01/27/98 - 1538

Gopi Bhava Club 1976

USA (VNN) - The "Gopi Bhava Club" incident in 1976 in Los Angeles

by Puranjana das

A number of devotees have asked for "my version" of this incident, so here it is. First of all, it should be noted that there were two groups doing different things but at the same time in 1976. Some of us were getting together and doing regular harinama samkirtana (daily), and holding readings of the "Chaitanya Charitamrita" in Los Angeles. The other "group" was headed by Nitai dasa in India and he was trying to get people to align themselves with various smarta and/or sahajiya elements.

Somehow or other, in the minds of a few GBCs, the "two groups" had been working together. This was never the case. We may recall that Nitai dasa had already been branded as a deviant by Srila Prabhupada, for his association with improper "spiritual authorities." The LA group had no ties with either Nitai, or any of the groups he was aligned with. This was especially true since it was well known that Nitai's activities were already banned in ISKCON. Had we been actually working closely with him, there would have been some type of uproar among many more devotees than just a few GBCs. There also would have been some evidence of our cooperation, however none was ever produced that we know of.

The 1976 LA "club" essentially consisted of Myself, and at different times: Dravida, Ranchora, Jagajivana, Sulochana, Riktananda and the odd guest. I don't think that any of the devotees who were in those meetings would agree that ...in the meetings they: wore saris; smoked marijuana; claimed they were fit to be worshipped; claimed that they were pure conjugal lovers of Krishna or etc. as some rumors alleged. Of course we do know who are the folks that have gone on to do some of the above, and worse, since that time, namely, some of the GBC's "gurus" who went on to ACTUALLY smoke marijuana while claiming that they were "nikunya yuno" assistants of the gopis, and make other's wives or other female followers pregnant and so on. We are indeed pretty confident, that while some of the LA club members lapsed into some intoxication and so on, none of the members of the alleged 1976 club engaged in fallen activities while claiming they were "pure devotees of Krishna."

By the way, one woman was sympathetic to us and she was said by some to have been a member, but she only liked the idea (Purnachandra dasi.) She never actually attended any of the meetings. As far as I know, she never had any physical or sexual contact with any of the members of the group? There were some rumors about the group, and one of them was that there were a number of ladies attending the meetings. However, to date no one has ever produced the names of these alleged female participants. There was also a rumor about a pregnancy. Anyway, if any of this occured, or was commited by any of the members at that time, I cannot say for certain. There was no illicit sex of drugs allowed in the meetings. To place this pregnancy issue to rest, if there is any known name of a woman who got pregnant from one of the members at that time can someone tell us who it is?

Anyway, around that time, the "Chaitanya Charitamrita" had just come out. No one had read them before, so we decided to start a reading club based on study of Srila Prabhupada's new books. I think that Agrahya prabhu covered the "gopi bhava" issue farily well in his recent article so I need not repeat his posting in detail, but to sum, Srila Prabhupada's books have some stories about the gopis and so on, especially in the CC. However, word for word readings of these items is not out of bounds for the neophyte since they are designed to help the neophyte appreciate the higher taste that is available in actual spiritual life.

We did conclude that Lord Chaitanya was making available the "conjugal rasa," and this is pointed out by many authorized acharyas and their students. However this idea was never expressed up till 1976 in as much detail as it was in the CC. So, we did state to others that one of the purposes of Lord Chaitanya was to elevate, to those who so desired it and were eventually qualified to enter into it, the conjugal rasa. However, no one in the LA group had ever stated that they were actually qualified to enter into the conjugal rasa.

SAMKIRTANA v. SHORT CHANGING

One point of friction, perhaps the real underlying issue, with the LA group and the GBC leaders at the time was not the "rasa issue," but the issue of the techniques used in book distribution. Those of us in the group were, for the most part, stating that the new "tricks and devices" being used to solicit funds was hurting the reputation of ISKCON. For example, a video had been made showing how to "short change" the public, give misleading reasons for collecting funds, and so on.

We objected to this type of emphasis, and later on Srila Prabhupada himself wrote a letter condemning that video and those tactics. The LA so-called "gopi bhava" group was also targetted because it was undermining the "power and control" of the management structure. The "new cheating devices" were being attacked by us, so the issue was also about the power politics of that era.

