[Please note: This is not the Hrishikesh dasa associated with Bon Maharaja. Ed.]

My Respected Rocana Prabhu, PAMHO. AGTSP. I am grateful for the opportunity to correspond with you and share my thoughts through the medium of the Sampradaya Sun, for my personal benefit and hopefully the benefit of others. I may not have great realization, but I try to always speak only the truth. Please allow me to make just a few comments about some points in your recent post Bhaktipada or Bhaktifraud?"

You wrote:

"To say, for instance, that they [NV residents] didn't know about Kirtanananda's homosexual activities, when everyone else in the movement knew about them, is just total denial. Kirtanananda had been sleeping with Hayagriva's young son, in the same sleeping bag, for years. To say you didn't know about that is just total illusion or lying. This had been going since the 1970's, when Srila Prabhupada was here, let alone going on during the whole ten-year stretch of the Zonal Acarya period."

Yes, we loyal Bhaktipada followers were ignorant of the terrible truth that "everyone else in the movement knew." But if "everyone else in the movement knew" about Kirtanananda's pedophilia, why didn't the thousands of ISKCON devotees who came to our annual NV festivals during the early- to mid-1980s tell us anything about this? Certainly everyone else DID NOT KNOW, otherwise ISKCON devotees wouldn't come out by the thousands every year from 1979 until 1986 to chant and dance and feast and listen attentively to lectures by Kirtanananda.

We may have heard whispered stories and rumors from time to time, but we did not give them credence. Kirtanananda lived within our midst, we saw him every day, and we did not see any improprieties. He presented to us the persona of a renounced saint.

At a time when other ISKCON gurus may have lived in luxurious apartments, Kirtanananda lived in a small room on the same floor as the men’s ashram. He insisted that chanting 16 rounds was the most important activity of the day, and he was usually the first to rise and enter the temple room.

I remember him waking us sleeping brahmacari and householder men on the fourth floor of the ashram at Bahulaban at 3 a.m. If we did not stir soon enough, he whacked us in our sleeping bags with his cane. We enjoyed the attention, and once when his cane was broken on Somadas, Soma put the broken cane in a frame and hung it on the wall of this carpentry workshop as a worshipful relic.

Kirtanananda had many admirable qualities. He was expert in debate and none of us could defeat him. He was a charismatic leader. He taught us to chant attentively, and always remember Krishna. We admired him and grew to love him dearly.

However, when the eyes are tinged by love, it becomes nearly impossible to see the faults of the object of one's affection, although others may be able to see these faults from a distance. So in this way we were in ignorance, we were in denial, we were in love. And I believe this is how Radhanath Swami would also describe his early years at New Vrindaban.

"The big question that police still haven't uncovered is who killed Chakradhari, whose body was found buried in the creek bed at New Vrindaban? That crime has still not been solved, and it doesn't seem like Umapati Swami or anyone else is worried about seeing that the person(s) involved in that are prosecuted."

Tirtha was convicted of slaying Chakradhari on December 7, 1986, BEFORE the Sulochan Murder Trial.

Perhaps a summary regarding Tirtha and New Vrindaban is in order. At first, the community distanced itself from Tirtha, calling him a fringe devotee, but later reconsidered after he proved his loyalty to Bhaktipada by refusing to “falsely” implicate his spiritual master in the murder, despite police harassment and cruel and inhumane treatment, such as being stripped to his shorts and left for days at a time in a cold cell with an open window in winter. He was considered a “hero” by the New Vrindaban devotees and his articles were published in the Brijabasi Spirit. He also wrote an account of his experiences in prison called Meditations on the American Gulag. He said, “They’re trying to use me to attack New Vrindaban. They’re going to try to prove a conspiracy between myself and New Vrindaban to kill someone. They aren’t going to find it. I consider myself a political prisoner.”

Tirtha also preached to the other inmates at the West Virginia Penitentiary, and with the help of his counselor, Umapati Das, began a regular preaching center in the prison. Several inmates who began chanting Hare Krishna and following the regulative principles were initiated. New Vrindaban even sent kirtan parties to chant and dance on the sidewalk in front of the penitentiary for five days during May 1987 to protest the prison’s treatment of the inmates who had become devotees through Tirtha’s preaching.

