OUR CLIENT / GODBROTHER / FRIEND HANSADUTA
"Hari Bol, Patit, I'm just coming from the Golden Gate Bridge. I was about to jump off, but I figured suicide wasn't such a good thing. Prabhupada was against it. So decided to come over and see you instead."
[PADA: Yep, I'd rather die than admit I am not the sum total of the demigods messiah from Vaikuntha, who can absorb sins like Jesus.]
That was Hansadutta, who visited me at my tee shirt shop on Fisherman's Wharf, S.F., more than any other devotee. In fact, for 25 years, he was my only regular visitor. Whenever he needed a Godbrother to talk to, to confide in, he would drive up in his 1982 Toyota mini-truck camper van. Often we'd have pizza right there at the shop, on the sidewalk.
Business at the Wharf was in a lull most days back then, thanks to Bush's war in Iraq. So, we'd just sit and talk for hours. He often said, "Patit, I don't know how you take this life." Admittedly I was stuck in tee shirt hell -- trapped by some Saturnian karma during the Planet of Fate's second rotation through the kalachakra--the 30 years of the mid-part of life.
[PADA: Yep, the devotees used to get into physical altercations over "my spot" at the wharf, fighting with GBC people, Gaudiya Matha people etc.]
I would respond that I had my eye out for a way out, and would escape when the signs were right. Ironically, it would be Hansaduta who introduced me to that way out when he brought Abhaya Mudra Dasi and me together by the grace of Shrila Prabhupada.
I never quite treated Hansaduta as a friend, though. Rather I always was more of a concerned Godbrother--and importantly-- he was also a client of my astrological services since the 70s.. He loved to talk the stars. He used to tell me, "Prabhupada shut down so many disciples that wanted to study the mystic arts; but, somehow or other, he always encouraged you."
To treat any zonal acharya as a friend -- even a self-styled ex-zonal who had once dubbed himself as "Shrila Hari Kirtan Thakura," could be dangerous. After all, Hansaduta had the reputation for building up projects -- and persons -- only to destroy them. The Schloss Rettershoff Castle was an example. Over in Germany, he had been the Meister of a castle with devotees happily engaged everywhere, until his collection techniques had found him on the cover of Germany's biggest magazine--Der Spieel-- as the "King of the Beggars."
Prabhupada had noted, "I think our Hansaduta is a little crazy." After losing the castle and coming to California, he became the "Gun Guru," who went on a shooting rampage across the bay near Berkeley. His "act of renouncing materialism": had sent bullets into a liquor store on University Avenue, and through a Cadilac dealership on San Pablo Ave.
[PADA: And the temple had to pay hundreds of thousands in court fees, repair fees for broken windows, and Hansadutta's court approved "therapy sesssions." Meanwhile the gurukula kids were eating rotten oatmeal.]
I remember when Officer Joe Sanchez came to arrest him. Officer Martinez had known the devotees from the early days in Berkeley when Bhakta dasa Prabhu had been in charge. Then, Joe had loved their missionary spirit. The loss of that spirit under Hansaduta, which relied on "women's collecting parties" to bring home the "Lakshmi," had won the displeasure of the idealistic cop.
[PADA: And Jeeva, the guy in charge of the women's party, was beating some of the women and having sex with some of them. He was later found dead with five shots in his chest in a ditch. After Hansadutta was seen pointing guns at him. Was it an inside job?]
He had made it his business to reform the Hare Krishnas, and get them back on track. Devotees sarcastically dubbed him a "Narada Muni" who had appeared only to reform a movement gone down the tubes.
Hansadutta had a pucca, yet rare, asura astrological combination (asura-kukarma yoga) in his horoscope.. And there was yet another papa-anapha yoga in the 12th to that caused by debilitated Saturn in the house of partners. Therefore, it was wise not to get too close.
