HARE KRISHNA CULT EXPOSED: Gopal Krishna Goswami

Showing posts with label Gopal Krishna Goswami. Show all posts

SEX-STARVED IDIOTS & SLAVES: HOW ISKCON REGARDS WOMEN & WHY IT MATTERS

When India’s Supreme Court ruled on 11 October that sex with girls under the age of 18 is always rape, it threw cold water on the so-called husbands of underage girls who suddenly found themselves unable to hide behind the former exemption for child brides as young as 15. It also brought to mind the revulsion—or should I say obsession?--with female sexuality so characteristic of the ISKCON/Hare Krishna cult and especially of its founder, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. One incident demonstrating this tendency comes to mind, dating back to the summer of 1977.

SWAMI TO BABY GIRL’S PARENTS: NO SURGERY TO FIX BIRTH DEFECT!

I was briefly staying at the ISKCON Mumbai complex at Juhu, living, as usual, in squalor, when an Indian devotee married to an American living in the room across mine told me what happened when they sought advice from our guru about an operation their infant daughter urgently needed to correct a birth defect. (For those readers puzzled by this situation, you need to know that our guru regarded himself as the ultimate authority in all matters relating to his disciples’ lives and invited them to avail themselves of his so-called expertise. Bizarre but true.) Predictably enough, as soon as they informed him that the defect needing surgical correction related to the girl’s sex organs, he told them to do nothing. I still remember the mother’s ashen face and sense of hopelessness. I still wonder if they heeded the advice of their pediatrician and ignored the smug, saffron-clad blathering’s of our know-it-all “guru.”

BEHIND THE BHAJANS & PRASADAM: HELL FOR HARE KRISHNA WOMEN

Today, in fact, there is a wide gulf between the public face of ISKCON and the lives of members of the cult. Rigid conformity to the published teachings of Bhaktivedanta Swami is enforced through coercion and threats of defamation and expulsion. Devotees live in a regressive universe where they actively deride women members who aspire to equal treatment as “feminists,” urging them instead to submit to their husbands and be content with the notion that they are intellectual inferiors better suited to keeping house and being mothers. These types of anti-feminist rants are vestiges of culture wars that were fought at least 30 years ago. Acting as if they have any significance today is just pathetic and laughable.

Furthermore, many of the beliefs about women that Bhaktivedanta Swami’s disciples and “grand” disciples insist are as authoritative as their guru was, are shockingly vulgar and repulsive. As a former disciple of his, I will always feel cheated for having wasted the best years of my life following and defending someone capable of slandering women and marriage in such horrible terms:

Prabhupada said, “The dog likes to smell the vagina. You are like that. What is business of going another vagina? You require vagina. Take one and be satisfied. That is intelligence. First of all there is no need of vagina. But if you want, take one and be satisfied. Why you are searching after dog vagina, this vagina, that vagina, that vagina? We must expose them, that’s all. This is our business. This is a good opportunity in the court, so that it will be published. People will know what is our philosophy. Licking of vagina civilization, this. Publish. Room conversation with Adi-Kesava Swami, 19 February 1977, Mayapur,West Bengal

They are never satisfied, the vagina business.One who is dhīra,sober, he tolerates little itching sensation: "What this nonsense?" And if you practice toleration, there will be no more. Finished. You become liberated. Therefore, from the very beginning of life, childhood, this teach him, that "Don't be a vagina-smelling animal. Room Conversation: 25 Feb. 1977 Mayapura, West Bengal.

I have done what he desired: with this posting, I have published his vile rant so people who think that the fancy temples and programs to which they give their hard-earned money--all under the impression that they are genuine Hindu mandirs--might stand corrected. For the ISKCON devotees themselves, they can either wake up or continue living in delusions as they see fit.

Of course, I am well aware that media and political personalities who have either supported or awarded prizes or praised ISKCON for its public relations follies would never have given their approval had they researched the cult thoroughly. The only way to inform such deluded parties is to contact them and send them the link to specific postings on this blog and its companion, https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com.

The following is a collection of quotations about women from the published works of the founder/acharya of the Hare Krishna cult, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, categorized by topic. My comments follow each in blue. "SB" refers to Srimad Bhagavatam (see notes).

Preference of Male to Female Children:

Letter of November, 1975 to his disciple, Dhananjaya Das:

I've noticed that you gave birth to a girl. This is precisely the defect. I want male children. But you do not have the Stamina. When I saw the belly of Vilasini, I really thought it would be a boy...... Why is the majority of my married students only giving birth to girls?

More ignorance: The gender of a child is solely determined by the father. "Stamina" has nothing to do with it!

Approval of Wife-Beating:

Room conversation, 12 April, 1969, New York

Likewise, pasu, animals, when you say, "My dear dog, you shall not run there." Zack! (laughs) "No, dear dog."Zack! That's right. Likewise, women. If you become indulgent, it will make trouble. In India still, in the villages, whenever there is dispute between the husband and the wife, then she is beaten by the man and she is tame again (laughs).

ISKCON devotee-zombies who fail to object to this description of wife-beating will one day hear the "Zack! of a whip themselves when they are run out of town by people who are sick and tired of their nonsense.

Calling Indira Gandhi and other “Free”Women Prostitutes:

Lecture on 5 April, 1977, Mumbai

Prabhupada: Talks to students about former Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi.

