ISKCON HISTORY - detailed account
part 1
History update (ref:
history 101, pada, 31. Mar. 2000)
1) In the mid 1970s, some of the leaders were trying to promote very bizare deviations from Srila Prabhupada's instructions. Tamal Krishna Goswami, one of the big leaders at that time, had a "travelling bus program" which he called "Radha Damodara." Most of the members of his program were young unmarried men who were called "brahmacharis." Unfortunately, when the "Radha Damodar" bus program would visit Srila Prabhupada's temples, the visitors would try to convince the temple's unmarried men to leave, and to join Tamal's traveling bus program. This started to severely subvert the management scheme of Srila Prabhupada by draining away needed manpower from his temples.
The basic physical infrastructure of ISKCON at that time was the temples. And the temples were starting to face severe difficulties due to the "manpower draining war" that they were constantly engaged in with Tamal's program. The situation became very intense with temple presidents and other managers comparing Tamal's program to raiding pirates who were "stealing" the manpower.
Many of the temples at that time were managed by married men called "householders" or "grihasthas." One of the arguments presented by Tamal and his party was that the unmarried men should not "associate" with either married men, or the ladies who were living in the temples. This was alleged to be "maya" or the path to illusion. In other words, it was supposed to be more "spiritually advanced" for the unmarried males to travel with Tamal and his party. Oddly, this criticism of Srila Prabhupada's temple program was the same argument given by some of his deviated God brothers from the 1936 era in India: there should not be any married men or any women living in the temples. Some speculate that there was collusion between Tamal and some of these deviants even in the early 1970s.
Simultaneously, Tamal's group started to say that the "housholders" are sort of second class citizens, and they should all be sent somewhere like Australia to live on farms. Of course, this prospect would apparently leave no one at the temples in the USA? Most of the unmarried males would be out on the road on Tamal's bus program. Then, most of the "householders," who were really the temple's managers, would be packed off to live in a remote part of the world, perhaps in the Australian outback? And this new "householder farm" program would also be of Tamal's design and perhaps he would be in control of this as well?
In short it seems under Tamal's plan there would gradually be no temples, or at best very stunted and deteriorated temples in the USA. Instead, there would a pack of traveling buses, which coincidentally, would all under his control? This was apparently designed to shift control of the manpower, money, and assets away from Srila Prabhupada's hands and over to Tamal's? And Tamal's plan was working quite effectively. Indeed, it was paralyzing Srila Prabhupada's whole mission. Temples were gradually losing key personl such as priests, treasurers, preachers, cooks, mechanics, carpenters and other needed members. Meanwhile, Tamal's "Radha Damodar" bus program was growing by leaps and bounds.
This came to a head at the March, 1976 Mayapura meetings. The temple presidents held their own meeting separate from the "Governing Body Commission" (GBC) members and they determined that Tamal's program was going to eventually destroy Srila Prabhupada's temples. Srila Prabhupada agreed with the temple presidents and he declared that Tamal should be sent to China to preach. Tamal reacted by angrily opposing the plan to go to China (as reported in the book by Hari Sauri)... to be continued
history 1976.2 (ref:
pada 02. Apr. 2000a)
...This came to a head at the March, 1976 Mayapura meetings. The temple presidents held their own meeting separate from the "Governing Body Commission" (GBC) members and they determined that Tamal's program was going to eventually destroy Srila Prabhupada's temples. Srila Prabhupada agreed with the temple presidents and he declared that Tamal should be sent to China to preach.
Tamal reacted by angrily opposing Srila Prabhupada's plan to go to China (as was also reported in a book by Hari Sauri). He was reputed to have said that the "Radha Damodar" bus program was "his" program and that it could not be taken away by Srila Prabhupada. Tamal was reported to have expressed a lot of anger towards Srila Prabhupada at this time. In other words, it looked to some of us that Srila Prabhupada had "caught" Tamal in a plan to subvert the movement away from his control by various tricks, and Tamal was angry because he had been caught. Of course other "big leaders" and GBC men had also argued with Srila Prabhupada as well, yet oddly this was not taken too seriously at the time. In short, Srila Prabhupada had to constantly "keep in check" the overly ambitious plotting of some of his "top leaders." And the plots were sometimes thinly veiled takeover attempts, if not plots to replace Srila Prabhupada.
