Shyamsundar Speerstra / Kunti Prayer / PADA's "Grudge" / Harikesh 05 13 26

SHYAMSUNDAR SPEERSTRA

Vaishnavas Espana / with PADA edits.

About the pattern of "pioneer ISKCON disciples" -- who leave ISKCON and then return much later  -- only for collection of money, or to sell their "early years personal association" books and so on. They disappear off radar for 20 - 30 -- 40 -- even 50 years -- and then all of a sudden they re-emerge, but only when they need something. Like money. He also needed a liver transplant previously (from drinking alcohol?) and he was then all over the ISKCON map, until he got that settled. And ISKCON helped him find a donor. Then off radar again.

For the record: Almost no one discusses the historic service of Shyamasundar prabhu or the other early disciples who were with Srila Prabhupada in the 60s-70s. It is not that relevant to us or ISKCON now. It is like an old folks home where the old timers remember the good old days, but they cannot recognize what modern life is. 

Accompanying the Acārya in those years was an enormous leap of faith and left its mark on the history of the movement. That's a fact and is acknowledged with gratitude. But precisely for that recognition it is also appropriate to speak with honesty of a pattern that repeats itself -- and that is many devotees -- above all second generation (gurukulis, disciples of new gurus and others) - observe with increasing bewilderment:

Intense service while Srila Prabhupāda was present physically; only to later have complete withdrawal or silence afterwards. They vanished almost all wholesale, while ISKCON fell into all sorts of troubles and problems. That is including a huge $400,000,000 lawsuit for all the child abuse. It appears the dedication was shallow, short lived, and never actually realized. Superficial dedication at best. 

When the going gets tough, the tough start going, and the weak sneak off back to live with mommy. Worse, a number of these "seniors" also began smoking pot, even taking heroin -- like Swarup Hebel, Punyatama and others. Gurukripa and Bhakta das were famously drinking alcohol and "chasing Thai bar girls." 

Badger devotees were drinking beer and watching football. One of the original lady devotees died of smoke inhalation when her cigarette fell onto her mattress when she was in the nursing home. Another devotee man died of alcohol poison, some died of suicide, cancer etc. One of the former LA book distribution champion ladies died of heroin, and it turns out her whole devotee clique were taking hard drugs. 

One ex-gurukula lady died of an overdose in the Los Angeles temple alley. Amarendra's daughter died of apparent drug use. And so on. The collapse of devotional activity affected everyone on all levels. Meanwhile the "gurus" themselves were taking intoxicants, falling into illicit sex, and gurus like Gunagrahi were addicted to porn. So the external and internal citizens were collapsing simultaneous. 

Where was the dedication to serve Srila Prabhupada, to help his mission, or even -- to help stop all the rampant child abuse? And then a number of these pot head type devotees ran off to Sridhar and Narayan Maharaja for "rasika classes." We have a society full of rampant child abuse, so now is the time to discuss rasika? Even CBS news Jane Wallace said it was astonished that all the devotees were chanting glories of Kirtanananda -- when he was sitting on a big golden seat, covered with the hands of many boys, which she said is "pedophile heaven." The few devotees who tried to rectify this monstrosity of false religion and bogus worship, became targets for extermination. And some of them were. 

 

In short, many of these pioneering disciples after 1977 practically left active service to the mission. They didn't preach, didn't write, didn't train the next generation, didn't open temples, didn't defend the original books. Their "service" was frozen at a biographical stage. And many of them are still mentally living in pipe dreams of the 1970s, unable to cope with what has transpired since then, and their partial role in enabling what transpired by their acquiescing and enabling.

Worse, there has been silence in the face of the most serious deviations.

The crisis of the zonal-ācārya system, the abuses in the gurukulas, the Book Changes, the scandals of the fall of gurus, the reinterpretations of philosophy — and all these and other important issues went along unchecked. No one knew if the seniors agreed with or supported the deviations, their voices were not heard.

The voices of the early disciples has been, in general, non-existent or at best lukewarm. Those who did raise their voice are the exception that confirms the rule. The majority chose not to bother with the institution, not to write, not to sign documents, not to appear at all. They allowed ISKCON to deteriorate rapidly, and allow victimization of the vulnerable, without any form of known protest. Nor did parents of the alleged thousands of child victims ever report the abuse to the police, which has allowed the abuse process to continue on to the present day evidently.

Srīla Prabhupāda was explicit: "My disciples should be like lions, not like jackals." 

"Comfortable silence in the face of deviation is not neutrality: it is passive complicity."