He could be dangerous. He could make someone into something, and then break that poor sucker just as easily. It was his dualistic nature -- he couldn't help it. That tendency seems to be an affliction of dualism caused by a desire for pratishta that all the zonals had in them. When the desire is "Me first" anyone can become the marked man in a road of imagined obstacles. A man sees others as he sees himself -- and such "gurus" saw even the innocent, the plain and the simple as potential competition that should be eliminated.
He had suddenly been catapulted into a leadership position in ISKCON back in '67. It was when he had taken the cue to collect a few dollars from curious onlookers at the NY airport at the time when Prabhupada was returning to India after some serious heart attacks. He had spoken convincingly to the crowd, and they had put some dollars in his hat. iI was for this act that Prabhupada promoted him to a leading position.
He used to say, "I am practically illiterate, and yet I am a BBT trustee."
He gave me one pre-ISKCON example, laughing all the while. Back in New Jersey, he had gotten a job as a typist, although he couldn't type. He would sit at the typewriter trying to figure out where the letter keys were placed. And when the boss would barge in, he'd immediately dart for the filing cabinet and pretend to be searching for some important document.
Thus, with Hansaduta, the client / astrologer agreement worked out better than the subordinate position he demanded of most who everyone else who met him. Thus, we could communicate almost as friends. And, practically speaking, in those days, no one ever came to see me except him, and I could use whatever sadhu sanga I could get. The temple in San Francisco had been closed down due to the rampage of a nut case devotee who ended up in jail lighting Charles Manson on fire with kerosene, in order to prove to the incarcerated cult maniac that he was not God.
[PADA: Well the GBC closed a number of places, that was simply one among others.]
Indian swamis, including one I had made a devotee in Delhi, would come to Fisherman's Wharf to collect money from Indian merchants, but they would never stop by to see me . They were after the almighty dollar.
One overweight devotee -- famous for his appetite -- once stopped by because he was hungry and never came back. Prabhupada had advised that the way to get rid of unwanted guests is to not feed them. So I let him go away hungry.
Yashomatinandan came by once and complained about his household affairs. During the 25 years I was hawking tee shirts here and there around San Francisco, or on the bridge, other devotees (or ex-devotees) might have sauntered by simply by accident or curiosity from time to time -- then I'd never see them again.
I even talked one blooped devotee--Dwijatipujaka -- out of jumping off the bridge. My old friend from Bombay Prasannatma worked as the hotel manager across the street at the Holiday Inn. I never saw him either, except when he was smoking on the bench at Joseph Conrad Square across from the shop. It was life in the Bloop Lane.
A block up the street from my shop a degraded Indian swami named Brahma Bhuta owned a fish restaurant that catered to green-haired punks. He served "100 types of beer." His waiters were illegal gurukulis from Bengal who slept in a secret room in the attic to avoid the immigration authorities who came around to nail them.
But at least I could communicate with Hansaduta. Previously, when he had owned a Porsche, he used to hit over 100mph on the Richmond bridge, coming within inches of the cars he would pass. We'd go out to lost isolated spots of old hippies like Bolinas California in Marin county. I recall he honked a dog sleeping in the road and a hippie, incensed, came out to explain through the window of the Porsche that dogs also have rights.
Once we even found ourselves listening to a country music concert in Santa Rosa, starring the unknown band Shenandoah. We laughed the entire time since their music was so terrible. At other times we'd saunter all over Fisherman's Wharf --laughing at the karmi world and its foibles. I would show him the sites like the old penny arcade from the 1900s at Pier Five, where one of the few steam powered motorcycles was on display.
I once introduced him to my riding buddy Les, a skilled moto racer who straddled a super fast Honda 650 Honda CB. He told Les, "You should be a movie actor. You are ugly and they need ugly mugs like yours in the films." What an introduction!
He discussed many things, especially many problems he had with the GBC including Jayadwaita, Rameshwara and Radhanath.. He was furious at the changes in the books and, of course, he was correct.
