09/17/1998 - 2238

An Answer to the 'S' Pore Facts' Report

Singapore (VNN) - By Raghupathi Das

Recently CHAKRA posted an article by a disciple of Tamal Krishna Goswamiattacking the personal integrity of the Singpapore Temple President, SundarGopal Prabhu. We are reproducing below a response in bold on a point to pointbasis and Chakra writer's points are highlighted in italics.

Sundar Gopal Prabhu came back to Singapore in 1984. His devotional life hadbeen shattered by the fall of Hansadutta Prabhu. He was nurtured and caredfor by Tamal Krishna Goswami, and thus he was slowly reestablished inKrishna Consciousness. Tamal Krishna Goswami helped him by engaging him inthe service of Krishna in Houston and thereafter sent him to Singapore toestablish a temple.

Sundar Gopal Prabhu, our Temple President took initiation from His DivineGrace A C Bhaktivendanta Swami Prabhupad in 1977, and his second fromHansadutta Prabhu. He was the already theTemple President in Singapore since1978, and just prior to the fall of Hansadutta, and being disgusted with himSundar Gopal Prabhu left for India and at that time TKG seeing that he was acompetent Manager requested him to take the responsibility of managing theIndian congregation members in Houston. Eventually he became TemplePresident there.

Sundar Gopal Prabhu writes:

"I was disgusted with the state of affairs in Houston especially hismanagement. When I arrived there the city authorities wanted to close downthe temple building because the load bearing wall which was essential inholding the building structure was removed making it unsafe and dangerous. Afew months later the devotee in charge of construction who was appointed byTKG absconded with US$60,000 worth of tools and equipments. The Indiancongregation members were totally disappointed because they had contributedthe money. TKG pleaded with me to stay on and rectify the situation as itwould reflect very badly on him. I stayed on to help him in Houston but I madeup my mind to leave once the problems in Houston were settled to go back toSingapore. I voluntarily returned to Singapore in 1985 to again preach themission of Srila Prabhupad, and TKG insisted that he be the GBC of Singapore."

Tamal Krishna Goswami had always instructed his disciples to work togetherwith the temple president for the purpose of propagating KrishnaConsciousness in Singapore, and he was accommodating even when Sundar GopalPrabhu was secretive about the accounts of the temple.

In 1985 TKG came to Singapore. Many devotees were literally forced to takeinitiation and reinitiation from him.

Vrindavan Das (disciple of TKG initiated 1986):

 "I had just got over the hangover of Hansadutta, and TKG forced me and my family to take initiation from him. From the very start, his behaviour was duplicitous."

Krishnakatha Das (disciple of TKG initiated 1986) :

"Someone may say that these forced initiations were his mercy, but I think it was sheer foolishness.TKG was ordering everyone like a Hitler and I was disappointed that he was treating our Temple President like his disciple."

Pralad Das (disciple of TKG initiated 1986) :

"I felt very uncomfortable with him and in my heart I did not feel anything for him.. I was always bemused how Giridhari Das (at that time, now Swami) was taking TKG's chastisementlike a disciple. I did not feel that this was how TKG should treat aGodbrother."

Citraketu Das (disciple of TKG initiated 1990):

"We found him a very strange person who was always artificially trying to praise someone whenever hewanted something from him or her. His desire for extremely opulent food wasunbecoming of someone in the renounced order."

As for the question of being secretive about the accounts, Singapore has areputation all over the world as a corrupt free country. Things are done verystrictly and as far as Society's are concerned, the government has a tightreign over them. Accounts have to be submitted yearly and external auditorhas to be appointed by the Society to go through the accounts. In such astate, I wonder how you could ever be secretive of the accounts? At thisstage we would like to inquire whether the writer of the chargers is awareof the special Guru Dakshina Account which is kept by many Gurus and whichis unaccounted for. Maybe he should make an enquiry into thisfirst. Nonetheless we invite the writer to go through our audited accountsfrom 1985 if he so wishes to he can contact our Treasurer.

We did work with him, but when he fell down after having an affair with abhaktin, we left him. Surprisingly, Tamal Krishna Goswami still encouragedus to go back to the temple to do service. In fact, he personally chastisedme for disobeying him Sundar Prabhu even went to the extent of chasingGiridhari Swami out of the temple when he asked about the state of affairs.But both Vaishnavas were tolerant of such behavior.