She is not a leader. She is a prostitute. When women are liberated, this means prostitutes. Free women are called prostitutes.

Really? What does name-calling achieve but a display of envy and frustration? Get your facts straight. Every human being, man or woman, has the intrinsic right to personal autonomy, happiness, and the right to be the architect of his or her own destiny. Religious fanaticism is what puts shackles on the lives of people, training them to believe that they are helpless pawns of past karmic sins with no free will.

SB 6.17.34-35 Purport

It must be said clearly that the understanding of a woman is always lower than the understanding of a man.

More nonsense. I remember how early ISKCON devotees took this literally and claimed that all men were smarter than any woman. Amazing stupidity.

Lecture on SB 1.3.21, 26 September 1972, Los Angeles.

This is psychologically true, that within the brain, the brain substance, if there is more, then one is more intelligent.. . Just see, modern scientific psychology, how it was known, long, long millions of years ago. At least five thousand years ago. . . I was student of psychology, and our professor… He was a Scotman. He explained this brain substance, cerebular substance, Dr. Urquhart, that the more brain substance is there, more one becomes intelligent. And it has been found that a woman does not have more than thirty-six ounce of brain substance, whereas in man it has been found that he has got up to sixty-four ounce. Now, this is modern science. Therefore generally, generally, woman, less intelligent than man. You cannot find any big scientist, any big mathematician, any big philosopher amongst woman. That is not possible. Although in your country, you want equal status with man, freedom, but by nature you are less intelligent. What can be done?

Perhaps the most ridiculous statement our guru every uttered, based on a total ignorance of science, history, and common sense. His slavish devotion to the words of an European professor--what a big deal in to a student in Calcutta!--are particularly laughable. Trotting out the old claims of an ancient "Vedic Science" having existed is another myth and salve for people who hunger for self-importance instead of doing the hard work of getting a real education.

Letter to Madhukara, 4 January 1973

To understand Brahman is not the business of tiny brain. Alpha-medhasan. There are two Sanskrit words, alpa-medhasa and sumedhasa. Alpa-medhasa means having little brain substance. Physiologically, within the brain there are brain substance. It is found that the brain substance in man is found up to 64 ounce. They are very highly intellectual persons. And in woman the brain substance is not found more than 34 ounce. You’ll find, therefore, that there is no very great scientist, mathematician, philosopher, among women. You’ll never find because their brain substance cannot go. Artificially do not try to become equal with men. That is not allowed in the Vedic sastra. Na striyam svatantratam arhati. That is called sastra.You have to understand that woman is never given to be independence. But if there is sex desire, how to control it? Women are normally very lusty, more lusty than men, and they are weaker sex, it is difficult for them to make spiritual advancement without the help of husband. For so many reasons, our women must have husband. That's all right, but if once they have got a husband he goes away so quickly, that will not be very much happy for them.

So, women are so dumb and lustful, according to "Vedic Sastra" that they must rely on their husbands for their instruction and are also to be denied independence? This statement of Bhaktivedanta Swami is an unwarranted insult to women, and especially the many great women intellectuals of history, many of them Indians of all faiths and, yes, highly intellectual and educated. It truly pains me to state the obvious!

Belief That Women Enjoy Being Raped:

Morning walk, 11 May 1975, Perth

Prabhupada: “Rape means without consent, sex. Otherwise there is no rape. There was a rape case in Calcutta, and the lawyer was very intelligent. He some way or other made the woman admit, ‘Yes, I felt happiness.’ So he was released. ‘Here is consent.’ And that’s a fact. Because after all, sex, rape or no rape, they will feel some pleasure. So the lawyer by hook and crook made the woman agree, ‘Yes, I felt some pleasure.’ ‘Now, there is consent.’ So he was released. After all, it is an itching sensation. So either by force or by willingly, if there is itching, everyone feels relieved itching it. That’s a psychology. It is not that the woman do not like rape. They like sometimes. They willingly. That is the psychology. Outwardly they show some displeasure, but inwardly they do not. This is the psychology.”

No, sir, you knew nothing about "psychology" or the law. Rape is a horribly violent act that ruins the lives of millions of women and, unfortunately, is rarely reported or litigated because of fear and prejudices like the kinds you trot out here. Your judge without the slightest bit of decency or competence would dare ask a woman if she enjoyed the act! That is simple insanity. How dare you claim that women like being raped! Such evil!

SB 4.25.41, Purport

Although rape is not legally allowed, it is a fact that a woman likes a man who is very expert at rape.

More of the same ignorant, vicious generalizations from a man who married an 11 year old girl. Shame!

Support of Child Marriage, Slavery of Wives, and Sati:

Room conversation, 27 February 1977, Mayapur

Man has no maximum. Even an eighty-years-old man can marry a sixteen-years-old girl.

Disgusting nonsense! An old bag "marrying" a teenager?

Letter to Mr. Loy, 7 November 1972, Vrindavan

And it is recommended they should be married at very early age, then the wife will remain always chaste and devoted to her husband. At such young age, from the first night onwards, she can never for a moment forget him, being still child and unspoiled, therefore she becomes the perfect chaste wife, and in those times the wife was so much devoted to her husband that she would voluntarily die in the fire of his cremation, unable to live without him. Myself, I was very young when I got married, and my wife was 11 years only.

Where did our guru dig up this nonsense? His own wife clearly disliked him and for good reason. As for a wife committing suicide by burning herself alive, that's just another legend men use to dispose of widows. Sati was murder and nothing else. Nothing voluntary about it.

