ISKCON Rewards Abusers And Punishes Victims? (Sanaka Rsi)

Sanaka Rsi: What are the implications of ISKCON leaders publicly fraternizing with known child abusers?

Historically ISKCON's leadership has afforded high profile perpetrators of child abuse far more support, compassion, 'understanding' and protection, than they have to their victims. There has been a lot of blaming, shaming and questioning the victims, but from the same leadership we have rarely seen anything even remotely close directed towards the perpetrators.

Among some devotees, objecting to the worship of a notorious child abuser, is effectively viewed as a greater sin than the abuse of the child itself.

This culture is what allowed ISKCON's most notorious perpetrators to continue offending years after the first reports came out, we saw this with the likes of Dhanurdhara and Bhaktividyapurna and we're now witnessing the same with Lokanath.

I wonder how many of the "senior devotees" that have protected and enabled Bhaktividyapurna over the years now feel a sense of remorse and responsibility for the new abuse that was recently uncovered...

Recently Lokanath had his 50th anniversary Golden Jubilee, where several of his senior god-siblings participated in the celebrations. I wrote some comments on how their presence at this public function constitutes support and endorsement for Lokanath, and how it appears to convey the message that these senior devotees believe that celebrating with him is more important than objecting to the fact that a child abuser is a guru in the movement of their Spiritual Master.

Shortly after I made these comments, I noted that Srutakirti Prabhu, who has been a good friend of mine going back several years, had deleted me from his friend's list.

He canceled our friendship for expressing my disappointment that he chose to attend the celebrations of a child abuser, but he did not 'delete' Lokanath for abusing a child.

In other words, it appears that he was more upset by the fact that I pointed out that, his presence at this function constituted support and endorsement for Lokanath and everything he stands for, than he was by the abuse of a child perpetrated by Lokanath.

Bhurijan Prabhu is one of the first devotees that got involved in education in ISKCON. I first met him when I moved to the Vrindavana Gurukula in 1990. He lived in the Gurukula building for years whilst Dhanurdhara and many other teachers were abusing children.

In 2016, I interviewed Anita Mataji, one of the former teachers in the Vrindavana Gurukula who shared with me that she had approached Bhurijan Prabhu to ask for guidance on how to handle the abuse of children in the Vrindavana Gurukula. She told me that he discouraged her from reporting the abuse.

It is safe to assume that he is very well acquainted with the problem of child abuse that has plagued ISKCON over the years, unfortunately, while I have often seen him publicly fraternize with notorious offenders, I have never seen him take a principled (and difficult) stance for the protection of children.

Many of these senior devotees are themselves parents, I like to hope that if Lokanath had abused their 11 year old daughter, they would be less 'forgiving', 'transcendental' and ready to jump on stage and party with him for his 50th anniversary...

It is sad to see that these devotees appear oblivious or unwilling to acknowledge the implications and optics of their presence at this function.

At the end of the day actions speak louder than words. If you are silent on the abuse of children or worse, you go out of your way to discourage the reporting of abuse and then you show up for the party of what is currently the most high profile child abuser in ISKCON, then the facts say that the protection of children is something that you value less than participating at this event.

I wonder how many, if any, of these senior devotees paused to consider the implications and impact of their presence at this function, before they accepted the invitation. I wonder how many them have approached Lokanath privately and pointed out to him that his attachment to being a guru has compromised the purity and integrity of Srila Prabhupada's legacy.

These are not easy questions, and refusing an invitation may not have been easy, but I wonder if these devotees were able to see that their presence at this event was also very problematic, I wonder if they saw that in these situations there is no easy option and that perhaps rather than looking for the easiest option and pretend that there is no problem, it may be better to choose the principled option.

[PADA: On Lord Chaitanya's 500th anniversary in 1986 the GBC re-instated their "Vishnupada" guru -- whom they knew at the time had been engaged in oral sex with taxi drivers in the dham, and the same guru had orchestrated an extensive child molesting infrastructure that was creating molesting webs and nests in many areas of ISKCON. And they "excommunicated" Sulochana -- and me indirectly -- and as a result Sulochana's life was taken and mine would have been taken except the FBI was tapping the phones at New Vrndavana and so the police started doing undercover surveillance on me. So when their three thugs were chasing me down the street, the undercover cops came out and cuffed those guys. 

And Yasomatinandan das wrote at the time -- "congratulations, we have given Lord Chaitanya a f*ggot guru for His anniversary." So this is all part of a pattern, which I have called "the enforced cult ritualistic worship of deviants and pedophiles as gurus." And that is what I am now relaying to the media folks who are interviewing me. The same basic people in charge in 1986 are still the main in charge guys now, nothing has really changed. If anything, they have doubled down on their pedophile worshiping process. ys pd]