NOTICE TO THE HACKERS ATTACKING MY BLOGS

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self sustained.” Mahatma Gandhi 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2024 BLOG AUTHOR

It’s been more than seven years since I wrote “Hare Krishna Hackers Beware!”

(https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com/2016/10/hare-krishna-hackers-beware.html.) and it’s clear that I need to revisit the same issue. Hackers (mostly recently from Singapore and Hong Kong) have been flooding Google with totally bogus claims that my blogs promote “hate.”  This nonsense resulted in this blog being taken down for ten days in April. After I appealed it and the administrators from Google revisited the matter, my blog was promptly reinstated. 

Far from promoting hatred or any kind of abuse, for the past nineteen years my blogs have simply publicized a number of ISKCON founder/acharya A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami’s (“Prabhupada”) controversial pronouncements (which, incidentally, is precisely what he wanted). In fact, far from promoting a philosophy of “love and peace,” they include brazen incitements to violence and the murder of non-believers, what to speak of a number of extremely disturbing examples of misogyny and donation fraud.

Nevertheless, the swami regarded his views on these matters as foundational to his mission of educating his disciples about the values and practices of Gaudiya (Bengali) Vaishnavism, the Bhakti yoga offshoot popularized by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486-1534). 

WOMEN-HATING, ISKCON STYLE 

In one of the most notorious examples, Prabhupada referred to women as “vaginas, “ a coarse slur equivalent to (at least in American English) to “c**t.” or “p***y.” Since this revelation might shock some readers, a bit of context is necessary. Among Prabhupada’s early disciples were a number of well-known homosexuals and misogynists whose contempt for and maltreatment of women is the stuff of ISKCON legend. Their intimate conversations with their guru and other male devotees were recorded and transcribed for posterity (See https://Veda base.io for the standard Bhaktivedanta archive).

Despite the fact that these smug hypocrites had previously embraced a lifestyle notable for its promiscuity, they saw fit (under the guise of newly-found celibacy, no less) to inform Prabhupada about rumors that some young women practicing the “free love” of the hippie generation had taken to bestiality (specifically, with dogs). Prabhupada evidently accepted this sickening gossip as fact. For the authoritative transcription of the recorded “room conversation” in which the swami reacted to this smut, please go to https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2017/12/new-sex-starved-idiots-slaves-how.html.

The existence of a “philosophy” that uses unsubstantiated filth from a bunch of sexually repressed misogynists (and the worst example of the denigration of women imaginable) as information worthy of publication is why ISKCON takes such care to hide it from the public. Nevertheless, since our guru wanted it published, I dutifully complied. 

PRABHUPADA’S “ANY DAMN THING” DONATION POLICY.

While much has been written detailing the shady and often outright illegal  practices that funded the construction of the first ISKCON temples in India, they have been conveniently swept under the rug as the excesses of a few errant disciples and their followers. In fact, the method our guru and his hand-picked Temple Presidents in the Americas and Europe developed consisted of using devotees to “hit the streets” for  “Sankirtan,” which began with a few of them playing cymbals while chanting and dancing but soon developed into a slick money-making operation. The formula was simple: send teams of half-starved saffron-clad “monks” to airports and other places full of easily-distracted people. Then proceed to fleece them of their money by using a carefully scripted sob story while pressuring them to make a “donation” and receiving one of our guru’s recently translated Hindu scriptures in return. 

Fundraising schemes designed to target and carefully groom affluent donors are a different matter entirely. Most of these were approved by Prabhupada and adopted by his more ambitious disciples  and were aimed squarely at wealthy Hindus, both in India and abroad. The oldest and most identifiable involved selling “life memberships” for a nominal sum, which guaranteed lodging at any of the growing number of ISKCON temples in India with hotel-grade accommodations. 

In reality, this practice is what in sales is known as  “upselling,” wherein (in this case) you create a captive audience carefully groomed for pouring a steady stream of donations into the cult’s coffers. The usual tactic involves selling them a sob story about the cult’s feeding the poor while feeding their own overblown sense of religious piety by inscribing their name in a prominent place in a temple, etc. After puffing up their egos in this manner, their real value becomes apparent as networking tools valuable only for sharing contact information about new prospective donors with even deeper pockets.

