12/18/97 - 1385

Letter from Hari Sauri Das

USA (VNN) - Letter from Hari Sauri das:

I am also amazed. Some of the things I have read are extremely offensive and about the worst vaisnava aparadha I have ever seen. I think the origins of this whole controversy lie with PADA who started stirring this up early this year. However, now a whole bunch of others, who cannot be said to be ill-motivated, are also rather intensly examining the tapes from Nov. 1977. They are listening to tapes, hearing whispers and interpreting them to fit this scenario. However, the practice of reconstructing history to fit new theories is not a new phenomena no matter how divorced from reality it may be. I don't believe that most or even practically any of those now propagating this stuff were actually there with Srila Prabhupada in the last days. If any of them were, and now make these claims, all I can say is that they have an amazing ability to forget reality.

I was there for the whole of October and left around the 28th to return to Australia. I personally witnessed the genuine devotion and intense love for Srila Prabhupada of our godbrothers who were looking after him and also Srila Prabhupada's pleasure and reciprocation with them. I can tell you there is no possibility in the world that anyone of them could have even dreamed of harming Srila Prabhupada what to speak of murdering him. I haven't seen any of the translations of the HIndi and Bengali sections of the tapes, where apparently Prabhupada talks about the possibility of poisoning. However, I remember at the time that he complained the makaradvaja medicine was acting like poison and not as medicine and it was only given to him once and then stopped because of this.

Adridharana spent several weeks living in the same room as Damodar Prasada Shastri, the kaviraja who finally treated Srila Prabhupada. He says taht at no time did the kaviraja suggest even slightly that Srila Prabhupada was being poisoned. He did say that the makaradvaja was acting like poison though. If Prabhupada was being poisoned by intent, he would surely have seen the symptoms but he never mentioned it.

So personally I don't think there is any credibility to the idea that one or some of Prabhupada's own disciples poisoned him. It is offensive to even consider that they could have.

I am glad to hear that you are feeling a little better. Of course, people with heart disease often go on to live a long life, so it is in the hands of Krsna. Srila Prabhupada also frequently suffered heart palpitations and still travelled the world over, at a faster pace than his young disciples could keep up with--rakhe krsna mare ke, mare krsna rakhe ke.

Yhs, Hari Sauri das