This phenomena was very strange to some of us. Srila Prabhupada was supposed to be the guru and yet some of the "leaders" would openly argue with him as we had witnessed on a number of occaisions. The problem, it seems, is that some of the leaders had the attitude that Srila Prabhupada could not manage properly, that they knew better than he did, or worse that Srila Prabhupada was "in the way" of their plans. Perhaps this is why Srila Prabhupada made so many complaints directed towards his leaders, for example he said repeatedly that the GBC could not manage. And he even had to ask rather bluntly, "Has the GBC become more than guru maharaja"? In 1977, Srila Prabhupada would even say, "Have I become a burden"? Thus, when it was finally reported that Srila Prabhupada had complained that he was bing given poison, it made sense that this type of action was possible.
One of our personal favorite devotees in those days was Vishnujana swami. He had a travelling bus program of a different type than Tamal's. He would go to college campuses or similar locations with his musical "band." Then he would lecture on Krishna's philosophy and hand out "Krishna prasadam" or food offered to God. Vishnujana was actually making many devotees for the ISKCON society with his program. Yet he was always being criticized behind his back by Tamal's group.
Tamal would complain that Vishnujana's program was not strict, that it was not distributing enough books, that is was a diversion from the real program, namely his "Radha Damadora" bus program. The worst complaint was that Vishnujana was not bringing in enough "laxmi" or money. Tamal's party also invented some other complaints towards Vishnujana's program, almost making it sound like it was a travelling orgy. Naturally this dicouraged and depressed Vishnujana swami. And later on, by hook and crook, Tamal was able to become the de facto "new manager" of Vishnujana's bus program.
Some say this is why Vishnujana decided to leave his bus program altogether and get married (he had taken vows of celibacy as a sannyasa). We may never know what really happened though, since Vishnujana swami suddenly "disappeared" and was said to have commited suicide in India. Tamal was one of the last persons ever seen talking to him. Later on, the sannyasi Gopi janaballabha also commited suicide in a St. Louis pond, and how did you guess, he did this just after talking to Tamal. And yes, yet another devotee tried to commit suicide by beating himself on the head with a hammer, just after talking to Tamal, and who knows how many other victims there are?
With the departure of Vishnujana swami and the rising up of Tamal, this started a very mechanical, impersonal and greedy era of "preaching." Some "sannyasis" started to alter the book distribution process at that time into a sort of cheating business. In fact, a video was made showing the devotees how to "short change" book sales customers and engage in vartious cheating tactics to "increase the pick" (i.e. the amount of money one could extract from a book sales customer). This was creating a very bad reaction from the public since word was spreading that the Hare Krishnas are a bunch of cheaters.
I decided to try to change this downhill momentum by starting the traditional sankirtana process in Hollywood, a sort of revival of the Vishnujana spirit. I got a few devotees together and we would go out every day dressed in the traditional devotional garb, and we would do "harinama samkirtana" or the actual "chanting, singing and dancing" that Lord Chaitanya's movement is supposed to be based upon. This was viewed with extreme suspicion by the big sannyasis at the time, who wanted to increase the "money changers" program and not the traditional samkirtana.
At this time, Srila Prabhupada's books about Lord Chaitanya's life had come out and so we also started to read these books in a class with our samkirtana group. This was something that the "sannyasis" decided they had to halt, just like they had to halt Vishnujana. And so one day Tamal told Srila Prabhupada that there was a group of men in Los Angeles that was smoking pot, dressing in saris, and they were performing illicit activities. Moreover this group had accepted another guru and they were linked to the deviant Nitai dasa. There was even a rumor that I had made some woman pregnant in the meetings? Evidentally, some people were very envious of us.
Of course, this was not what our group was doing, Tamal's party had just made up some rumors to try to discredit our program. Revatinandana dasa called me aside at that time and said, "You guys aren't smoking pot and wearing saris are you"? I said, "No, why"? Revatinandana replied, "Well, Tamal just told Srila Prabhupada this morning that you are doing that, and that your new guru is Nitai's. Tamal is also making up things about me so I am leaving ISKCON."
A short time later Tamal arranged a sort of "meeting" with Srila Prabhupada, me, Sulochana and his group of sannyasis. Seeing that they were making up things about us, and that the whole sannyasi clique was there --versus-- the few of us, we decided not to challenge them in the meeting and start an ugly accusations shouting match in Srila Prabhupada's presence. Rather I'd write a letter to Srila Prabhupada explaining the situation. I then wrote him a letter saying that I had not been engaging in these illicit things and that I was not working with Nitai and accepting another guru and so on.
