Harimedia Forum

Dear Hari,

You are the person I feel can say things to openly. You are the only one. No other ISKCON guru or ex ISKCON guru has an open forum. So here's a poem:

I got to tell you
I am a disciple of your disciple
he is the same age as my father
the kindness and tolerance you show here on your forum
he has always shown to me

I'm sorry but I hate my father
so you see what is coming

so much of what you say is right
and there is so much I want to learn from you
you are in a good place,
I think maybe you are
you look around yourself and tell us about it
yes, you are right in your good place
but how you got there
with you it is betrayal
betrayal

how you speak to your former disciples like you do
how you speak the way you do

your former disciple writes to you on your forum,
trying to find something, anything, but
you pinch your soul into a dead spot..

but you do live, yes?
you express needs
you express selfishness
you still ask to suck in love
there is something, yes?

the house with the swimming pool on the French Riviera
we can't even believe you took from us to get that
that you could even give us the positive action of taking from us
you leave us only with doubt
not even a dead bone, wet or dry
nothing even to be mad at, or tell it to
nothing, nothing
but the soul of ISKCON

hate is not the opposite of love
indifference is
so we stay angry with you
waiting for you to care

The one devotee who has always supported me is a former disciple of yours. He is the same age as my father. It is he who has supported me when I needed it. He is not living at the Temple, of course. Last time I saw him, a couple of weeks ago, we started talking about you. He told me how he hid from you when you visited Boston back in the 1980's. You had wanted him to go to Europe, and he did not want to, so he hid from you when you came to visit. You later wrote to him but he did not reply. Often when I speak with him, we briefly mention you. This gives me fond feelings toward you. We always speak well of you.

I live in Boston. In about 1995, we got a new Temple president. He was a disciple of yours from Vienna. He told me that our GBC had traded Boston to you for parts of the former Soviet Union. I later found out that this was maybe not true. As I hear has happened with others who's lives he touched, I lost my mind hating him.

I need to tell you that what you are doing here with this forum is really good. No other ISKCON guru or ex ISKCON guru will have an open forum. I would love to meet you some day. At least you're trying, you know? God, I'm in a totally different mood now than I was a while ago when I wrote the poem above. We're all stuck with what we did in the past, at least if we want to keep our relationships we are. Yeh.

Warm regards,

Ken from Boston

.
I composed a splendid, charming letter to him, imploring him to apologise to me, and hinting rather plainly at a duel in case of refusal. The letter was so composed that if the officer had had the least understanding of the sublime and the beautiful he would certainly have flung himself on my neck and have offered me his friendship. And how fine that would have been! How we should have got on together! He could have shielded me with his higher rank, while I could have improved his mind with my culture, and, well ... my ideas, and all sorts of things might have happened. Only fancy, this was two years after his insult to me, and my challenge would have been a ridiculous anachronism, in spite of all the ingenuity of my letter in disguising and explaining away the anachronism. But, thank God (to this day I thank the Almighty with tears in my eyes) I did not send the letter to him.

---Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Notes From Underground

Hey Ken, Sorry...

I have been very busy and could not reply to the forum texts so fast but I will try to do it today. Your text needed an immediate reply!

I do not feel that my students were betrayed. I feel that they were given a way out or an option to do things better. I am sorry if you felt betrayed but it was your choice to feel so. You could have seen it in another way as many chose to do. As I am and have been continuing to teach and give of myself to hundreds of persons who are interested, I think if someone feels betrayed because I left a movement that I could not believe in longer, then so be it, but it is not a bad thing per se. Those who are interested in the services I render them now do not feel bad about what I do or did. It is mainly those who have no interest in what I do now, or those who are still in ISKCON, who feel bad about me or what I do.

The idea that I took money from you or some disciples or stole money from ISKCON to buy a house in France is something which was created by various persons for various reasons which somehow further their own vendettas against ISKCON and the gurus in it. As part of the final resolution meeting held in Nice in 1998 where I had to go through great difficulty to make peace amongst ISKCON members and former members (and save the life of Vaidyanath) none of which I had to do but did because I saw it should be done, the GBC representative at the meeting, Sesa Das, who proclaimed he had the authority to make a decision on behalf of the GBC there (as he was sent by them, they said) and together with the 20 or so ISKCON and BBT people who attended the meeting, promised that this rumour of me stealing something from someone would be corrected by an official letter from the GBC stating definitively that I stole nothing.