Oddly, our group predicted in 1976 the 1980 Syracuse case which ISKCON lost, wherein the Court of the State of New York concluded that selling trinkets is not "samkirtana." They used the books of Srila Prabhupada to prove that "sam" --together, and "kirtana" --singing, is not: selling records, candles and lewd audio records to people in the parking lots of state fairs. I think we were way ahead of our time on this issue?

OPPOSED TO THE SAMKIRTANA MOVEMENT?

We therefore wanted a regular harimana chanting party to keep the public view more favorable. At the time, we were the only group of devotees doing regular street samkirtana daily in LA, maybe even in the entire USA. So, it was a little shocking when the first complaint we heard from Tamal to Srila Prabhupada was that "this group is opposed to samkirtana and they never perform samkirtana." That was simply a straight out lie, as we were the ONLY devotees in LA at the time who were actually doing daily street samkirtana. And this can be confirmed by asking all of the devotees that were in the group.

Tamal, of course, was not doing any street samkirtana or book "samkirtana" at all at that time, that we ever heard of? So, he was either projecting his own lack of "samkirtana," or he was using the "stopping samkitana" lie as a political card to try and get a severe reaction against us? We were not too surprised at this however, since we had already heard many rumors that Tamal liked to misrepresent things, and in fact Srila Prabhupada had, just a few months prior, tried to send Tamal to China for exactly that reason. Anyway, this was the first hint that we knew we were going to be railroaded by Tamal, and we realized that he would use lies or any other tricks he thought he could get away with.

VISHNUJANA SWAMI DISSAPPEARS?

Oddly, I felt almost as if something very bad was going to happen to me (and perhaps in the shape of Tamal) when Vishnujana swami disappeared a few months earlier. Vishnujana had a bus program and the story we heard is that he felt that Tamal Krishna had hijacked his bus project, and that his program had been unfairly attacked by Tamal. Vishujana's idea was also somewhat like our idea, he wanted to have a more "low impact" and "public friendly" profile. He would set up muscial instruments and chant and play for hours and hours, and he was very powerful as a preacher.

It is important to understand how the two systems were going into conflict at that time: a) Tamal's big "Radha Damodara bus program" supposedly designed to get out a lot of books but also; to make a lot of money and some say "to take-over ISKCON through the back door by controlling all of the finances" (even at the expense of upsetting the public), and b) the lower imact programs like Vishnujana and the street samkirtana that we were proposing.

Also of significance, Vishnujana swami had sometimes been almost compared to the sahajiya philosophy (as we were) for his constant singing and not entering into the "big programs" "big enterprises" of the other "swamis." In short, when he went down, it sort of marked the end of an era, and we intuitively felt that our turn was next. When Vishnujana was reported lost in 1976, this was profoundly upsetting for me also since it seemed like the "cheating tactics, big money emphasis, and aggressive management" of Tamal was making an upswing.

Of course, Tamal had upset more than just Vishnujana. Just a few months before the so-called "gopi bhava" incident the temple presidents had objected to Tamal and as a result, Srila Prabhupada had ordered him to go to China. Had he followed the orders of his guru, Tamal would have been in China and the whole LA "gopi bhava" incident would have been a minor discussion and not a major personality attack on me, which is what Tamal later turned it into (just as he had launched a personality attack on Vishnujana and destroyed him?) I think that later, Gopijanaballabha swami blew out his brains in a St. Louis pond, just after talking to Tamal.

MASTER PLAN UNDER ATTACK

Tamal was attacking Srila Prabhupada's temples and overall master plan for his society by claiming that the male members were being contaminated by female association in the temples. Tamal was thus draining away manpower from Srila Prabhupada's temple programs, and "kidnapping" them over to his Radha Damodara bus project. He was also making people openly disrespectful and inimical towards Srila Prabhupada's real plan.

Simultaneously, Tamal's constant preaching against householders, women, and children had begun to alienate a huge section of the devotees in ISKCON. Some people began to speculate, even in the mid 1970s, that a few GBC were not in favor of women, children, and regular family life. Whereas, Srila Prabhupada was constantly trying to start temples, farms, schools and in other words "householder communities," some of the GBCs were seeming to attempt to dismantle those plans and preach heavily about the "evils" of women, children and family, and propping up an artificial "sannyasa" order.