And now we have -- public reappearance only when there are personal needs and money collection programs. And this is where it hurts. For 40 years they have not been seen in a Bhāgavatam class. They have not defended ISKCON, Krishna or Srila Prabhupāda in public. They have not fought doctrinal deviations ... but when illness or old age arrives, their fund raising circular appears: "a pioneer who sacrificed so much, we should give back to him with love."

The legitimate question — not cynical, legitimate — is: return what exactly? The service from 55 years ago, or the one from 45 years later that didn't happen?

The double standard is blatant.

Second and third generation devotees who have been preaching, translating, maintaining temples, raising children in the consciousness of Krishna, then face old age and illness without any support network, without international collections, without emotional e-mails asking for help circulating. And many of them have important needs for their well being, including they also need rent, health care, children's education expenses, and eventually old age assistance. But there is nothing formally organized for them or their families.  

But there seems to be mainly help being met for the old timers. The new people have no collections for their needs because they don't have their old picture with Srila Prabhupada to credit them. The implicit criterion is: you were a pioneer -- you now have a lifetime right to community support, regardless of what you did — or stopped doing — in the next 45 years.

That's not vaisnavism. That is a subtle form of spiritual oligarchy and aristocracy based on biological antiquity, not on current service or doctrinal fidelity.

What I would ask from Vaishnavas CARE and the promoters of these collections:
That along with the heroic biography of the 1960s include transparency about the last 40 years: what active service has been done? Has she stood up for Prabhupada in public? Has any of you taken a stand against the deviations?

May the same affection and support network be extended to the non-famous devotees who have sustained the mission without historical photos. Let gratitude not be confused with automatic canonization of anyone who was close to Prabhupāda physically. Being near the acārya is a blessing; but what counts is what was being done with that blessing during a lifetime.

Srīla Prabhupāda himself wrote that "the test of any spiritual movement is whether it can produce a future." The pioneers who did not produce ISKCON's future, or a managerial succession, who did not defend the books, who did not fight deviations — they can receive our gratitude for what they did, but they cannot claim the moral status of defending and serving a living paramparā.

Helping a sick person is always a pious act and no one should go unattended. But let's put things in place: it's helped by human compassion, not by a debt of gratitude that the later trajectory itself has been cancelling.

Hare Kṛṣṇa.

PADA: We have placed on the blog assorted funding requests from: old and young; inside ISKCON and out; Gaudiya Matha, Narayan Maharaja and others. We recognize that almost no real support system has evolved for devotees in any camp as a general principle. Nor does anything look like it is forthcoming anytime soon. 

And yes, more baffling is that some of the so-called younger people like Dayalu Nitai's HKC Jaipur / Prahlad das / Mathura Pati / Prabhupadanugas EU are still very angry because PADA is not helping them promote Kirtanananda's messiah successor Saint Radhanath -- and his cheer leaders like Bhakta das. They never understood that pedophile heaven is not the authorized path to Krishna. The good news is, more and more of the devotee community is starting to shift away from them, and head in our direction, only Srila Prabhupada is authorized to be worshiped.

ys pd angel108b@yahoo.com 

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QUEEN KUNTI PRAYERS

When do we remember God?

I wish that all those calamities would happen again and again so that we could see You again and again, for seeing You means that we will no longer see repeated births and deaths.

When Dharmaraja went to visit Bhishma, who lay upon his bed of arrows, Bhishma said to him: "My son, your mother, Kunti Devi, is a woman of supreme virtue. After your father passed away due to a sage's curse, she came to Hastinapura, bringing her young children along with her. From that moment until now, her life has been nothing but a succession of hardships; she has not known a single moment of true happiness. Take care of her."

Such was Kunti Devi and while offering praises to Lord Krishna, the Supreme Soul who had saved Subhadra's unborn child, she expressed a remarkable and beautiful wish. "O Guru of the Universe! Let these calamities befall us again and again; for in this life bound as it is by the cycles of birth and death.

"It is a supreme blessing for us to encounter You, the One who dispels all sorrow." 

It is typically during times of hardship that one remembers God most vividly. For this very reason, Kunti prayed: "O Protector, continue to send us hardships forever“. Only those of steadfast wisdom the Sthitaprajnas are capable of making such a prayer.

Whenever the Pandavas faced hardships and suffering, Kunti Devi remained right by their side, offering them courage and solace. Yet, when the Pandavas were ruling their kingdoms, she chose to remain in Hastinapura, dedicating herself to the service of Gandhari and Dhritarashtra. What a magnificent personality! Truly, she was a woman of unwavering equanimity.