Room conversation, 15 August 1971, London

Sex life, sex urge is there as soon as twelve years, thirteen years old, especially women. So therefore early marriage was sanctioned in India. Early marriage. Boy fifteen years, sixteen years, and girl twelve years. Not twelve years, ten years.

See my essay: https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com/2016/01/sex-lies-and-sadhu-making.html.

SB 4.25.42, purport

A young woman who has no husband is called anatha, meaning ‘one who is not protected.’ As soon as a woman attains the age of puberty, she immediately becomes very much agitated by sexual desire. It is therefore the duty of the father to get his daughter married before she attains puberty. Otherwise she will be very much mortified by not having a husband. Anyone who satisfies her desire for sex at that age becomes a great object of satisfaction. It is a psychological fact that when a woman at the age of puberty meets a man and the man satisfies her sexually, she will love that man for the rest of her life, regardless who he is.

Treating women like animals who mate for life with the first man who rapes them as a young child--it's called statutory rape, people--reduces them to the status of animals. It is pure fiction and a ghastly justification for sexual assault of children as well as child marriage.

Twelve years. And she was given to a boy, my brother-in-law, for the second marriage. Means that my brother-in-law lost his first wife, and still, he was twenty-one years old. My sister was twelve years old and brother-in-law was twenty-one. In the sastra I do not know exactly what is that sastra, but they say that if the girl before marriage has menstruation, then the father has to eat that menstrual liquid. Means it is, mean, very strict. And if the father is not living, then the elder brother has to eat. [break] …of getting the girl married rests on the father. In the absence of the father, the eldest brother. The girl must be married. That is it. It is called daya, kanya-daya.

Drinking menstrual blood because you can't get your little daughter married? Now I've heard everything.

Lecture: 19 March, 1976, Mayapura, India

And the women are declaring, “independent.” They are begging door to door to a man, “Please give me shelter. Give me a child,” and they’re independent. One American woman, was…. She was speaking that “In India, the woman are treated as slave. We don’t want.” So I told her that it is better to become slave of one person than to slave of become hundreds. (laughter)The woman must become a slave. So instead of becoming slaves of so many persons, it is better to remain satisfied, a slave of one person.. . . And our Vedic civilization says, narī-rūpa pati-vratam: “The woman is beautiful when she remains as a slave to the husband.” That is the beauty, not the personal beauty. How much she has learned to remain as a slave to the husband, that is Vedic civilization.

Sorry, but the only women I have ever encountered begging and being treated as slaves were ISKCON devotees, particularly those who spent their days hawking our guru's books and living like mice in a wall. To treat marriage as a kind of slavery is another reason why ISKCON will one day evaporate and be a blot on the history of Hinduism.

Morning Walk, Bombay, 12 April, 1974

Formerly, when I was married, my wife was eleven years old. So (laughing) an eleven years old girl and I was at the same time twenty-one, twenty-two. One day I captured her hand. She began to cry. A little girl, you see?

Yes, we all see, unfortunately for your reputation as a "pure devotee"! That little girl should have been home playing with her sisters and her toys. Instead, she got hell.

Education of Women

SB 1.3.13 Lecture, Los Angeles, 18 September, 1972

So dealing with woman… Especially instruction are given to men. All literatures, all Vedic literatures, they are especially meant for instruction to the men. Woman is to follow the husband. That’s all. The husband will give instruction to the wife. There is no such thing as the girl should go to school to take brahmacari asrama or go to spiritual master to take instruction. That is not Vedic system. Vedic system is a man is fully instructed, and woman, girl, must be married to a man. Even the man may have many wives, polygamy, still, every woman should be married. And she would get instruction from the husband. This is Vedic system. Woman is not allowed to go to school, college, or to the spiritual master. But husband and wife, they can be initiated. That is Vedic system.

Barefoot and pregnant, literally. Since Bhaktivedanta Swami, by his own admission, never read the Vedas and believed that women should be denied educations, reading his books is a waste of time and visiting temples erected by his followers is an insult to Hindu culture.

[1]

All quotations from the writings, lectures, and personal talks of ISKCON founder/acharya, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, can be retrieved here: https://prabhupadavani.org.

The following is a sample of documented comments he made in his role as ultimate authority of ISKCON, all addressed to his initiated disciples unless otherwise noted:

Srimad Bhagavatam , 4.26.26, purport: Generally when a woman is attacked by a man – whether her husband or some other man – she enjoys the attack, being too lusty.

Srimad Bhagavatam,4.25.42, purport: When a husbandless woman is attacked by an aggressive man, she takes his action to be mercy.

References and Notes

[1] This neatly summarizes the events that led to the lawsuit filed in 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1809847.stm.

[2] This article contains detailed information about the culture in ISKCON in its role in the Gurukula and Robin George lawsuits. http://www.icsahome.com/articles/authoritarian-culture-and-child-abuse-in-iskcon.