 

What few know is that Prabhupada was not only aware of the nature of these practices, but factually encouraged and approved of them. For a glaring example of his complicity, wherein he tells a sanyasi disciple of his to openly lie about feeding the poor, while declaring that “we may tell any damn thing to induce people to give us money on Krishna’s behalf,” please go to my blog essay;

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2016/01/new-original-iskcon-policy-on-cheating.html

KILLERS FOR KRISHNA? ISKCON Founder A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami on Killing Non-Believers: 

Cult leaders of every description use scare tactics to keep the fanaticism of their followers at fever-pitch. A favorite rabble-rousing technique involves demonizing nonbelievers and spinning fantasies about their destruction. No matter how ridiculous, any incitement to deadly violence might be taken literally by one or more of these already delusional followers. Our beloved guru, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, was no exception to this practice. Here is a prime example consisting of a transcription of a “morning walk” recorded in Vrindavan, India on 15 March 1974: 

Practically speaking, Vaishnavas are killers. . . It is not that because Mohammed used a sword, we also must use a sword, No! --we can use a Gun. We will ask-...You like Krishna?? No--Booom..You like Krishna? No--Booom. We can use everything for Krishna, we can use the ATOM BOMB FOR KRISHNA!! We have to kill this civilization of mudhas [fools] . . .those who are mudhas, we have to kill them. This is our business. Kill all the mudhas. . . Not now but later when we are more powerful. 

For more on this and other related topics, please visit: https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2015/08/new-eastern-cults-as-incubators-of.html. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This essay and all of the charts and illustrations were prepared by and are the exclusive property of the blog author. Using any part of them in any manner, in print or online, is strictly forbidden. A standard link to this blog is a better alternative.

ISKCON’S “FESTIVAL OF COLORS” UNDER A CLOUD OF TROUBLE

Too bad the Hare Krishna leadership believes in karma, because they are in for a huge dose of it. 

Did you or someone you care about attend any “Festival of Colors” event hosted by ISKCON /Hare Krishna? Website: www.festivalofcolorsusa.com.

 Can you provide a ticket/receipt, photograph or other evidence as proof? If so, you could be entitled to substantial compensation for having been unknowingly exposed to inorganic chemical compounds long known for their role in diseases affecting the lungs, eyes, and skin. 

Any Google search for “Festival of Colors” will produce an avalanche of images showing young participants engaged in a kind of group hysteria culminating in the aerial dispersal of massive clouds of brightly tinted powder.

What exactly is this substance and why is it so dangerous? See below:

Exposed skin, hair, and clothing are heavily coated with this substance, which is inevitably inhaled by them and anybody in the vicinity. That spells disaster for both participants (or, to be more precise, unwitting victims) and hosts. 

It is hard to imagine a more self-incriminating collection of evidence than those thousands of photographs plastered all over the Internet.

For more than two decades, thousands of people worldwide have purchased tickets for the annual “Festival of Color” events hosted by The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (popularly known as ISKCON or Hare Krishna). Featuring live music and vegetarian food, they appeal to the perennial fascination of many people in Western countries for Eastern exoticism and spirituality. 

 

These Festival of Color parties originate in the annual Holi celebrations (e.g., 25 March 2024) traditionally observed by Hindus worldwide commemorating an episode in the pastimes of the cowherd Krishna avatar and his many girlfriends. Today this holiday has devolved in cities across the Americas, Europe, and Australia into a clever money-making operation with minimal or no reference to its religious or national origins.1

Not only did the festival organizers spew toxins all over their guests, they also withheld information about their brutally ignorant racist, cosmological, and misogynistic beliefs.2 Municipalities where these events were held are also negligent for having issued event permits without conducting due diligence.

Despite its success in pulling the wool over the eyes of thousands of gullible partygoers for decades, the cult’s practice of hiding in plain sight was nevertheless doomed to come to an abrupt halt.

To expose your customers and guests to what they are told is a harmless substance when science tells otherwise is both foolish and counterproductive. 

The recipe for the ”Holi” powder” sold by Festival of Colors organizers (and is standard in India) derives its brilliant colorants from minerals suspended in a cornstarch base to which mica is often added to produce the glittering shine that delights partygoers as clouds of the powder descend on them at the height of the outdoor festivities.

The “Festival of Colors” hosts import their Holi powders directly from India and also sell them on their website, claiming that they use ”permissible colors.” This is nonsense:  Holi colors are not regulated in India or the USA or elsewhere. Moreover, even if such powders were manufactured using the purest cornstarch and organic food safe colors, they were never meant to be inhaled.

Those who attended these Hare Krishna festivals with their minor children should especially take note of this distinction. Inviting their guests to paint each other’s faces with these powders while recommending that some might want to don dust masks shows that the cult knew of the dangers but hid them from the public.

For example, participants at what is billed as “the world’s happiest transformational event” in Utah (particularly in Spanish Fork, Ogden, and Salt Lake City) are evidently unaware that the promoters are misery-mongers and idol worshippers devoted to a bizarre set of regressive beliefs out of a falsified “Hindu” version of the Dark Ages.

