Review of "God, Gold and Guns"

(Amazon Review)

5.0 out of 5 stars Brutally Honest

Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2020

I finished this book stunned. I was aware of Kirtanananda's dereliction, his poor character, etc., but this book strips away any pretense he may have had (and sadly still does in some circles) to being a guru, a holy man, or even a decent person. The quotes directly from his long time lover's (Hayagriva) unpublished manuscript are extremely graphic and not for the feint of heart. 

What emerges from this important history of an ISKCON guru and community (New Vrindaban) is the story of fraud, sexual immorality, abuse, mythomania, narcissism, and a clear plan on the part of Hayagriva and Kirtanananda to hijack their little portion of ISKCON for power, money, influence, and sex. This is an incredibly dark history that every ISKCON devotee, every disciple of Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada in India must read if they're at all interested in truth. 

Henry Doktorski has pulled back the curtain of lies to reveal this part of ISKCON history warts and all, and does so without sensationalism. He simply presents the truth as it is and allows it to speak for itself. Amazing book! Highly recommended for students of world religion, new religions and cults, and apologetics.

Rev. J. Davila Ashcraft

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[PADA: A lot of the problematic incidents that were taking place in New Vrndavana simply were never really recorded, or known, almost anywhere. Rather oddly, most of the post 1978 "ISKCON History" was recorded by newspaper media people, and not the Krishna devotees themselves. Glaring examples of bogus GBC guru blunders were being publicized in the news media repeatedly, and the news media were thus the main history writers of post-1977 ISKCON. And then the book "Monkey On A Stick" came out and it was the same thing, ISKCON history was being recorded by the so-called "outside writers."

Then Henry Doktorski came along and a lot of people say he does not understand the religion properly -- so he should not write about it. OK fine, but none of the original wave of news media writers understood the religion properly either? They ended up writing about the history because -- "the devotees" could not, would not and did not. And for the most part, they still are not.

So Henry has at least put together some form of that early history in detail, with documents, eye-witness testimonies etc. He even encouraged some of the people who were hiding out -- to come forward and offer their accounts of events (ok like crimes) going on there. That uncovered previously unknown implication of the leaders, which is needed to fully understand that history.  

As bad or as good as some people like Henry's writings, no one else would have put together a lot of this history -- and it would be a little bit of mystery as to why so many problems came out of there -- without knowing how, when or why -- and who are the key players in the events there. 

And a news lady friend of PADA who is a writer at the Moundsville newspapers had her car rammed off the road by an angry gang of guys in a van. OK New Vrndavan guys very likely in the van. She is writing about the scams going on there, to threat of life and limb, while the brave Bhagavad Gita warrior devotees are hiding under bushes. 

Then the brave hiding under the bushes Bhagavad Gita warriors come out to complain -- her accounts are not fully accurate, but they are writing no counter accounts themselves whatever. A woman has to do the brave writer fighting for the brave warrior men group, and all they can do is complain -- it is not fully accurate? She is manning the abandoned machine gun to attack the bad guys, and the complaint is, she is not an accurate gunnery person? Really?

The history can be summed up as: Kirtanananda artificially claimed to be God's appointed guru successor -- and a whole lot of ISKCON people fell victim to his false advertising. And then the mass of devotees (mostly, many of my dear God brothers and sisters included) encouraged others (like Henry) to worship Kirtanananda as their "eternal spiritual master." OK that means the primary blame for all this does not fall on Henry's lap, he was just following the crowd. And they were almost cent percent all leading people down the road to Kirtanananda's now infamous guru cult. So he is more of a victim of their combined false propaganda IMHO.

And that whole process formed the ISKCON guru worship blockade, or the foundation for their West Virginia "mad king" guru cult process. In sum, neither Kirtanananda is authorized to declare he is God's successor, nor are any of our God brothers authorized to assist him in that deviation.

Some people are also confused by the preceding part of this history. Even by 1980, ISKCON was being publicly sued by the Syracuse Federal Court for "systematically defrauding the public" and a lot of that fraud and financial abuse was based from, or connected to, ISKCON's then biggest "scam-kirtan pickers" program from New Vrndavana. Federal agents used hidden tape recorders to record the NV devotees asking for money for things like "Mother Mary's Home for the Blind" etc. -- programs that did not exist in actual fact. This was in fact, fraud.

So this court case was well known in the devotee community at the time, and in the public newspapers, because they lost the case -- and ISKCON had to pay a big court fine. Thus, when devotees say they "did not know" there were LOTS of troubles brewing in the society, that simply is not the case. 