The "Srimad Bhagavatam" quoted here and elsewhere in my blog refers to what is more commonly known as the Bhagavata Purana, one of the eighteen puranas (histories) dating from somewhere between the eighth and the tenth century, CE. In common with most epic poems, it is a lengthy compendium of topics relating to the mythical origins of a people, in this case those of the Indian subcontinent. Other characteristics of similar works in the epic genre are claims concerning ancient composition, single authors, and an almost continuous stream of fanciful exaggerations that orthodox readers (such as Bhaktivedanta Swami) take literally. Its significance to the Hare Krishna cult rests on its placing the avatar of Vishnu, Krishna, on a platform that Vaishnavas (devotees of Vishnu) regard as higher than any other deity in the Hindu pantheon and the devotional practices of Bhakti Yoga as the culmination of all others. In reality, the Bhagavata Purana owes much of its influence to its composite nature as a work of epic literature and especially its syncretic philosophical underpinnings. Bhaktivedanta Swami's commentaries (he called them "purports") with their rigid literalism and emphasis on chanting and adoration of the Radha Krishna deity skirt the general philosophical agreement of the Bhagavata Purana with the monism of the great Shankara. The aim of all yoga is reunion of the errant soul with the Divine.

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ISKCON AND ITS DISCONTENTS: LIES & SPIES

The ability of a cult to camouflage itself is an integral part of its survival. Controlling dissidents and blunting the effects of criticism are also priorities. Confronted with an uncomfortable truth, cult leaders often adopt the defense strategy of a poisonous blow fish that puffs itself up to appear bigger than it actually is.

"WHO MAKES US IGNORANT? WE OURSELVES.
WE PUT OUR HANDS OVER OUR EYES AND
WEEP THAT IT IS DARK."

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

In addition to blending in and trying to appear disproportionately threatening, cults have infiltrated dissident websites in an effort to control, intimidate, and learn the identity of critics. From a practical viewpoint, dissidents who limit their criticism to chatting with other like-minded ex-cult members on a website will also be less likely to engage in actions that might prove embarrassing to the cult. In this way, even the therapeutic value of discussing one’s misfortunes becomes another tool of cult subversion.

Before I discuss some of the tactics the Hare Krishna/ISKCON cult uses in this regard, I would like to take a moment to discuss a similar pattern in two other major cults that arose to prominence during the 1960's and 1970's and have remained highly influential and controversial.

The Unification Church (“the Moonies”) has diligently worked to transform its image from a family of spiritual autocrats to all-American hyper-conservatives, founding the influential Washington Times newspaper and acquiring United Press International (UPI), among many other business interests. This is a far cry from a cult whose early enthusiasts were known for selling roses by the side of the road. However, these public relation schemes are like a tight, gaudy costume worn by a fat exotic potentate: if he runs too fast, it rips off, exposing his hideous nakedness to the laughter of the general public.

Examples abound: who can forget the filing of false Federal income tax returns and charges of conspiracy that led to the conviction and imprisonment of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in 1984? Given the literature and videos meticulously exposing the contrast between the practices and actual beliefs of these and other cults established during the mid-to late 20th century, why do they continue to attract new recruits and what can be done about it?

A few years ago I came upon a website that strongly criticized the Hare Krishna/ISKCON cult’s views about and treatment of women using direct quotations from the teachings of its founder, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. A few things about the website bothered me, however. For one thing, the graphics used were of an unusually high caliber and it also contained a number of direct links to a number of authorized ISKCON websites. What the hell? Apart from the quotations that were concentrated at the bottom of the webpage, most postings resembled Facebook entries written by a punk-rock addicted teenage girl. Before long, as the saying goes, I smelled a rat.

PLEASE HELP SUPPORT THIS WEBSITE!

Why, you might ask, would leaders—most probably initiating gurus-- of the Hare Krishna cult engage in subverting the authority of its founder/acharya in such a brazen manner? The answer is two-fold: unlike the vast majority of ISKCON devotees and the mostly Hindu community that make up the bulk of its donors, the present-day gurus of the movement are well-versed in the lectures, speeches, and commentaries of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. They also know that his preposterous and ill-informed notions about race, women, and so-called "Vedic Science" cannot survive rational scrutiny. For instance, his notion of slavery as the ideal state for blacks and women:

19 March, 1976, Mayapura, India:

Prabhupāda: And the women are declaring, “independent.” They are begging door to door to a man, “Please give me shelter. Give me a child,” and they’re independent. One American woman, was…. She was speaking that “In India, the woman are treated as slave. We don’t want.” So I told her that it is better to become slave of one person than to slave of become hundreds. (laughter) The woman must become a slave. So instead of becoming slaves of so many persons, it is better to remain satisfied, a slave of one person. . . . And our Vedic civilization says, narī-rūpa pati-vratam: “The woman is beautiful when she remains as a slave to the husband.” That is the beauty, not the personal beauty. How much she has learned to remain as a slave to the husband, that is Vedic civilization.

Taped conversation of Srila Prabhupada and disciples (14 February, 1977, Mayapur, India):
Prabhupada: Sudra is to be controlled only. They are never given to be freedom. Just like in America. The blacks were slaves. They were under control. And since you have given them equal rights they are disturbing, most disturbing, always creating a fearful situation, uncultured and drunkards. What training they have got? They have got equal right? That is best, to keep them under control as slaves but give them sufficient food, sufficient cloth, not more than that. Then they will be satisfied.

