1) BECOME GURU (RE: Vaishnava dasa)
I have to agree with Visoka that the idea that we need to use the terms "Prabhupada
wanted us to be gurus now or you are an offender," is wrong, since that is
what Jayatirtha, the GBC and others have said to us for years, we are guru now
or you are criticizing Srila Prabhupada if you do not agree. We are not going
to respond further to that tone and tenor, and we agree that fire should be put
out. Simply stated, that is what we have heard already since 1977 and it is a
little wearisome, whereas, fact, our idea is catching hold. Srila Prabhpada says
be servant first, and be guru later, so let us serve one another first of all,
and if we cannot even do that, we are not going to be gurus.
thanks pd
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2) WARRIOR QUEENS
Dear BSD mataji pamho agt Srila Prabhupada
When the news of Queen Padmani's beauty reached Bhimsi, he was determined to covet her. He laid siege to the city of her husband when his demand to see her face was refused. After six months of battle, Padmani approached her husband with a plan. "Since it is against our custom for a man to look directly upon the face of another's wife," she said, " let a curtain be placed in a room dividing it in half. With a mirror placed at one end, Bhimsi can stand on one side of the curtain and I the other, this way he can see my reflection in the mirror without breaching our codes of conduct." Everyone was in agreeance.
After the rascal Bhimsi saw her, he refused to go away. For another six months his army sat outside the city walls. The citizens of the city began to die from starvation. Padmani came to her husband again, she had been thinking. A messenger was dispatched to the camp of the aggressor. Three day later ; Bhimsi smiled as he saw Queen Padmani astride a white stallion approach his camp. In her wake came eighty covered palanquins containing her personal wealth and giggling hand-maidens. Soldiers howled in ecstasy as bangled hands with painted fingers waved from behind brocaded curtains. When the eighty palanquins carried by four coolies (porters) each reached the center of the camp, the Queen drew a large ksatriya sword from under her muslin sarwar and ordered the charge. Soldiers dressed as girls sprang from the palanquins and slew the enemy mercilessly. Bringing to an end the immorality of a low born brigand, and enshrining eternally the perfection of beauty and acumen in concert.
Mataji, we see no difference between the courage of Padmani Devi and your part
in the Aug 3 ' 97 Ratha Yatra parade. Please remember us when you do kirtan with
Srila Prabhupada. Dandavats & pranams
Saksi Gopal das
==============================
3) WHY: NARAYANA MAHARAJA'S "DON'T HELP SRILAPRABHUPADA"?
Dear PADA pamho agtSrila Prabhupad In our attempt to bring about an amicable solution to the poison allegations, we are encountering some incredible stupidity. In order to bring this matter to its inevitable conclusion, we need the support of all "parties." This is not a witch-hunt. Since the process calls for an unbiased investigation by a qualified governmental department, it is totally stupid to see the exercise as one faction's vendetta against another. This is Vaisnava business, it calls for the participation of all sadhus. To believe that the suspicions will simply go away is ludicrous, it is another skeleton in the closet that challenges Vaisnava precepts. With the potential to question iskcon's claim to the Caitanya tree, this skeleton will haunt the house that Srila Prabhupada built well into the future, when none remain to successfully exorcise it. For us to bury our heads in the sand without question, may involve even the survivors of iskcon's looming holocaust, in their bid for credence.
Some claim the "poison issue" to be nothing more than a ritvik propaganda campaign. We cannot see why this deduction should call for bhaktas to refrain from supporting an investigation. In fact, it breeds an atmosphere of suspicion where there should be none, since the "ritviks" could only gain by a successful prosecution of the alleged suspects. Whereas a successful vindication of the suspects would rest hearts, souls, the preaching, and the future of Vaisnavism. So why has Narayana Maharaja forbidden his followers from aiding us in our efforts? We can understand there is some friendship between the maharaja and TKG, but this affection is most certainly misplaced when it harbours rather than vindicates. Or is there some doubt? If there is no doubt then he should order his followers to sign our Petition and help us bring this matter to a close. What are the complications? Does maharaja actually believe that his concupiscence with TKG will help his matha escape the implications?
Iskcon's decision to NOT support our bid for outside help is both predictable and understandable. Predictable because cult characteristic inculcates reticence. Understandable because they actually believe iskcon an archipelago, girdled by a secular mainland whose laws don't necessarily apply. With two major court battles running concurrently and a bevy of legal skirmishes behind and ahead, iskcon's management begs not for legal counsel as much as the services of a psychiatrist, since the malfeasance stems from the same delusion.
