Although many ingredients are the same, this is no ordinary tale of a woman betraying her husband for another man. It certainly has its intrigue and duplicity, but this story goes far beyond an ordinary marital melodrama. The profound dimensions underlying Kirtanananda's aggression against me are obvious. Otherwise, he never would have taken such a risk for this woman, who is not even a money-picker. That would have been the standard "ISKCON" motive, as you will see in the chapter on women's' sexploitation. This conflict, instead, goes deep to the root of ISKCON's problems. Destiny has certainly arranged that, through this incident, the needed polarization between these personality cults and the real mission of Srila Prabhupada will take place. The enemy will have been positively identified. My personal love for my sons, who are still being held captive in Kirtanananda's grip, is thus no longer the sole or even main motivating force behind this book. You will only hear of my personal grief in this picture, since there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of victims like myself. I can now fully sympathize with them all. The specific injustice done to myself will certainly be rectified in due course as I ceaselessly work to expose the fundamental corruption which underlies what only appears to be the ISKCON movement, but which, in reality, represents the betrayal of our spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada.
As I began my search through the letters, I discovered something higher than my personal marital problems that I knew I should share that with everyone. I discovered that Srila Prabhupada is no ordinary man. Of course, I had read all of Prabhupada's books several times over, the same as most of the devotees and I had even indexed a half a dozen of them. I knew without a doubt that Prabhupada had introduced us to a very pure spiritual culture in its entirety, and I appreciated that very much. Yet, during that time, I never fully appreciated Prabhupada the person. After all, I had never been able to exchange more than a few words with him while he was physically present.
So, when I started to read Srila Prabhupada's words in a form which I could relate to practically, I found myself moving closer to his life in a personal way. For the first time, I realized that Srila Prabhupada's vast intelligence was not like that of an ordinary genius. He certainly had a perfect answer for everything put before him, but, at the same time, he manifested a personality so magnanimous and forgiving that I had no choice but to utterly devote myself to him. Who else but a true saint could be so compassionate? His direct association through these letters rekindled in me the hope that I could also become pure one day. This was all very encouraging and allowed me to take up a desire far beyond revenge. I could see in Prabhupada's letters how a real saint deals with people on a personal day-today level. Anyone can write a book about God and attract a following, but to actually realize God and live like a true saint, twenty-four hours a day, in a predominantly irreligious society like ours-now I could understand just how very special Srila Prabhupada was.
It was then that I first took a serious look at the current guru-issue in ISKCON. I could plainly see that these new "gurus" didn't compare to Srila Prabhupada in any way whatsoever-that they were only externally posing as saints. Of course, I had personal experience that many of them were far from saintly. But I wasn't doing anything about it, since I wasn't fully appreciating the personal greatness of Srila Prabhupada. Thus, it became crystal clear to me that their imitating is actually creating a decoy which moves the devotees away from Prabhupada. Ironically, this was being done by the very persons who were assumed to be Prabhupada's most dear disciples. This made it an ultra-diversion. When other "gurus," making no claim to Prabhupada or Krsna, pose as bona fide gurus, sincere disciples have little problem recognizing that for what it is. By imitating Prabhupada, however, ISKCON's new "gurus," these-called official representatives of Prabhupada, are actually bringing Prabhupada down, in many eyes, to their own, often abominable, level of existence. Realizing this, I became determined to bring out the many quotes which revealed how a real pure devotee thinks and acts so that everyone would have the chance to see, as I now could, the difference between a saint like Srila Prabhupada and these impostors.
Reading the letters became like an intriguing mystery to me. I took careful notice of little comments Prabhupada would make about the leaders, specifically the Governing Body Commissioners (GBC). For instance, Prabhupada's whole strategy changed dramatically in July of 1970. He freely started giving sannyasa (celibate renounced order) to his male followers instead of encouraging them to marry. He stopped encouraging devotees to open temples and instead encouraged them to distribute books. And he began writing very heavy letters indicating that the character of many of his leading disciples was way below the mark. I have included these letters in Chapter Two. They clearly show why Prabhupada became disgusted with these "top men" of the Society and ultimately why he decided to leave the planet early.