Of course, the swami's endorsement of slavery for blacks and women is bold-faced nonsense, good only for belly laughs and informing would-be Hare Krishna followers. If that were not enough, here's what he has to say about the brains of women:

3 February, 1975, Hawaii, (Lecture on Srimad Bhagavatam)

Prabhupada: To understand Brahman is not the business of tiny brain. Alpha-medhasan. There are two Sanskrit words, alpa-medhasa and sumedhasa. Alpa-medhasa means having little brain substance. Physiologically, within the brain there are brain substance. It is found that the brain substance in man is found up to 64 ounce. They are very highly intellectual persons. And in woman the brain substance is not found more than 34 ounce. You’ll find, therefore, that there is no very great scientist, mathematician, philosopher, among women. You’ll never find because their brain substance cannot go. Artificially do not try to become equal with men. That is not allowed in the Vedic sastra. Na striyam svatantratam arhati. That is called sastra. You have to understand that woman is never given to be independence.

So much for "Vedic science"! Srila Prabhupada followers! Next time you become seriously ill, what will you do? I bet you will run for your pitiable life to the best modern hospital you can find and eagerly submit yourself to the hands of a specialist, who very possibly will be a woman and whose medicines and therapies were developed using modern research techniques in laboratories where men and women work side by side. Mantras, Deity-worship, and other means of selectively denying reality won't help you, what to speak of your literal scripture readings. Time to wake up and clear the cobwebs off your underutilized "brain substance"!

If the swami's views about brain size were true, the sperm whale, a mammal possessing, at 7.8kg, the largest brain on the planet, would enslave all of us as one gigantic, jagad-guru:

Sripada Whale-ji giving underwater SB lecture

Secondly, many of these gurus have amassed more disciples than their guru ever had and have also become experts at manipulating donors to enrich their coffers and fund the building of elaborate temples. In short, they have turned into self-deluded, dhoti-clad megalomaniacs bent on supplanting their guru. They want to be him:

HEAD OF ISKCON? http://www.narendramodi.in/shri-gopal-krishna-goswami-maharaja-head-iskcon-meets-pm-modi-428324.

These puffed-up charlatans are fully aware that they have wasted their lives chasing delusions. Like video-game addicts who have lost touch with reality, many senior ISKCON devotees in leadership positions live like petty tyrants drunk with power surrounded by hordes of their fawning acolytes. Most of all, they fear critics who would expose their candy-coated fake Hinduism to the public (especially the genuine Hindu organizations and politicians whose support is essential to their mission).

Aware that donors continue to be cultivated almost entirely by personal contacts, fancy events, as well as invitations and newsletters sent by ordinary mail, these cultists show little concern about criticism in blogs or other kinds of social media. However, if even a few of the influential people ISKCON has spent years cultivating finds an impassioned, impeccably researched diatribe written by an ex-cult member sitting in their mailboxes, it might spark an angry confrontation with significant financial repercussions.[1] Spending a relatively insignificant amount of money covertly funding a fake anti-ISKCON website is a small price to pay for avoiding such a disaster.

However, it is a bitter and uncomfortable truth that avoidance is the coward’s reaction to confrontation and informed argument. So is abusing the trust of others, especially when you know that they are turning to you for comfort and healing from extremely traumatic experiences. Remember that the term con artist refers to people who extract confidences from other people and then use the information for their own nefarious purposes.To exploit people who suffered in a cult and managed to extricate themselves is a grim, diabolical business.

The cold war strategy of containment is used by these so-called anti-ISKCON websites to herd dissidents together and thus keep them from disturbing the cult’s donor relations. Most of the few that operate with any form of sophistication are rife with signs that they are both funded and maintained by the cult itself. Apparently the idiots who believe that the sun is closer to the Earth than the moon have so little respect for the rest of us that they frequently overreach and engage in preposterous exaggerations that give themselves away almost immediately.

New! Don't Miss: https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-note-to-my-readers-voice-crying-in.html.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this essay can be reproduced in any medium without the express written consent of the author.

[1] Ironic, isn’t it? Yet, after many years of experience in not-for-profit fundraising, I can tell you it is the truth.

RAPE & MONSTROUS ABUSE: ISKCON GURU'S CRIMINAL PAST

ISKCON founder on rape:

Generally when a woman is attacked by a man--whether her husband or some other man--she enjoys the attack, being too lusty. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Srimad Bhagavatam 4.26.26 purport.

Some years ago, during a routine purchase at a department store near where I worked, it happened that the clerk handling my purchase was a Bangladeshi Muslim who noticed my last name and asked me where I got it. I told him that I had once been married to an Indian and then noticed him looking intently at my eyes. He became furious and asked me if I had been abused by my husband. I said nothing, but by that time my eyes were full and I couldn't say anything. He said--rather almost shouted--that his people do not believe in maltreating their wives. After thanking him, I left with my purchase and went back to work, but I have never forgotten that chance encounter. What I now share with you, dear readers, is a great deal of the reason why:

He is now known as Gopal Krishna Goswami and was a Hare Krishna guru with many disciples. It is especially ironic that he was given the honorific title “Goswami”--it is conferred on married men who have abandoned their wives and means “one who controls his senses”--when he took the order of “sannyasa” (an exalted life as a celibate monk) a few years after the events you are about to read. I hope you find this episode instructive and I apologize in advance for the repellent nature of its contents. Here we go:

No one expects rational behavior from a zombie or a dreamer. Yet both of these states describe what devotees become after years of indoctrination based on the idea that “you are not the body.” In fact, this artificial dichotomy between body and spirit had been the principal means the Hare Krishna movement used to ensnare us. In place of reason, our sincere but gullible minds had been filled with more Hindu folklore and mythology than I care to remember. Healing meant putting the pieces—body and soul—together again and beginning to think for ourselves. During the years shortly after the death of our guru, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, in 1977, legions of devotees left the movement. Some say that the excesses of the GBC, who had usurped the whole guru business and tolerated widespread corruption, were responsible. However, I firmly believe that the real cause was the end of the cult of personality that Prabhupada’s presence had sustained. Once he died, the bubble burst. The GBC and ISKCON leaders responded to the rebellion that ensued by raising their doomsday fanaticism to a fever pitch.