A great Personality has left His body in excruciating pain. There has been
enough said by that Personality, witnessed by others, heard by others and forensically
confirmed, if we add to these facts; The Final Order, The Appointment Tapes, The
Will, and confessions from iskcon's hierarchy, there are ample grounds for dubiety.
Why not aid us in aiding everyone concerned by extending help instead of hindrance.
Please sign our "Petition for an investigation" when approached, get
others to sign as well. Any attempt by iskcon or associated groups to stop this
crusade, will only confirm what many suspect.
Dandavats & pranams SGd
[PADA: When we first brought out the poison issue in 1997, a little silly since we are not Hindi speakers even, another of our associates, then in Houston, immediately approached Narayana Maharaja with a plea for him to help Srila Prabhupada in his hour of need, to resolve his poison complaint. Instead of taking up Srila Prabhupada's point, NM started to curl his lips in severe anger: at our associate! He was severely angry: at Srila Prabhupada's complaint! And NOT at all, AT THE POISONERS! And he went on for a long time chastising our associate for even attempting to help Srila Prabhupada, and maybe implicate (his guru buddies?) in a poison plot. Amazing, he was angry at the complaint of his good friend Srila Prabhupada, BUT! not at all at the poisoners of his "good friend"? And he was then in Houston, because his other "good friend," Tamal, had been having him there? Hmmmmm!
Amazing, or perhaps revealing, he was as angry as fire that someone was actually
going to try to uncover the words of Srila Prabhupada, and NOTICE: he was NOT
angry, at all, EVEN SLIGHTLY, at THE POISONERS. Later, he reluctantly listened
to our tape and he was alleged to have said, well we have to agree he is saying
he is being poisoned, but we should not help his poison complaint, and in sum,
not help Srila Prabhupada (Read: but HELP THE POISONERS). Adridharana de facto
has had the same response. Adri even still advertises that he has "defeated
(pada and) Srila Prabhupada's poison complaint." Worse, Adri is proud that
he has "defeated" his own guru's expose of a murder plot, and Adri has
openly defended the poisoners party? At least NM has backed off and he agrees
in private there is a poison complaint, but not Adri, a guy who was in the room
directly? And worse, he and KK are proud of that? So this is is just a little
suspicious in our minds, why are the two main hindi speaking people present at
the time of the poisoning, Narayana Maharaja and Adri, trying their best to obfuscate
and drag down the issue in unison? Well, what do you think? Anyway, you are right,
these questions need to be solved or they will hang over the heads of these people
for the next 10,000 years. And if they want to remain in a cloud of question for
that long, or longer, so be it. Good points,
ys pada]
==========================
4) A woman's Response to Yaduvendu's 'Joining the clan'
Thank you for your letter 'joining the clan' It really helps to clarify what was going on in the minds of the male devotees for so many years. It has been really hard to reconcile with and understand what they were thinking all those years, and still think of them as reasonable human beings. Especially when they were supposed to be the more intelligent ones.
We knew intuitively that these men had made us into 'the enemy' but when we tried to talk about it we were told that we were in Maya and unintelligent for thinking that these advanced devotee souls would see or treat us any differently, they knew we were 'not this body' but obviously we did not. While, of course, there was a plethora of evidence to suggest other wise. Seeing something around you and being told that your perception is distorted is a special kind of torture. One begins to shun ones own intellect and intuition which leaves one deaf, dumb and blind.
So 'less intelligent' became a self fulfilling prophecy as women began to believe in their status of unworthiness and even developed contempt for themselves, an impossible platform from which to attain love for God. I believe that this brand of torture is used in military situations to break the will of a prisoner. A particular number of lights would be shone into the eyes of a captured soldier and the hostage would be asked "how many lights are there?" And when he answered correctly he would be beaten and he would continue to be beaten until he agreed that there were more or less lights than there actually were. Psychologists say that he would actually begin to believe he saw a different number of lights.
Any intelligent person could see that the philosophy was being distorted and edited to make it appear in a certain way, but when you are being told something which, over and over again, defies your senses interpretation of circumstances, I think that you begin to go a little mad. It is easier to change belief than behavior. The result? Both Women and men began to except this perverse belief system. I realized something recently; I think that I'm a little afraid of male devotees because they seemed like such unreasonable, irrational creatures to me for so long.
And ironically I've felt that I could not relate to them as intellectual equals because they did not seem to possess very much intelligence, emotional intelligence or otherwise. I don't say this as a judgment, only as a reflection on my own experiences. Reading your postings as well as others on Pada and corresponding with you has gone a considerable way in reversing this experience.
