Will the Russel Brand scandal rub off on ISKCON? Good question.
PADA: Oh oh. The new darling of Radhanath might be involved in some previous sexual predator scandals, perhaps on the criminal level. The women making accusations want to remain anonymous. Yeah, wonder why? So this is very sad for his wife and children, now they will have to live with his "creepy history" -- just like ISKCON folks are having to live with their own creepy history.
The women who have accused Russell Brand of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse have spoken out in a TV special about the alleged crimes. In the Channel 4 Dispatches film “Russell Brand: In Plain Sight,” which aired Saturday night, five women — who all chose to remain anonymous — got candid about the alleged abuse they went through with the comedian.
“He’s grabbing at my, my underwear, pulling it to the side,” alleged one accuser. “I’m telling him to get off me and he won’t get off. Like, holding me up against a wall, pushing himself in me.” Another woman claimed Brand, 48, “grabbed me and got me on the bed. I was fully clothed, and he was naked at this point. And he held me down and he was just aggressively trying to, you know, f–k me.”
https://krishna1008.blogspot.com/2011/09/rupanuga-dasa-speaks-about-guru.html?
Rupanuga’s Part in the Guru Hoax – HareKrsna.org
Dear Uttamasloka das Prabhu,
Obeisances! All glories to Shrila Prabhupada!
This is the best compilation of shokas and explanations I have seen from you. Thank you!
It is true that devotees finally have to realize that they have to work on their devotion and that this path is a razor's age. One second of inattentiveness can cost the whole process going to back to square one.
Bhagavad-Gita 4.34 best reveals the process of interaction between guru and disciple. Unfortunately, today "gurus" are givers of names but hardly remember the names they give to their "disciples". There is hardly any interaction between the "guru"and "disciple". Not only the "disciples hardly have idea how to render service but the "gurus" almost never instruct the "disciples" directly.
They are always too busy to answer letter but never busy to collect money. This kind of relationship is definitely not on any transcendental platform but on a karmic platform and those who just take without giving are meant to pay it back in the future. I have no idea who introduced this model of interaction first but he definitely had no idea nether about transcendental matters nor karma. That means that he was not a devotee because the devotee is a person who is well-versed in both the relative matters as well as the transcendental.
Yours in the service of Prabhupada,
Abhaya Mudra Dasi
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D Dasi: On Thursday, September 14, 2023 at 09:27:07 PM GMT+3, Uttamasloka Dasa... <uttamasloka@riseup.net> wrote:
Prabhu -- I did what Rupanuga suggested and deleted Mahesh Raja from the reply list. I have no idea who he is and, per Srila Prabhupada's instruction, consider such endless unresolved (for decades now) debates to be prajalpa. But in the midst of all that, Uttama Sloka Prabhu wrote:
"And, considering the latest revelations about the decades of sexual abuse and violence towards the children in Mayapur schools, it is clear that the current gurus and leaders of ISKCON are similarly doomed for their complicity and non-action in this most egregious Vaisnava aparadha against Vaisnava children in the Holy Dhama. They are doomed."
I have a son, whom I managed to protect from experiencing the worst of the Iskcon schools, but still he is psychologically scarred and wants nothing to do with the Krishna Consciousness Movement due to even being in proximity to the gurukula catastrophe.
Plus he has many friends and acquaintances who did experience the worst of it. Does everyone think the "gurus and leaders of Iskcon" are the only ones who are "doomed" because of this? I personally am haunted by it and feel that none of us can escape the karmic reaction for what happened to those precious Vaisnava children.
It’s all on them - not us. I was TP of three temples in the 70s and none of us outside of these abusive schools knew that these horrors were being perpetrated. Even Srila Prabhupada didn’t know! So those outside of those schools are not responsible for their actions.
And since I and many others left ISKCON shortly after Srila Prabhupada’s disappearance, we were not part of the institution so we have no culpability as such.
Again, in my work as a transcriptionist, I have heard much that I wish I had never heard. I have stayed away from much contact with devotees largely because of angst over this. I just wonder if anyone here has any information about what was ever done to reform the schools, and are they now safe and nurturing environments for our children.