Had I any idea of what Gopal Krishna had in mind when he unexpectedly told me that he would stay overnight with us en route to the New York temple, I would have told him to go straight to hell. Never in my life have I regretted any decision more and never have I paid for it more dearly.

Gopal Krishna was in full demonic mode when my son and I met him at KennedyAirport, getting off the plane without acknowledging us and looking like an enraged wart hog that had been hastily dressed in a crumpled dhoti. He walked along with his gigantic nostrils flared in disgust, as if suddenly aware of his own stench. What I am about to recount is infinitely more disgusting, however: consider yourself warned!

It began when we took a cab from the airport to my apartment. Totally unexpectedly and in full view of my son, Gopal Krishna began to grab at me (I was sitting in the front seat next to the driver), with a face blank but for the glittering beady eyes and malicious leer of a sexual pervert. Astonished and repulsed beyond words, I tried to stop him, slapping his hand and telling him to stop, but he continued undaunted until we got out of the taxi. Ignorant of what had just happened, my mother and brother greeted him very decently, but he said next to nothing: he had something else on his mind.

To wit, as soon as my son was asleep in the other twin bed opposite us, he insisted on having sex, answering my protests (I reminded him that he, a GBC member, was openly breaking the regulative principle against illicit sex) by forcing himself on me, claiming that it was his right because “married people can have sex.” I was terrified that my mother and brother might hear us, what to speak of my son. Worse, he treated me as if I were a cheap prostitute by forcing his vile tongue into my mouth and ejaculating onto his soiled dhoti. In the morning, he locked himself into the bedroom alone with me and repeated the night’s performance at least twice. He did the same thing that night.The black-hearted, evil fiend!

This bedroom was where I used to play with my brothers and sisters as well as my dolls when I was a little girl.

During Sunday, when we went to the Bronx Botanical Gardens with our son, he tried to grab at me again and was similarly repulsed. What a filthy, evil scumbag! He also called me a prostitute because, according to him, I should have been able to save $100 out of the $400 I earned a month.

What this worse-than-rape experience did to my soul is hard to describe. I knew that I was done with Gopal Krishna forever, but still, trapped as I was in circumstances I could not substantially change without tremendous support and counseling, I felt myself more zombie than human. Moreover, he ended his assault on my body by trying to assault my reason, telling me as we took a cab together to the city Monday morning that nuclear bombs were so freely available in New York City that the drugstores secretly carried them. I laughed out loud at this insanity and got a venomous stare in response. As the cab dropped me off near my humble job on 34th Street, Gopal Krishna, his uglier than warthog face distorted with hate, handed me $100 and again called me a prostitute.

If anything good came out of this nightmare, it was my realization once and for all that evil exists and is personified in people like Gopal Krishna, demons in human form who are devoid of all genuine humanity. Like Harpies from Greek myth, they pollute all they touch. This is undeniably what Gopal Krishna intended when he raped me in my childhood home and when he harassed me in the Botanical Gardens, which had been a beloved refuge for much of my life. Monster!

When I think of the devotees who used to come to visit my sister and I back in 1968-1969 when we were young teenagers and how innocent and sincere we all were, I still feel blank horror at the thought of Gopal’s deliberate pollution of my childhood home. No wonder I felt I had to get out of there and, taking my son and the ever-present suitcases, flew to Los Angeles and into the final stage of my journey out of the Hare Krishna movement.

For an eye-opening account of events preceding the above horror, please see:
https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-mystery-of-flying-chair-vyas-puja.html.

If you still need more information and an update, see this!

https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com/2016/10/hare-krishna-hackers-beware.html.

SAFFRON ROBES & ROLE PLAYING: THE ISKCON CULT IN HINDU DISGUISE

HARE KRISHNA DEVOTEES, NYC.

Although many years ago I was one of them, today whenever I see a non-Indian Hare Krishna devotee walking down the street clad in a sari, it fills me with a profound sense of disquiet. Something is clearly wrong. On the other hand, to see a Hindu woman outside of India wearing a sari in any setting--professional or just shopping with her family--seems absolutely normal.

When I was a child, my mother always described Indians as Hindus and never failed to mention how both their men and women are intelligent and good-looking. It is also worth mentioning that these observations went hand-in-hand with the high esteem she held for Hindu philosophy, which she attributed to the radio lectures by Jiddu Krishnamurti she listened to as a child.

I learned first-hand just why the identity of Indians is intertwined with Hinduism when I visited the pilgrimage town of Vrindavan in the early 70's (shortly after the arranged disaster of a marriage to an Indian I discuss elsewhere in this blog). We had just finished visiting the "old" Govindaji temple and the newer version when I spotted an much larger, really gorgeous one nearby. Apparently a sign warning non-Hindus not to enter was posted outside, but my husband told me to cover my face with my sari with only my eyes showing.