As all I personally asked for in that meeting was the copyrights to my music and this letter, I thought it was a simple matter. Everyone else was asking for many things and were doing it with great force. I never received this letter, neither an acknowledgment that it was to be given. Consequently, when the rumours were created, by those who like rumours, that I stole, the GBC simply said nothing. After all, these were the same persons who said nothing when the gurukulis made their famous video in 1995 explaining how they were abused. At that time no one was interested to even discuss the issue let alone come to a resolution. This is why I took over education, at least I wanted to change something for these unfortunate kids. But that is another story.

So why should the same static group give me a letter? They would rather I rotted in hell. So the rumour was created that I stole and that I blackmailed the GBC with some unknown and still unmentioned 'facts' that scared them so much they would never 'charge' me with the theft. It is a great story since it can never be verified by anyone at any time and therefore the world thinks that I am a thief and the GBC was scared to death of me. All of this is simply silly and anyone with intelligence can see through this immediately, but few wish to do so.

Jayadvaita Swami came to see me in France and I wanted to know why the GBC refused to issue this simple three line letter that would tell the truth of what happened. He replied that they are what they are and that Brahma Muhurta das of the NE BBT (who knew everything since he was the only one who controlled all bank accounts) told him that if anyone were to want to know if I stole something to send that person to him (Brahma) and he would tell them the truth that nothing was stolen. But who even knows who Brahma Muhurta is and who would go through the trouble of tracking him down since it is very hard for someone to contact him. And so the rumour continues because it is an easy thing to simply say something that cannot be proved and let the person be labelled so because one feels he deserves to be so labelled.

As an infamous figure in history said, "The bigger the lie the more people are inclined to believe it."

It is simply not true and that is the entire story. There are many ways in which people buy things in this world. People get loans, they get gifts from well wishers, they get inheritances, and they also figure out how to earn money. But to the critics, there is only one source of money for (as they seem to think of me as...) a totally incompetent, fallen rascal like me -- theft. Perhaps this says something about themselves more than me? But no one can stop this.

Now the statement that I do not care about people in ISKCON or my former disciples is wrong. I do care and show it now and have shown it all the time by speaking the truth about what I feel is a better way for people to live their lives and spiritually develop. If someone does not like that then they are free to go their own way, but to say I do not care is wrong.

It is totally wrong that Niranjana Swami traded Boston with me for parts of Russia. I do not know where this idea came from. I think it was something like I asked Sadhu to go there since he was being stifled in Vienna by another who later made more trouble there for others too. I liked Sadhu since he was an independently minded person who had guts and was cool and young and also who kept his own understanding of things. I respected him. I think I kept contact with Boston only because of him. During the time of Adi-Kesave I used to go to Boston to have some excuse to work together with him (as we were friends and it was hard to find friends in ISKCON) and there was always a lingering connection after that.

Well, I said what I had to. Now I can move on with the day and hopefully answer more texts later on.

All I can add is that I hope you are well, that your life will go well, filled with love, happiness, prosperity and peace. But above all, I wish you a rapid and satisfying process of growth.

Richard Cohen of The Washington Post once labeled President Richard Nixon "an unforgivably flawed man". I have always loved that line. Such a statement of the real truth, but when we read it said like that, we so want him to be able to be forgiven. We do so need to be able to forgive. In Nixon's case, it has always been up to us to do the apologizing for him so we can forgive him.

I just got off the phone with a GBC person, and I mentioned you to him. When he tells me that people are or have been crazy in order to discredit them, even in the polite way he used today, he doesn't understand. If he would just read my website he would learn that I proudly put my mental health records on the internet and that I was locked in a mental institution at around the same time you were leaving ISKCON.

When my wife and I were in Saint Petersburg in about 1993, we went to see you give a lecture. I had lunch every day at the cafe the devotees had, and we stayed at a house they found for us on Vasaly Island. But mostly I was caught up in other things, like my drinking problem, drinking good Russian Champaign for $1.25 a bottle, observing Russia being looted and destroyed, and arguing with the doorman at the Grand Hotel Europeskaya off Nevsky Prospect day after day as he tried to control whether I would be allowed into the hotel to go to the American Express office. (He finally gave up.)

I would like to claim that I never gave lip service to the ISKCON line, that I have always held to ideas similar to those you now propound, that I did not go along with the things in ISKCON that you are now against, that I was never part of the emotional frigidity and dysfunction of ISKCON. I would even like to claim that I am more like you than even you are..

You know I'm trying to have fun with you. I think maybe I have a lot to learn from you and the others here on your forum. Although I live in Boston, people often think I seem like I should be in California. But often I feel I am more like Woody Allen, though. I know I should stop complaining and just go with the flow as the dude from Hawaii on this forum seems to suggest. I should be like "Hey Hari, can I come over to your house to use your swimming pool and meet pretty girls?" I hope there really is a lot of cool stuff like that happening at your house. I hope you are not a recluse like I am at this time. We really do need to make a real Varnasram society like the devotee from Hawaii says.

