04/29/98 - 1773

Rohini Kumar Swami Falling Up To Reality

USA (VNN) - by Nara Narayan Vishwakarma das (see also VNN story# 1767)

Dear Prabhus: PAMHO, AGTSP!

I wept when I heard of the fall down of my very dear godbrother Rohini Kumar Swami.

I did not weep because he had a sexual encounter with a young man. (In California, many men have sexual encounters with young men. It is not at all unusual)

I wept because I had warned him several years ago that by taking disciples prior to attaining the status of Pure Unalloyed Love of God as an Uttama Adhikari, that his falldown was already assured.

The materialistic religionist thinks that his seniority within his organization places him ever nearer to the top post of “guru”. This is true in practically every religion on earth.

Srila Prabhupada's Iskcon does not accept such materialism. Our movement recognizes that spiritual advancement is not a function of age or seniority within our organization.

In the Srimad Bhagavatam it is described that all the demigods and sages stood up out of respect with great care and attention when an apparently crazed young man stumbled into the Holy arena pursued by mocking men and nipping dogs, with brambles in his hair that had gotten stuck when he fell into the bushes.

Only one person did not stand up, and that was Veda Vyasa, and He only for one reason: He was the father of the apparently deranged 16 year old boy, Sukadeva Goswami. At 16 years, Sukadeva Goswami proved to be a person whose words were non-different from Shastra.

The sage Romaharsana, on the other side, was loaded with apparent qualifications and sat before a multitude of other qualified sages that at least demonstrates that THEY considered him to be the most qualified amongst them all.

Sri Balaram (The origin of Lord Nityananda) killed him.

IN OUR ISKCON SOCIETY, SENIORITY MEANS NOTHING WHEN IT COMES TO SPIRITUAL REALIZATION, PARTICULARLY IN THE MATTER OF THE UTTAMA ADHIKARI GURU.

Rohini Kumar Swami fell down when he gave up the name bestowed upon him by the Uttama Adhikari, Srila Prabhupada.

He fell down when he (a sincere neophyte) hung out his shingle as a "bonafide spiritual MASTER".

In every domain, Master means one who has studied to the extent that he passes the test of his own master. When HE becomes Master, it is only after he has perfected the role of student AND BEEN ACCEPTED AS MASTER BY HIS MASTER who never ceases to be the humble student of His own Master .

HERE IS A KARMI QUOTE:

"A student studies to become a master. The master knows in truth that he will always be a student."

In that way, the Master although reaching the perfected platform never sees himself to be the Master.

Our oral tradition within Iskcon has supported the idea that the Diksa Guru must be "spiritually advanced".

Of course, we have no way to measure spiritual advancement statistically, so we come up with long lists of things that will describe such advancement. (If the spiritual master misses Mangala Arotik, is it his Leela, or did he just blow it?)

Srila Prabhupada has stated that when a person reaches the highest level of Madhyam Adhikari, he is already a pure devotee and completely protected by Krishna. At that penultimate point, He is as good as a Uttama Adhikari, but with one basic distinction: He cannot yet see Krishna face to face.

This is very significant.

Even though He has achieved the highest platform of pure unalloyed devotional service, He cannot see Krishna face to face until Krishna sees that He is completely ready, and lifts the curtain of Maya. At this time, the Devotee although cent per cent pure, leaves the protection of Maha Maya and comes under the protection of Yoga Maya. By Krishna's grace, he can then see Krishna face to face.

In terms of such exalted devotees (whether pure on the Madhyam platform, or rightly situated on the Uttama Adhikari platform), the decisive factor is being controlled by Lord Hrishikesha.

If the Devotee has SURRENDERED HIS SENSES TO LORD HRISHIKESHA, HE NO LONGER HAS THE CAPACITY TO WANT TO FALL DOWN.

Srila Prabhupada described that a Pure Devotee such as Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur was able to have sufficient sex to have 11 children (among them an Uttama Adhikari) due to one factor only:

Having surrendered His senses to Lord Hrishikesha, his senses were "spooled up on spools". Srila Prabhupada said," When Krishna sees the need for a Krishna Conscious child, the lust propensity is unreeled, to conceive the child, and spooled up afterwards." This means that before and after such “unspooling” of the lust propensity, the Uttama Adhikari is without the slightest taint of material desire. He no longer desires on His own. His desires are surrendered within the desires of Lord Hrishikesha and HE CANNOT BY ANY MEANS FALL DOWN.

"Make me dance like a puppet on a string" comes to mind.

QUESTION:

Can a Pure devotee CHOOSE to fall down and have sex once He has surrendered his senses under the control of Lord Hrishikesha (The controller of the senses)?

IF ANYONE SAYS "YES", EITHER PUT ON A DUNCE CAP AND SIT IN THE CORNER, OR APPLY TO BE APPOINTED TO THE GBC.

(HINT) Sitting in the corner might be the more Krishna Conscious choice provided you had your bead bag.

Sense control does not equal holding your breath forever. EVEN MAYAVADIS AND YOGIS CAN'T DO IT, what to speak of Iskcon Gurus. (Vishwamitra Muni comes to mind)

By 100% surrender of the senses to Krishna in the form of Lord Hrishikesha, SENSE CONTROL IS NO LONGER AN ISSUE.

That is why Rupa Goswami, Jiva Goswami, Bhaktivinode Thakur as well as Srila Prabhupada have CLEARLY STATED (Three times for emphasis) that the aspiring disciple ONLY accept a Spiritual Master who is an UTTAMA ADHIKARI.