These nuggets of so-called wisdom—all propounded by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, the founder of ISKCON—include the following: 

• Black people (whom he asserted “are all ugly looking in the estimation of the civilized nations”) should be “kept under control as slaves and given “sufficient food, sufficient  cloth, not more than that.”

• Women enjoy being raped due to their lustful nature and should therefore undergo an arranged marriage by ages ten or twelve. Even if married to an old man while still adolescent children, the swami taught that they must submit themselves to their husbands as slaves and suffer beatings for disobedience.

• The swami also repeatedly stated that men are always the intellectual superiors of women due to his belief that they possess half the brains of their male counterparts. 

• His laughable assertion that “You cannot find any big scientist, any big mathematician, any big philosopher amongst women,” demonstrates his willful ignorance of the history of science and his casual dismissal of facts when they contradict his personal prejudices.

• Believed that the Earth is a circular disk supported by four elephants and the sun is ruled by the Sun God Surya, who traverses over a geocentric solar system in a chariot pulled by seven horses. While these ideas are obviously based on the folklore, flora and fauna of the Indian subcontinent, the ISKCON cult regards them as “Vedic Science,” when in fact a more ridiculous compendium of antiquated cosmological nonsense is hard to imagine. To call it pseudoscience is a vast understatement.

• For example, this is how the swami reacted to the Apollo 11 moon landing on 20 July 1969:

So they never worshipped Chandra [the moon-god], and how can they go to the Chandra planet? Then Krishna is false. Krishna is imperfect. They are defying Krishna's instruction. They have gone to the moon planet. ​  Then our whole propaganda, Krishna consciousness, becomes bogus.​

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

These and many more views the swami insisted are to be taken literally should warn would-be  Festival of Colors participants to spend their entertainment dollars elsewhere.

The group responsible for organizing and staging these imitation Holi celebrations—complete with onstage bands, food, and the sale of  imported Holi (known in India as “gulal” powder) as well as other merchandise—are the same Hare Krishna opportunists familiar to generations with their saffron robes and seedy money-making tactics. This latest public relations stunt has been going on for two decades with thousands of attendees buying tickets intent on spending an afternoon making clowns of themselves. 

In reality, these fake “Holi” festivals are nothing more than public health nuisances disguised as entertainment venues. It is unimaginably irresponsible and self-serving for the Hare Krishna sect—in full knowledge of the massive pollution celebrants of the Holi (and Diwali) festivals in India inflict upon themselves and the environment—to risk the health of thousands of its guests worldwide.

Moreover, scientific research conducted under the auspices of governmental agencies both in the U.S. and India has long established an indisputable connection between the role contaminants in air, water, and soil play in the long-term degradation of the environment and the development of chronic disease.

Not only are such poisons major contributors to the deadly air and groundwater pollution that plagues India, they will also remain a menace to generations due to their stable chemical properties. 

For example, according to a recent article published by the Wall Street Journal, between 2013-2021, India accounted for “nearly 60% of the growth in air pollution across the globe.” For the citizens of its capital city, implementing and monitoring recommended controls is a matter of life and death:

If India were to meet World Health Organization guidelines for particulate pollution, the life expectancy for residents of capital city New Delhi would increase by 12 years.

A recent article in The Hindustan Times reports on a wider range of Holi-related health issues:

… Unfortunately the colours we play Holi with nowadays are full of chemicals, mercury, asbestos, silica, mica, and lead which are toxic to skin and eyes. Apart from ENT issues from ear pain, ringing of ears, hearing loss, eye issues, respiratory problems like asthma, bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are also common due to exposure to toxic colours.

This Essay continues in ISKCON’S FESTIVAL OF COLORS PART 2

Disclaimer: Nothing in this blog essay is meant as a substitute for professional legal advice. If you wish to proceed with any claims against the Festival of Colors organization either as an individual or as part of a class action settlement, it would be prudent to contact a reputable personal injury law firm in your area. Although I stand by the research findings in this essay, all of it and much more can be obtained using the services of any competent paralegal.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This essay and all of the charts and illustrations were prepared by and are the exclusive property of the blog author. Using any part of them in any manner, in print or online, is strictly forbidden. A standard link to this blog is a better alternative.

For Jamie 🌈🪷🙏🏼

NOTES

1. Although the Festival of Colors entity created by the ISKCON/Hare Krishna organization hosts the vast majority of these public Holi-themed events, others have taken note of their success and have launched their own versions. Some are advertised as “springtime” festivals, etc., but the central event also consists of aerial dispersion of colored powders. Those wishing to pursue a claim against any non-Festival of Colors entity should inform the personal injury attorney they contact of that fact. 