Pusta Krishna swami then came up to me a few days later and said, "Wow, how did you like that nice letter of reply that you got back from Srila Prabhupada"? I said, "What letter"? Pusta Krishna look startled and replied, "Well Srila Prabhupada dictated and signed a nice reply to your letter, you mean you never got it?" Then I realized that either Tamal or members of his group were hiding Srila Prabhupada's personal letters. As a side note, another point often overlooked by Tamal and his colleagues is that a devotee may also have a somewhat internal relationship with his spiritual master. One can try to short change the external situation, but a devotee can be aware of his spiritual master on another level and be connected on a level that can not be penetrated with exteral tricks.
When Tamal spotted me in the temple a few days later he came up and said, "I know you Puranjana, you are just waiting for Srila Prabhupada to die so you can sit in his seat." I left the temple and was outside, looking a little depressed probably, so a devotee came up and he said, "What is wrong"? I said, "Tamal just said that I am wating for Srila Prabhupada to die so I can sit in his seat." The devotee replied, "Don't let it get to you, he says that all the time to everybody." Then I realized, maybe this is how Tamal gets people to commit suicide? Of course, Tamal was obsessed with thinking about "who" was going to be sitting in Srila Prabhupada's seat after his departure, and about a year later, it was Tamal who was sitting in his seat. His ambition to sit in Srila Prabhupada's seat was so powerful, he had to project it on others so he could rationalize it within himself. As no small surprise at the current date, twenty-four years later, Tamal's clique are the prime suspects surrounding the poisoning of Srila Prabhupada.
In any event, Srila Prabhupada wrote another letter shortly thereafter, which he had sent to all of the temples, telling them that they had to stop the "short changing" program instituted by some of these leaders. Also in 1976, Tamal's "friend" Bhavananda "swami" had been caught in homosexual acts in Mayapura. Tamal tried to discredit the eye-witness and suppress the whole incident, just to protect his friend. The eye-witness was seen later in South India complaining that he had been drummed out of Mayapura because he had complained of the homsexuality of a sannyasi there. So the pattern of homosexuals being covered-up by Tamal's sannyasi clique was being established.
There were also reports that Bhavananda would "bloop" and go back to his homosexual friends, and he would "party" with people like Andy Warhol, and that Tamal would drive to those places to bring his friend back to ISKCON. So, on the one hand there was a drive to get rid of people who were actually preaching like Vishnujana, or to drive out people like me who were trying to re-establish the traditional samkirtana. And on the other hand, there was a rise in the money changers and the homosexuals, and this element were being given a boost mainly due to the influence of Tamal's sannyasi clique.
Srila Prabhupada himself was saying at this time that he did not agree with the managers, and indeed the managers were refusing to go to China when he ordered them to do so. And so he would say that he is too old to drop everything and focus on managing. He wanted to see his books printed mainly, because he knew that would be his lasting contribution. He had hoped that all of his followers would at least read the books and that this would be the actual basis upon which his society would develop. Srila Prabhupada's plan was very simple. The leaders would not be able to go too far astray since the edcuated mass of devotees would not allow that. Evidentally, as it would turn out, not many of his followers actually read his books?
OFF TO BERKELEY, August 1984 (ref: History 1984, pada 02. Apr. 2000b)
It was winter in Mount Shasta and there was maybe a foot of snow on the ground. I was out shopping in my old Ford truck when I saw a classic Mercedes car parked on the side of the road. This car looked familiar. Was this (the "guru") Hansadutta's car? I parked behind the car and after some time Hansadutta "swami" and his faithful servant Chakravarti dasa emerged from a store. We greeted each other and Hansadutta invited me to come over to visit him at another devotee's house in Mount Shasta.
When I arrived the next day Hansadutta was resting and Chakravarti explained that Hansadutta's condition was that of being "overdosed" on several drugs and alcohol. This was creating a toxic condition whereby he was sleeping most of the day, and in fact he was only awake about one hour a day. In other words, Hansadutta was close to dying. The Berkeley temple was spending several thousand dollars per week on a professional "detoxification center" near Golden Gate Park for their "guru," but it was not working. I asked, "Why is he taking so much intoxication"? And Chakravarti said, "It is those constant chronic migraines. He just can't take them anymore. And that is why we came to Mount Shasta, for the health spas."
A short while later Hansadutta emerged from his rest and we all sat around a large table. "I think I should just die and get it over," said Hansadutta. I said, "No! You cannot just die right now, you will leave behind so many confused people, especially your followers. You have to set them straight." "I can't," said Hansadutta, "I've tried to tell them that I am not their guru, that their guru is really Srila Prabhupada, but they will not listen. They insist on continuing to worship me." Of course I was not convinced that he had really tried to convince them effectively.
