PADA: Yeah thanks prabhu. Ravana was a predator and ISKCON wants us to worship predators. I know, the irony here is that amazing. Some ex-gurukulis told me the irony is, Rama had to chastise a predator, while in ISKCON they worship predators. And they allow their predator gurus or their friends to exploit us kids. But there was no Rama to save us? And the predators or their supporters are still worshiped there. This is upside down Rama's kingdom. ys pd
Rather amazing that he departed from the planet at the Mayapur head quarters of Auschwitz for kids. And then ISKCON thought that was a very holy event, while some of his followers wrote and told me they thought the GBC had him poisoned. OK well that is the association he chose. A person who supports an anal reconstructive surgery epidemic messiah's project will go to the planet of anal reconstructive surgery epidemics.
ys pd angel108b@yahoo.com
MAGA MANIA
PADA: No prabhu I am not gloating that MAGA lost big time in the election here. That being said, MAGA is a kind of cult and it is not healthy. But when Joe Biden was president he did come across as a spaced out "sleepy Joe" type guy. So I get why they wanted the more industrial strength fired up MAGA crew. But yeah the GBC and MAGA are both having a meltdown, maybe it is Krishna saying "enough already." Hee hee!
Message to Bill O'Reilly: Good job Bill! The farmer who spent $240,000 on his carrot crop had to plow it under and go bankrupted because Bill's plan to send his 110 workers to Mexico worked great. Bill's plan bankrupted many other farmers that same way.
PADA: The trust will never be reestablished as long as the same people who broke it are in charge.
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PADA: No prabhu I am not gloating that MAGA lost big time in the election here. That being said, MAGA is a kind of cult and it is not healthy. But when Joe Biden was president he did come across as a spaced out "sleepy Joe" type guy. So I get why they wanted the more industrial strength fired up MAGA crew. But yeah the GBC and MAGA are both having a meltdown, maybe it is Krishna saying "enough already." Hee hee!
But the MAGA crew created more economic problems for the citizens with their tariffs and wars, and the citizens are not happy. For example, many small Chinese gift shops and small importers went out of business here because they could not pay the tariffs, and then they had to fire their workers. A guy whose business was importing custom car wheels could not pay to get his wheels out of customs, and he went broke, fired his staff etc.
These MAGA guys are always seemingly trying to make life hard, if not impossible, for the small business people -- to boost up their giant box store Walmart donating pals. Walmart buys all their stuff from China, so it does not help USA to drive small business into bankrupting and laying off workers.
Never mind farmers like the one who spent $240,000 on his carrot crop, and then MAGA sent all the farmer's 110 farm workers back to Mexico, so he had to plough under his carrots and declare bankrupt. And now we are buying Mexican carrots from Mexico. So MAGA is always helping someone other than the USA, OK like Mexico, Israel etc.
Perhaps the most clear objection people had was the Trump Bible, printed in China for less than $3 per Bible, and then sold by MAGA for $59.99 to the public. It does look like a lot of these "helping America" programs are helping a few elites fill their pockets with various scams.
Of course Trump is a big fan of the mega tech bros and AI farms, which again are not popular with the public, nor do AI farms create a lot of jobs. There are just a few tech guys keeping the machines running. AI will take away jobs and not make more. Oddly I once had a job in a computer farm, and my job was to monitor to thermostats and computer temperature gauges. Other than me, place was a ghost town.
Unfortunately, the MAGA folks VASTLY over stated and over promised -- and then VASTLY under performed, so now they are looking worse than sleepy Joe. But to me it looks like the USA is going from one not very competent crew to the next, as the issues are not fixed by either side. So it is basically a dysfunctional mess.
Now MAGA will block everything the Democrats propose, so I see a sort of constipated gridlock emerging from this situation, but I hope I am wrong. Overall yeah, I feel the Democrats are more in touch with us little guys. At the same time, even when they are in office, not a whole lot seems to happen to benefit us little guys.