Well, as you can imagine, the gatekeepers saw my white skin and forbade my entrance. What is more, they started shouting (in Hindi), "the English, the English," to my considerable amusement and surprise. Since I had just learned that the top floors of the old Govindaji temple had been razed on the orders of the infamous Mughal tyrant, Aurangzeb, they might as well have been shouting, "the Muslims, the Muslims." However, my impression of these old, unhealed traumas seemed to make their pride in the survival of their Hindu heritage that much stronger.

Unfortunately, with the rise of the New Age infatuation with exoticism of all kinds, many Indian swamis eager to manipulate the gullible crept in and used marketing tactics to their advantage. Based on my own experience, the following sums up one of the worst offenders:

When A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada took it upon himself to export Gaudiya (Bengali) Vaishnavism to the West in 1966, he also repeatedly denounced Hinduism. Instead, he preached that the bhakti-yoga practice consisting of chanting, deity worship, and literal scripture readings was the only path to Sanatan Dharma. To his American and European followers, it was also presented as an easy way to self-realization.

In fact, as the notorious history of the Hare Krishna cult has amply demonstrated, it was nothing but a cheap imitation. Consequently, it bred a host of contemptuous, ignorant cowards among the American followers of the Swami's Hare Krishna movement, many of whom survive to this day, using propaganda, violence, and subterfuge in their "devotional" conquests.

Moreover, despite the popularity of Yoga and Meditation world-wide, their practice does not make the beneficiaries of these ancient disciplines Hindus. Why, then, do the members of the Hare Krishna (ISKCON) claim that their bhakti-yoga practice is an exception? Using the example of the Gaudiya Vaishnava saint Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu as proof that non-caste Hindus can study Vedanta and become brahmins by virtue of their chanting the Hare Krishna mantra proves nothing.

Far worse, it treats Bhakti-Yoga as a kind of Hindu magic: simply chant the Maha Mantra, eat food offered to the Radha Krishna deity, and you too can become better than a brahmin or an Indian who by birth is a Hindu?

HARE KRISHNA SWAMI’S ATTEMPT TO KILL WIFE & UNBORN SON

Attempted Murder in the Second Degree is a Class B Violent Felony punishable by 5-15 years imprisonment.[i]

The following is an account of a horrifying instance of criminal abuse—specifically attempted murder of both a pregnant mother and her unborn son—at the hands of her (so-called) husband, who was then known as Gopal Krishna Das. Moreover, after he abandoned us and left me to raise our son without any financial assistance, he became a swami in 1981 and became famous for his fundraising prowess, accumulating thousands of disciples in the process. Now that Gopal Krishna “Goswami” has learned his soul’s fate at the hands of the Supreme Justice, it is time for his admirers and any interested parties to know the truth.

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED!

I should have run outside and asked somebody to call the police, people still tell me, but I was so frozen with shock that I could hardly move my feet. Besides, it was bitterly cold outside, even for New York City in that December of 1972 and I was eight and a half months pregnant. I just stood there, looking into Gopal Krishna’s malignant, scowling face—frozen with the same fury that overtook him as he glared at my swollen belly and threw a heavy wooden office chair across the room directly at it. I am writing this today because I dodged the chair and it hit the plaster wall instead. As crimes go, this has got to be one of the worst: the attempted murder of a wife in advanced pregnancy. What an evil, disgusting monster! He should be rotting in jail.

And, no, all of you apologists of the now ISKCON guru “His Holiness Gopal Krishna Goswami,” this is not something you forget, ever. Impossible. Moreover, this so-called ISKCON guru and GBC for much of India, Canada, and Russia, whose birthday is celebrated by his reportedly 10,000 disciples during an annual “Vyas Puja” ceremony filled with tributes and lavish festivities, escaped paying for his crime in the U.S. But if you do indeed believe in the laws of karma, his punishment still awaits him. I was, after all, just like you: I thought that my guru (in my case, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada) could do no wrong and I defended him vigorously and loved him dearly. It’s just that like you, I was under-informed and misguided.

This nightmare of cruelty and cowardice was the culmination of the gross neglect I suffered the hands of Gopal Krishna during my pregnancy. He never wanted a child, obviously. By the time he wrote to our guru defaming me and wanting out of our arranged “marriage,” I was just nineteen and never had a home since leaving my mother’s house two years earlier. I lived in the temple with the single women and, at Gopal Krishna’s insistence, we went to a hotel once a month to “try for a child.” Right, you heard it. During this time he had the temerity to complain to our guru about me and got this reply:

Your wife has proven turbulent, that is the grace of Krishna. I may inform you in this connection about my family life. Actually, I never liked my wife. I was going to marry another, but my father saved me from the danger and he told me that you do not like your wife, that is the grace of Krishna. So don't be worried about your wife. If she wants to re-marry, let her do so, and you'll be free and I shall give you Sannyas [the renounced order] and you will be preaching freely.

Letter to Gopal Krishna Dasa, 11 May 1972

Trouble is, I was a few weeks pregnant at the time. After he showed the letter to me, I informed him of my condition, much to his surprise. Shortly thereafter he casually told me that he had called our guru’s personal secretary and asked him if he should take sannyas anyway and that he was told to wait until after the child was born. Imagine! What a cruel, inhuman thing to say to your pregnant, teenaged wife. I still had to live in the temple with the women and eat the spicy, ill-prepared food. When I insisted that Gopal give me $2.00 a week to buy a few cups of yogurt to supplement my diet, he gave it to me grudgingly for a while, all the while calling me a “prostitute” for asking him for the money.

