12/21/97 - 1406

Letter from Ravindra Svarupa Das

USA (VNN) - Letter from Ravindra Svarupa das:

December 20, 1997

Dear editor:

Please accept my obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

If I may be permitted a small clarification: The recent text titled "Poison the GBC," posted on your pages on 12/17/97, and labeled "apparently written by Ravindra Svarupa dasa" is not entirely my work.

Specifically, the concluding portion, beginning "It might not be anything . . . " and recounting an alleged discussion with Naveen Krishna, is not mine.

The body of the article, however, is mine. It conflates parts of two separate posting -- one on November 18 and the other on December 2--I made to the GBC Discussions conference.

As the GBC Discussions is a private forum, many of us-- me included-- freely indulge in "thinking out loud" in our postings. Therefore I advise your readers not to get too excited about them.

To put my pasted-together texts in context, let me give you this exclusive leak this from my posting of November 19:

"I withdraw my call to disown Balavanta's investigation.

"I have by now talked with Balavanta Prabhu and with Naveen Prabhu at length by telephone, and I have a much clearer picture of what is going on.

"Balavanta's investigation is throwing a large and distorted shadow in the form of Mahabuddhi's own "Office of Special Investigation." Balavanta or the people around him are being shadowed by people who would have liked to have made themselves part and parcel of the GBC-sanctioned investigation, but have not been allowed to do so. Balavanta and Naveen assure me that they are keeping them at arm's length.

"I am relieved to be persuaded that our investigation shares in no part of Mahabuddhi's mentality. Balavanta Prabhu strikes me as judicious, sober, detached as it is possible to be, and quite determined to do a professional-quality job which will stand up to exacting scrutiny.

"Note that there seem to be three separate investigations going on: One by the Mahabuddhi-Isa "Independent Vaishnava Council," one by the PADA-clique, and one under GBC auspices. All three will surely come out with their conclusions.

"Naveen Krishna Prabhu assures me that he is not convinced that Prabhupada was in fact poisoned; he just wanted us to understand that Prabhupada clearly made statements such as "I am being poisoned" on the November 8th tape."

As you can see, I changed my mind about some thoughts expressed on November 18 and published, a month later, on your pages.

You could have checked out the story with me before publishing. Newspapers do that.

Thank you.

Your servant in the service of Srila Prabhupada,

Ravindra Svarupa dasa