A person may be so big or wealthy or powerful, but when a severe problem comes, he needs a support. Devotees depend upon God for support. We remember God mainly during hardships.

"O my Lord, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, son of Vasudeva, O all-pervading Personality of Godhead, I offer my respectful obeisances unto You. I meditate upon Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa because He is the Absolute Truth and the primeval cause of all causes of the creation, sustenance, and destruction of the manifested universes."

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Oh oh! PADA "Holds a Grudge" Against the Gaudiya Matha!

PADA: OK prabhu, but when I protested that there is a major child mistreatment program going on after 1978, the GBC was asking Sridhara Maharaja for advice. His advice was "none should protest." And the GBC slammed a copy of that transcript in my face showing that he was backing them and not me.

I fail to see where he has any authority to challenge what I am doing? Later on we had to have the GBC sued for mass child mistreatment, for $3M and later $400M. And they lost both cases. That was the result of taking down our protest, children were victims and ISKCON had to spend a fortune on the problems it created for itself and for its children.

And most of those children left the society and will never return in this lifetime, so ISKCON lost thousands of participants -- and the children of those children are also lost. It is my understanding that any child abuse must be protested, devotee kids, or non-devotee kids, we have a duty as adults to speak up for children.

That is my idea of the siddhanta. We never got any apology or explanation why I was not supposed to protest. I am not holding a grudge, but leaving this unanswered is not proper etiquette to me or the children victims.

When I was in Texas suing Tamal in Dallas, Narayan Maharaja was also in Dallas telling everyone how bad an aparadhi I am, he was backing them. He never explained any of this. NM invited me to his ashram, met me in person for two seconds, then hid in his room all day avoiding our scheduled meeting.

This is improper etiquette. If you invite someone to your residence, even an enemy, you do not leave them sitting all day and then sneaking off the property at 530 pm, leaving me not seeing him at all. None of this has ever been explained. It would be silly of me to hold a grudge, but they need to explain their history, and apologize to the people their support of evil doers has harmed, and they do not.

ys pd

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How Harikesh disconnected ISKCON from the parampara system and nobody noticed

THE UNNOTICED DEVIATION: From spiritual soldiers to domestic, secularized villa owner.

When Srila Prabhupada started the Hare Krishna movement in NY in 1966, he didn't just start the Sankirtan movement; he declared a war against maya.
He was the Commander-in-Chief. He told his disciples exactly what to do: “You cook. You go to Africa. You paint. You go to London.” Success wasn’t about "finding yourself"— it was about the empowerment that came through following the order of the Spiritual Master.

The "Do What You Think Is Good For You" Shift

After 1977, the original preaching spirit was watered down. A subtle but deadly philosophy crept in, championed by leaders like Harikesh: “Don’t do what others tell you to do — ask yourself: what do I really want to do?"

The "Do what you think is good for you" shift mirrors the broader Western cultural shift toward expressive individualism.

Harikesh even argued that doing something you don't want to do makes you "mentally sick." But wait—didn't Arjuna feel "mentally sick" on the battlefield? Krishna didn't tell him to go find a hobby; He told him to do his duty. Prabhupada famously warned about this in Fiji (1976):

Disconnected from the Parampara Powerhouse

"To live little peacefully in the temple and eat and sleep... that success they have got. But that is not Caitanya Mahāprabhu... Success is his who is pushing forward the preaching method."

We have become exactly what Srila Prabhupada's Guru Maharaja condemned: a 'temple business' where people eat, sleep, and count money while the war against Maya is abandoned. The TOVP isn't the victory of the GBC—it's the victory of institutional maya over the transcendental order.

If a leader like Harikesh was influenced by this specific Swedish school of thought, he would naturally begin to view Srila Prabhupada's "War against Maya" as a "toxic, high-pressure environment" rather than a spiritual opportunity.

Once a devotee's primary goal becomes "mental health" (as defined by modern psychology) rather than "pleasure for Krishna," the movement becomes spiritually disconnected. It becomes a social club for self-actualization rather than a mission for rescuing suffering humanity. Whether it was a conscious "assignment" to render ISKCON spiritually useless or a personal "fall-down" fueled by modern psychological influence, the result was the same: the transcendental order was replaced by individual preference. This effectively transformed the "Sankirtan Movement" into a "Therapeutic Community," providing a justification for devotees to leave the mission and enter the material labor market under the guise of "maintaining mental health."