Nandini Writes PADA / RE: Monkey On A Stick 10 19 25

Haribol Puranjana Prabhu,


Thanks for sending your review of the movie. You asked me to feel free to comment. First of all, a 100 minute movie cannot expose all the motives and scandals of ISKCON. We would need at least ten episodes. Also, making a movie is worse than writing a book. When we write a book, we can rewrite a sentence. But when we make a movie, we work with the footage we have.

PADA: OK well the whole issue since 1978 is -- what did Srila Prabhupada actually order? That is the issue that Sulochana focused on, that these 11 gurus had not been appointed as gurus. Because making mundane men into gurus caused most of the other problems. That is the root problem. 

But the movie goes to hear from the leaders of the bogus appointed guru program, which demonized Sulochana to set up his murder, and gives them most of the 100 minutes real estate. They also did not work with the footage they had, most or almost all of mine was deleted. 

As soon as Sulochana came out with the bogus appointment tape, he was assassinated. In other words, Sulochana was exposing the false 11 gurus, and that is why he was taken out, and I was almost taken out. And I would have been taken out -- without help from the FEDS. 

I was telling Mukunda some of this at a Sunday feast and he changed the topic and asked me "how are the samosas"? OK he was making a joke when the topic is banning, beating, molesting, suing and assassinating people. He thinks his program is a comedy show, and he still does.

Thus, the whole reason why Sulochana was murdered was not clear in the movie, and offering all the bumbling statements from Hrdayananda, Bhagavan and others did not even mention the root cause issue. Sulochana was murdered because he was challenging what he called "the big lie." Nobody seems to know what the big lie he was fighting is -- from the movie -- or from Subhananda's words in the movie etc. Sulochana's entire cause celebre was not made clear.

These guru gurus are often saying "we only followed Prabhupada's orders to be gurus" starting from 1978, and they still say that now. And that was a lie and that is the entire reason Sulochana and me were targets. That could have been mentioned somewhere in the 100 minutes, why was this person murdered? The movie does not follow the book, Bhagavan, Hrdayananda, Subhananda, and yourself and others are barely or not even in the book.

What was Sulochana saying that made him such a threat to the leaders? Instead, much of the 100 minutes real estate was given to the very self same false appointed guru leaders, who were demonizing us. Clearly they got much more video time than me. Again, these guys were not even hardly mentioned in the book. 

Two flaws that kinda bother me: we used footage of Jacob Young saying something to the effect, The Swami found an abandoned building with a sign that said Matchless Gifts. We all know the place was empty because it was up for rent. Prabhupada rented the storefront shop and an apartment upstairs in the back of the apartment complex. I went there once, and the man living in Prabhupada's apartment invited us in and gave us a tour.

PADA: OK this is a detail that hardly no one else actually cares about. Just like many other details were presented that had nothing to do with the actual story -- the monkey who was killed and on a stick.

The other movie flaw that bothers me is the drug smuggling segment, we used footage where author John Hubner says the devotees wore dhotis and chanted on their beads when they went through customs in Pakistan. That's just not true, and would be dangerous. In reality, they wore business suits.

PADA: Again, the gurus were up to their necks in all sorts of illegal and / or fraud businesses, including drug businesses. They were having devotees collect money for "Mother of Mary's Home for the Blind," which did not exist, and that was tape recorded by Federal agents. 

And that is why they were busted by the Syracuse Federal court in 1980 for massive fraud. Again, has nothing to do with the reason Sulochana was offed. And it is not important to me which guys did what illegal business. 

All of them were colluding to make a vast variety illegal businesses. Which one was doing which, and which one was busted for what, is not that important to me. Again, not mentioning why Sulochana was murdered is the thing that bothers me and many others. Yeah the gurus were making illegal business, because their whole claim to being a guru was illegal. The root was not exposed.  

The movie is based on the book, Monkey on a Stick, and we did our best to follow the book. The book begins with burying Chakradhari. The movie begins there. We covered the drug smugglers as John Hubner and Lindsey Gruson wrote about it in their book. Also mixed in was my point of view because I worked in the PR office during those years, and wrote a book about it.

