Sex,
Pigs, and Husbands
Chaos
• 247
"You're back, Hayagriva," Kirtanananda said one cold morning in December 1978.
"So it appears," Howard Wheeler replied.
Wheeler was sprawled on the couch of the small camper reserved exclusively for him in New Vrindaban. Two young Mexican men were sitting on plastic-covered, high-backed chairs at the small counter that separated the kitchen from the living area.
"It pains me to see how low you've sunk." Kirtanananda said, smiling.
"You've met my friends?" Wheeler asked.
One of the Mexicans, a tall, skinny kid, got up, stuck out his hand, and walked toward Kirtanananda. The other reached out and pinched his ass as he passed by. The tall Mexican playfully slapped his hand away.
Kirtanananda smiled. "I assume these are close friends?"
"Oh, yes, very close," Wheeler said. "Very close indeed."
"You're always bringing friends back from Mexico," Kirtanananda said.
"Well, I seem to make a lot of friends." Wheeler grinned. "And you're chronically in need of laborers for the palace. That's the only reason I bring them back to this hole in the wall."
"I'm glad you're so dedicated," Kirtanananda laughed., "How long do you plan to stay?"
Chaos • 248
"Who knows?" Wheeler said. "Probably until I get tired of my friends and have to go back to Mexico to make some new ones."
"Well, I'm glad you're back," Kirtanananda said. "Nothing picks me up like having my oldest and closest friend around."
Returning to his Landcruiser, Kirtanananda wondered how long Wheeler could keep going before he burned himself out. For years, Wheeler had been traveling back and forth between New Vrindaban and a house the commune owned in Ensenada, Mexico. He was supposed to be editing Prabhupada's books and working on The Hare Krishna Explosion, a history of the movement's early years. He did do some work. But mostly he drank, did drugs, and chased boys.
Wheeler had been through several Krishna wives. His first, Cheryl, had divorced him and gone to court to try to get custody of their boy, Devin, whose Krishna names were Dharmaraja, or Samba. She had failed. Samba had been spirited away to Mexico. Only when Cheryl gave up was the boy allowed to return to the commune. There was no way anyone but Kirtanananda was going to get Samba.
The guru always kept Samba at his side. The boy sat on Kirtanananda's lap as he drove the Landcruiser around the commune. He ate off Kirtanananda's plate. He even slept with Kirtanananda. Several years before, Kirtanananda had sent Samba to a guru kula in India, a requirement for all Krishna children. A few weeks after Samba had left, Kirtanananda's housecleaner walked into his quarters and found him weeping.
"What's the matter?" she cried, rushing to her master's side.
"I ... miss . . . Samba," Kirtanananda sobbed. "I miss him so much."
Kirtanananda couldn't bear the separation. He became morose. He moped. Finally he booked a reservation and flew to India. A few days later, he returned—with Samba, of course.
Kirtanananda got in the Landcruiser and drove across the commune. A female devotee had arrived from London the day before and he had to welcome her. He didn't really want to meet her. He hated dealing with women. Before his weekly darshan, or meeting, with female disciples, Kirtanananda would always tell his male devotees, "Get out the incense, boys, it's fish night."
When a man came to him and told him he was having problems with his wife, the guru's advice usually boiled down to two words: "Hit her."
Chaos • 249
"Three things are better when you beat them: your drum, your dog, and your wife," he liked to say. That is exactly what many men at New Vrindaban did.
Still, there were times when it paid to be nice to women, and this was one of them. Kirtanananda had been told the new arrival was young and pretty. A pretty young devotee was a valuable commodity. She could do sankirtan. Or he could marry her off to some man he needed to keep happy.
"You've arrived; how splendid!" Kirtanananda said when he met the new arrival, Jane Bryant. "So tell me, what do you think of us so far?"
"It's so beautiful, I can't get over it," Jane said. "I've lived in cities all my life and have never seen hills like these. And the palace. I don't think I've ever felt so spiritual as I did yesterday when I walked in for the first time. And it's not even done yet!"
"That's as it should be, for the palace is both a labor of love and a triumph of faith," Kirtanananda said proudly. "Do you know, it was built by devotees working without blueprints. Can you imagine that? It was the first time most of them did any construction. It's magnificent, don't you think?"
"Overwhelming," Jane said meekly.
"We spare no expense to honor our master, Prabhupada," Kirtanananda said. "There's over two hundred tons of white Italian and blue Canadian marble in the palace. The onyx is from Iran; the crystal chandeliers come all the way from Austria. That gold leaf you see on the roof contains more than four pounds of twenty-four-karat gold."
"It looks like a fairy princess waved her wand and the palace magically appeared," Jane said. "I'd heard it was beautiful, but I never imagined this. I'm so glad I decided to come here."
"How did you come to New Vrindaban?" Kirtanananda asked.