I did carefully read your reply to me above, even if it may not seem so from my reply.. or maybe you can tell I really am replying in my own way.. Thank you for talking to us here, Hari. This is all very helpful.

Dear Hari,

I do not want to talk to these people in ISKCON anymore. I have not been going to the Temple for several weeks now. I know it is I that am responsible for trying to fix ISKCON or at least recording it for history. (I run the Istagosthi.org website) But I can't, man, I swear to god I'm dealing with atheists it seems like sometimes. I am not made for this and I am not the correct personality type for this. But ISKCON is a very small movement and if any of us fail do something it will probably not get done. I now eat 2 egg yolks a day and I try to lift weights and run. Sadhusangananda. I don't know, maybe its like you didn't see it. I saw it and I'm not blaming you here now. You went through a major change in a late period in your life and that's what I need to learn to do. I need to create and be positive. I think I'm going to watch your movie on Saturday or whenever it is..

I mean its like I call this GBC dude on the phone today, and he has a nice mataji who answers the phone..

You are the only guru type guy to do this. You let us vent and make drama here on your forum like this. We are not laying down at your feet here. (well actually I am in my own sick way) If we have something to say we can say it to you here and be angry or whatever here. Then later when we talk to people and we are too cowardly to defend you, or just somehow neglect to, we will feel bad about it afterward. Thanks for listening.

Dear Darwin!Life becomes very difficult if we blame others for our problems.Our problems IS ONLY DUE TO OUR SELFES.This is the ABSOLUT LAW of KARMA wich no HUman beeing can over rule.NOT EVEN a Blade of Grass Can move without tthe Sanction of the Lord.

So if You want to find the Person Who causes You the pain and Trubbels in your LIfe you just go infront of the mirror and You can see the Guilty one very clearly.Its DIFFICULT to put the blame upon one self BECAUSE then ones self have to do all the Hard Job of changing ones situation.Its easier to sit upon some Selfmade fantasie chair High up in the Sky poinitng fingers upon Others What they Could do better etc.If I remember Prabhupada right first of all said:I f you cannot do it better your self You have no right to Criticie others. So look upon all thoose person You blame causing You trubbel.Who choose them, to be Your father and leaders etc.Your self isnt it???.After all You acted in a certain way of life before this bodie and thus accumulated certain kind of Karma account and had certain kinds of desire and thus deserved to get the person who played the role as your father.Nobodie elses Karma then Your Own caused that Int it.?

And Now Nobodie stopping you From chanting 64 rounds aday accept your self and After all Chanting is the YugaDharma of the Age.And on top of that Whatever GOD think You should have WILL IMMIDIETLY be manifested.Thats the power of the Almighty Lord.So Nobodie Can stop the Almighty Lords desires for You or His Thoughts for You.So if You think Somebodie standing In your Way for pleasing the Lord You are the One and Only.There is after all 9 processes of devotional services And NO MATERIAL circumstances Can stop them AND after all KRISHNA says that by undevided devotional service can He be known as He is AND THAT WAS THE GIFT THIS INSTITUTION IS GIVING ISN IT??.So wHo is stopping You to Perform Undevided Devotional Service Accept Your own mind wich is basicly just looking for who are the other causing you trubbel instead of looking For service UNDEVIATINGLY.This is The wonderfully Liberty Of devotional Service.Your dont have to Go the Factory etc etc To get a Job You just Have to Want it And if You on top of that Are humble enought to pray to another Devotee to pray for You in this Regard THEN HOW can there not be Unlimited service possibilties For you all the time.In the story of Dhruva Maharaja Srila Prabhupada Kindly deliver us the eternal knoledge of devotional service By explaining That just engaging in devotional service ALL ONES DESIRES WILL BE FULL FILLED in DUE course of time.REMEMBER YOU ARE eternal.In other words WHEN WE SO DESERVE to get our desires Full filled.If you beleive that somebodie else cause you problem than Your Own Karma How can You the believe in the Law of Karma.???If you believe That somebodie else can Stop Krishna,The almighty Unlimited POwerfull Lord to Let You HAve what HE WANTS you to Have,forinstance protection, What faith is there then In Krishna.?

Mare Ke ....

If Srila Prabhupada Want you To have something How Can Krishna Not let it so be SINCE Krishna also let Himself be controlled By His Pure Devotee.