I hate to say it but, I believe we are not going to see any big improvement in my not so humble opinion. But I do believe we have to get out of this never ending (and expensive) Iran war quagmire -- and I hope they can at least do that, because it is very dangerous for the entire world to be pushing military buttons over there.
I believe if Iran blows up all the electrical power and water supplies over the entire region there, which they could do, it will make a giant -- millions of people with no food and water -- humanitarian crisis, that the world will not be able to fix, and it will crash the entire world economy too. There will be a gigantic refugee problem, lots of them dying etc. Then again there are those telling me, that is the plan.
Anyway I am hoping for the best, because I live here. ys pd
angel108b@yahoo.com
Bill wonders why those farmers did not vote for the SAME people who want them to go bankrupt? Why would anyone vote for the SAME people who want to see you go bankrupt? Bill never makes any sense. Bill wants all our farmers on food stamps so they can buy their Mexico imported carrots. What a doofus! After we bankrupt you, vote for us! They are destroying people's lives. Bill does not know that?
========
CYRIL WOHRER
You guys are just relentless, aren't you? Jesus have mercy on you poor souls.
PADA: Yep, the gang of four GBC gurus removed me from ISKCON for my objecting to their intoxicated womanizer acharya, Jayatirtha. Cyril Wohrer is friendly pals with the SAME people who kept that disciple predator in their Vyasa seat. Rather amazing, the intoxicated womanizer class of debauchees would not be allowed to act as Church Butler in my 1950s Church, he would be disqualified to have any post in the Church. But when Cyril Wohrer's acharyas program finds a nice intoxicated womanizer, they think they have met the next messiah! Jesus will not have any mercy on the people making intoxicated womanizers into another Jesus. ys pd
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GURU GOVINDA KRIPA DAS
PADA: No problem, I sued the GBC here for $3,000,000 (1986) and then $400,000,000 (1999) for mass child mistreatment, and won both times. I do not want the same people who orchestrate exploiting and putting children into victimhood and peril to run a coffee shop, never mind a temple. Children victims of the GBC program were taking their own lives. I do not support such people, or their lawsuits, or their gurus or anything else. They were feeding kids here horse oats that are not for human consumption and children were suffering malnutrition, but the GBC lawyers are fat and eating nice beef steaks, paid for by the GBC. I have no sympathy for their process. All these GBC guys ever worry about is feeding their lawyers and not the children in their system, and they are the same now as ever. ys pd
CYRIL WOHRER
You guys are just relentless, aren't you? Jesus have mercy on you poor souls.
PADA: Yep, the gang of four GBC gurus removed me from ISKCON for my objecting to their intoxicated womanizer acharya, Jayatirtha. Cyril Wohrer is friendly pals with the SAME people who kept that disciple predator in their Vyasa seat. Rather amazing, the intoxicated womanizer class of debauchees would not be allowed to act as Church Butler in my 1950s Church, he would be disqualified to have any post in the Church. But when Cyril Wohrer's acharyas program finds a nice intoxicated womanizer, they think they have met the next messiah! Jesus will not have any mercy on the people making intoxicated womanizers into another Jesus. ys pd
=====
GURU GOVINDA KRIPA DAS
PADA: No problem, I sued the GBC here for $3,000,000 (1986) and then $400,000,000 (1999) for mass child mistreatment, and won both times. I do not want the same people who orchestrate exploiting and putting children into victimhood and peril to run a coffee shop, never mind a temple. Children victims of the GBC program were taking their own lives. I do not support such people, or their lawsuits, or their gurus or anything else. They were feeding kids here horse oats that are not for human consumption and children were suffering malnutrition, but the GBC lawyers are fat and eating nice beef steaks, paid for by the GBC. I have no sympathy for their process. All these GBC guys ever worry about is feeding their lawyers and not the children in their system, and they are the same now as ever. ys pd
==
A Deeply Heartfelt, Eye Opening Letter
My name is Trai dās. I had the good fortune of receiving initiation from Śrīla Prabhupāda in 1971. I write this letter with some hesitation. I am not a scholar or an expert, and I have made more than my share of mistakes. I do not write because I believe I see more clearly than others.
