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Showing posts with label fundraising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fundraising. Show all posts

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

Abused-ISKCON-woman.jpg


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.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please note: copyright protection includes the original illustration at the beginning of this essay. Both essay and the illustration are my creations and exclusive property.
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Location: Newburgh, NY 12550, USA

GAME OF TROLLS: STARRING ISKCON'S KIRTANANANDA SWAMI

THE MADMAN KIRTANANANDA SWAMI 
This posting is the first in a series intended to acquaint readers unfamiliar with the history of the Hare Krishna (ISKCON) movement to obtain a brief but thoroughly representative snapshot of some of its most prominent leaders. I know that most of my readers come to my blog curious about the cult after having received a mailed invitation to attend one of their temple celebrations. Others go directly to my essays to read topics of interest to them either through a recommendation or a web search. So far, however, most of my writings in this blog and its companion, https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com have dealt with philosophical or doctrinal issues and my personal experiences during my 13 years as a Hare Krishna devotee. 

Now I would like to turn my attention to the most influential leaders within ISKCON, specifically those who were direct disciples (as was I) of its founder, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ("Srila Prabhupada"). While vast troves of information (mostly critical) about these individuals exists on the web, going through it all and making the necessary connections between what they did and why can be a daunting task. (For a summary of the mindset behind the attraction of the hippie and New Age generations to ISKCON and similar cults, please go to https://iskconcultunveiled.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-hare-krishna-bliss-addiction.html.)

 In addition, my intention is to refute the prevailing ISKCON propaganda that treats the crimes committed by most of these early disciple-miscreants as byproducts of immaturity and personal deviations from the pure and wonderful teachings of their guru. 

 In fact, the worst of these deviant disciples were also among the best fund-raisers in the history of the Hare Krishna movement. Their charisma and sharp business sense coupled with their fanatical adherence to Srila Prabhupada's strictures regarding bare-bones expenditures for his disciples were responsible for the rapid openings of many new temples as well as grand temple projects. One of the best examples is the still-admired New Vrindavan temples and grounds that rose from its incongruous location near Wheeling, West Virginia under Kirtanananda Swami's leadership. 

 His tenure in ISKCON dates from 1965, the year Srila Prabhupada arrived in New York from India. Judging from the information below, I think you might wonder why he was not apprehended and removed from his position before matters took such a tragic turn. Sad to say, the answer was obvious almost from the beginning: for our guru, the ends indeed justified the means. The price of what we believed was transcendental bliss was the abdication of our highest moral values. For Kirtanananda and his followers, moral cynicism and relativism were the rule of the day. Lost souls, all of them.
KIRTANANANDA UNDER HOUSE ARREST IN 1992
  • Kirtanananda, a childhood polio survivor, avid homosexual, and unrepentant pederast, was one the earliest disciples of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ("Prabhupada") and certainly one of the most infamous. A toad-like man in the grip of full-blown megalomania, he oversaw the construction of the New Vrindavan temple in Moundsville, West Virginia while assembling a rogue's gallery of violent, salacious peons.[i]
  • Along with his fellow homosexual and good friend Hayagriva (Howard Wheeler), Kirtanananda built a criminal empire in addition to the ornate temple and grounds. His devoted goons included the Sankirtan leader and sex abuser Dharmatma Das (Denis Gorrick), the murderer Tirtha Das (Thomas Drescher), another murderer, Daruka Dasa (Don Reid), and many others.
  • Nothing, however, compares to his offences to humanity than his role in allowing and perpetuating the horrible child abuse innocent children of devotees suffered at the Gurukula boarding school.  The infamous New Vrindavan gurukula was a nest of unimaginable cruelty and sexual abuse suffered by children dumped there by their parents. Imagine the misery endured by children who never had a family life (or toys of any kind) forced to take ice cold showers at four in the morning and fed a diet so meager that many appeared emaciated.[ii]
  • His criminal propensities—pedophilia, drug trafficking, stockpiling weapons and ammunition, to name a few--as well as his determination to usurp his guru's role in his community were widely condemned, but, like most narcissists, he still managed to attract a large and devoted following. Expelled from ISKCON in 1987.
     
  •  In 1990 the U. S. Federal government indicted Kirtanananda on five counts of racketeering, six of mail fraud, and conspiracy to murder Steven Bryant and Charles St. Denis. The mail fraud charges included the claim that the swami had illegally amassed a profit of more than $10.5 million over four years. On March 29, 1991 he was convicted of nine of 11 charges (not the murder charges, however), but  eighteen months later, an appeals court (influenced  by Kirtananda’s lawyer Alan Dershowitz), threw them out and ordered a retrial in 1996. Before the retrial was completed, Kirtanananda plead guilty to one count of racketeering in regard to the mail fraud allegations and was sentenced to 20 years, but was released on 14 June 2004 due to poor health.

