01/11/98-1490

VAST Reveals Strategy?

Europe (VNN) - The following post was found in the ISKCON COM - VAST (Vaishnava Advanced Studies Forum). Written by Nikhilkananda Dasa, a members of the recent COM WSTRAT (Web Strategy) forum that created CHAKRA, the paper may reveal, besides some other curious facts, ISKCON's future strategy towards its critics:

Dear Maharajas and Prabhus, Please accept my dandavats.

As you may know, there has been a dramatic increase in public attacks by former isckon members on many battle fronts, directed against some of our leading iskcon devotees and also against iskcon s leadership as a whole. The battle ground was mostly the internet, sometimes also the public media and important public contacts. Having been involved in organizing defense in Slovenia from the early beginning of the crisis, having helped to create internet defense and having conducted an investigation by conducting a number of interviews I feel the responsibility to inform you of my personal findings on what could be the root of the problems.

The text is a little long for which I am sorry, Kindly take the time to study the text because it is serious.

Analyzing the situation, the most ardent opponents seem to be mentally disturbed individuals like Puranjana, Sadbhuja and Hiranyangi who formerly belonged to iskcon and now dig up dirt in any way they can. Supporting them sometimes are former Iskcon supporters who have enstranged themselves and linked up with groups of ritviks. The main threat comes from obsessed individuals like Puranjana whose desire to damage iskcon by any means seems boundless. It seems reasonable to study their personality and why they became such a problem.

As much as I agree that we have to combat Puranjana on internet to defend our devotees and most of all, Srila Prabhupada s heritage, and although I have with all my energy tried to support these efforts, there isalso a possibility that we asiskcon s devotes are partially and unknowingly responsible for the trouble. The good side of this realization would be that we can take steps to minimize such problems.

One thing which Puranjana, Sadbhuja, Hiranyangi, Patita Pavana and Kriparama, our main opponents at this timehave in common is that all of them carried psychological problems from before.

Hiranyangi comes from a chaotic family and hates her father, (her sister, a non devotee, spent years in mental hospitals) She definitely showed traces of severe mental problems indicating the chance of a crisis in the near future. The same was true with Patita Pavana. From a long letter he had written to the devotees years ago it is evident that he went through a permanent mental crisis, with night mares, confusion, skin disease etc. He explained it to the leading devotees but the devotees did unfortunately not understand the problem fully, so the escalation of conflict was pre programmed.

Unfortunately devotes failed to see the seriousness of the affair and instead of transferring them to professional and prolonged psychiatric help ( which is not as bad as some think, we have devotee psychiatrists who could recommend proper scources ) the devotees mostly ascribed it all to "subtle beings", or ghosts which is awide spread important paradigm in Iskcon. This fear of suibtle entities led the persons to become even more traumatized and paranoid, almost to the point of psychosis.

The way our leaders dealt with Hiranyangi and Patita was simply to ask a tantric in India to do a ceremony for them and they paid 200 dollars for it. Of course it is easy to provide a simple explanation to a complex problem and to"get rid" of it by paying 200 dollars. I was watching this increasing habit of consulting ghost charmers, quacks and self proclaimed healers, over the lastfive years or so and I think there is reason to be alarmed because we are now reaping the fruit of this wide spread esoteric "cult" which has established itself in our iskcon movement and is much supported even by GBC members. If Patita and Hiranyangi would have be made aware of their own problems in life instead of blaming it to some invisible forces they would have had a chance to see the mistakes in themselves and try to seek therapy.

Kindly take into consideration the possibility ( which I am convinced 108 % of ) that most of what these tantrics, soothsayers, energy balancers, radioestesists and other quacks are teaching is to the greatest part neitherbased on any actual Vedic scources nor on any scientifically verifiable procedures. It is mostly nothing else but belief and it is based on making money, fashions and hundreds of trends in the new age scene which is dominated by cheaters, mayavadis and humanly immature, unscrupolous characters.

