Untitled Document

Dear Windle Turley law firm,

I am writing to you in regards to the Hare Krishna Lawsuit and in particular to the following statement found under the section Plaintiffs Original Complaint.

35. The founder of the institution, Prabhupada, was informed in 1972, at a time when he totally controlled the institution, that extensive physical and sexual abuse of minor ISKCON children was occurring, but he concealed the wrongdoing from the public, parents and all but a handful of close advisors.

I would like to request you to make a public statement that His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada was in no way whatsoever the cause of any abuse to his spiritual children, and apologise for the above very offensive statement that Srila Prabhupada was covering up this abuse and thus implying that he never tried to rectify this unfortunate situation. You should take note of the following letters.

The important matter is that the children are taken care of nicely. Bhavananda was talking with me that in New Vrindaban students were very much neglected. Therefore they were immediately transferred to New York. Every parent wants to see that their children are taken care of very nicely. That is the first duty. If they are not healthy then how they can prosecute their education? If they are undernourished it is not good for their future activities. They must have sufficient quantity of milk and then dhal, capatis, vegetables, and a little fruit will keep them always fit. There is no need of luxurious fatty foods but milk is essential. A big building is also very good for the children's health. They can move freely and run and jump.

(Srila Prabhupada Letter: Satsvarupa 71-10-09)

In 1971 when Srila Prabhupada was informed of about children being neglected they were immediately transferred to a better situation in New York where they coulld be taken care of nicely. Please note how Srila Prabhupada instructs children should be taken care of.

In the following letter written in 1972 Srila Prabhupada replies to Bhanutanya dasi about her complaint that children in the Dallas Gurukula were sometimes mistreated.

My Dear Bhanutanya dasi,

    Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter undated, and I have noted the contents with great concern. One thing is, I am very much sad to learn that you have left the company of the devotees over this incident at Gurukula school. Now you are living by yourself because you have been hurt by seeing that the children are sometimes mistreated, and because no one has taken your good advice in this connection. But you may be assured that I am always anxious about the welfare of my disciples, so that I am taking steps to rectify this unfortunate situation. Now my advice to you is to give up these feelings and return to your life of Krishna Consciousness devotional service, and if you go back to Dallas school and demonstrate to the other teachers there just the proper way to instruct and discipline the students nicely, that will be a great service. I am forwarding the copy of this letter, with your letter, to Satsvarupa for his immediately attention.
   Now the thing is, children should not be beaten at all, that I have told. They should simply be shown the stick strongly. So if one cannot manage in that way then he is not fit as teacher. If a child is trained properly in Krishna Consciousness, he will never go away. That means he must have two things, love and education. So if there is beating of child, that will be difficult for him to accept in loving spirit, and when he is old enough he may want to go away--that is the danger. So why these things are going on _ marching and chanting japa, insufficient milk, too strict enforcement of time schedules, hitting the small children? Why these things are being imposed? Why they are inventing these such new things like marching and japa like army? What can I do from such a distant place? They should run and play when they are small children, not forced to chant japa, that is not the way. So I have given you the guiding principles, it is not that I must be consulted with every small detail, that is the business of the in-charge, but if no one is there who can manage in the right way, what can I do? Now if you have got the right idea how to do it, you may go there again and take some responsible post for correcting the situation, that will be your real duty, not that there is some disagreement and I go away disgusted, no. That is not Vaisnava standard. Standard should be that, never mind there is some difficulty, my spiritual master has ordered me to do like this, now let me do it, that's all.
   Hoping this will meet you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

(Srila Prabhupada Letter to: Bhanutanya 18 November, 1972)

Please note the following statemants in particular:

1. But you may be assured that I am always anxious about the welfare of my disciples, so that I am taking steps to rectify this unfortunate situation.

2. Now my advice to you is to give up these feelings and return to your life of Krishna Consciousness devotional service, and if you go back to Dallas school and demonstrate to the other teachers there just the proper way to instruct and discipline the students nicely, that will be a great service.