    👺Tirtha Das (Thomas Drescher): on orders from Kirtanananda ( despite the legal maneuvering on the part of  his lawyer, this is the truth) murdered Chuck St. Denis in 1983 and dissident Steven Bryant in 1986. Currently serving life in prison.

  • Kuladri Das (Arthur Villa): Kirtanananda's henchman, now associated with Radhanath Swami. Alleged co-conspirator in Bryant's murder. Currently employed by ISKCON in life member drive targeting non-resident Indians. 
  • Radhanath Swami: both he and Gopal Krishna Goswami took sannyasa initiation from Kirtanananda in the early 1980's. After the fall of Kirtanananda, Radhanath took over his disciples. Sworn testimony of Dharmatma Das in the Sulocana murder trial implicated Radhanath as a co-conspirator. Although he stated that he "broke all ties once I came to know about the murder," both he and Gopal Krishna Goswami attended Kirtanananda's funeral in 2011, where they were seen prostrating themselves before his garlanded corpse.

    .
    GOPAL KRISHNA AND RADHANATH GOSWAMIS AT KIRTANANDA'S FUNERAL



[i]Hubner, John, and Lindsey Gruson. Monkey on a Stick: Murder, Madness, and the Hare Krishnas. San Diego:  Harcourt, 1988.
     This article was written for ISKCON Times, a webpage maintained by Padma Shri honoree Madhu Pandit and his associates, staunch enemies of the GBC-controlled ISKCON. Shri Madhu Pandit dasa is also the founder of the famed Akshaya Patra food relief charity.



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS ESSAY CAN BE REPRODUCED IN ANY MEDIUM WITHOUT THE WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE AUTHOR.

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THE ISKCON GURU-FAKING BUSINESS

What makes a guru a fake? Let me count the ways: 


Trashing the reputation of other gurus or religious figures with unsubstantiated lies and innuendo, while advancing himself as the most authentic and divinely inspired sadhu alive. 

Expertise in aliening impressionable youth from family and friends and replacing them with cult sycophants whose initial welcome turns into a hell-hole of food and sleep deprivation as well as semi-slavery.

Initiating hordes of fanatic, ignorant disciples and using them as human pack mules to fool gullible truth-seekers with get-enlightened-quick fantasies?

Gang-related activities including harassment of and conspiracy to silence dissenters, whether by beatings, threats, or murder?[i]


Child abuse consisting of, but not limited to parental alienation, loss of childhood, rape and beatings, and abysmal educational quality.[ii]

Ridiculous, contrived belief system full of pseudo-scientific nonsense and vicious, bold-faced discrimination against women and minorities. 

Fraudulent fund-raising tactics?[iii] 


INTRODUCTION
If you think that any or all of these practices are acceptable so long as the guru’s followers give out free food to the poor[iv], WELCOME to ISKCON! 

Before you take out your checkbook or credit card, you might appreciate some background information about the grinning cultists who seem bent on convincing the public that they are “more Hindu than Hindus.”[v] 
In the words of the group’s founder, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami: “although posing as great scholars, ascetics, householders and swamis, the so-called followers of the Hindu religion are all useless, dried-up branches of the Vedic religion.”
This essay will establish beyond a reasonable doubt that it is ISKCON, not Hinduism, which misrepresents “Vedic religion.”

The proliferation of Indian gurus in the West and the rise of the cults of the 1960’s and 1970’s surged due to the hippie culture’s fascination with Eastern mysticism. The Beatles, for example, were initially entranced by the late founder of Transcendental Meditation (TM), Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (d. 2007), and out of them, George Harrison retained his interest in Hinduism, but transferred it from TM to the Hare Krishna sect also known as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). 

 Other practitioners of what Meera Nanda terms “neo-Hinduism”[vi]during the same period include Sathya Sai Baba and Sri Chinmoy, both of whom still have large groups of followers in India and the West. The influence of all these groups waned considerably after the 1970’s and their international reputation also suffered, fueled in most cases by allegations of sexual impropriety. TM has been the most influential in popular culture: its practices of meditation as a religiously-neutral means of self-improvement largely fueled the West’s ongoing interest in New Age religion and disciples such as Deepak Chopra have lent it a veneer of legitimacy that continues to this day.
ANTI-HINDU SCAM ARTISTS

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Bhaktivedanta Swami’s coming to New York City in 1966 and founding the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. By registering his sect a religious nonprofit, the swami now had the means to accept tax-free donations and open temples as a means to proselytize to Westerners as well as the nonresident Indian population. A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami was an unusually charismatic preacher in an age of numerous competitors. This one-time Calcutta businessman used his marketing acumen and keen sense of the spiritual vacuum affecting Western youths in the hippie era to build in little more than a decade a world-wide organization consisting of thousands of disciples and many temples on a grand scale. 