PADA: No, the people being given most of the 100 minutes were not in the book. The fact that Chakradhari, and Sulochana, were exposing Kirtanananda's erotic behavior with boys is not emphasized in the movie either.

Yeah, but I told the movie guys the book was not totally accurate and also was not telling the actual reason Sulochana was offed. The book was defective in various ways and I told them that. But the main people who spoke for a long time were Bhagavan and Hrdayananda, again -- they were not ever a big part of that book, except they were promoting Kirtanananda as a guru. The people who were hardly even mentioned in the book got the most of the air time. That does not follow the book.

And these GBC guru guys still say they -- and Kirtanananda -- were the 11 appointed gurus, and no one challenged that lie in the movie. It looks like the same fools who claimed to be gurus in 1978 were then annointed as the movie's main authentic and reliable speakers. And they were not challenged about all the banning, beating, molesting, lawsuits and murders that came from their program -- in the movie, never mind the bogus guru appointment. They were given softball questions.  

Pd, your interview in the movie is a great contribution. You explained things honestly and well, and I liked the cinematography with your image reflected in the 1980s television. We are grateful for you taking part in the movie. Also, you have to give the movie credit for not bending a knee to the ISKCON gurus, sannyasis, or GBCs. We interviewed one guru on Zoom for background, but he lied to our faces. We decided not to have him in the movie.

All that stuff doesn't bother me, but the things you said about Mukunda Goswami and Steve Gelberg (Subhananda das) are just not true. They were not in on the guru conspiracy. 

PADA: Subhananda was part of ISKCON until 1991-2? Surely that means he knew about the murders, Jayatirtha's beheading, and numerous other scandals. But no one is allowed to stay in ISKCON for two seconds if they challenge the bogus appointed guru system, in fact those of us who challenge are in all sorts of trouble immediately. He was part of the system, or he would have been exiled out forthwith, like all the rest of us. 

We do know Subhananda writes a bunch of scrambled up materials about "the confusion after 1978," "the controversies" etc. -- but we were never confused, we knew these guys were fraud "associates of Krishna" from day one. 

Subhananda was for sure writing in favor of the 11 at the beginning, and Ramesvara and other GBC were promoting his "Guru and Disciples" book which he wrote about (GBC) gurus and disciples. Mukunda was also 100% sold out to the GBC gurus, and he was saying Kirtanananda is a great devotee and we were offending him in 1986, which Sulochana said -- is painting a target on us. 

Sorry they were hand maidens to the GBC guru system. And I am not sure if Subhananda has ever explained that the 11 guru process is a hoax? He says he had to leave ISKCON because of all the corruption, and now he does not follow the religion, but a sincere devotee continues on with Krishna with or without ISKCON. That means he was connected to the corrupt people and not to Krishna.  

Steve didn't know about the corruption until he read an early draft of my book in the 1990s. 

PADA: There were countless bad media stories EARLY ON about ISKCON all over the media starting with: the Laguna bust; the Syracuse case; Hansadutta's farm raided; New Orleans murder of Catur Bahu; Hansadutta shooting up downtown Berkeley; Jagganath Suta's LA newspaper expose of the women's collecting party; Jiva getting shot (an inside job); Satsvarupa's mad paintings, headaches and taking all sorts of pills; assorted guru sex scandals; porno swami cases; assorted child molesting out croppings; and a host of numerous other cases, and Jayatirtha and others falling down, which were a direct result of the corruption. Anyone who did not know this is all corruption was living in a pipe dream, and Mukunda still is, he still acts like he did nothing wrong.

Mukunda had more insights into what the gurus were doing, but he was not in favor of it. Yes, we covered up for the drug smuggler busts, Hansadutta's gun violations, and some of the BS coming out of New Vrindaban. Mukunda wanted the GBC to excommunicate Kirtanananda and New Vrindaban. 

PADA: Well yeah, after Mukunda had us excommunicated, and thus one of us is murdered, then all of a sudden he wants to clean up the blood and dead bodies in his propaganda apartment before the police arrive. He was only interested in covering his own trail that leads from the murder to him excommunicating us. 

He wanted to save his own a**. But he never writes to me and apologizes for his role in making us targets, instead he gets voted in as a co-guru with the entire homosexual and pedophile messiahs club that bans, beats, molests, sues and murders. And he just acts like he did nothing wrong. And his getting voted into their system, validates their system, and means he is one of them.