"My husband, Sulocana, sent me and my little boy, Rinnian," Jane said. "He tells everyone you are Prabhupada's only bona fide successor. He's in India now, buying things for a jewelry business. He's going to start it when he joins us here."
"They tell me another little person is going to join you."
Jane smiled.
"I'm pregnant," she admitted, looking at the ground. "I found out just before we left England. The second one is supposed to be easier,
Chaos • 250
but I seem to be getting just as sick as I did with Rinnian. But please don't let my condition interfere with my service."
Kirtanananda smiled.
"We'll find some service that's suitable to your condition/' he said.
Jane was confused. Her shoulders slumped and she looked at the ground.
"Sulocana's told me that over and over," she said quietly. "He says a husband is his wife's guru. She can only be initiated by someone he chooses. That way, there's spiritual consistency. The husband and wife both follow the same guru."
"Maya," Kirtanananda snapped. "He's in maya. You husband is of no consequence. You're children are of no consequence. They are bonds that bind you to the material plane. That's why we put our children in the nursery as soon as possible. We must shatter these bonds. You must submit to Krishna."
Kirtanananda paused. Thinking he was finished, Jane looked up. She was going to answer, but was hushed by the guru's fiery look. He stepped forward until they were almost touching and stared deep into her eyes.
"I am the eternal man in your life," he said. "I am your guide on the eternal journey to Krishna. How can another man, any man, even your husband, matter, when you have entered into an eternal relationship with your spiritual master?"
Kirtanananda paused again. Jane was speechless, her eyes wide with wonder.
"Take initiation," Kirtanananda ordered. "Now. It is time."
For the next two weeks, Kirtanananda was extremely solicitous. He managed to speak to Jane every other day, at least. He asked her how she liked the worship services. He gave her some pamphlets and paperbacks he had written and made a point of following up. Had she read them? What did she think of them? Had they deepened her understanding of Krishna Consciousness? Did she have any questions he could answer? Did she need anything?
Jane was flattered. She was being treated better by the most powerful guru in all of Krishna Consciousness than by her own husband.
Kirtanananda popped the question at the beginning of Jane's third week in New Vrindaban.
"You seem very devout," he told Jane. "Why don't you take initiation from me?"
Chaos • 251
"Oh, I'd love to, I absolutely would!" Jane cooed. "I'll write Sulocana right away and ask his permission."
"What?" Kirtanananda asked.
"My husband, Sulocana. I'll write him for permission," Jane said, thinking that the guru had forgotten Bryant's name.
"Why do that?" Kirtanananda said, working to suppress his irritation.
Jane blushed. "I can't get initiated without his permission. It isn't done."
"You question me?" Kirtanananda asked, his voice dropping to a whisper.
Jane was initiated by Kirtanananda three days later. She became Jamuna; Rinnian was renamed Krishna das, Krishna's servant. The next day, she started her service. She split her time between the commune's glass workshop and its nursery.
Steven Hebel, Swarup, bounded up the rickety steps that led to the loft above the New Vrindaban cow barn. Tufts of old straw stuck out of the cracks like dried-up weeds, and manure was ground into every board of the wooden structure. The air was thick with the smell of stale urine and cow dung.
How can they keep kids here? Hebel wondered as he stumbled along the dim corridor. I know these Vrindaban devotees are into austerity, but there's got to be a better place for kids than a cattle bam full of cow shit.
Hebel had flown to Pittsburgh from Los Angeles late the previous night. It was February 1979, and it had been almost a year since he had seen Scott, his four-year-old son, who was living in New Vrindaban. But now he was overcome by foreboding. He stopped in front of a dilapidated door and stared at the hand-scrawled sign, Nursery, it said.
Inside, he heard kids crying. He opened the door. He looked into the kindergarten and froze in his tracks. The room stunk of excrement, vomit, and urine, tinged with eye-stinging ammonia. The floor was littered with soiled diapers.
There were fifteen to twenty children crowded in the small room. Some were lying in battered cribs, screaming themselves blue. Others
Sat in the filth on the floor playing with a battered doll or a broken toy
Chaos • 252
car or an old diaper. A pregnant woman, holding a shrieking baby under one arm, was dashing around trying to see to everything at once. She snatched a dirty diaper out of the mouth of a little boy on one side of the room. Then she rushed back to pick up a bottle lying on the floor. Then she separated two toddlers fighting in the comer.
"Hare Krishna," Jane Bryant said, barely pausing from her frantic activity when she spotted Hebel. "Can I help you?"
"I just moved here. I came to see my son, Scott," Hebel said.
Jane waved him into the room and led him to the crib where Scott was sleeping amid the chaos.
"But look at his stomach!" Hebel cried as soon as he saw the boy. "It's all bloated. He looks like he's starving!"
"It's not that," Jane said impatiently. "Don't worry, he's getting plenty to eat. He's just got some kind of a parasite. A lot of children have it. Just look around—see!"