However, few of the Hindus who throng ISKCON temples and support their programs know that the sect’s founder, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, never considered the Hare Krishna movement to be Hindu at all. The following are a number of statements Bhaktivedanta made in reference to Hinduism:

The Krishna consciousness movement has nothing to do with the Hindu religion or any system of religion.... One should clearly understand that the Krishna consciousness movement is not preaching the so-called Hindu religion."[vii]

India, they have given up the real religious system, Sanatana Dharma. Fictitiously, they have accepted a hodgepodge thing which is called Hinduism. Therefore there is trouble.
Bhavan’s Journal. 28 June 1976.

We are not preaching Hindu religion. While registering the association, I purposely kept this name, 'Krishna Consciousness,' neither Hindu religion nor Christian nor Buddhist religion.
Lecture on Bhagavad Gita, Mumbai. 1974.

During the years following their guru’s demise in 1977, the disciples of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (many now gurus themselves), reversed his position on Hinduism as they grew more and more dependent on the wealth of the Hindu community both in India and abroad. Instead of denouncing Hinduism, they used the affection the Hindu public tends to feel for the folklore of the butter-stealing, witch-killing, and gopi-loving Krishna and conflated it with the teachings of the philosopher-chariot driver of the Bhagavad Gita. The message was clear: Gaudiya (Bengali) Vaishnavism, with its Hare Krishna mantra chanting and world-wide presence, is what Hinduism should be.
 CROSS-DRESSING BENGALI BRAHMIN AS RADHA/KRISHNA COMBINED?

Magnifying his own role as a self-proclaimed “pure devotee” in a lineage of Gaudiya (Bengali) Vaishnava gurus from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486-1584) to himself was Swami Bhaktivedanta’s chief public relations strategy. The term “Bhakti Yoga” led people to assume that the swami was popularizing just another strand of Hinduism as his predecessors had done. In fact, he intended to supplant them all. For Bhaktivedanta, this meant teaching his followers that he was the latest and greatest guru in the Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya, which he claimed was established by Chaitanya himself and consisted of "pure devotees."

His modus operandi was to initiate as many Americans and other Westerners as his disciples and send them out to open temples where he and his followers would spread Chaitanya’s worship of Radha Krishna by chanting the Hare Krishna mantra and dancing in front of opulently dressed murtis. Yes, superficially it appears to be based on the tiny Gaudiya Vaishnava sect, which worships the cowherd incarnation of Vishnu, Krishna, and claims that Caitanya Mahaprabhu, a 16th century Bengali proponent of Bhakti-Yoga, was an incarnation of Krishna and Radha combined. What sets the Hare Krishna movement apart at first glance is its aggressive marketing tactics and habit of actively seeking converts among non-Indians

Visitors were soon thronging to ISKCON temples to be dazzled by the sheer spectacle of so many gorgeously dressed and decorated murtis of Radha and Krishna, along with the Jagganath idols of Puri and a grouping of five dhoti-clad men whom the devotees explained were murtis of the Bengali saint Chaitanya and his associates. Accustomed as they are to the profusion of murtis such as Durga, Shiva, Vishnu, and Hanuman in Hindu temples, few visitors to the Hare Krishna temples would have realized that Chaitanya, whose devotion to the Radha-Krishna legends and popularization of congregational chanting (“kirtan”) is undeniable, was also the cross-dressing leader of a cabal of Bengali Brahmins with similar practices and tendencies. If not for the reverence that Hindu culture still holds for high-born Brahmins, there is little chance of the Gaudiya Vaishnava contention that Chaitanya was the incarnation of Radha and Krishna together not having been greeted with laughter and derision as it is a transparent denial of his behavior as a gopi-bhava afflicted transvestite.[viii]

INSULTS TO RAMAKRISHNA PARAMHAMSA & SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