Sundar Gopal Prabhu was prior to 1988 a Brahmachari and in that year hedecided to change his ashram. I don't know where the writer has ever read inSrila Prabhupad's book that when a Brahmachari changes his ashram that it isconsidered a fall down? I wonder what the writer would consider HarikeshMaharaj's decision to get married. ? May be a transcendental lila.

HH Bhakti Vrajendra Maharaj, President Iskcon Malaysia:

"As a grhastha, Sundar Gopal Prabhu is one of the most exemplary devotee I have seen."

HH Jayapataka Swami:

"Sundar Gopal Prabhu practices super sadhana".

No wonder, TKG chastised the writer of the accusations and asked him toreturn to the Temple because it is perfectly normal for a brahmachari tochange his ashram.

As for your allegations that "Giridhari Swami was chased away" we would liketo ask whether Giridhari Swami could really touch his heart and speak withall honesty as to when we chased him away. We invite Giridhari Swami tospeak up on this baseless allegation. We would be most happy to reply.

When Sundar Prabhu chased away some of Tamal Krishna Goswami's disciples,Tamal Krishna Goswami did not take Sundar Prabhu to task but encouraged himto preach and spread Krishna Consciousness.

The writer seems to be paranoid that we have been chasing away TKG'sdisciples. We have no business doing that. In fact some of our best friendsfrom overseas are TKG's disciples. To give some idea many of the disciplesin the first place were not even qualified to take initiation. But TKGforced many of them to take initiation from him and as a result chaosreigned because of the immaturity of the disciples. To make matters worstTKG had a soft spot for these immature disciples. However time and time againwe requested TKG to straighten up his disciples as they were behaving verychildishly. Many can vouch how the disciples panicked whenever TKG came toSingapore so much so that they only wish that he would leave immediately.

Later Tamal Krishna Goswami even gave up Singapore as his zonalresponsibility to give Sundar Prabhu more freedom to act as he pleased.

At this time time TKG openly encouraged his disciples to open up anothercentre just half a mile away from the temple. Sure enough, he placed his beton the wrong horses. In-fighting developed amongst his disciples and verysoon it folded up. At that time out of disgrace, TKG quickly abandoned hisduties as GBC for Singapore citing preaching work in China as the reason. Wewonder why he has not given this reason earlier.

Lohitaksa Prabhu who managed the TKG-inspired breakaway centre writes:

"The disciples of TKG would come every Sunday to take hearty prasadam yet did notcontribute anything for the centre and I had to go and sell paintings like adog to raise funds to keep it going. On top of that they were like anyIndians who only wanted to give advise and not do anything of which thewriter of the article in CHAKRA was the chief. In addition, TKG was causing astrain in my marriage because my wife Kaumodaki Devi Dasi was his discipleand I was an ex disciple of Bhavananda."

But when Tamal Krishna Goswami wanted to visit Singapore on August 9, 1998,the temple authorities in Singapore threatened to call the police and theinternal security forces on him. Not wanting our spiritual master to besubjected to such disturbances, we decided that we should see him in KualaLumpur, Malaysia, instead.

TKG had no etiquette in even informing the temple authorities that he wouldbe visiting Singapore. So much for the behaviour of one of the leaders ofour movement. We wonder what would be his reaction if we had gone to Chinaunannounced? Isn't he practicing double standards. Since 1994, the governmentauthorities in Singapore had begun a systematic clamp down on all Societieswith foreign affiliations. Devotees in devotional clothes coming to Singaporewere stopped. Sundar Gopal Prabhu sent an immediate message to all temples inAustralia, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Coast of the US, fromwhere most of the devotees came and stopped over, to bypass Singaporebecause of this policy. We did not want to jeopardise their safety as many ofthem have been detained at the airport and hassled.