Hebel looked at the other children and found Jane was right.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Kirtanananda says it's not serious," Jane replied unconcerned. "I just give them some medicine and it goes away after a while."
Hebel wasn't reassured. He patted his sleeping son's head, pecked him on the forehead, and left at once to look for Kirtanananda, whom he had known since the movement's first days in New York City. He found the swami supervising the last minute touches to the Palace of Gold.
"Kirtanananda, man, I've just come from the nursery," Hebel began without any greeting. "I can't believe how filthy the place is. It's disgusting. You've got to do something."
"Why, what's the problem?" Kirtanananda said. He was barely paying attention. He turned away from Hebel every few words to shout instructions at the laborers.
"My son's sick; all the kids are sick," Hebel said. "That nursery isn't fit for pigs."
"Yes, yes. We'll get to it," Kirtanananda said with the airiness he always affected when confronted by an overwrought devotee.
"You'll get to it? When? What's more important than a decent place for little kids?"
Kirtanananda turned, stood still, and for the first time, stared directly at Hebel.
Chaos • 253
"Seeking spiritual perfection. The palace. Bringing the masses to Krishna."
He then turned on his heel and walked away. He was furious that Hebel had had the gall to question him. How could Hebel doubt a pure devotee, who was so spiritually advanced that he was incapable of making mistakes?
Hebel watched Kirtanananda limp off, and shrugged. Then he took off his shoes and entered the palace to take his first look at Krishna's glory.
Steven Hebel had grown up in Hewlett, Long Island, the favorite of every Jewish mother on his block. Such a nice boy. And handsome, too. Those dark eyes, that thick black hair, those full lips and that square jaw. And so charming. When he talked to you, there was nobody else in the world. He was so smart, his mother said, they invented the honor roll for that boy. President of his student council, eight hundreds on his SATs. And as a junior, he applied for and received early acceptance at Comell. Of course, Harvard and Yale both wanted him, too.
But Hebel hated the Jewish mothers who had smothered him with love. He hated high school, where girls, beautiful girls, were always hitting on him, calling him at home, asking him to come over. Hebel wasn't interested in their silliness. He was fascinated with death.
It had started when Hebel was ten and his father died. After his passing, Hebel spent much of his spare time sneaking into the cemetery. It was peaceful there. He'd sit on a mausoleum under the lush green trees and look at the ordered rows of graves.
"Why'd you do it? Why'd you take my dad?" he'd ask God over and over again.
It wasn't pain or unfulfilled love that drove him to ask. He had liked his dad, a former weightlifter, but didn't really miss him all that much. Steve simply wanted to know. He wanted an answer to the basic paradox of life: Why do people die?
He started reading seriously in his early teens. He pursued his quest through Camus, Sartre, Richard Alpert, Alan Watts, all the Western Easterners. He didn't find any answers.
In the spring of 1967, Hebel visited his sister, a freshman at Boston University. She turned him on to marijuana. He walked into Kenmore
Chaos • 254
Square flying high and his world changed as he watched the big Citgo sign change colors against the night sky. Everything suddenly seemed fresh and alive and exciting, just the opposite of his predictable life on Long Island. He was hit by the realization that he had to do something to escape—or Long Island would consume him.
Like many kids of his generation, Hebel decided to become a hippie. He left that summer. He hitchhiked to California and spent the next year devouring huge amounts of grass, acid, speed—anything that messed up his mind and helped him escape. It wasn't enough.
He returned to New York and discovered the Krishnas on Second Avenue. He listened to devotees preach and read Prabhupada's books. For the first time, he found peace. Krishna Consciousness answered all his questions about death: You didn't die: you were recycled.
"I'm moving in with the Krishnas," Hebel told his startled mother one day.
"But you're Jewish!" his mother cried. "You can't change what you are."
"Ma, that's exactly what I'm gonna change."
"But, Stevie, you're throwing your future away!"
"No, I'm not, Ma. I'm finding a future."
"But, Stevie, why these robes and the shaved-head thing?"
"Krishna Consciousness is ironclad and scientific, Ma," Hebel said.
"It makes sense."
"But how will you live?"
"The temple is just a hole in the wall, but it's really spiritual, Ma. It's not like the synagogue. That's just a glorified social center."
Brahmananda, the New York temple president, took Hebel under his wing and made him one of the first employees of the ISKCON Press, which grew into the mammoth Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. As the handsomest male in the New York temple, it was natural that he would attract the attention of the temple's most beautiful female, Kanka, or Susan O'Neal.
Blond-haired, blue-eyed Susie grew up in Albany, Oregon, the daughter of a prominent physician, whose hobbies were sports cars and airplanes. She was a super popular swimming star, the girl all the other girls dreamed about being. One night, her father took a car into a turn too hard and skidded across the wet pavement and smashed into a tree. Dr. O'Neal was killed instantly.