Many of the devotees who will read these words are my seniors; they have served Śrīla Prabhupāda more faithfully than I have and carry responsibilities I could never carry.
Whatever understanding I have of this matter has come only through my own painful errors.
I write simply because I love Śrīla Prabhupāda’s movement and the devotees who have given their lives to it.
I would feel I was letting down my godbrothers and godsisters if I did not share what I have slowly learned. Some years ago my wife and I needed someone to teach a weekly meditation course at our small preaching centre in Italy.
A devotee we had known since the 1980s reappeared and kindly offered to help. I remembered that, about thirty years earlier, there had been an account of him abusing a five-year-old boy in the gurukula. I told myself it was so long ago that it no longer mattered.
I could not have been more wrong. When some of our young devotees learned of it, the revelation caused deep pain and division in our community; half of our congregation turned away deeply disappointed. In the end, with a heavy heart, I had to ask this devotee to leave. It was not easy because he was our friend and had helped us in many ways.
Only then did my wife and I begin to look carefully at what had actually happened. Slowly we realised that our affection for him had made us partial.
Over time, we came to learn that the abuse had been far more serious than the version he had shared with us. Even then, I am ashamed to say, our friendship continued to cloud our judgment.
What finally changed my heart was meeting the victim, now a middle-aged man. I will always be grateful to him, and I stand in awe of his resilience.
As a young boy in the gurukula he suffered horrific abuse, and yet somehow his love for Kṛṣṇa survived. He protected that love through everything that was done to him.
He had every reason to resent me for having stood by the man who harmed him. Instead he showed a grace and maturity I had lacked. Setting aside the heavy pain he has carried all his life, he agreed to speak with me. He walked me through what he had suffered as a child and the devastation it left behind. And he told me, gently, how much it had hurt him to see me publicly honour the man who had hurt him. I asked his forgiveness for the harm I had caused.
Sitting with him, I finally understood how devastating the abuse of a child is, and that our love for our friends, however sincere, must never come before the protection of the most vulnerable members of our family.
He gave me a gift I can never repay: he let me see the world through his eyes. Once I had seen it, I could never unsee it. It also changed how I saw the man I had defended.
Throughout the investigation he had come to regard himself as the victim. I tried many times to help him see that it was the child who had been truly harmed.
But it is very hard for any of us to accept that we have caused deep and lasting suffering to another soul, and so in his mind he became the one who was being persecuted.
Those of us who loved him, myself included, only made it easier for him to believe that he was the one being wronged. I came to realise, painfully, that in trying to help my friend I had actually harmed him.
My support did not bring him closer to the truth; it helped him hide from it, and so it kept him from the very repentance that could have brought him peace.
I have since seen the same pattern in other cases including that of Laxmimoni and Bhaktividyapurna.
That is why the case of my godbrother Keśava Bhāratī weighs so heavily on me. We have been friends since the late 1970s, and I hold real affection for him. I know many of my godbrothers and godsisters feel the same, and I do not judge anyone for that affection.
I felt it too, and I still do. But because of what I went through, I can no longer look at a case like this only through the eyes of friendship. Now I try to see it through the eyes of the child who was harmed. And I have learned something I did not expect: that is also the only way we can truly help the one who caused the harm; by helping him face what he has done and make amends.
When a victim learns that a finding against the person who harmed her has been set aside, and that he is free to resume positions of the highest authority and trust, it is very hard for her to hear anything other than this: that what was done to her did not really matter.
And she will not be the only one.
Every devotee who was harmed as a child, in every temple and every school, will hear the same message. In time it is not only what victims feel; it becomes how the world sees the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement.
I do not believe that is what anyone intends. But intentions do not change what victims hear. Only she can forgive what was done to her. That is her choice and no one else’s. But we should not confuse forgiveness with restoring someone to positions of spiritual trust and authority.