Two years later we were made to agree that we should not entertain any moreforeign devotees in the temples. We went to the GBC meeting at Mayapur in1996 to present this particular predicament we were facing. Failure tocomply with this ruling would see the Society being closed down. We wantedthe cooperation of the GBC to understand the sensitive nature of; thepreaching in Singapore and not to jeopardise by coming into thecountry. Harivilas Prabhu helped us very much by putting up our report. SeshaPrabhu, the Minister for Justice commented "we can pass all the resolutionsbut unfortunately we cannot police it". Subsequently a GBC law was passed tothe effect that anyone visiting Singapore has to first seek the clearancefrom the local Temple President. A law that even the very GBC men did notadhere to. As subsequent events showed. Sure enough, Swarop Damodara Swami andMahavishnu Swami (elder) made forays. Each time they came and had programmesoutside we were summoned. We made it very clear that we had nothing to dowith these swamis and their programmes. In our hearts we wished that theyco-operated. The government authorities kept their ears very close to theground and they wanted to arrest the next person coming in so as to teach alesson to the leaders of the Movement overseas. So meticulous were they intheir surveillance that they knew that TKG was planning to come. To protectTKG's safety, Sudarshan Das, Vice President of the temple informed BalaKrishna Prabhu a disciple of TKG to kindly inform him not to come toSingapore. If he really insisted he could come to Malaysia and have aprogramme in Johore Bahru, the southern most state closest to Singapore,which was just half an hour away. The many disciples of Lokanath Swami inSingapore had also arranged a similar programme for him in 1997 in JohoreBahru. Lokanath Swami was kind and gracious enough to understand thesituation. TKG should thank us for saving his skin. Though we may have ourdifferences, we are always of the opinion that matters can always be sortedout within the family. We are only requesting for your co-operation. Kindlydo not treat Singapore like some third world country where you can come inand do anything you want.

The temple in Singapore was openly confrontational and disturbing theconsciousness of all persons who wanted to progress in Krishna Conciousness.

A baseless allegation again by the writer who has not even visited theTemple for the last 10 years.

So if the devotee becomes fanatical, it is his own fault. And if the templeauthorities have cultivated new bhaktas and bhaktins and have introducedthem to a guru to take initiation, and if these new devotees have forgottenthe temple authorities, then it is the fault of the temple authorities fornot teaching them the philosophy as it is laid down by Srila Prabhupada inhis books.

Guru fanaticism, unfortunately is world wide ISKCON disease. The main reasonfor this is that too much emphasis has been placed on the diksha gurus atthe expense of the siksha guides. This manifestation is the symptom of thezonal acarya system which ISKCON practised for many years. It is not thatthe temple authorities are to be blamed because the system only encouragedthem to see the Guru as the all in all. In fact the system was also suchthat if anything went wrong, the Temple authorities would become thescape-goats.

Let me now elaborate on the doings of Sundar Prabhu. From the verybeginning, after some of us were initiated by Tamal Krishna Goswami, SundarPrabhu would at first subtly and then openly tell us that white-skinnedgurus were not good, that they always fell down, and that they did not knowthe traditions of India. He told us that only Indian gurus can be trusted.

As for the allegation that SGP had promoted Indian gurus, Kavichandra Swamithe GBC for Singapore after TKG left described Gour Govinda Swami, at thattime the charismatic guru of Iskcon "As the best one we've got so far" Wesimply followed Kavichandra Maharaja's instruction and many took initiationfrom him. Are we to be blamed for this?

On the other hand TKG at this time had dabbled with Narain Maharaj which wasa well-known fact all over the world. If the accusation is that we haveencouraged Indian gurus as he claims then what was TKG doing with an Indianguru? The result Ð he opened the floodgates for all the Gaudiya math gurusto swamp Iskcon. In Fiji, many of his disciples became disciples of NarainMaharaj Does he not owe an apology to the devotees?

At this moment we would like to inform all readers that the writer of thecharges, is Parthasarathi Das, a dentist by profession who was made into adevotee by SGP. TKG had confided to SGP that he wanted to make him as hisdisciple so that he can have his dentures checked for free as it was verycostly in the USA - a very good reason for making someone a disciple! He was acongregation devotee who hardly devoted any time in the Temple. Such apampered Indian boy he was that he had to ask his mother's permission beforehe took off his moustache on his initiation day. His contribution waspractically nil, and he has not visited the Temple for thepast 10 years.

When Sundar could not get his way, he sent his henchmen to threaten me withbodily harm if I ever came to the temple again. As a new devotee, I wasdevastated that such a thing could happen in ISKCON. I stopped going, butTamal Krishna Goswami later on insisted that I return and do some service inthe temple.

When he stopped coming to the Temple, Parthasarathi Das refused to hand overabout $2000 worth of books which belonged to the temple. We had no choicebut to send a policeman devotee to his house to request for the books back.

Bhaktha Ramu (the policeman devotee who went to his house in 1989 comments):

"I find his allegations that we were trying to cause some bodily harm to himas totally baseless and ridiculous. He was trying to be funny but the momentI raised my voice he immediately surrendered all the books belonging to thetemple."

The guru-disciple relationship is a unique one, fostered on mutualunderstanding, respect, and love for each other. It cannot be replaced bymundane speculation. This relationship is eternal. I do not have blindfaith. I have real faith in my guru. I do not blindly follow everyinstructions my guru gives me. One must have intelligence.