Many / most folks knew about these problems because -- these events were public newspaper info, and many devotees were then forced to help pay for the legal costs etc. And then temples had to hold big community "istagosthi" meetings to inform the mass of devotees to -- back away -- from using all these devious techniques -- as part of the court agreement.

Meanwhile -- at almost the very same exact same time that the newspapers were exposing ISKCON's bogus gurus as frauds, and assorted other crimes were going on around 1980, Kirtanananda was driving around in his jeep at the NV farm, with a small boy almost always sitting on his lap -- most of the time. So it was publicly known -- at least to many devotees -- that KS was at least little bit "overly affectionate" and "way too clinging" to little boys. Not only well known, publicly visible for all to see. Big festivals were being held there, so a lot of devotees came there and saw what was going on first hand. 

Meanwhile, we were always telling our friend Sulochana das to get himself out of there, because the whole "New Vrndavana / Kirtanananda is God's new messiah from heaven" process is like a cult meltdown time bomb -- just waiting to happen. And when it explodes, you will be right there in the middle of it. He resisted our pleas and said he wanted to "raise a family in the association of devotees." OK, but devotees of what?

Mukunda UK says Sulochana was the first person who wrote publicly against the GBC's gurus. Nope. The PUBLIC newspapers had already wrote many, many, many times exposing the bogus ISKCON guru's programs, crimes and shenanigans -- and extensively -- such as: the Hansadutta farm raid; The PDI heroin dealing from Laguna Beach temple (raided by the FBI); The 1980 Syracuse lawsuit; The arrest of the devotee "Santa Claus"; Jagannatha Suta's article about the women's collecting parties published in the Los Angeles Times; Hansadutta arrested for "drunk in public" on the airplane; The Fresno Bee's "Krishna Files"; Hansadutta shooting at occupied buildings; Devotees arrested for selling "Rock and Roll" records that were actually Scottish Bagpipe music, and so on and so forth. 

All of this was recorded in various public newspapers -- and was thus widely known in the overall devotee community. And most devotees also knew Jayatirtha was spinning out of control, devotees were being banned and mistreated and etc.

They did not know, or they did not want to know? 

PADA editor was also writing devotee style attack papers even in the early 1980s, exposing their false guru appointment and attacking their illicit sex and drugs (sahajiya) guru process. In fact our first papers regarding Jayatirtha's sex and drugs sahajiya cult were being written by me starting around 1979, way before Sulochana or anyone else began any public writing campaigns. Sulochana really started writing only after he jettisoned New Vrindavan and he joined me in Berkeley around 1985. 

Jadurani and others had also made a position paper around 1980, saying the guru appointment is false. So there were a few devotee who made a few documents -- being made already before 1984, and an extensive array of public news media accounts had also ALREADY been written prior to and during Sulochana's campaign as well. Even Siddhaswarupa wrote a paper around 1980 saying "gurus are not appointed." 

Sulochana was however the first person to get a copy of a microfiche of the letters in 1985, and he was first to publish some of them. He also got a copy of the bogus "guru appointment tape" and he was first to publish the transcript of that as well. So he was able to add to the already huge pile of evidence that these people are not, were not, could not have been, gurus. 

Anyway, we wish more devotees had written against the bogus gurus, and recorded the history all along, then it might not have come to the current state of disasterous contamination. In any case, we are where we are. Most of the history writing of post 1978 ISKCON, especially in the early post 1978 era, has been done by outside writers. The means the devotees as a class failed to do their job of recording what Srila Prabhupada had actually wanted and intended for his society. 

To attack these outside writers, or Henry, at this stage -- is a little bit like sour grapes. The outside writers took over the stage, because almost everyone else vacated the stage. So, we get what we get, when we vacate the stage and allow others to take it over. That is more the fault of the vacating the stage process, than the people who grabbed it de facto. We simply cannot expect the outside writers or second tier devotee writers to have "the original idea."

More than a few devotees tell me -- the mass of senior devotees will not write their history -- because they are part of the ensuing post-1978 corruption -- and they would be admitting they were part of it if they wrote their own story. In short, they are too embarrassed to write theirs and ISKCON's history, because they are part of the downfall of ISKCON's history, and they do not want to self-implicate and self-advertise that. That makes a lot of sense to us at PADA. 

Anyway, if someone else wants to write a better version of history, go for it. We would love to see the results of your efforts.

ys pd 

angel108b@yahoo.com