Part of what was exposed over the last year is that nothing effective has ever been done to rectify any of these problems. Just a lot of bullshit political speeches pretending to care and support the children when the reality has been otherwise. Dozens of private letters over the span of many years have been circulated which exposed that all the leaders knew exactly what was going on and they chose to do nothing. Turn a blind eye. Pretend it isn’t happening and hope that it goes away over time. But it didn’t and it won’t.
The only thing that was done was to cover up all these horrors and that is 100% on the leaders and the gurus who directly facilitated the abusers and cover ups. And they are still doing it to this day!
And why did we all just turn our heads and not come out en masse against the abuse when we found out even bits of what was going on? Why did we allow it to continue? Are we not all therefore complicit in this horrendous aparadha?
Those of us who were not part of the institution have no culpability for these horrors. Those who remained within the institution and who knew about these things but did nothing - THEY are responsible and they share in this Vaisnava aparadha.
One godsister I transcribed said she complained to Prabhupada that the teachers in Mayapur were terrorizing the children by threatening to put them in the clothes dryers. She swore he was never told about the sexual abuse. In response to this godsister, Srila Prabhupada roared that they were "all Hiranya Kasipu teachers" and that they should be "hung up," in reference to the old practice in Bengali villages that if parents discovered a teacher abusing schoolchildren, they would capture the teacher and hang him upside down by his feet outside the school, where everyone was free to throw noxious substances at him.
This is one of the milder things I have heard while transcribing. I have also heard many, many heart-melting accounts of how Srila Prabhupada set the perfect example in interacting with our children -- with oceans of love and playful attention and encouragement in Krishna consciousness.
I’m surprised that the fathers and brothers and close friends of these victims didn’t just kill the perpetrators. I would have done that if my son was abused like these kids. These abusers don’t deserve to live.
I'm not writing this to try to make anybody feel guilty or bad. I sincerely would like any information anyone has about what has been done in the aftermath of the gurukula catastrophe and what is the current situation.
Nothing has changed except ISKCON is scurrying to cover up their failures and pretend it wasn’t their fault. They claim to be making changes, but they’ve done that all along so they have no credibility in that regard.
I know that Iskcon reluctantly and resentfully threw some money at some of the gurukula alumni, but I don't think that was the solution, nor did it help.
It did not help.
Those children needed intense psychological and spiritual counseling after their experiences, and an ocean of loving attention following Prabhupada's example. From what I know, we have lost most of them to Gaudiya Matha gurus and many to suicide.
The fact that some committed suicide means that they can never forgive their abusers, which means the abusers are on the hook for that Vaisnava aparadha and that means they are doomed.
How can we live with ourselves? The only thought I can come up with is that Krishna will surely grant those children special mercy and they will make tremendous spiritual advancement simply because of the sacrifice of their childhoods, but that's just my speculation.
Nothing happens by accident. It’s all our karmas playing out. Too complex to fully comprehend.
ISKCON is still reeling from the shock and blowback of these horrific details being exposed over the last year. Many disciples have rejected their gurus for their complicity in supporting and even elevating the main abuser and covering up his crimes. Who can blame them? Such pretenders should be rejected.
Uttamasloka dasa...
Your servant and godsister,
D dasi
On Wed, Sep 13, 2023 at 10:35 PM Rupanuga Das <rupanugadas66@hotmail.com> wrote:
First of all, let me show the letter that I sent to Srila Prabhupada. This quote is taken from the beginning of my monthly GBC report after I had returned from the Mayapur festival. And I want to make it clear that I never went to seek advice from Sridhara Maharaja on anything. That is an outright fabrication to tie me in with the misbehavior of the GBC guru men. The truth is, the GBC non-guru devotees asked me to accompany Kirtananda Maharaj, who was being sent to see Sridhara Maharaja and explain what the GBC was doing.
At that meeting Sridhara Maharaj told Kirtananda he didn’t care about the GBC and he was not in their jurisdiction. He said, so now the GBC is divided between the fit and un-fit. At that point, I could understand Sridhara Maharaj was living up to his reputation of calling himself a “form breaker.” I left a few minutes later, after he exchanged some formalities with Kirtananda Maharaj.