You asked about my life in ISKCON. My first few years as a devotee it seemed as if I was always getting myself in trouble and being chastised for something or other. I don't think that I was a wild teenager. I was raised in a respectable way, my Mother is a Buddhist. She taught me how to meditate when I was very young to help me deal with nightmares and other childhood problems. Later on after my parents divorced she and I moved into a Buddhist community where I learned among other things the precepts of compassion. I think for an American teenager I was pretty mellow. So it is hard for me to understand or even remember what it was that kept getting me in trouble.
In retrospect my impression is that it was because I was an 'unbroken' women. Recently I have been spending time with an old friend of mine. She is a devotee. Not an ISKCON devotee. She traveled in India for 16 years where she met her husband. They now run a wonderful devotional ashram and an Ayurvedic school and clinic. She knew me when I first joined ISKCON when I was 19. She said that back then I was so alive, tenacious and full of joy and enthusiasm for spiritual life, as she observed me through out the years it appeared that my will, my spirit and my enthusiasm were eventually broken.
I had a nice visit with my ex-husband a few weeks ago. He is a Vedic Astrologer and I had a reading with him. Afterwards we talked about our marriage which ended ten years ago when I had had just about enough of life as a 4th class citizen in ISKCON. (fourth class: women, young, not a Prabhupada disciple, I would have been a 5th class citizen if I had not made lots of money selling stickers). He felt that we were just not compatible. But, as I told him, I don't believe we really got to discover whether or not we were compatible. The conditions we were living under were absurd.
The pressure he was under to keep me in my place, as it were, did not allow for a loving relationship based on mutual trust and respect to develop, what to speak of love. I explained to him that the final straw was when he would not allow me to go back to dancing, which I did before I moved into the temple. That was the beginning of the end of our marriage. With much regret and contempt in his voice, he said that he was following the advice of his authorities, and that he respected my decision to leave, although it took him a few more years to 'get it,' what was happening in ISKCON between men and women, that is. (He is feeling really bitter these days. Like so many.
And I can't help but feel sorry for him) I could no longer abide living under the auspices of those who claimed to have my best interest in mind but had done almost nothing but damage my faith, my mind and my sense of self worth with their distorted interpretation of Bhakti Yoga. The wonderful devotee's who did care about me and inspire me supported my decision to leave and one of my closest friends told me "relearn Krishna consciousness from Prabhupada's books."
When I joined the movement I was a Ballet dancer. Understanding the value of HDG's instructions on dovetailing one's God given talents and material desires for the purpose of, among other things to have them purified by the end of the life of this body; I requested to study East Indian Dance, but was told that this 'would be Maya for me.' And instead I learned the art of extracting money from, overwhelmingly, men. Using, as was recommended by my authorities, my feminine attributes.
Who's duty it was, as I was told repeatedly, to protect me. I guess that's why I spent so much time in places like Las Vegas truck stops in the middle of the night with another 19 or 20 year old devotee women, hoping to beat the prostitutes to the truckers so they would still have some cash on them for a donation for a sticker! Real safe! It is large and cumbersome regret to not have taken up East Indian dancing. I believe it was my dharma.
Can you imagine a 19 year American ballet dancer going to HDG and saying with enthusiasm "now I want to dance for Krishna!" and having the idea rejected? Unfortunately I did not have the privilege of meeting Srila Prabhupada. Although I could swear that I saw him in Thompson Square park when I was a baby. But I can't remember that clearly and my Mother can't either. This summer I had the opportunity to travel the country a bit. I believe by the end of he summer I had seen at least 20 different devotee community's and had talked to countless devotee's, old friends and new. Which was really an amazing experience because I have kept my distance for many years now.
It was like a fast forward from 1990 to 2000. All the things that were hidden from most of us are closer to the surface and I also learned things that I had not even intuited. It helped me to at last realize that I was not crazy for leaving. I wish I had done this sooner instead of spending the last ten years with part of my awareness fighting with that choice and the subsequent guilt. I am grateful that Krishna blessed me with the opportunity to do this. It was an eye-opening and often times abrupt and painful awakening, but I feel like I can now get some inner resolution and stop fighting with myself.
Part of that journey has been discovering the online newsletters and websites. It is great to be able to read about other people's experiences and realizations without someone screaming in my ear about what I should believe I met so many devotee's who where so shocked when they discovered the various atrocities which have occurred in ISKCON. And of course I was too. We are shocked because we thought that we were growing a Garden of Eden here on earth and 'how could this happen?' is the question I heard over and over and often times an unwillingness to really believe. If you really think about it, if these things didn't happen in this religion and in many religions of the world, we are not alone in our troubles; that would be really surprising.