"We have to start by dismantling the bogus guru appointment," I said. "This is the first level of illusion that needs to be corrected, the GBC's saying that they were 'appointed' by Srila Prabhupada as his guru successors." Hansadutta agreed and he added, "That is right. The eleven of us held secret meetings after Srila Prabhupada departed where we hammered out this whole bogus appointment thing. Ramesvara and Kirtanananda wanted to leave the meeting right away, saying that they already had tons of people waiting in line for initiation. But Satsvarupa said, 'Wait, you cannot go yet. We have to make sure we all give the same answers to the same questions, or this appointment thing will fall apart in two weeks.' So, Satsvarupa played 'Devil's advocate' and he mock debated us until we all got this whole appointment idea worked out solidly. It is all a big scam."
I further told Hansadutta that the cause of his headaches was probably from taking the karma of disciples. Srila Prabhupada had told us not to even let people touch our feet casually, or we would get some karma. And we would get sick and have to suffer. Yet your GBC's gurus have hundreds of people washing their feet? Moreover, sitting in the seat of the pure devotee is very offensive, so you will all get a negative reaction for that as well. All considered, constant chronic migraines is probably just a warning for the reactions that you will get if you do not stop this now. Hansadutta shook his head knowingly and said, "Yes, this is probably all true."
So then I detailed a plan of action. We would have to stop all forms of his being worshipped and re-establish the worship of Srila Prabhupada. He seemed to be very happy and relived at this prospect and he said, "OK, let us do it. We can start in the Berkeley temple." He said he would give me a facility to stay there, and a plan was made for me to go there in the near future.
A short while later our little family landed on the Berkeley temple's doorstep. Hansadutta was there at the time, but he seemed very surprised that we had actually finally made it as agreed. Most of his followers were very stiff and tense, since he had apparently not told them that we were coming. I already had a reputation for "challenging the gurus," "being an offender to the eleven appointed pure devotees," and so on, thus some of his followers looked a little grim. He held an emergency meeting right then, but I was not invited. I am not sure what he told his followers but he at least told them to be polite, and perhaps, not to beat us up, which was the fate that some dissidents met there.
Our presence there was of course quite a shock to his followers since I would walk around and say, "Oh these gurus were never appointed, Hansadutta admits that they all lied." Many of them were very angry, yet they were forcibly restrained from taking steps to silence me due to Hansadutta's order. Meanwhile, all this was turning out to be too much for Hansadutta himself. Our presence was reminding him of the whole bogus platform of his "guru" post. So after a few days I heard him shouting in the temple foyer, "Tell a lie so big no one will believe that it could be a lie," and he was saying this repeatedly. A few of his followers finally came to his rescue and they had to lead him away to his room.
He was having a sort of nervous breakdown ...due to my presence probably? This culminated exactly one week, to the day, later. Hansadutta went out in his Toyota Jeep with four loaded guns and he shot out the Cadillac dealer's plate-glass windows, and then he shot out the windows of Ledger's Liquor store. Both buildings were occupied at the time and the patrons "hit the deck." A policeman stopped Hansadutta's Jeep shortly thereafter. And officer Joe Sanchez told me later, "That officer shit his pants when he saw four guns in the front of that Jeep. He thought this guy in the Jeep is whacked and he has another gun hidden somewhere and he is going to use it on me." A bottle of liquor was found on the floor of the Jeep, and Hansadutta was carrying nearly eight thousand dollars cash on his person. Hansadutta was arrested for firing a gun at occupied buildings.
And that was our introduction to the Berkeley temple! --to be continued--
HISTORY 1985 (ref: 1985 and news, 03. Apr. 2000)
VOODOO HEXED GURUS?
Hansadutta was arrested for shooting at an occupied building. Immediately after the "shooting of buildings incident," Rohini Kumar swami started to organize a big "fire sacrifice" behind the Berkeley temple. He was an original disciple of Srila Prabhupada but had somehow strayed into becomming Hansadutta's cheif apologist. I asked Rohini Kumar what the sacrifice was all about and he said that he had to counteract "demoniac curses" that had been placed upon Hansadutta by the other GBC gurus. Haripada dasa also told me that he had been in Mayapura recently and he had heard that two other GBC gurus had hired "black magic tantrics" to curse Hansadutta, and these curses were the cause of Hansadutta's strange behavior.
We were still very new to the Berkeley scene so we could not ask the rather obvious questions: "Why would Hansadutta's ten other Jesus-like co-appointed colleagues curse him in the first place? Why would one Jesus-like saint --curse-- another one to act like a devil? And would a bona fide Jesus-like saint be influenced by the black magic voodoo of a hired tantric ghost exorcist: at all"?, and so on ad infinitum.