This ‘form breaker’ attitude was explained by Srila Prabhupada in his revealing letter of April 28,1974 to me in answer to what I wrote on April 17th as part of my monthly GBC report: “Sridhar Maharaj “thanked” us for coming to Mayapur from all over the world to “encourage them in their work.” But what work are they doing? Your God-brothers only revealed that they are kanistha adhikaris without any world vision of this movement. They have no manifest Vaishnava compassion, of which you are the embodiment.”
His response agreed with my assessment. Earlier, back in 1966-67 at the storefront, when I heard from Srila Prabupada thay he had God-brothers, I was thinking we were going to get re-enforcements to help spread the movement 3,000 mile across the continent. As I learned that his God-brothers had no intention to help, but were actually non-cooperative, I was very, very disappointed. And events over the years up to April, 1974 did little to allay that disappointment.
That being said, and since this discussion has been taken over by Mahesh Raja as a forum to propagate and/or defend the Rtvik school, a denominational off-shoot of Iskcon., by criticizing everything else, I must withdraw from this thread or forum or whatever it has morphed into.
As Srila Prabhupada once remarked, “If in a discussion, a decision cannot be reached, further conversation is prajalpa.” And I am expecting Mahesh Raja to become progressively more virulent, and falsely accusative, as he has already begun to do. He should be blocked. May I suggest to everyone to delete his name from the ‘reply all’, so that we may return to a more productive discourse. Hare Krishna.
Your servant,
Rupanuga das, ACBSP
And then many ISKCON people like Jayatirtha, Jagat guru swami, Pancadravida, Tripurari swami, and dozens more, ran off to start their spin off Sridhara Maharaja cult, because the GBC lead them to Sridhara in the first place. And Rupanuga was protesting all this -- where? No, he was saying the people who had been running off to Sridhara Maharaja are the acharyas of ISKCON. In fact Rupanuga was still propping up Kirtanananda against me and Sulochana in 1986.
So I did not support Sridhara Maharaja, but I supported the people who all ran off to Sridhara Maharaja, and I was saying the Sridhara consulting group are "acharyas." I did not hit you, my stick did. Sorry, Rupanuga never came out and said we should not consult Sridhara. And he did say we need to worship the people who are running off to Sridhara. Now he is trying to re-write history.
Worse, he is implying that his illicit sex with men, women and children gurus are "Madhyam adhikary." No, illicit sex with men women and children is not even kanistha, and it is not even basic human society moral standards. As Sulochana said, even a dog is not having illicit sex with men, women and children. Rupanuga is confusing less than dogs with Madhyams, again. ys pd
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PADA: Satsvarupa also wrote, "the more I chant, the drier it gets." And this was published by the GBC in their Back to Godhead and other publications. Sounds like a bad advert for thinking of Krishna. The more I think of Krishna, the more dried out I get. Is this the way to encourage people to think of Krishna? And this is the standard for acharya, he is a dried out from chanting the names of God? So this is their subtle means of discouraging people from thinking of God ... worse, the more he chants, the worse his migraine headaches are. Misrepresenting the process of devotional service, and what is an acharya. Of course you don't want to look at Satsvarupa's art unless you want to get a headache yourself ... hee hee.
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S Dasi: Boy Geroge, Russel Brand ... top shelf people they attract these days. I think we were supposed to be attracting ... intelligent scholarly types. Russel Brand is another kind of former drug addict ... maybe sex addict ... motivational speaker ... political speaker, who has been giving questionable help for Krishna's good name anyway.
ReplyDeleteHis talks are sometimes good ... and sometimes too speculative and many times too political. He knew all along he had troubles from the past. And he was hoping they would be buried.
And that is why one of the girls said ... she thought he was too powerful to challenge. I am sorry ... if you have wronged other people ... you need to own it. Otherwise ... you are still giving the victims more pain even now.
Just like ISKCON does not own up. They are one and the same in that regard. Yet somehow I feel sorry for all of them ... and their victims. There is no winner to see here. Neither the victims ... or Russel Brand ... or ISKCON. They all have to suffer the consequences.
Unfortunately for sexual abusers, these consequences may move on into their next lives ...