Some persons may jump to the conclusion that I did this for gossip's sake or out of envy. This is not at all the fact. For one thing, I had to find out the real status of these men in order to go about rescuing my children. I didn't want to falsely accuse anyone. So it was essential that I knew the truth about these "gurus," who are claiming absolute sovereignty over everyone, even to the point of thinking that they can kidnap their Godbrothers' wives and children at whim. I had to know-Were these men actually dear to Srila Prabhupada and spiritually advanced? or were they merely being given a big position to keep them out of trouble, not necessarily having any claim-what to speak of monopoly-on spiritual advancement? Needless to say, I found out.
I soon found myself becoming enlivened again to preach. Many letters were to married men, like myself, encouraging them to be bold and open temples. In the later years when l joined the Society (1974), I had hardly even heard such things. That idea had more or less been replaced by emphasis on book distribution. Prabhupada actually discouraged opening many more temples at that time since he was seeing that the ones he had already opened were being mismanaged and members were leaving almost as fast as they were coming. So even though I became inspired to open a temple, the difficulty was, I wanted Prabhupada to be justly recognized all over the world, and not just where I and a handful of other ISKCON "outcasts" were preaching. So I decided, first, I must make these most vital and revealing letters available to everyone. Then they could also increase their desire to present Prabhupada's teachings, instead of the bogus philosophy of these new "gurus." By this time, I had realized that these men were actually the major source of Prabhupada's displeasure, despite what most of us had been led to believe. In one letter, Prabhupada actually said that they were not "the real workers."
So, in a nutshell, the purpose of this book is fourfold:
1) It must be revealed to the world exactly who Srila Prabhupada is and how he has nothing whatsoever to do with the corruption going on amongst ISKCON's leaders today. That is what the media likes to print and so that is what people generally think is the real Hare Krsna movement. But Prabhupada's motive was pure. This is clearly evident when you see how he dealt with people in their strengths and weaknesses on a practical, day-today basis. In other words, unlike the new "gurus," he practiced what he preached. When this is seen, it will become next to impossible for persons who do not possess true spiritual realization and purity to "fool the innocent public." Of course, many persons will continue to lump Srila Prabhupada in with these bogus gurus, but at least the sincere seekers will be able to understand who is who.
2) There is a crying need to increase and even rekindle love for Prabhupada from his own disciples. To a large extent, they have left Prabhupada's mission out of frustration and discouragement. These unscrupulous new "gurus" try to convince us that the majority of Prabhupada's disciples have left the Society because they are all insincere, lusty, envious, etc. They openly claim that the only real disciples of Srila Prabhupada are the ones who accept the new "gurus" as bona fide saints. This is nonsense. Prabhupada makes it very clear in his letters why 99% of the devotees leave the Society: "Nasty, personally motivated" leaders. That's all. There is no other reason. With proper leadership anyone can be happy and find shelter in Srila Prabhupada's real movement. The real movement is meant for the whole world, not just a small handful of religious zealots. But first there has to be real leaders. Unfortunately, because most of us are unable to "turn the other cheek" indefinitely, we could not, and cannot, constantly tolerate the behavior of these men, which is becoming progressively more and more satanic. They were the foremost cause of disciples leaving ISKCON even while Prabhupada was physically present, what to speak of now. So, in reality, the loyalists who have stayed in ISKCON all these years, supporting these "gurus" in their game of Imitate a Saint, are the real offenders to the pure devotee-not so much those who simply go away in utter disgust. All of Srila Prabhupada's disciples and followers should again feel encouraged to take up the real mission of Srila Prabhupada. We must not let these bogus gurus discourage us any longer.
3) An effort should be made to clean up ISKCON and remove the influence of personally motivated leaders. In other words, we should fully awaken the devotees to the politics and duplicity going on behind the facade. In this connection, some devotees have been criticizing us for taking on the function of ISKCON's poison-finder." Some of these critics no doubt assume that we are just as ill-motivated as the persons we are exposing. So they are saying that we should only concentrate on the "positive" aspect of its function. They see that we should just be making available Srila Prabhupada's teachings by categories and helping other devotees find services, spouses, communities, etc. Since this is such a common complaint, we would like to explain why we are eager to seek out and expose the bad as well as the good.