Yet I have to admit that it was simply amazing to see firsthand the lengths that these people would take to keep up the illusion that they were still, somehow or other, gurus and pure devotees and that all of the problems they were experiencing were not due to lack of purity but some kind of voodoo hexes. In sum, layers, upon layers, upon layers, upon layers, of lies, more lies, and so on and so forth. Of course even I could see that when you have to say that "the Devil made me do it" you are running out of rabbits to pull out of your hat. So the scene was actually hopeful since it appeared to be getting near the endgame. It was.
DID YOU SEE OUR GURU SHOOTING?
The next problem for Hansadutta's people was actually a legal one. Hansadutta was seen by a number of eye-witnesses shooting at buildings. So, a few of his thugs went around to intimidate some of the witnesses. "Did you see our guru shooting at any buildings, and by the way we know where you live, and we are just like our guru." And the probable reply, "Who me? Well, I did not see anything"! This seems to have helped his case, that and the fact that the temple hired from among the best lawyers in the Bay Area to handle the case, spending what one devotee estimates was "at least $100,000 for the lawyers, $25,000 for court costs, and $10,000 for damages."
Then, a few weeks after the shooting, Hansadutta lost another $12,000 cash he was carrying in a bag. It becomes painfully obvious here why the gurukulis were being starved, beaten and molested. These leaders were spending money like water on themselves while they really seem to have had no idea whatsoever what was happening to the citizens of ISKCON? And nevermind that the temple had also been spending thousands per week for detoxification, percodans, and then there were the guru's vehicles, buildings, gun collections and who knows what else. Even millionaires do not spend money on themselves like this?
As a side note, I noticed a piece of mail one day in the temple foyer, it was a colorful postcard from a Reno gambling hall: "To our valued customer" and it was made out in the legal name of Hansadutta. By the way, Hansadutta eventually lost his case, and he pleaded "guilty by reason of insanity." He asked the judge, "If you have all kinds of drugs, alcohol and women, won't you go crazy too"? And so he was left with some kind of probation. A lot of devotees agreed, unless he had spent a small fortune on his case, he would have gone to jail.
COMMUNICATION WITH THE SPIRIT WORLD
I needed a break to help crack the door open and sure enough Krishna sent one along right away. Hansadutta's girlfriend, actually the wife of another devotee, brought her favorite book to be sold at the temple's book shop. The title was something like "Communication With the Spirit World," and it was a fantastic blend of ghost stories, weird speculations, and an apparent account of how Jesus is influenced by Satanic influences. Even our worst opponents at the temple could not help but break out laughing at some of the crazy passages.
So, I got one copy and walked around the building with my finger in between a few pages, and then I'd open it up and say, "Hey, did you see this page yet"? It was literally a God send since even my opponents would slap their knees and start laughing. His followers would say, "Yes, what a bunch of crap that book is, must be that Hansadutta is trying to please his new lady friend." So, this kind of helped break the ice for me, and it allowed me to go into more elaborate discussions. For example, what kind of guru reads this trash? Then yet another dedicated follower of Hansadutta's told everyone that under the cover of Hansadutta's "Bhagavad Gita" was the book "The Tibetan Book Of the Dead." This caused yet another wave of doubts. That the emporer had no clothes on was getting more obvious.
ROHINI KUMAR FINALLY CRACKS
Rohini Kumar swami was really trying hard to avoid me. For the fist six months he would barely talk to me. Yet one day he invited me into his room and asked me what the basic problem is. I said that there was never any appointment of eleven gurus, even Hansadutta agreed. So we went over and over the May 28th transcript. We had at that time a more complete version than the one I got in 1980, but it was not as complete as the one that was released in 1990. The more we studied it together the more he had to conclude that it did not appoint any gurus. He finally had a complete breakdown one day and he said, "OK fine, you are right, Srila Prabhupada never appointed any gurus." And then he wrote a little paper explaining that the GBC had misrepresented the idea of guru. This helped me a lot since he was quite respected there at the time.
As we talked further it turned out that he had access to Srila Prabhupada's will, the Topanga talks transcript (where Tamal admits there was no guru appointment) and maybe other documents, yet this was locked in the temple's safe. So I got him to sneak in one day, open the safe, and pull these documents out. I then photo-copied the will and began to circulate copies of it. Who knows if the current copies now in circulation are copies from the one that we got at that time? It was never openly distributed by the GBC, at least not that we know of. "The will" cast more doubt on the appointment issue, since it specifies that Srila Prabhupada wanted his initiated disciples to manage his properties indefinately --after his departure.