But when the gurus killed Sulochan, that was too much. They expected the PR office to cover up their crimes, no matter what they did. The gurus used the PR department, and we all quit. Steve Gelberg left ISKCON in 1987. Dave and I left in 1988. Mukunda is still in ISKCON, but moved out of America and retired from the GBC in 1992.

PADA: OK well Sulochana did say he has to be murdered before anyone would take notice of his complaints -- that there are homosexual pedophiles and other deviants in the ISKCON guru seat, and he was right. Yeah Mukunda creates a crap storm and then "retires." Subhananda writes for them and leaves. Then he blames the religion. How handy.

I'll explain my memories of Sulochan, and his contact with the PR office. In 1985, Mukunda assigned me to keep track of Sulochana when he was in L.A. For example, if Sulochana called our office, we immediately put him through to Mukunda. Sulochana was a friend of the PR office. 

Sulochana donated bags of pendants to help us raise money. I sold the pendants to devotees at Watseka. It was our responsibility to keep Sulochana safe. Mukunda wanted to cool things down, not make it worse. Nobody in the PR office wanted Sulochana to die. It never occurred to me the gurus would murder him for exposing their secrets.

PADA: Well our immediate probable demise occurred to me and Sulochana. He told me we have to split up -- me to stay in San Francisco -- and he goes to LA, or they will take us both out at once. He also said, I will probably never see you again, prophetic last words he said to me. 

It was well known to us -- we were targets. And he also said Mukunda and co. excommunicating him placed a bull's eye on his back. The Berkeley Police also told me, they are out to kill you guys. I had to call the police station every day, just so they knew I was still living. OK most sane people knew we were targets. This was only a surprise to the people living in the GBC guru bubble, who also had no comment when we reported mass child abuse and other crimes. They were in denial.

One last thing I want to add. When we were filming the show last year, I talked to a lot of old ISKCON friends. Those who are still related with ISKCON deny everything that happened in the 1980s. I could sense some of them know what happened, but they pretend like it didn't happen, and won't talk about it. I'm glad the movie exposes ISKCON's crimes, even though the movie has imperfections.

Ys, Nori

PADA: Yep. When Ravindra wanted to remove Kirtanananda, "300 Prabhupada disciples" wrote a petition saying if Kirtanananda goes, they will also go. And they did go. That means they wanted to promote the worship of their homosexual and pedophile messiah, and not Prabhupada. 

And they hated those of us promoting Prabhupada, and a lot of them wanted to kill us and they would write nasty things to me. That means they wanted to promote pedophiles as messiahs and we were blocking their plan. And now a lot of them are in denial about the whole series of events that they co-created. 

As far as the movie exposing crimes, well yeah it does that very well. But how did this all happen, i.e. the false acharyas, is not clear. It is like a giant unsolved mystery show, which never solves the mystery. Instead it makes the people who created the criminal regime, and co-caused all these crimes, the prime spokesmen. 

The people who created the false acharyas (and thus the people who orchestrated the regime of the crimes) are the people who co-made the criminal regime, interviewing them as the authorities on this topic, simply creates a false narrative, and more confusion. We do not interview Jack the Ripper to make him the leader of the "save the women" committee. Anyway, the movie does not follow the book. I talked a lot about Hansadutta and that was a large part of the book, and it was not included.

Meanwhile the real problem is, we are all rotting in the material world. And the only way out of the material world is to worship Krishna. To make it sound like Krishna wanted and ordered homosexuals and pedophiles to be appointed as His guru successors, makes Krishna look bad and will turn people away from Krishna. And it is doing that. That is why I wanted to have it explained that, this was never what Krishna wanted. 

And I said that to the movie people, but did not get to say that in the movie. I feel totally let down by them. They gave the floor to the people who were causing us to be hunted and murdered, never mind all the child abuse and everything else. That means, the movie compromised with the evil doers and suppressed us, which is how we all got to this stage in the first place. 

ys pd

 angel108b@yahoo.com   

Well so much for the big giant "negotiated peace plan." Lasted a few hours at least. ys pd