3. Now the thing is, children should not be beaten at all, that I have told. They should simply be shown the stick strongly. So if one cannot manage in that way then he is not fit as teacher.

Note "That i have told" so if his so called disciples were not following his instructions which he had told to everyone who was sincere enough to care to hear, what could Srila Prabhupada do from such a distant place ?

4. So why these things are going on marching and chanting japa, insufficient milk, too strict enforcement of time schedules, hitting the small children? Why these things are being imposed? Why they are inventing these such new things like marching and japa like army? What can I do from such a distant place? They should run and play when they are small children, not forced to chant japa, that is not the way. So I have given you the guiding principles, it is not that I must be consulted with every small detail, that is the business of the in-charge, but if no one is there who can manage in the right way, what can I do?

Note: Srila Prabhupada had given all his disciples the guiding principles, especially to the men in charge. Now if they invent things and act out of anger like a gross materialistic demons why blame Srila Prabhupada. If no one was there to manage what can he do. It is very offensive to even suggest that Srila Prabhupada was concealing these things as if he was a conditioned soul acting with material duplicity. Please note the following quotes:

And Sri Baladeva Vidyabhusana has given about this arjava, "simplicity." He says that a brahmana even to a enemy will disclose all his secrets. Even to his enemy. Nobody discloses his secrets before an enemy, but a brahmana, if he, even he finds out a enemy, he will disclose all the secrets. He has no secret. Brahmana means open-minded, liberal. And the opposite word is krpana, miser.

(Srimad-Bhagavatam Lecture 1.2.27 Vrndavana, November 7, 1972)

Arjava means simplicity. A brahmana is not supposed to be crooked and duplicity. No. Simple. It is said even the enemy wants to know something from him, he will clearly say, "It is this." That is called simplicity.

(Deity Installation and Initiation Lecture Melbourne, April 6, 1972)

Srila Prabhupada is a Maha Bhagavata, a topmost devotee far far beyond a brahmana who is a beginner in the devotion service of the Lord. So your plaintiffs complaint is offensively suggesting that Srila Prabhupada is a mundane crooked creature who doesn't even have the basic human quality of being simple and straight forward. Please act very very quickly to recify your very erroneous conclusion. If not i say onto you, not as a fanatic but on the strength of my Spiritual Masters pure words. YOUR ACTIONS WILL BE A SOURCE OF ALL CALAMITIES.

Thus being advised by the demoniac ministers, Kamsa, who was from the very beginning the greatest rascal, decided to persecute the brahmanas and Vaisnavas, being entrapped by the shackles of all-devouring, eternal time. He ordered the demons to harass all kinds of saintly persons, and then he entered his house. The adherents of Kamsa were all influenced by the modes of passion as well as illusioned by the modes of ignorance, and their only business was to create enmity with saintly persons. Such activities can only reduce the duration of life. The demons accelerated the process and invited their deaths as soon as possible. The result of persecuting saintly persons is not only untimely death. The act is so offensive that the actor also gradually loses his beauty, his fame and his religious principles, and his promotion to higher planets is also checked. Driven by various kinds of mental concoctions, the demons diminish all kinds of welfare. An offense at the lotus feet of the devotees and brahmanas is a greater offense than that committed at the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Thus a godless civilization becomes the source of all calamities.

(Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta purport of the Fourth Chapter of Krsna, "Kamsa Begins His Persecutions.")

Respectfully submitted,

Mukunda dasa.

P.S. In regards to the offensive claim that Srila Prabhupada conclealed physical and sexual abuse of children in ISKCON from the public, parents and all but a handful of close advisors. This claim is completely proved false in Srila Prabhupada's letter that i have already pointed out to you. Here are the sections for you to again note with care:

Now my advice to you is to give up these feelings and return to your life of Krishna Consciousness devotional service, and if you go back to Dallas school and demonstrate to the other teachers there just the proper way to instruct and discipline the students nicely, that will be a great service.