Many people are familiar with boils. Boils are due to impurities in the blood stream, and if ISKCON is seen as the body of Srila Prabhupada, then right now Srila Prabhupada has a serious case of blood poisoning. It is rapidly coming to a head, which is the danger point. This can be ignored for some time, which is what most of the devotees are doing. Ultimately, however, this boil has to be confronted by anyone who claims to be serious about preaching Krsna consciousness. A boil simply cannot be ignored. So, even though the devotees of Srila Prabhupada may be very busy with their various engagements and responsibilities, both within and without "ISKCON," ultimately, they will have to stop everything to confront this boil. Of course, some devotees are looking at it, and some are even attempting to bring the poison to a head. But the real question remains, "How long can we be patient before the body dies?" Daily, lives are being destroyed. Admittedly, it is extremely painful to open a boil, still, it must be done or the pain simply becomes unbearable and ultimately the body dies of blood poisoning.
There are two methods to remove such blood poisoning. There is a slow, painful method, which is what most of the devotees have been indirectly backing now for the past seven years. They want to tolerate all this pain in hopes that it will go away on its own. They think that eventually the GBC will get its act together, and, somehow or other, clean the thing up. That idea has shown less and less promise as time has passed, since, the men who are supposed to clean the thing up, the GBC, are the main ingredients of the boil itself. They are the ones who need to be removed. So the majority of devotees now agree that these anomalies will not disappear by dint of the GBC; there will have to be a direct action taken.
That action begins with this book. This method of opening the boil and making the poison clearly visible is the closest thing to the surgeon's knife which will get the job done, and, hopefully not kin the entire body in the process. At least this book is exposing enough of the puss to clearly show the urgency. But this will not be the end. The job is far from complete. Now that the puss is exposed and oozing out, we must confront the equally difficult task of draining it, removing it, and then, cleansing and healing the wound. This part will take much more time and will require serious devotees to carry out. So, even though this direct method of cutting a boil open always leaves a mess, when an affliction reaches the danger point, it has always proven to be the only way. It may not seem very relishable to many devotees, still someone had to do it sooner or later. Otherwise, the deadly poison, called personal ambition, will have easily "burned ISKCON to ashes." Knowing this, we see this expose as the only way to save Srila Prabhupada's legacy, which, in the absolute sense, is his very life.
4) There is now a new imperative to inspire married couples to be bold and go out to open temples. This was Srila Prabhupada's desire from the beginning. If one has any aspirations at all in this direction, then the letters in this book will be very encouraging. Prabhupada wrote often on that subject, especially in the early years before the 1970 conspiracy. We have included many of those letters herein. When thousands of devotees are united, yet independently preaching the same message all over the world, it will be plainly evident who is actually becoming advanced through their sincere preaching effort, not by some concocted "appointment." The ISKCON movement was never intended to be a movement of neophyte men posing as renunciates, as is the case today. Real society is dependent on responsible householders. ISKCON's divorce rate must come down from its estimated 75%-90% to a much more civilized figure before any attempt to organize a real Vedic society can take place. Therefore, in this book, we have given equal importance to the issue of marriage and women's exploitation in an attempt to clean up ISKCON's high divorce rate, which is also caused, primarily, by the unauthorized interference of the new "gurus."
With these four objectives in mind, we have extracted hundreds of quotes from the letters which are all meant to help us understand what has happened in ISKCON and what we now must do to correct and carry on the mission of our spiritual master. Reading these letters is a direct connection to the mind of Srila Prabhupada. Reading the mind of an ordinary man is generally not very inspiring, there being so many contaminated thoughts lurking up there. But the mind of Srila Prabhupada, because he is pure, can only help us to become pure ourselves. No doubt that is one of the reasons why Prabhupada wrote so many letters (7,000 recovered thus far) instead of using the telephone. There was no shortage of money, especially in the later years. His "big, big" disciples were using the phone almost exclusively (much to Prabhupada's displeasure), whereas Prabhupada would almost always write. He left us his own autobiography, as it is.
Actually, myself, and all the devotees assisting in this great work, are only adding our fuel, which has become an inexhaustible supply, to that same fire which was started the day eleven sinful men falsely declared themselves to be as good as God. The time has now come for a complete fructification of this most important service to the Absolute Cause of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu's mission. Jaya Srila Prabhupada. Hare Krsna. (Comments, inquiries, and donations may be sent to Steve Bryant (Sulocana dasa), 2124 Kittredge #32, Berkeley, CA, 90704.) Thank you.