Srila Prabhupada said, a few monts later in early 1977, that this sannyasa initiation program should be suspended and the whole thing reviewed. It seems that this sannyasa order was turning into a type of "sahajiya-ism" (imitation.) Also, there were some rumors at that time that some of the "sannyasa" leaders were inclined towards homosexuality. In any event, the overwhelming false preaching of some sannyasis is why Srila Prabhupada tried to reel in all of these sannyasis early in 1977, and launch a full-scale plan for a householder based society which he called "varnasrama."

Whoops! Back to 1976 in LA. Tamal first told Srila Prabhupada that there is a group in LA who is trying to "enter into the ecstatic manifestations of Lord Chaitanya." Srila Prabhupada replied that this is a very wonderful aspiration. Then Tamal said, and the worst thing is, they are trying to use your books to do that. Again, Srila Prabhupada thought that was good. Tamal realized that he was going to have to use another tactic to try to convince the other GBC and Srila Prabhupada that we were bad, so he made up the stories that we were working with Nitai, that we had accepted Nitai's guru as our new guru, and that we were smoking marijuana, wearing saris, and so on.

When, for example, Srila Prabhupada said "they are all rascal" he was referring not just to us, but also to all of the excess baggage that Tamal had tied us to, by bringing in Nitai's name and trying to connect us to him. In other words, Tamal lied, and then some of the other GBCs backed him up because some of them were concerend about our criticism of their money collecting scams.

A sort of meeting took place with Srila Prabhupada, myself and some GBC, but I really did not feel inclined to speak in that assembly since various false testimony was being forwarded by some of the leaders. I was very surprised to see that the GBC had hauled in Bali Mardan and gave him the post of loudly criticizing us, for example, when he had just come back from creating a huge illicit sex and alleged chicken eating scandal in the New York temple in the name of "sannyasa." His "new wife" had been saying that he was the "reincarnation of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta saraswati thakura" and etc.

Why would the GBC bring in this thoroughly discredited type of person as their de facto spokesman? Well, because no one else wanted to go there and defend their view? Or: oligarchy, cronyism, good-ole boys, clique mood, you scrath my back I'll scratch yours? I do not know, but they always seems to stick up for one another? Worse, Bali Mardan had never even spoken one word to me, ever, and now he suddenly knew my life story? Nor has he ever spoken to me subsequently?

So, just the fact that the GBC had this man doing a lot of the speaking on their behalf showed me they had little interest in what my views were at all. I figured, better to be silent now and write Srila Prabhupada a letter outside of that assembly. I thought of how Srila Bhaktisiddhanta had some very rough hooligans in the name of "sannyasi" leaders also, how he had left his body untimely being disgusted with these motivated leaders. In fact Srila Prabhupada noted that some of those 1936 leaders plotted to kill his guru, so this seemed like history repeating itself.

Amazingly, I was compared to Siddhaswarupada swami by some of the members, and a reading he gave about the gopis was recounted. I think we may recall that Siddhaswarupa had been driven away from ISKCON by Tamal also, and Srila Prabhupada had complained previously how Siddhaswarupa had been mistreated by the GBC. I recall in 1971, for example, that as soon as Siddhaswarupa sat down to read, Tamal stopped him and said, you cannot read in our temples, as if Tamal personally owned the temples himself. They drove him away intentionally.

Siddhaswarupa was intentionally not at all made to feel welcomed or comfortable by Tamal, on the contrary, he was made to feel fully unwanted. And whatever he did ---was checked. So, naturally he would be inclined to leave ISKCON and do his own thing? I was also amazed that the GBC would intentionally drive a man out like this, then criticize him, left, right and center not taking any blame themselves?

In other words, suppose that Siddhaswarupa had left Srila Prabhupada's mission and started a sahajiya cult? Who was ALSO to blame? The GBC was, since they drove him away. When you drive people away, naturally they will do other things? This also occured in the 1930s Gaudiya Matha, most of the members left, and they fell into all kinds of deviations. But the leaders had drove them away, according to Srila Prabhupada. So, the leaders throw the passengers off the boat in the middle of the ocean, and then laugh when their victims drown?

According to one (then) thug devotee's testimony to me personally, he was deputed by a few GBC to go and threaten to kill Siddhaswarupa in 1976, about the same time all of this was going on. Thus, Srila Prabhupada often wrote letters about how the GBC was driving people away from ISKCON. They just got more expert at this technique when Srila Prabhupada departed, and they drove off almost everyone else.