(Srila Prabhupada Letter to: Bhanutanya 18 November, 1972)

Srila Prabhupada's advice to Bhanutanya dasi is to return to Dallas school demonstrate to the other teachers there just the proper way to instruct and discipline the students nicely. So where is there a question of concealing.

Now if you have got the right idea how to do it, you may go there again and take some responsible post for correcting the situation, that will be your real duty, not that there is some disagreement and I go away disgusted, no.

(Srila Prabhupada Letter to: Bhanutanya 18 November, 1972)

She has just being instructed by her Spiritual Master to go and sort things out on his behalf. So she was given full authority so go there, take some responsible post and as his representative REPEAT AND PRACTICALLY APPLY HIS INSTRUCTIONS and thus rectify the situation.

Again for your careful consideration are those instructions given by Srila Prabhupada to his representative Bhanutanya dasi in 1972.

Now the thing is, children should not be beaten at all, that I have told. They should simply be shown the stick strongly. So if one cannot manage in that way then he is not fit as teacher. If a child is trained properly in Krishna Consciousness, he will never go away. That means he must have two things, love and education. So if there is beating of child, that will be difficult for him to accept in loving spirit, and when he is old enough he may want to go away--that is the danger. So why these things are going on _ marching and chanting japa, insufficient milk, too strict enforcement of time schedules, hitting the small children? Why these things are being imposed? Why they are inventing these such new things like marching and japa like army? What can I do from such a distant place? They should run and play when they are small children, not forced to chant japa, that is not the way.

(Srila Prabhupada Letter to: Bhanutanya 18 November, 1972)

P.P.S. Another Srila Prabhupada letter from 1972, again clearly showing his great concern for the children at Dallas Gurukula.

Srila Prabhupada Letter to: Mohanananda Ahmedabad 11 December, 1972

My Dear Mohanananda,
   Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge your letter dated November 22, 1972, and I have noted the contents with great care. I am very, very glad to hear of your desire to return to Gurukula school and apply yourself to developing that place. I am so glad to hear this good news. Only a few weeks back I had got a letter from Satsvarupa wherein he has informed me that Stoka Krishna has left Dallas and that he must go there to take charge himself. But he is sannyasi and he should travel and preach, and he has not much taste for watching after so many things. So I had suggested him to get a full-time manager, some grhastha, nice husband and wife together, to manage the things, and that he shall expect that such person will stay tightly and develop it and make that his life work. It is the most important preaching work, to train our children in Krishna Consciousness education of life. And I think that you are just the right man to do it. Krishna has given you the right idea, just see! I was also at Dallas school last summer and I was very much impressed with these children, how nicely they are becoming preachers and kirtana men and girls. If we can develop properly, one day they will turn the world by their preaching. Let the small children from all good families in your country come to our Gurukula school and take education from us. They may be certain their children will get the real knowledge which will create the best citizens of brahminical type, clean, honest, law-abiding, healthy, industrious, all good qualities they will have. Now I think Krishna has inspired you in this way, and every facility is there, you are the pioneer in Dallas and you know how to do everything nicely, that I know, so now you go there immediately after consulting with Satsvarupa and Karandhara and Madhudvisa and the others, take their advice and do the needful. If you become Head Master of the Gurukula that is more important than going to South America. This is the most important post in pushing on this movement, practically, because you shall create our preachers of the future, many, many of them. That will be your great credit and contribution. May Krishna give you His all blessings more and more for this task.
   If you still like to contact Hanuman, he is having some difficulty with the governments in these places, but I have just got on letter from him the following address: c.o Agencia Wallis C. A. Edificio Karam, Avenida Urdmeta, P. O. Box 1826, Caracas, Venezuela. But I think it is better if he takes some brahmacaris and sannyasis with him for travelling in such difficult and dangerous places. You are manager with best experience, and besides you have got wife and child to protect, so it will be very much pleasing to me if you shall take up the big work of Gurukula school and develop it very nicely. Thank you for helping me in this way.
   Hope this meets you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swam