This devotee talks so much of following the instructions of his guru butrefused to listen to his orders and married a karmi girl. The result was adisgraceful divorce. What made it ironical was that his wife relented, wentback to Madras, stayed in the temple and became an initiated devotee. Eventhen he refused to accept her even on the pleading of his guru. Now that thereaders have a clear understanding of the writer of these charges, you candecide for yourself what is his credibility. (If he has got one in the firstplace). The biggest joke is that with this Ôcredibility', TKG calls him aÔpure devotee'(as heard by his disciple, Balakrishna Prabhu).

He has barred all overseas devotees from visiting the temple includingIndian gurus. Yet they talk about basic devotional service and keeping SrilaPrabhupada in the center.Evam parampara praptam. If Srila Prabhupada did notwant this, then what purpose is there in his activities? All that he hasdone would be a lie. If the ritviks still do not believe that anyone who isqualified can become guru and still believe that the disciplic successionshould stop with Srila Prabhupada, then I challenge them to write acommentary to establish their philosophy based on scriptures, just asBaladeva Vidhyabhusana wrote Govinda Bhasya to establish GaudiyaVaishnavism. What about ritvik which they are so proud to be? I say, What isthere to be proud of in being nitwit

Could we classify someone like Sundar Gopal Prabhu a nitwit who has notmissed a single day of morning programme for the past 23 years, chanted allhis rounds in the temple visibly, observed nirjal Ekadasi on all Ekadasidays for the past 22 years and single-handedly preached in a very difficultcountry setting up the Society to its present level from scratch? We leavethe readers to judge this. A person of his caliber taking to ritvik meansthat we cannot and should not write off the ritvik system as introduced bySrila Prabhupad.

May I ask you what are you so proud of the present guru system?Out of the 11"so called acharyas" 7 have already fallen.This is not to include the"smaller" gurus whom we have lost count. The result is for you to see foryourself. Ð Devastation and chaos in the lives of thousands of devotees. Doyou want to support this system.This is the deplorable state of affairs inIskcon today.The ritvik system was introduced by Srila Prabhupad himself asyou can read for yourself in the July 9th letter.

Your guru, TKG in a speechon December 3rd 1980 in Los Angeles confessed his role in the zonal acaharya system:by saying:

"Actually Prabhupad never appointed any gurus .he appointed 11 ritviks. He never appointed themas gurus. Myself and the other GBC have done the greatest disservice to thismovement the last 3 years because we interpreted the appointment of ritviksas the appointment of gurus".

I request you to please read "The Final Order". We have nobusiness to attack anyone personally neither do we cherish in characterassassination. That is not the etiquette. But if someone disobeys the orderof Srila Prabhupad and concocts a system of initiation then it is our dutyto stand up and speak boldly.

The ritviks have always been magnanimous, to invite everyone to cometogether and work cooperatively for pushing this movement. We don't resortto heavy handed techniques like what the gurus are doing all over the worldand especially at the Bhaktivedanta Manor recently where they were forcingthe ritviks out.

The situation in Singapore is a very unique one. Srila Prabhupad himself wasdenied entry into Singapore in 1972 . It has the dishonour of being the onlycountry in the world to do this. The government authorities hold a negativeview of the movement because they feel that it has the capacity to attractall the young people (which is actually a compliment). Nonetheless they holda positive view of the local Society in view of the valuable contributionswe have contributed to the society. The local Society has a food for lifeprogram feeding 25,000 people every year, does counseling programmes forprisoners, drug addicts and juvenile delinquents. This is very muchappreciated by the government authorities. Full size deities of Sri SriRadha Madan Mohan, Sri Gaur Nitai and Jagannath Baladev Subhadra have beeninstalled for the last 7 years and complete deity worship programme andfestivals are held in honor of them. We also run a Govinda's restaurant inthe tourist belt area which is the talk of the town. Many people also cometo purchase Srila Prabhupad's books too. The society is doing very well atthis stage in Singapore and we are only seeking the cooperation of allconcerned to please leave us alone. Association of the Vaishnavas is themost wonderful thing for a devotee and we encourage all our devotees to gooverseas as and when required and take association. But the survival of thelocal Society is of paramount importance and if that means we have to followthe rules of the government we would rather do that and keep SrilaPrabhupada's movement alive here in Singapore. We cannot allow SrilaPrabhupad's movement to be messed up here again! .