2. https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2017/12/new-sex-starved-idiots-slaves-how.html.  

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2018/01/racism-and-caste-bigotry-in-hare.html.

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (also known by the abbreviation “ISKCON” or simply as “Hare Krishna” has been establishing and operating various fund-raising venues since its registration as a church in 1966. Currently these number at least 88 in the United States, with many others throughout the world. This organization was founded by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, an elderly Indian national who aspired to elevate a minor Hindu sect to worldwide prominence by taking advantage of the hippie generation’s infatuation with Eastern mysticism.

To this end, he presided as guru to thousands of gullible American and European youth, while demanding absolute loyalty and unquestioning obedience to a severe and rigidly structured set of practices governing virtually every aspect of his disciples’ lives. This fanaticism informed their interactions with the public, which generally consisted of accosting strangers on the street or at an airport. These shaven-headed, saffron-robed “devotees” would shove a book or magazine in the their target’s faces while delivering a sales pitch from which few could escape before grudgingly giving up money for a purchase that was typically dumped into the nearest refuse bin. 

During the decades following Bhaktivedanta’s death in 1977, infighting between the disciples who many believed he had hand-picked as his successors (or simply declared themselves as such) threatened to diminish the aura of infallibility without which the cult’s hierarchical structure would collapse. Lawsuits regarding shocking allegations of child abuse at its “gurukula” boarding schools were widely reported for decades, culminating in a $400 million lawsuit filed by former students in 2000. After the cult filed for bankruptcy in 2002 (an obvious dodge to shield its assets from further scrutiny), it was ultimately settled for less than five percent of the original claim. Before long, the abuse continued at other gurukula schools while offenders who had been previously banished began to worm themselves back into the Hare Krishna cult. During this time and to the present, ISKCON has spent millions trying to revamp its image from a hippie era, crime-infested cult to an ancient branch of Hinduism.

ISKCON’S “ FESTIVAL OF COLORS” PART #2: LEGAL NIGHTMARE

FESTIVAL OF COLORS GETS A WAKE-UP CALL. . .

In the United States, evidence that people have been exposed to toxins poisoning the air, drinking water, as well as minerals used for personal care products has led to an ongoing explosion of civil lawsuits.

Personal injury law firms have had tremendous success representing victims whose cancers they claim are attributable to both negligence and indifference to public health. In many cases, appeals of jury awards require adjudication by state and federal court systems, particularly when bankruptcy is used as a means to dodge or reduce liability. Here are a few notable examples:

• Hurley, Lawrence, “U.S. Supreme Court Rebuffs J&J Appeal Over $2 Billion Baby Powder Judgment.” 1 June 2021. Reuters.com. [Stung by the Missouri Court of Appeals’ refusal to overturn $2.12 billion jury award to 22 women, J&J made a last ditch attempt to have it overturned by the higher court.]

  
  

• Friedman, Lisa and Vivian Giang, “3M Reaches $10.3 Billion Settlement in ‘Forever Chemicals’ Suit.” 22 June 2023. The New York Times. [Payout to cover testing and remediation efforts by U.S. municipalities over 13 years. Settlement has no bearing on thousands of lawsuits.]

  
  

• “Levy Konigsberg Files 116 Mesothelioma Suits Against J& J Spinoff Kenvue,” 16 June 2023. Levylaw.com. [This lawsuit is especially relevant since it involves a corporate spinoff designed to insulate J&J in case its bankruptcy maneuvers fail.]

  
  

What Johnson and Johnson (“J&J”)—a trusted household name in America and abroad—has endured due to the presence of asbestos in its famous baby powder is a test case for what happens when the profit motive overwhelms common sense.

This pharmaceutical giant has bitter experience in this regard. By 2023, this venerable American institution paid billions in punitive and compensatory damages to settle at least 52,000 claims asserting that its famed line of talcum powders contained asbestos (which causes ovarian cancer as well as the fatal lung cancer mesothelioma).

Keep in mind that J&J was sued by claimants who showed proof that they suffered from cancers they said resulted from using its talc-based products as infants or later on. No proof of purchase has ever been required. Jury trials have awarded huge amounts after hearing claimant accounts of their medically diagnosed illnesses and also in knowledge of J&J’s concealing the asbestos menace.

The Festival of Colors organizers, on the other hand, have posted thousands of images of its guests in many venues domestically and internationally as promotional materials on the Internet. It is obvious that massive amounts of “Holi” powders imported from India coated their guests and were inevitably inhaled. The chemical pollution issue from the toxic chemicals in these powders has been extremely well-documented in peer-reviewed scientific journals as well as numerous newspaper articles. 