After a few months, he decided that I should go to India to live with his parents until the child was born, but it was unendurable because their apartment was too small and they barely got along. (Incidently, the claim made by Bhakti Charu Swami that Gopal Krishna was “born into an aristocratic family. . . “is pure hogwash: his parents were a thoroughly respectable sort of people and his father had indeed retired from the Navy, but aristocratic they were not. In addition, the claim that their son was educated at the Sorbonne is nonsense: he took his B.S. in India and a few graduate courses at the Sorbonne in Paris and McGill University in Montreal but never got a graduate degree from either place. These are the facts.)

After I returned to New York I had to go to stay with my mother because there was no other place to live. However, when I went to the temple to see Gopal Krishna, he bluntly informed me that “he had no objection if I had an abortion.” What the hell, I thought. I was aghast and told him so. The dhoti-clad goblin wanted me to kill our unborn child and I was already more than four months pregnant! I told him to go to hell in no uncertain terms. Unfortunately for me, the effects of the ill-treatment I had been suffering for so long caught up with me and before long I was doubled-over in pain, with such severe gastro-intestinal agony that I initially thought was dysentery from my India trip, but, as the tests I underwent proved, were entirely due to extreme stress and misery. It got so bad that I was hospitalized for over a week. I vividly remember how touched I was by the genuine concern and kindness of the attending physician; I simply could not believe that anyone cared about me or how I felt. When Gopal Krishna did visit me in the hospital, he flew into a massive rage, blaming me for getting sick and costing him money for the hospital stay. The nurses came running to my room to see what the matter was, but he just closed the door and continued to yell at me.

After I went back to my mother’s house, I slowly began gaining weight and feeling a bit better. Then one day Gopal shows up and says that he found an apartment near the Brooklyn temple. When I opened the door for the first time, it was clear that it was infested with cockroaches and mice. In addition, although it was a small one bedroom apartment, a sheet covered the living room, which Gopal explained was reserved for our room-mate, a young Indian gentleman. The reason for getting a room-mate was, as he explained, to recoup the cost of my hospitalization. Our room furnishings consisted entirely of one wooden desk chair and a soiled old mattress that someone had given him. No bed, no sheets, not even curtains for the windows. I lived entirely out of my suitcase and kept a few things in plastic milk crates. My mother gave me a few household items and baby clothes, but, really, I had hardly anything. A month before the baby was due, Gopal showed up with a used crib with a broken leg.

Meanwhile, although he was working at his “karmi” job—he was a Marketing Research Analyst at Pepsi-Co and then at Bristol-Myers at their Clairol division, a junior technical position and nothing more—I never knew anything about what he earned and never saw a paycheck or was privy to any of his financial matters. Even when he filed his taxes each year, he would make me sign the form, while holding his hand over the rest to prevent me from seeing what he earned or was receiving as a refund. As far as I know, most of his earnings went to directly to our guru and some went to his parents. So, why did he try to kill me and my unborn child a few weeks before I was due to give birth? For starters, go to the end of this blog page and read the letter to me from my guru, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, at the very end. I will explain the context and offer a full answer for any questions my readers might have in an upcoming blog essay.

https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2015/08/new-rape-and-insults-wife-abuse-iskcon.html

Thanks for your patience and, I hope, your understanding.

A Personal Note to My Readers:

A number of readers have asked about my status as “ Gopal Krishna’s wife,” as if I have not made it perfectly clear in my essays about the subject that the so-called marriage occurred in 1970 and was a marriage in name only. We lived together for less than three years and were legally divorced in 1980. In case you lack the math skills of a small child, that was 41 years ago! Enough already.On a related matter, disciples and other admirers of Gopal Krishna “Goswami” might be interested to know that the honorific “goswami” (instead of “swami”) was applied to him in error. Of course, it doesn’t help that he took the sanyasa order from the convicted murderer Kirtanananda Swami. But it took place in 1981, a year after our legal divorce and eight years after we had separated. Gopal Krishna had been single for years and was thus ineligible for the goswami title. Furthermore, our so-called “spiritual” marriage was also invalid because he and others involved convinced me that our guru Srila Prabhupada had ordered me to marry him. Shortly thereafter, when the disgust and misery of associating with Gopal became insupportable, I got up the nerve to ask my guru if he had in fact ordered me to marry Gopal and he denied having anything to do with it. You cannot imagine how shocked I was, but Gopal, being intent on using me to gratify his vile urges, had no intention of doing the decent thing and getting an annulment. So now— better late than never— you know the truth.

For more on this matter, see:

https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com/2016/10/hare-Krishna-hackers-beware.html

i] New York State Penal Code 125.25.

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SEX-STARVED IDIOTS & SLAVES: HOW ISKCON REGARDS WOMEN & WHY IT MATTERS

ISKCON AND ITS DISCONTENTS: LIES & SPIES

RAPE & MONSTROUS ABUSE: ISKCON GURU'S CRIMINAL PAST

SAFFRON ROBES & ROLE PLAYING: THE ISKCON CULT IN HINDU DISGUISE

HARE KRISHNA SWAMI’S ATTEMPT TO KILL WIFE & UNBORN SON