Umapati Das began visiting Tirtha weekly first at the Marshall County Jail and later at the West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville. Umapati was initiated by Bhaktipada into the sannyasa order at New Vrindaban on May 12, 1987, and Umapati Swami, in turn, officiated at the ceremony in which Tirtha received sannyasa initiation (although Bhaktipada was Tirtha’s actual sannyasa guru) at the penitentiary two months later on July 22. “He’s preaching up a storm,” said Umapati. “He has attracted a lot of interest among prisoners who want to know about Krishna consciousness.”

Tirtha wanted to take sannyasa, not as a reward for his actions but for his own spiritual benefit, as he was certain he would be executed very soon. He wrote, “I thought it [taking sannyasa] would be appropriate, since I was facing the death penalty in California and thought I would likely be executed. My intent at the time was to plead guilty and explain it was for a cause. So in my mind, I wanted to renounce and it was suggested that I take sannyasa, as my life was likely coming to an end.”

Why did Bhaktipada allow a convicted murderer to join the highest spiritual order? “Bhaktipada says Drescher [Tirtha] went from a ‘fringie,’ one who strayed from Krishna tenets, to a ‘good devotee’ since being imprisoned a year ago, and deserved becoming a Swami.”

Regardless of the crimes of Tirtha or Kirtanananda or anyone else, I believe we should hate the sin and not the sinner. For instance, why cannot Tirtha--who will spend the rest of his life behind bars--be allowed to preach Krishna Consciousness and tell other inmates about Krishna, under the auspices of ISKCON or not? During his last 20 years of incarceration he has gradually realized the seriousness of his sins, and has expressed remorse for his heinous actions. He has tried to turn his life around and purify his consciousness by chanting Hare Krishna, faithfully following the four regulative principles, reading Prabhupada’s books, associating however possible with devotees, and writing his own realizations.

I'm not saying Tirtha is free from illusion; I am only saying he should be encouraged to chant Hare Krishna and preach to the best of his abilities. Whether ISKCON itself should publish his books is another matter. You should know that the funding for Tirtha’s books has NOT come from ISKCON nor New Vrindaban nor Radhanath Swami, but from two of his sympathetic godbrothers who have known him since 1970. And Tirtha doesn't have access to the Playboy channel or the Internet.

"I have to applaud Navadvipchandra dasa's excellent presentation on this whole thread, although Umapati Swami, and now Hrishikesh dasa, disagree with what he has said. I assume they also disagree with what I've said."

Why assume? Why not ask? I agree with some points, and disagree on others. I only ask that a responsible writer refrain from exaggeration and gossip and rumor and stick to factual data. If one wishes to express their own opinions, please acknowledge it as such.

"Hrishikesa dasa claims that there were 700 people living there who were in total ignorance of what was going on. He says just a few people knew, and they were the leaders. Supposedly the leaders concluded that it was best to keep the grassroots devotees in illusion about what lay below the surface there. This is almost like the defense given by inhabitants of the towns near the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. They didn't have a clue what was going on just a few miles away… which of course is nonsense. The fact is that they would have ended up like Chakradhari or Sulocana had they recognized what was right in front of them and confronted it."

Not a good analogy. The fact is, and the prosecutors at the 1991 trial understood this, that the majority of Kirtanananda's followers would have left his service if they knew for a fact he was molesting boys. This mass defection actually happened in 1993 after the Winnebago Incident when the community split into two camps.

However, as you know, there were people who knew about Kirtanananda's pedophilia earlier. In 1986 17-year-old Chaitanya dasa and Kaliya were molested, as they reported at the 1991 trial. Chaitanya eventually confided to Kuladri in these activities probably late in 1986 or early 1987, and shortly after both left the community. Around 1983 inappropriate behavior by Kirtanananda was said to have been reported by Bhava dasi, one of the teenage girls.

In 1979 one gurukula boy reported to his mother that Kirtanananda had "fondled my genitals," but the mother did not believe her child, and chastised her son for making up stories. This is not uncommon behavior when a child reports sexual molestation by an uncle, grandfather, or other family member; the parents often disbelieve the child. This behavior is confirmed by many studies of child molestation.