So Stop finding some other soul then Your self to be the cuase of All Your problems in life.THEN WHEN you know its You who is in charge of Your destiny Then You get Peace Of Heart and allways Want to do the best.Good Luck

I had checked out that Ishtagosthi website, and it succeeded in giving me a real headache. Darwin, I'm sure you had good intentions, but that site is filled with the most confused, lost people. It reminds me of the story of the guy drowning in the river, and he's hanging on to the log as it drags him down. He's complaining all the way down. No offense, but I hope those folks stay over there. I don't want to hear about what ISKCON did, or is doing. To me, ISKCON has been a sad joke; an experiment that failed enormously decades ago. A path with no heart.

IMHO, Harimedia website is the polar opposite. It's about information, pragmatic methods of upliftment and positive energy for living life. I call it the kung fu of living in the world. I'm glad Hari addressed those rumors. Can we all move forward now? There are many other ways to find spiritual peace and fulfillment. There are some highly evolved groups that get together in various places, and they are not under the banner of ISKCON, or even strictly Vaisnavism. It's out there, but people must pick themselves up and find it. There's no shelter left in "running away" to a temple anymore. People did that in the 70's, 80's, 90's and so on. It's not a viable path anymore.

Warm wishes for all,

Garuda Pandit

Thank you Garuda Panditji. Once again you have reflected how I feel. I see no use in looking backwards all the time. I want to live now, in the present, and not be a prisoner of the past. I feel badly when I see so many chained by the past. They cannot seem to process it although they try to do it by speaking about it over and over again. I do not like being a prisoner of the past, neither of tradition, neither of ideas. Freedom of thought and the freedom to choose is prerequisite to finding one’s inner peace.

Yet I also thank Ken for his honestly sharing with us and giving me a chance to dispel some rumours. I wanted to address the idea of my being crazy, but again, I would have to go back into the past and churn it over again. Since such discussions are not going to help anyone on a level that we all require, I will not do it. Besides, those who think I was or am now crazy will not accept my version of history anyway, and those who did not think it will find it irrelevant. Is it not wonderful how everyone thinks what they want and sees what they wish to see? According to your belief system, history will have different forms and colors. The human mind has a marvelous capacity to forget and remember according to our present needs.

Since these discussions are related to the past, I have split and reorganized the forums so that things related to ISKCON, Hare Krishna, the Good Old Days and so on, will be in a separate place. Readers not interested in days gone by do not have to wade through such topics in the Discussions with Hari forum. I received a few complaints about the influx of ISKCON related topics and I thought that separating these discussions out of the main forum would be a good compromise. I have also made this forum a type of free discussion, unlike the Hari forum which is in the questions and answers format.

The reason I do not simply erase these topics is simple. I do not wish to censor the forums and I think those who do live more or less affected by the past need to work it out so they may move on. Simply telling people that what they are doing is wrong and demanding that they change is not going to work. Those who are stuck in some way need a real method to get free. So I will continue to post in these forums as one of the members.

The past has relevance as much as we wish it to. When we hold on to ideas, values, or memories from the past, they have more or less of an affect on our present lives according to the energy associated with them. If we have been wronged in the past and we cannot forget this, we churn within with anger, frustration and sometimes even with the wish to avenge the wrongs done us. This distorts our capacity to peacefully live in the present in a progressive manner. Let me explain what I mean as it might be helpful.

I feel that existence is something which is best lived now, in the present, because it is only here in this moment that we can create new experiences. If we are fully aware of what we are right now and aware of all that is around us, we are far along the path of realization. Existence is a constant presence. The past sleeps and the future has not yet manifested. The future is a product of what has come before it, so until it takes place it is not sure. The past is over and done with and no one can change the past in any way. Although there are many attempts to rearrange the events of the past to fit some people’s conception of the present, this is ultimately illusory. More than anything else, the act of rewriting history demonstrates the consciousness of those in the present. This implies that those who do this attempt to paint a picture of reality they can live with. Awareness, on the other hand, is the simple art of seeing what is without judging it or attempting to modify it by denying its existence or placing it in other contexts more acceptable to one’s understanding of life. Those who are aware simply accept what is now and work from that place to grow. One can only advance from the place one is presently situated. One cannot advance from the past as one is no longer there. To move forward means to throw off the shackles of the past while being aware of the parameters of the moment. This mentality optimizes our decision making.