The material world is (most especially in Kali-Yuga) set up for these things to occur. We want to enjoy like Krishna, control like Krishna, that is why we are here. And I believe thinking that these things can't occur in our Eden is a particular form of arrogance which attracts such things. I've seen this arrogance in my own life and consciousness over and over again. Srila Prabhupada warned us ad infinitum how insidious and tricky Maya is. For years I have been trying, through self searching and introspection, to separate out the results of the various forms of abuse and a cult mentality in the dark corners of my consciousness from the divine teachings of the Vedas.
I have gradually come to understand the value of love, kindness and compassion
for myself and others while still calling a thief a thief both in myself and others.
I don't think that I can learn to love Krishna until I can love myself and mankind
in general and that is not something that ISKCON taught me ...so I am working
on that.
with respect, JDD
SITES
TO CHECK OUT:
NEW SITE: Visoka dasa vishoka@juno.com
http://www.egroups.com/group/Vaisnavacouncil
*
http://www.krsna.tv
*Book For Sale "Someone Has Poisoned Me," You can get it from: New Jaipur
Press/ POB 208/ Mayodan NC 27027 $10.00 requested donation
* Seattle, Wa (Dhamaghosa dasa 206-729-0111) dasdasdas@aol.com
* MONTREAL, Canada, Hasti Gopala Dasa (for details write to: hasti90@hotmail.com)
* BERKELEY California. Hare Krishna Youth, 510-389-3346 conducts regular harinam
parties, arotikes, cooking classes, college preaching, Prabhupada video nights,
and so on.
* NEW YORK "Prabhupada Sankirtana Society" Headquarters 48 Ave. B NY,
NY 10009 (212) 674-0680, PSS108@juno.com
01) http://mitglied.lycos.de/pada/
pada newsletter archive
02) http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/3933
Poison tape
03) Poison tape transcript:
03) http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/3933/19990519.htm
04) http://www.winink.com/tkg/
Poison whispers
05) www.prabhupada.cc
Prabhupada samkirtana site
06) http://tsa.ppp.ripco.net/padaweb/puranjan.html
Puranjana's Site
07) http://mitglied.lycos.de/gbc
GBC expose
08) http://pages.infinit.net/pragosh/home.html
French site
09) http://members.aol.com/gauridas
Gauridasa's site
10) http://www.islandnet.com/krsna/
Rocana's site
11) http://www.islandnet.com/krsna/vada/poison/poison.htm
Poison issue
12) www.harekrsna.de
"Hare Krsna Homepage" (German)
13) http://members.nbci.com/prabhupada/
ISKCON Reform (German)
14) German translation of Final Order (pdf)
14) http://members.nbci.com/prabhupada/final.htm
15) http://members.xoom.com/prabhupada/
(German Expose)
16) http://www.equalsouls.org/tkg
Srila Prabhupada wanted to be poisoned?
17) http://www.surrealist.org/gurukula/
Nandini's history site
19) http://mitglied.lycos.de/gbc/
GBC
20) "illicit sex
guru" rationalizations:
20) http://www.islandnet.com/krsna/vada/iskcon/right.htm
21) http://www.artnet.net/~yasoda/index.htm
Appointment tape fraud
22) http://www.asitis.com
Original Bhagavad-gita As It Is
23) http://krsnabook.com
Original Krsna Book
24) http://www.krishna.org
Prabhupada Hare Krishna News Network
25) http://folio.bhaktivedanta.org
S.P. Folio Infobase CD-ROM
26) http://realaudio.bhaktivedanta.org
Prabhupada RealAudio Archive
27) http://mp3.bhaktivedanta.org
Prabhupada MP3 Bhajans, 2 CD set
28) www.domgbc.org
(Direction Of Management)
29) www.acbspn.com/ BOMBAY
India
30. www.ROOPA.org
(Raghunatha dasa's world economics proposal)
31) http://krsna.kgb.cz/hlavni.htm
Prague Czech-devotees (english site)
32) http://tsa.ppp.ripco.net/das/articles.htm (DAS)
33) http://www.com.org/hb/ptd/cyber_gurukula.htm (Cyber gurukula)
A WEB SITE DEALING WITH
WOMEN AND CHILDREN EXPLOITATION: http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/catw/tocv.htm