa, Tamal, Pancadravida, and similar others not know that Kirtanananda had been a homosexual prior to joining ISKCON?
ReplyDeleteAnd that he had problems accepting Srila Prabhupada's authority? And how could they not know when they were there as part of the original team when he was wandering off the reservation a number of times? And therefore ... it would be impossible that he had become a pure devotee overnight?
It is a mystery how so many people did not figure this out, or they knew and they did not protest ... so when me and Sulochan started to complain ... we had little to no back up. Or worse, Satsvarupa, Hansadutta and others started to say KS is a pure devotee. Correct. ys pd