But there are many who are held hostage by what happened previously. They cannot and will not move forward until they digest it and accept it. This is normal and everyone does this for some time, but to stop being a hostage means to accept within a deep understanding of why people do what they do. Understanding what went wrong in the past is important for it helps us to create a better plan for the future by not repeating the mistakes of the past. This understanding does not have to include hatred for those who did things that were not optimal for us or others; neither does it require condemnation of them. Such intense emotions tend to keep us locked up in feelings that are not conducive to evolution. I admit to having fallen into the trap of condemning and blaming others for what happened, but this ended when I realized that it was entirely my choice to follow their words and ideals. Certainly I attempted to adjust these ideas at that time so they would fit with my personal understanding of people, but my overall mood was to attempt to be a good follower. I therefore cannot blame those I followed for my accepting to follow them, neither can I blame them for things I accepted then but do not accept now. Despite this, it is important to make sense out of what happened and use that understanding to assist others to find peace in their lives. The intensity of the communications about ISKCON and the leaders and the history and so on demonstrates quite clearly that those who share these ideas are eagerly seeking out peace in their lives and think their expressions are the way to do it.

When someone bores of this, not because it has no importance or value, but because it is no longer relevant to what they feel when they put their personal evolution as a higher priority, he or she looks for some way to find that inner peace; thus this site and the Saturday broadcasts.

Personally, I do not like seeing texts related to the past and my role in it and sometimes they due cause me to get quite upset, but being of service means exposing yourself to the possibility of getting a headache. I hope that I can assist those who wish to move on with their lives to find the necessary peace and courage to empower themselves to develop to their greatest potential.

Thanks Hari. I may have reflected how you feel, but perhaps I explained it poorly. Hope I didn't sound off too harshly; I forget that I was once very lost and confused. Obviously you are well-suited to help those who are stuck, you are able to muster a lot of compassion and patience. And, as a former high profile Iskcon person, many "blooped" (always loved that word) people will come to you for help. I guess you knew that. You also knew that some would be dumping verbal toxins in your direction. I really commend you for stepping out and doing this extremely valuable service.

Garuda Pandit

let us not let the past define
present and future
let us not hold him only to his past deeds

it is good he lets us post here
he is the only one who will do this
this is his honesty
his decency and integrity
as time goes on
we may even grow to love him

we will have chances to defend him
I'm sure
those in ISKCON will give us this
for how they are,
they will condemn him
but only for his GOOD deeds

now with his forum,
repackaging himself
cheap oriental despot
becomes friendly adviser
ISKCON GBC boss
now a kindly healer
psychic vampire turned medical leach

he never did express real empathy
or apologize as we had hoped
it is we who need to understand him,
his past he says,
is to be amputated
leaving us crippled
or perhaps just free

Oh christ I thought I was logged in. That is my poem as "guest" above. I was probably going to keep going over it and editing it, now I can't. I hope you all like it as it is. Well, as we say here on this forum, that's all in the past now.

Dear Hari and friends,

I had some realizations and some positive experiences as I was out walking around Boston today, and I am ready to move forward. I plan to not post any more criticism on this forum. I would like to wait a while, and then start a topic about the book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.

Hi Darwin,

I read your poem. Hope your won't mind my "critique", as you put it up for all to see. Not really sure I fully understand your mood in that piece, but I commend you for expressing your feelings. You do seem very conflicted in that poem, but it is nice to hear you feeling positive lately. Seems the big machine called Iskcon has chewed up and spat out a lot of sincere souls, myself included, albeit long ago. Personally, I think you've come to the right place for moving forward.

I'm curious to know--what kind of support/help are you seeking? Obviously you have found something that attracted you to this site/Hari's work. Can you describe it?

GP

a group of folks
gathered to talk
of things past
and
came up blank

as usual.

dead to the present
pretending to be
present in the present
and
disabled to reality

i found such a thing
as i read
a few things
and things will
never be the same

as usual

exdis.niab

A person wrote a few phrases as if it were a poem
But it didn’t rhyme and it had little reason
Full of presumptuous assumptions and anonymous without gumption

He continues to snipe at enemies and demons long ago dead
While declaring the past is a memory and memory is an illusion in the head
That does not touch the truth to which he alone seems to be connected

His teacher seems to have reached mythical proportions
A behemoth of intellectuality, clarity and conviction
Who declares that all teachers are cheaters while he teaches the taught

Yet no doubt the poet misquotes his master for his master would certainly
Be angry if he knew what the poet was writing!
The master’s anger seems something to fear. Is he a fearful master, Oh niab?

Reveal your true form, you bard of dull words oft repeated to emphasize nothing particular
Grant us your teacher’s teaching without further leeching!
Reveal your true motive and your inner need for we are interested indeed!

If you wish to say, "I am upset," then say it and be gone,
For there are others who know the meaning of pain and wish to heal it
in a vibrant harmonic that sings with the colors of their present experience

To judge others is to judge your-self, Oh judger of man!
For your condemnation of their endeavor is a statement of your truth
Be aware of what binds you now, for it does so in manners not as obvious as before.