Furthermore, what would Indian political luminaries—the current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi comes to mi nd-- if they knew how the founder of the Hare Krishna movement derided the achievements of the Hindu saints who traveled to the West many years before he set foot in New York in 1966. His hostile and ill-informed comments about Ramakrishna Paramhamsa and Swami Vivekananda Swami are prime examples of Bhaktivedanta’s predilection to trash the reputation of the predecessors who cleared the way for him. For example, during one of his “Morning Walks” (08/01/1976), he claimed that the Ramakrishna Mission was “simply bogus propaganda” and “they picked up two American ladies, that’s all.”
A worse combination of envy and breath-taking ignorance is hard to imagine. Perhaps Bhaktivedanta Swami might have benefitted from reading the words of Dayananda Saraswati, who in the Ten Principles of the Arya Samaj wrote that “all actions should be performed with the prime objective of benefitting mankind.” As for his charge that Vivekananda “picked up two American ladies,” Bhaktivedanta could have learned from his example. In this regard, it is well-known that the initiates of the Ramakrishna Mission are all celibates, sanyasins as well women. Vivekananda Swami regarded celibacy highly and his example continues to inspire millions of Indians dedicated to a morally and militarily strong India, including Narendra Modi himself.
FRAUD AND FALSE PROMISES: MAKING "THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS"

 Bhaktivedanta Swami, on the other hand, valued quantity far over quality in the choice of his disciples and thus quickly accepted as his disciples young men and women who knew next to nothing about his philosophy or personal history. These impressionable youths were simply entranced by the exoticism of Eastern religions that was one of the many escapist fantasies popular during the hippie era of the 60’s and 70’s. That he abused their trust and held them in low esteem was apparent from the beginning.

I remember attending initiation ceremonies where mentally-ill individuals scarcely able to control themselves were initiated as disciples and was appalled at how quickly the dealings between men and women deteriorated due to the poisonous effects of our guru’s absurd and vacuous beliefs about the inferiority of women.

 The hastily patched together arranged marriages the swami recommended soon began to fail miserably and the children born of these hellish relationships were taken away after a few years and dumped in gurukulas where their sufferings and abuse left many scarred for life.[ix] After he died in 1977, he left eleven of his disciples to manage ISKCON and initiate disciples on his behalf (a sure sign that he regarded those he so carefully trained as unfit to act as gurus). In short order, they and others sprang to action to take his place and all hell broke lose, with more mayhem and criminality than I can possibly treat in this essay.

Suffice to say, fraud reared its ugly head and infected the Hare Krishna movement from the schools (“gurukulas”), the abuse of government-provided welfare benefits to provide for housing, food, and medical care the cult would not provide, and a highly scripted method of “distributing books” which was nothing more than method to part fools from their cash. These books the ISKCON zombies peddled were advertised as the swami’s translations of puranic literature such as the Bhagavad Gita and Bhagwat Purana (“Srimad Bhagavatam”), but were in fact pastiches of plagiarized translations of other editions as well as the efforts of a few of his own disciples who self-taught themselves rudimentary Sanskrit.

Before long it became obvious that formal fund-raising techniques had to be employed and the main target, as I mentioned near the beginning of this essay, was and is the educated and prosperous Hindu community in India and abroad. However, this pattern of what I call “guru-faking” was not limited to ISKCON and has continued to grow, adapting itself to different conditions while the followers of these gurus have begun to appear more like nascent terrorists than the naïve thrill-seekers of my own generation.



[i] http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/30/us/religious-leader-convicted-of-us-charges.html.



[iv] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2763798/Up-35-students-hospitalised-Bangalore-DEAD-LIZARD-mid-day-meals-causes-food-poisoning.html. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/it-was-not-the-dead-lizard/article6439198.ece.  See also: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/64-students-fall-sick-after-consuming-mid-day-meal-in-up. Akshaya Patra is run by the ISKCON Bangalore faction of ISKCON, a dissident group that follows the Ritvik policy of initiating disciples on behalf of the founder of the Hare Krishna movement, who died in 1977. This food relief program dwarfs the ISKCON Food Relief program headquartered and run by their enemies from Mumbai. Regarding ISKCON Food Relief, see: http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-iskcon-to-face-inquiry-into-food-poisoning-vinod-tawde-2189331.

[v] The issue of whether the ISKCON sect can be considered Hindu was decisively answered in the negative by its founder/acharya  A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. For a useful summary of the supporting documentation, see the Hinduism Today Magazine  article entitled, “Can it be that the Hare Krishnas are not Hindu”?  http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=4499.

[vi] Nanda, Meera. “Postmodernism, Hindu Nationalism, and ‘Vedic Science’.” http://frontlineonnet.com/fl2026/stories/20040102000607800.htm.

[vii] The Science of Self-Realization. 1977 Chapter three.

[viii] See Sri Caitanya Mangala, 2.9 and the numerous description in the Caitanya Caritamrta (2.15-16; 2.18 112-119 and 203-208. Sri Caitanya’s associates appearing on his sides in the temple murtis are Advaita, Srinivasa, Nityananda Rama, and Gadadhara Pandit, each of whom Caitanya regarded as incarnations of various members of the Radha Krishna and gopi legends.

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