In the case of Puranjana, he was already a disturbed individual with severe problems in marriage and his communication with others. He slidinto a traumatic experience when his small daughter was abused by a drunkardwho lived with a friend of Krishna. Although the temple authorities reported the case and the man was sued they failed to see the need of thefather, Puranjana, to receive professional treatment and that he was in an acute state of tension and despair, having failed in so many respects. Finally the TPs wife made unsensitive remarks about his failures in marriageand she blamed Puranjana for the abuse, which triggered all of his emotions.He threatened her and P. was consequently expelled from iskcon. Which drove his trauma and feelings of despair and failure to the maximum. After these sad experiences he finally lost his family, the devotees and with it everything. Personally I think that the temple leadership should have tried to not take everything he said ad verbatim but should have realized his confused and traumatized condition. It is in such crises people who have served iskcon cannot be dropped but must receive help in a reasonable way. I think the formation of an emergency advisory group of devotee psychologists and trained pschiatrists for iskcon is imperative and badly needed. Second, we have to get away of relying on the help of quacks, exorcists and new age healers who make everything worse and are reminiscent of the darkest middle ages. It is a waste of Krishna s money and they bring in elemnts foreign to our philsopohy due to being products of speculation.

Some may ask how it comes that some of these faith healers etc have obviously sometimes good results and sometimes they fail. The answer is simple. Over 50 % of our diseases come within a few days and then disappear again. Naturally the chance is 50m % that the cold will disappear after the new age cure beacuse it will disappear anyway. Second there is the effect of relaxation which helps in some cases. For this a trained psychiatrist with knowlege in hypnosis and conventional therapy would be more effective. Or sometimews simply taking rest as with most diseases. Third, there is the belief effect which in most cases only lets the symptoms disappear for a few days at best but does not actually cure a serious psychological trauma and crisis nor a major disease.

One recent example here in Slovenia is a friend of Krishna whohas visitedthe Ljubljana temple for many months. ever since his collegue blew out his brains in front of him, last year. He has been suffering from states of fear for many months.There were also suicidal tendencies. This person was "treated" by the local new age doctor in the Slovenian Croatian devotee scene ( Upananda ), who told him that ever since the death of his friend he is under attack from subtle beings etc. After he put his hands on him for a few minutes he thought that his trouble became better but a few days later it became worse. When I met him he was a wreck. To deal with the problem I talked with him almost every day in the last six weeks, for at least one hour. I told him that those ghosts are mostly imagination, they have no effect on a devotee who chants and that he should face the fact he suffers from a traumatic experience. He also works in his job under much stress doing night shifts and he has family stress, His problem always increases with night shifts, so I recommeded he should take extra rest and perhaps take a vacation. During these weeks he improved drastically. His fears were almost gone, his wife and brother thanked me. Then I went on vacation. After I came back, our new age healer had been here again and "treated " Marco again, telling him about"subtle beings "etc. The temple even provided a "clinic room" for the healerwhere every devotee against payment could receive the newest in hodge podgetherapy and excorcism. He has become a wreck and seems to have entered a new crisis because of the paranoia which Upananda has caused and his failure in facing his own problem. He was again walking around scared and confused. I have now calmed him downand encouraged him to take 1. regularly professional psychiatric help 2. ask his boss to be freed from nightshift and 3. if necessary take a few weeks of extra vacation on medicalgrounds. I also encouraged him again that what Upanandahad told him about ghosts etc was nonsense and that he should realize that we are not a clinic but only help him to help himself.

It is causing me distress to watch "healers" like Upananda. The first thing I saw is that he sells everyone cheap stones which are worth less than 10 cent, which has become a gigantic business fashion in Germany and seems to be the trademark of all hodge podge new age doctors nowadays. ( sorry if I hurt anyone s feelings and illusions ). According to Jyotuir veda which I have studied for 17 years such cheap stones are useless. But they are a great money makers. Some wear a whole necklace of such stones "against all kinds of diseases. According to Veda the cheap and flawed stones should not be worn. Every few weeks I see Upananda advertize some newtype of therapy which he has found on the new age market, like "cleaning the whole body through cosmic vibrations to make it immune etc. " which have no actual basis, except "somone said it somewhere". It is in plain words cheating and not as harmless as it looks.

According to all of my reasearch, 99,9 % of the effects of such therapies are simply based on belief. The danger with this "belief cure" is that the effect only lasts for a day or so and often serious physical or mental diseases are not treated. When someone has pain in the lowerd abdomen it is usually an alarm signal by the body that something is wrong. Yet after the healing hands, stones, holy smoke etc, the pain in many cases vanishes for some time due to the auto suggestive effect. But the disease is not cured. Even HH Harikesa Swami admitted in the medical conference that one mataji in Russia died after having been "treated" by new age quacks. Unfortunately even GBcs and gurus support and advertise one or several such quacks, excorcists and "faith healers".