Forgiveness is a matter of the heart, between the one who was harmed, the one who harmed her, and Kṛṣṇa. Positions of authority are a matter of protecting the community. Someone who once abused the trust placed in him can be forgiven, yet it would still be unwise to place him back in a position that requires that same trust.
For many years victims waited for our movement to take child abuse seriously, and in recent years real steps were taken.
I am grateful to everyone who worked so hard for that progress. It troubles me deeply to see those steps now being undone. I fear the harm will reach far beyond a few individual cases. Those who came forward may feel betrayed a second time, first by the person who harmed them, and then by the society that promised to protect them.
Others who have never spoken may decide that speaking brings only more pain, and so remain silent. When victims stay silent, abuse goes unreported and children are left unprotected. And anyone tempted to harm a child may come to believe that, with enough friends, the consequences can be undone.
Our own child protection guidelines say that restrictions exist, among other reasons, to “act as a deterrent to future potential offenders” and to “show respect to the victims and assist them in their journey to heal.”
These are not someone else’s rules; they are our own.
When a victim watches the person who harmed her restored to a position of honour, it does not help her heal. It opens the wound again. Parents will wonder whether they can trust our temples with their children. Many of our second generation, who already carry deep wounds from the gurukula years, will feel that nothing has really changed and that there is no place for them in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s home. I cannot bear the thought of that. They are Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Vaikuṇṭha children, and they are also our children. I do not believe any of us wants this outcome.
I believe most of us simply find it painful to see a friend suffer consequences, and so, out of love, we look away; as I once did. That is how such a culture continues: not through bad intentions, but through good people being kind in the wrong direction.
We offer our kindness to the one we know and love, who is standing in front of us, who can speak for himself, and whose pain we can see.
The child who was harmed is often far away, silent, or grown and gone from our community.
Their pain is easy to overlook, and so our compassion flows toward the friend and away from the victim. Genuine kindness, free from personal attachment, does not choose whose suffering to notice. It sees both, and prioritizes the most vulnerable. In the early years, perhaps we could say we did not know better. But today we do.
If we truly love our friends who have harmed children, I think the most loving thing we can do is help them face the truth of what they did and accept a humble place in our family.
No one is saying they cannot be devotees, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, or serve. But positions such as guru and sannyāsī carry the sacred trust of the whole community.
I believe that trust must be protected; for the sake of the most vulnerable, for the sake of the movement, and for their own spiritual welfare. I once told Keśava Bhāratī this myself, as a friend. I say it again now with the same respect and affection.
A humble position is not a punishment. It can be a great shelter, and a chance to be truly at peace with Kṛṣṇa and with those he hurt. We, the disciples of Srila Prabhupada, belong to the generation in whose time these wounds were inflicted. Much of the pain our children carry today is connected to our immaturity, our mistakes, and our failure to protect them.
Too often, out of loyalty to one another, we made that pain worse by shielding our friends when we should have stood beside those who were harmed. Now we are in the autumn of our lives. Many of our beloved godbrothers and godsisters have already departed, and the time remaining to the rest of us is precious.
I feel we have a duty to heal these wounds and change the culture that allowed them, while we are still here to do so.
This is especially urgent because the next generation will inherit not only the consequences of our failures, but the culture we leave behind. It will be very hard for future disciples to question practices established and modeled by their own gurus, even when those practices have caused harm.
We cannot leave that burden to them. I pray that, before we leave this world, we can give them something better: a society where every child is safe, where those who were harmed are heard and cared for, and where no one has to wonder whether their suffering matters less because the person who hurt them is our friend. I offer these thoughts with folded hands, knowing my own faults, and praying that they will be received in the spirit in which they are given.
I ask forgiveness from anyone I may hurt with this letter, and I am grateful to all those who carry the heavy burden of caring for Śrīla Prabhupāda’s family.
Your servant, Trai dās
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