In any event, I then wrote to Srila Prabhupada a letter explaining that we had not been working with Nitai, that we had not accepted another guru, and so on and so forth. According to Srila Prabhupada's sceretary at the time, Srila Prabhupada was delighted with my letter and he wrote me back a nice reply. The secretary came up to me a few days later and said, "wow, really nice letter from Srila Prabhupada, did you like it?"

I certainly should have got the letter by then since both me and Srila Prabhupada were in LA at the time. The problem is, that I never got that letter? Worse, when I tried to get more details of this mystery letter from that secretary later, it turns out that he had "blooped" (left) just two weeks after the missing letter incident. We have often wondered if perhaps he had also made inquiries about the letter and had been sort of helped along, out the door...

Revatinandana swami (Shambhu dasa) pulled me down an alley after all this was coming out and he asked, "Are you guys dressing up in saris and smoking pot?" I said no, and he just laughed. He said that this is what Tamal and co. were telling Srila Prabhupada about me. He said they were railroading him out of ISKCON as well, and he said he was leaving for good at that time. He also said that there was no doubt in his mind that Tamal was the cause of the untimely disappearance (death?) of Vishnujana swami (Ravatinandana's cousin). Vishnujana supposedly commited suicide, but his body was never found from what I understand.

Around this exact same time, Tamal came up to me in the temple and said, "I know you Puranjana, you are just waiting for Srila Prabhupada to die so you can sit in his seat." And so it all added up; a) they were ALREADY hiding his letters and therefore changing his words, b) they were ALREADY obsessed with who was going to be sitting in his seat, c) they were ALREADY driving out Siddhaswarupa, Vishnujana, Revatinandana, myself and others, as the beginning of their "takeover and purge program."

Was Srila Prabhupada aware that they were doing this? Of course he was, he wrote hundreds of letters all along complaining about the ill motives of his "leaders." I think at this time he was resigned to the fact that some of the leaders were corrupt and that his best option was to just get his books printed, which was his main focus at that time. He was aware that if he left his body without getting them printed, perhaps they never would be printed. He knew that his primary legacy was going to be his books and not a few wonderful and stunning GBC managers.

Also, perhaps Srila Prabhupada had been heartened by the vociferous and active campaign to halt Tamal Krishna's program by the temple presidents. It seemed that many rank and file devotees would stand up to a deviation. So, why not arm them with more of his books and then they would be even better at distinguishing, and containing, deviations? That was a good plan. Unfortunately, many of the temple presidents did not read the books as planned, and instead they not only alllowed --they actively supported-- the sahajiya-ism of the false sannyasis, their "assistants of the gopis" nomenclatures, their extravagant worship, and basically they supported the bogus sahajiya guru program to the hilt.

Srila Prabhupada was also concerned about the structure of his society as well. That is exactly why, about six months after the "gopi bhava club" incident, he announced that he was going to suspend "sannyasa" (renunciate) initiations and focus more on establishing "varnsrama dharma." In other words, he was going to pull the carpet out from the top-heavy "sannyasa management clique" and he was going to make a broader based society where the power and control was gradually going to shift to the householders. It now seems that some of these "sannyasis" did not appreciate this new direction for ISKCON. For one thing, they never worked to implement varnasrama and back pedal on the sannyasi's false profiling. Worse, a short time later they declared that they were assisting the gopis and they became full blown sahajiyas!

Since the issue has now evolved into the potential of Srila Prabhupada's being poisoned, some folks opine that this "varnasrama announcement" was the time that a poisoning may have begun. There is no doubt that right after Srila Prabhupada announced that he was going to make "varnasrama," and gradually scuttle the sannyasa management system, his health deteriorated rapidly. When he made a sort of health revival he immediately wanted to go to Gita-Nagari and start varnasrama. Instead, he got very sick in England on his way to Gita Nagari, ironically, Tamal's zone at the time.

In order to get away from these problematic individuals in 1976 I went back to England and resumed service in ISKCON over there. Srila Prabhupada then departed in 1977. Amazingly, in 1978, the GBCs themselves revealed who they really thought were the real "personal assistants the gopis," namely: themselves! In their 1978 "GBC Report" they stated that they had "assumed the position of 'nikunja yuno'" (assistants of the conjugal lovers of Krishna, the gopis.)