By then, he had settled in with wife number two or three, and he had three children -- two girls and a son. He was really furious at the child molesters who had invaded ISKCON. He was devastated at what they had done to the rising generation, and to Prabhupada's movement by bankrupting it in the Windle Turley lawsuit. He felt helpless, and so did I.
He would remember the old days and how a certain female devotee had been a "bamboozler" back at 26 2nd Ave. She had an affair with a brahmachary, so Prabhupada had sent her away to marry another disciple, who she drove up the wall with her constsant nit-picking He called her a parrot and a robot.
He spoke of Mahaveghavati, who became B Radha Govinda Swami, after she had been ripped off for half a million dollars, and sent to die in the slums of Monrovia, Liberia. He said that many GBC's knew very well that she was telling the truth about the murder of Hladini, and the other seven Liberian devotees.
Hansaduta explained that the plot to wipe out witnesses to the the (Bhakti Tirtha swami) divine guru's illicit sex life in Africa had been engineered exactly as Mahaveghavati had narrated her story in her many online articles . He said that the GBC knew she was factual in her presentation, but they needed to protect one of their own divine "padas."
When the weather was nice, we'd just sit on the grass around he corner at Aquatic Park and eat vegetarian hot dogs--the egg-free ones made by the 7th Day Adventists. That was when was relaxed enough to discuss the misery of his own household life.
He had once actually died right in front of his giant Radha-Krishna Deities up in Sonoma County,, but he managed to ring his wife who got an ambulance there to revive him. Apparently, he had been clinically dead, but Krishna had other plans. That adventure reminded me of his record album that had long before hit the #1 spot in Philippines. It was ironically entitled Nice But Dead.
If he ever came by when I was doing some quiet preaching there on the sidewalk, he'd try to take over. At such times, his Instant Guru Persona would rise up inside him like some irresistible force or maybe like some kundalini action. Once I was speaking to a group of policemen -- they were motorcyclists with whom I used to ride (because here is a sense of protection when your moto-buddies are cops). Since he could not dominate the conversation, he became frustrated and stormed back into his Toyota motor home and drove off in a huff.
But on the day of his failed suicide attempt, he was more or less defeated. He explained to me his concept of ritvik which seemed OK in part because it meant becoming a transparent via media to Shrila Prabhupada. I liked that part, but the fact is, that he had become an alcoholic, and yet he still wanted to be guru, albeit a ritvik guru.
No philosophy in the world can accept an alcoholic guru, no matter how you label it. He would talk about lots of things, including many secret GBC policies. He knew something on everyone and he spilled the beans freely. The way he told these secrets was hilarious and we'd be laughing our heads off.
When he was leaving his body a couple of years back, his "disciple" Manohari (who also had gotten herself "re-initiated") wrote to me that he was leaving his body. I sent her a message: "Tell Hansadutas that Shrila Prabhupada is waiting for him."
Abhaya Mudra and I were stunned by the muhurta of departure. It was Akshaya Tritiya, Parashurama jayanti, the same muhurtha that I had given him some 15 years earlier for launching the lawsuit against the BBT to get back with Prabhupada;s originals.
My wife / partner commented that his departure was the best muhurta in a thousand years. So, Hansaduta';s moment of departure demonstrated how much Shrila Prabhupada liked seeing his original books defended. And that was Hansaduta's final legacy -- the Grand Finale for which all his other "issues" were cleared for a disciple seeking the lotus feet of Shri Guru.
[PADA: Well, hee hee, Hansadutta might have to first go to Yamaraja and explain all the banning, beating, molesting and assassinations going on in his GBC pal's regime. When me and Sulochana attacked Kirtanananda's guru position, Hansadutta declared that Kirtanananda is the only pure devotee on the planet, and he sent 80 percent of the Berkeley devotees to West Virginia to surrender to "Srila Bhaktipada." He was trying to get us killed, and he was partly successful. ys pd]
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