In other words, it is not a political or ecclesiastic issue. It is an issue of WHO IS CONTROLLING YOUR SENSES!

Those of us who are flawed enough to be wise enough to understand that OUR SENSES are not completely under the control of Krishna, standing as the possibility that EVERYONE in our Iskcon community become enrolled in the possibility of understanding that PURITY IS THE ESSENCE and that Lord Hrishikesha is the controller of the senses. This cannot be replaced by unauthorized appointments made as a social gesture by the GBC.

I CAN PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT IF BEING CONTROLLED BY LORD HRISHIKESHA IS THE STANDARD FOR SELECTING A GURU, THAT NO GURU THUS SELECTED WILL EVER FALL DOWN.

_________________________________________________________________
THE FOLLOWING IS THE UNSIGNED LETTER ALLEGEDLY WRITTEN BY ROHINI KUMAR SWAMI.

> Thursday, April 23rd, 1998
>
> Dear Devotees of ISKCON,
>
> Please accept my humblest apologies. Somehow or other, over the
> past years, I allowed arrogance, feelings of superiority and a
> tendency to fault-find to slowly grow up in the devotional
> garden I was so hopefully trying to create in my heart. The
> worst of these--fault finding, finally raised its head and smote
> me hard. Maya laid a snare for me, into which I tumbled,
> seemingly against my will, even though I saw the consequences.

NNVDAS:

Utilizing minute free will to CHOOSE to have sex is not fault finding.
It is uncontrollable lust.
>
> The result was a dreadful and heinous spiritual falldown for me
> and the offense of disobeying the spiritual master, sinning on
> the strength of the holy name, and offending a vaishnava. As a
> result, my spiritual life is completely obstructed and there is
> no hope for my spiritual salvation at this time, perhaps not for
> many lifetimes to come.

NNVdas

As one Brahmacharini put it, "Now his spiritual life can BEGIN AGAIN
after the falldown of becoming a so-called guru"


I therefore voluntarily relinquish all
> position in ISKCON and withdraw myself from the association of
> ISKCON devotees.

NNVdas:
Why? Why not instead send letters to your "disciples" stating that they
are actually disciples of SRILA PRABHUPADA as Hansadutta das did, and
advised you to do several years ago .

(Convincing them to become disciples of Hridayananda will not solve the
root issue at stake.)


I will continue chanting and praying against
> all odds that in some distant life I can again have the much
> valued association of Srila Prabhupada's followers.
>
> Let my misfortune and the hellish suffering my heart is going
> through serve as a warning to all nice devotees and friends of
> ISKCON to avoid arrogance, pride and faultfinding.

NNVdas:
How does arrogance, pride, and faultfinding lead to a desire for
homosexual sex?



All glories
> to Srila Prabhupada. All glories to Srila Prabhupada's movement.
> All glories to your devotional service.
>
> Please do not lose faith in ISKCON because of my failure. I am
> only one, and a very unfortunate one at that. Srila Prabhupada
> is for real, his books are true, and his followers can help you
> on the way back to Godhead. By my own foolishness I committed a
> blunder which has caused me to fall off the ship so I am now
> floundering in the ocean of birth and death. Yet I know that as
> Vaishnavas your compassion can extend even to one like me. This
> hope will keep me afloat for lifetimes, until you rescue me from
> my suffering. Then I will have the opportunity to render you the
> humble service I wasn't able to in this lifetime.
>
> The most fallen soul,
> (signed) Bhaktivaiduyra Madhava [formally Rohini Kumar Swami]

NNVdas Rohini Kumar Swami was (and is) a close personal friend of mine. His "disciple" Ram Prasad is also a very dear friend.

Several of my children and many of my children's friends and my friends would gather at his ashram in LA for the really wonderful prasadam, wonderful quirky deity worship, great kirtan, as well as Rohini Kumar's odd-ball, but totally engaging personality.

I have known him from the age of eighteen, where in the 1968 New York temple, he would cook sweet rice (The best ever tasted!) for six hours at a time (all night) in between epileptic seizures.

The seizures didn't bother him. His only concern was that the sweet rice not burn. (sometimes I would stir it for him at two in the morning during a seizure.)

Havoc was created in the New Dwarka community when Ram Prasad prabhu began to suggest that Rohini Kumar was a pure devotee on the "same level as Srila Prabhupada".

Rohini Kumar Swami never denied it.

Many of his disciples joined in on that idea, and created quite a polarity in the New Dwarka community based upon the representation that Rohini Kumar Swami was an Uttama Adhikari on the same level as Srila Prabhupada.

This foolish representation being made by very vocal members of his congregation was led by his disciple Gauravani das who became quite belligerent in public on this issue.

The schism thus created in the New Dwaraka community ultimately led to Rohini Kumar's ashram being kicked out of new Dwarka by Svavasa prabhu.

(Interestingly, it was not that he represented himself to be a guru or even representing himself through his disciples as being on the same level as Srila Prabhupada that got him kicked out, but the fact that his disciples became very aggressive, with their assurance that THEIR guru was purer than Svavas prabhu or anyone else but Srila Prabhupada, and therefore became thoroughly and intolerably obnoxious.)

If you have any questions on the above, or wish verification of any of the facts stated above, please feel free to contact me.

Your eternal servant,

Nara Narayan Vishwakarma das