Apparently they are not really upset over a so-called "Gopi Bhava Club," but they are upset if they are not the worshipped as 'gopis or their assistant' by the members of that club. Worse, they made sacred seats for themselves (vyasasanas) which brought to mind how Tamal had told me that I was just waiting to sit in the (vyasasana) seat, just to be worshipped like a gopi?

To sum, just after attacking the so-called "Gopi Bhava Club" they then immediately said that they were --actually-- the conjugal assistants of the gopis themselves, and they made huge sacred seats for themselves and developed prayers to be worshipped by others in that capacity. Meanwhile, the rest of the GBC endorsed and applauded these 'nikunja yuno' statements and began to establish that type of worship for their new alleged "assistants of the gopis." Tamal and the other members of his guru clique now insisted that they were as worshippable as the gopis or their assistants?

By the way, many of these original alleged 1978 'nikunja yuno gopis' are still worshipped as, you guessed it, 'nikunya yuno' gopis or assistants even today in ISKCON, nevermind that homosexuality, pedophilia, enforced beatings, contrived bannings, and even murders, have emerged from this alleged "group of gopis or their assistants"? Sulochana used to joke about these GBC sahajiyas: "there are the real gopis, and then they is Kirtanananda and his vicious gopis" (in other words the idea that the real gopis could be vicious is totally absurd.)

Later, in 1980, I was in England with one of the GBC's 'nikunya yuno gurus' named Jayatirtha dasa, a so-called "pure acharya" who was given the name "Tirthapada" by the GBC. He had actually become a full-fledged sahajiya (imitator) by 1980. In other words, what we were alleged to have been doing in 1976, the GBC guru clique was --actually-- doing by 1980.

He was caught engaging in illiict sex and taking drugs. He even went so far as to state that LSD was the "foot dust of Radharani (Krishna's eternal consort)" and similar nonsensical things. Yet, despite the GBC knowing full well about all of these deviations, he was "reinstated" to full guru status by Jayapataka, Ramesvara and Bhagavan. And he was once again worshipped "as good as the gopis" in the position of a fully self-realized (conjugal rasa?) acharya. In sum, the GBC officially stated that persons could become engaged in illicit sex and intoxication ...and still be considered as "assisting the gopis in the conjugal afairs of Krishna." Sahajiya. ISKCON had become influenced by the sahajiya philosophy that Srila Prabhupada was actually warning his followers about, all along, and also in 1976.

I was actually foolish enough to think Jayatirtha's (LSD is) "Radharani's foot dust" escapades and so on, would be so much condemned by the GBC, just as we had been condemned on a similar charge a few years back, that Jayatirtha would be send to Antartica with a one way ticket. It was amazing to see how they all went ahead and instead helped him continue being worshipped. Jayapataka then ordered up the crazy "ecstacy tapes" of Jayatirtha and a sort of cover-up evolved. Jayatirtha then told me that I had to leave England, and a very tense meeting with him and his fanatical followers left me feeling that I was lucky to be alive.

Then a really amazing thing occured. I had been given a deadline to leave England by Jayatirtha, but just before leaving for the airport, the phone rang. It was Jayatirtha. He said, "You should not go to the USA, we've just made you the GBC for Ireland, so go ther instead. I'll never come over there and bother you," Jayatirtha assured me. And then he said, "We'll be making many more gurus soon and I'll recommend that you be the guru for Ireland." In other words, the GBC was trying to "buy me out" with a scheme to make me ---one of them!

They probably thought, hmmm, yes! This guy wants to be worshipped like a gopi, so we'll get him into our bogus gopi club! I refused, and then Jayatirtha said he would make sure I was blacklisted from all of the ISKCON temples in the world. It was thus apparent that the GBC will condemn a so-called "gopi bhava club," when it is politically suitable to do so, as it was for them (1976). Then, they will create one such club themselves a year later, with much worse ramifications (1977) when it will benefit them. And then, when their gopi club is exposed (1979), they'll reinstate the worst case deviant members (1980), and kick out --the person(s) who had been warned previously not to do this --by them-- and Srila Prabhupada, and who was reminding them of this fact? And they also fully adopted Nitai's philosophy that "Lord Brahma falls down" in Satsvarpa's 1980 GBC paper, a bogus philosophy which they had tried to credit to me in 1976? A view which Srila Prabhupada said was "sahajiya."