In addition, the many lawsuits filed during the decades after the September 11, 2001 tragedy have shown that lung damage caused by breathing airborne pollutants laced with lethal toxins can take years to develop into mesothelioma and other cancers. 

These facts have given future claimants of the Festival of Colors lawsuits a distinct advantage over their J&J counterparts because their contact with the toxin-laced Holi dust has been thoroughly documented by the festival organizers themselves. 

Furthermore, the requirement to show proof of suffering any medically diagnosed illnesses acquired as a result is a moot point in light of the long exposure timing issues legal experts have encountered when dealing with toxic pollutant lawsuits involving air and water contamination. In other words, no matter when and how you were exposed to chemicals with potentially harmful and/or fatal toxic properties through inhaling, ingesting or any other means, the corporations or organizations responsible remain culpable indefinitely.

Instead of treating their guests simply as a throng of pleasure-seekers eager to part with their money, the promoters will shortly find themselves besieged by lawyers seeking to collect millions in punitive and compensatory damages for claimants exposed to

Since most claimants will seek class action status to expedite their claims and can provide irrefutable evidence to substantiate them, the Festival of Colors organizers will be in a much worse position than others accused of exposing people to hazardous substances.

In recent years such environmental toxic tort settlements have resulted in multi-million dollar payments to claimants from companies otherwise known for their rigid product safety measures and consumer loyalty.

Furthermore, the ongoing exposure assessments used in civil lawsuits to evaluate multimillion dollar environmental toxic tort settlements have been rendered unnecessary by the mountain of photographic evidence that the festival’s organizers have used for promotional purposes. This fact will expedite the claims process for the multitudes whose cases will keep personal injury law firms occupied for years to come.

Notes

1. Virtually all of the civil lawsuits against J&J have been based on adult claimants’ allegations that its talcum baby powders were the source of the mesothelioma and ovarian cancers they developed after years of using the product for personal hygiene purposes. However, in 2018 a Reuters investigative report exposed J&J’s knowledge of asbestos contamination in its talc products tracing back decades. Tests from different labs found asbestos in Its talc from 1971 to the early 2000s, and the company failed to report the findings to the U.S.# Food and Drug Administration. Although J&J insisted that scientists have found no correlation between use of its talc-based products and cancer, juries have overwhelmingly rejected its findings and ruled in favor of the claimants without requiring proof that any of them actually used Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder. The sheer number of such lawsuits (currently 52,000 with many more in the pipeline) led J & J to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection twice (in an obvious effort to sidestep additional jury trials). 

For a concise summary of the history of the Johnson & Johnson asbestos issue and lawsuits, please see:

Whitmer, Michelle. "Johnson & Johnson." Asbestos.com, 24 Jan 2024, https://www.asbestos.com/companies/johnson-johnson/.

Knauth, Dietrich. “J & J Effort to Resolve Talc Lawsuits in Bankruptcy Fails a Second Time.” Reuters.com. 31 July 2023. 5 Sept. 2023,

<https://www.reuters.com/legal/jj-effort-resolve-talc-lawsuits-bankruptcy-fails-second-time-2023-07-28. 

2. Although J&J has consistently upheld the safety of its talc-based products, scientific analyses have long since definitively shown that the mines from which it is extracted are naturally contaminated by asbestos. J&J was aware of this fact from 1957, but continued to sell them in the USA and Canada until, under pressure from a mountain of ongoing litigation, it finally ceased production altogether in 2020.

 

3. For example , in 2021 two lawsuits awarded two municipalities settlements of nearly $90 million in damages for the presence of polyfluoroalkyal (PFOA) in water in upstate New York. And these are only the tip of the iceberg. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry of the Department of Health and Human Services (CDC/ATSDR) is currently conducting exposure assessments by enlisting the voluntary cooperation of people living in areas around the U.S. known to be contaminated by PFOA in the soil and water (all attributed to nearby U.S. military operations). It is also conducting a thorough governmental and legal examination of regulatory issues dealing with the knowledge that various branches of the U.S. government had in allowing the PFOA contamination to continue unabated for decades.

 Disclaimer: Nothing in this blog essay is meant as a substitute for professional legal advice. If you wish to proceed with any claims against the Festival of Colors organization either as an individual or as part of a class action settlement, it would be prudent to contact a reputable personal injury law firm in your area. Although I stand by the research findings in this essay, all of it and much more can be obtained using the services of any competent paralegal.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This essay and all of the charts and illustrations were prepared by and are the exclusive property of the blog author. Using any part of them in any manner, in print or online, is strictly forbidden. A standard link to this blog is a better alternative.

.