Bhusaya Das "Disillusioned in 1978"

Bhusaya das: 

I left the movement around March 1978. I became very disillusioned and I was very unhappy. It was my responsibility to stay in the association of devotees and with my offenses I chose not to. Eventually after many years of trying to run away from the Hare Krishna movement and trying to forget Srila Prabhupada and trying to forget all the nectar that I had experienced in spiritual life, I became deeply entangled in the material world. 

I became a career military man as I performed really well in the United States Navy. I achieved a high rank and my professional career was skyrocketing. There was no limit, but my personal life was completely imploding. I was at rock bottom. I was at the bottom of the barrel. I was going through a very miserable divorce, very depressed to the point I was seeking out counseling and guidance.

I was talking to my counselor one day, and she said, “Bob, why don’t you go out and interact more and take a college course to get out of your rut?” I took the advice and enrolled in a history course from the local community college. One day as I was doing some research in the military base library, I was looking on a bookshelf and I remember I saw the name “Prabhupada” on a book. 

It obviously caught my attention, and I grabbed the book, brought it down and it happened to be The Teachings of Queen Kunti. I said to myself, or rather it might even have been out loud, “I know this book.” People were looking around like, “What’s this guy talking about?” Upon further inspection on the shelf, there was also a Nectar of Devotion and a Bhagavatam. These books had obviously been distributed to the library by local devotees.

I think that day instead of doing my homework, I took a Bhagavatam, definitely The Teachings of Queen Kunti and The Nectar of Devotion, back to my barracks. I kept on reading them and reading them and reading them and saying, “Oh, my God, Prabhupada is coming back to me—he’s calling me back.” Eventually, I came back to the movement after that. That was Prabhupada’s mercy. This is Prabhupada’s mercy.

Ref: "Memories Vol. 5" (520 pages, 108 disciples, 700 anecdotes)
To order your book/s go to: prabhupadamemories.com
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[PADA: Yep, lots of devotees left, most did not come back. The bogus guru process disillusioned thousands and thousands of devotees, thousands of their children, and millions and millions of regular citizens who read about all their endless scandals. 

One ex-gurukula student says -- no one knows where all of us kids went, or why, nor do they care to know now. We are simply a forgotten generation. OK well same rule pretty much applies to the first generation folks who are also -- for the most part -- gone and forgotten. No one seems to be keeping track? OK except maybe PADA posts a few things about the lost and forgotten folks from time to time, and on a regular basis. 

These leaders were simply not serious about promoting Krishna favorably, rather -- as Sulochan said -- they were serious about giving Krishna a bad public image and ruining the lives of most of the devotees. So if you got "fried to toast" by them, and perhaps you did, join the club, so did almost everyone else eventually. Glad you came back though, that is good, and rare. ys pd]