And still there were other residents and parents, who knew about or heard about child molestation at New Vrindaban in the late 1970s. These people decided to simply leave the community and move elsewhere. This is the group of people whom Sulochan gathered much of his material for his "Guru Business."

"The way that Hrishikesh presents Sulocana speaks volumes about how he feels. He basically suggests that Sulocana deserved to die due to his "poor scholarship". But if it was such a crazy book, then no one would have listened to him, so why were they all so afraid of what he had to say? It is an undisputed fact that Kirtanananda interfered with his marriage, taking his children away. That's a whole story in itself. I don’t believe many husbands wouldn't hate the person who did that to them, so we can understand Sulocana's anger."

I never implied that Sulochan deserved to die; I merely suggest that he didn't get all his facts straight. I spoke to his former wife a few months ago and asked her a few questions about this same matter. She said that she left Sulochan because he was impossible to live with; always moving here and there; making her live in a van, no stable place for her infant children. She liked New Vrindaban and thought it was a good place to raise her family. She claims Kirtanananda didn't force her to stay; he offered her shelter. Is it wrong for a woman who feels abused by her husband to protect herself and leave his company?

Sulochan believed Bhaktipada had stolen his wife and children, but perhaps that is because he could not accept the possibility that he was such a terrible husband and father? Maybe he was just as much in denial as the other residents of New Vrindaban, in his own way. He refused to consider that his broken family might be a result of his own personality disfunctions.

"Hrishikesh is stating a fact when he explains how Srila Prabhupada's Palace of Gold made a big positive impact from a media point of view when it first opened. It was a labour of love from the point of view of the devotees who helped build it. But it was essentially a house of cards. While it first drew media attention to New Vrindaban, when Kirtanananda was exposed and the Monkey on a Stick book came out, all the media turned in the opposite direction. It's hard to determine whether it just neutralized all the positive things that this long-term resident of New Vrindaban likes to believe made it all worthwhile."

Certainly the widespread positive preaching opportunities generated by Prabhupada's Palace were short-lived. I explain in my forthcoming book: Tourism to the Palace declined so drastically due to the unfavorable mass media publicity about New Vrindaban’s murders, contagious diseases, child abuses, etc., that one of the new Palace marketing directors wrote, “More buses came in October 1985 than in ALL of 1988.”

"The main point that Navadvipchandra dasa makes is lost on both Umapati Swami and Hrishikesh dasa, and that is that ISKCON today has been influenced in the way that it operates on account of the mentality and attitude injected collectively by all the people that were at New Vrindaban. They impacted how ISKCON is operated today, and it is not positive."

I do not argue this point. New Vrindaban has always been, from its earliest days, the BLACK SHEEP OF ISKCON, and perhaps it still is.

"Once Kirtanananda was free of any ISKCON influence after they threw him out, he launched into his 'great experiment', as Hrishikesh dasa likes to call it. But no one, not Umapati Swami, Hrishikesh, or any of the others I hear from, admits or reflects upon the fact that Kirtanananda was always on a 'great experiment'."

Yes, this is pointed out in my forthcoming book; Kirtanananda's Christianization of the Temple Services was a continuation of the same which he attempted in 1967 in New York. You must understand however that very few devotees at New Vrindaban were aware of this 1967 transgression. Perhaps only Umapati and Hayagriva. Everyone else, including Radhanath, Kuladri, Devamrita Swami, came into the Movement years later after 1967. And at this time in the mid-1980s Prabhupada's letters were kept in secret by the BBT. I did not see these letters from Prabhupada condemning Kirtanananda's actions until the 1990s, a few years after they were first published.

"The inhabitants, or what Kirtanananda liked to call the 'inmates', where under the whammy, almost mass hypnosis, because Kirtanananda was a true cult leader."

Actually Srila Prabhupada was the first to call the residents of New Vrindaban "inmates," as seen in several of his letters. I do not argue that we were members of a cult: "The Cult of Kirtanananda."

Thank you for the opportunity to express my thoughts. I wish you the best.

Sincerely,

Hrishikesh dasa