Another such practitioner is Padmanabha who lives near the German farm. Again the typical mixture of of hodge podge, according to latest business fashion, from cheap stones over reiki to what have you. He also claims to be astrologer but he never learned proper Vedic astrology. He takes money for every reading. One time Padmanabha advised a guest who spent a few weeks at the temple to stop taking the"demoniac medicine " which his psychiatrist had prescribed and take his gem stone and crystal treatment instead. One day later the guest entered a major crisis by losing his mind and started to run amoc until hereceived an injection because his mental disease had simple biological reasons and he had to take his medicine regularly.

Another common characteristic of excorcists and quacks is their impure aura which I have noted (even before I was told who they are), Apart from thephysical and mental dangers there are also the spiritual dangers which accompany suchfashions which have entered iskcon s social culture during the last few years. The two magazines in Slovenia and Croatia published by devotees deal mainlyabout Ufo s, big foots, aliens and crystals nowadays. Devotees in Germany donot have the money to print certain books which Srila Prabhupada wanted but they have the money to print books on UFO mother ships in outer space andrevelations of the sun god through a karmi trance medium. One iskcon guruhas now published a book on UFO motherships and their invasion of mother earth, a knowledge received "from his last life " as he says and no other scource, neither Vedic nor basic science. What wonder then when the faith into iskcon s leadership vanishes day by day. The serious among us did not come to learn about UFOs and excorcism but about pure love of Godhead. When such quacks and excorcists visit the temples they are often treated like gurusOne tantric from Indiawho had been connected with the cigarettesmoking pagal baba ashrama made approximately 100.000 US on making "excorcist ceremonies. He told devotees sometimes that they would commit suicide if they would not payhim a large sum for a special sacrifice. This tantric has just recently "consecrated" a German temple again. On the German farm the devotees kept a whole wall with photos of the tantric for at least three years, as if he were a guru. While Prabhupada disciples who served Iskcon with dedication for years often received no support.

Analyzing the situation I am convinced that we are are receiviong reactions for tolerating these esoteric aberrations and sometimes even supporting and financing them. Devotes who raise doubts about it are discredited even if they gave their lives to Prabhupada s mission.

In some parts leading devotees speculate about coming polar shifts, with a major world inundation and a coming world war. And they base some part of their Iskcon planning on predictions by soothsayers who have no authority other than their saying it.

How can it be considered a coincidence that Ex Jagadisa Swami wrote in his letter that the main cause of his fall down was his practice of reiki which he even gave to women. At the same time he escaped his real problems and displayewd a eak personality by running off with the wife of his disciple and by leaving a handi capped son behind.

It is not by coincidence that the dark Catholic church maintains even nowadays a department for excorcism. Two members in Germany were trialed for murder last year when they tortured a young woman to death, bybeating her, to rid her of the devil.

My sister herself who now works as a medical doctor and a pschiatrist told me that twenty years ago she was attracted to our movement. But then devotees told her of witches and ghosts and she started to believe my motheris a witch and got so paranoid it could have been the beginning of a pschosis. She was deeply scared that some witch would catch her. Only bydetaching herself from our movement and realizing with the help of atherapist that it is just her imagination she was able to free herself from this fear. Until now she respects KC and she is a level- headed, successful woman. She likes chanting sometimes but that aspect of superstition in our movement is a night mare for her. My own experience has led me to see it the same way. If we do not recognize this problem and start adressing it, by producing sane and sober members and referring those who are in mentacrises to professional therapists ( who by the way will then bear the responsibility instead of iskcon ), I do not see much chance of defending Iskcon very efficiently.

Those among the Iskcon leaders and GBCs who still publically support such quacks, excorcists, UFOs, magnetism, coming cataclysm, trance mediums and support literature, at the cost of the sanity of our members are not giving proper protection andexample to our Vaishnava society and should be reprimanded for it. They are playing with the lives of people who are in their care, so it is not to be taken lightly. This is where our defense should start.

Yr svt Nikhilkananda Dasa
(end quote)

ISKCON leaders seem to realize that it is no longer politically correct or effective to label its critics as "demons", "offenders", "envious snakes", "anti-ISKCON". They are now to be declared "mentally ill", "psychological traumatized".

This may also be evidenced in a recent letter from Suhotra Swami regarding Gauridas (see VNN story #1479) in which he explains that Gauridas did in fact believe in what he was saying, but was suffering from what he calls "FMS" or False Memory Syndrome, a medical condition in which the patient believes to remember something which did not happen.

Nikilananda prescribes "prolonged psychiatric help" for these devotees.

Until recently brutal totalitarian regimes, like Russia, used that very same tactic to imprison thousands of critics and dissidents in mental institutions, to receive "prolonged treatment" from "psychiatrists".