VNN Editorial - Prabhupada's Magic - Cure For ISKCON Child Abuse

EDITORIAL

January 13, 1999 VNN2838

Prabhupada's Magic - Cure For ISKCON Child Abuse

BY RAGHUNATHA DASA

EDITORIAL, Jan 13 (VNN) — Most of the reform measures and groups we see in ISKCON are similarly more about the institutions needs then that of the youth for which they stand.

I have just read Prof. Burkes report for the ISKCON Communications Journal on the movements history of child abuse. Here's the response "from the 2nd generation" that you requested for your journal. It irks me how the most significant, if not sole reason for reform of ISKCON child-care failed to be mentioned - except in passing as an after math of the GBC "leaders" efforts at reform. Such a portrayal almost rings of a white-wash of the movements leadership and a misrepresentation of the actual facts. I refer to the guru- kula newsletters and reunions that brought this issue to the movements notice and created the momentum for its reform. This was inspite of the GBC's official and repeated denunciations and efforts against it, many of whom are still leading members of the GBC today.

Prior to these newsletters and reunions, the vast bulk of all 2nd generation youth were disenfranchised. They were made to feel that the problem was not with guru-kula, the schools, but with them as children. The official ISKCON line - not for years, but decades - was that the 2nd generation was rebellious, sex-drug crazed teenagers only interested in "Maya" - hedonism. They were branded as disloyal to Prabhupada, unappreciative of Krishna Consciousness and spiritually corrupt. Parents who complained were portrayed as the real culprits for spoiling their kids with all this "Maya." In short, the entire 2nd generation - at least among its Western devotees, had either left or as often been "thrown out." They were denounced as exaggerators, whiners and worse, subversive to Srila Prabhupada's movement. The 2nd generation as a group was condemned as an outcaste: "don't associate with them if you're serious about spiritual life." (This view had been muted, but still remains "the unspoken" in many devotee circles - including a number posing as spokesmen for the youth. Many leaders still don't care to have ex-students in their temples.) This was the true state of GBC policy towards "guru-kula reform" if you go by the youth's own account. This concerted effort by ISKCON's leaders to silence all but the most gentle whispers about the horrors of guru-kula is the real reason why these abuses flourished for so many decades, in so many schools and to such extremes. Should one care to contest this claim, take a poll of those parents and youth of the 1980's. How else could one explain the extent of child abuse. Here lies the GBC's direct responsibility for these high crimes. The GBC had been notified, badgered and even threatened with the repercussions of ignoring these atrocities and yet maintained a united front of denial. Dozens of parents tried, management warned and a number of media reports publicly proclaimed it. All were met with silence, denial or opposition. The leaders feigned innocence even up 'til today, in knowing of this abuse, leaves me amusingly disgusted as just more of the same old, same old. It was against this back-drop that we started our newsletters and reunions and it was against this opposition that we made real head way in creating the consensus for true reform.

What makes these newsletters and reunions all the more unusual is that the 2nd generation participated at all. After first tolerating years of abuse, they were merrily condemned and ostracized. Not surprisingly, most simply wanted nothing to do with the "devotees." By the mid and late 1980's, most Western youth who grew up in the Hare Krishna movement had distanced themselves from ISKCON. Frequently they started by trying to forget their dreadful childhood days. Therefore, most had little contact with each other. Of 400 to 800 students, hardly a dozen stayed on as active members. ISKCON had eliminated or at least silenced an entire generation of the movements children. The real change to this whole trend was the guru-kula newsletters. There were several newsletters, but the one with the greatest impact and outreach was ISKCON Youth Veterans -which I started. 9 were completed and averaged a couple dozen photos and hundreds of pages of typed written text. I spent $15,000 of my own money. Having been such a destitute my entire life, I can only tribute such resources as the will of the Lord. And thank God, because only two or three GBC men gave a $10 donation. Several leaders complained bitterly while most simply ignored me. All of them received copies of my work. Here was the typical GBC response to child-abuse reform in 89-92 - the years of my newsletters. It is reasonable to believe that without these newsletters, the reform measures we see today would have never taken place as I will explain shortly. Calling your attention to the newsletters, reunions and my efforts is more then some juvenile need for recognition from an irrelevant leadership or from a movement that has shown me unimaginable terror, pain, humiliation and loss. Far more important then settling some obscure academic record is my goal for revealing the "secret of reform" - real reform. I refer to this as "Prabhupada's Magic." To understand the history of our efforts is to recognize the real instruments of reform or this Prabhupada Magic. Only in understanding this can we continue to fully protect and nurture its development.

The newsletters reprinted highlights from the hundreds of pages of correspondence and essays I received from friends. This proved the magic formula. Our common experience provided a direly needed reference point for dealing with the issues of our childhood's, and the role it played upon us as young men and women in the world. It was here that we began to find the patterns of behavior in both our childhood experiences and as adults. We found, for example, our identity to be as different from "ISKCON" as it was from the average "karmi" - those not of our "religion." We were as much of a "devotee" as we were a "karmi" and therefore needed to attend to the interest of one as much as the other. Nether identity can be neglected for us to feel "whole." We also found that the abuses and the condemnations that followed were universal to us as a group and not an individual stigma of our own making - as so many first felt. Our cultural diversity, global travel, devotional insights and childhood hardships became our common language. The newsletter was appropriately called: ISKCON Youth Veterans. In short, it recast us as a youth of ISKCON who could take pride - for the first time - in our trials and tribulations for all the experience it offered. This created the need for us to reconnect with our childhood friends. It was only in this regrouping that we found the context, will and interest to make issue of things like child abuse, the movements intolerance towards its youth, or the need to accommodate us in the communities, etc. The Alachua meetings, referred to as so central an event in the Professor's essay, was hardly the beginning or even the rallying point. It was simply the culmination of only one in many meetings the youth began having with the devotees by that time. LA, for example, had a number of meetings, as did Vrindavan. The Alachua meeting proved the most profitable - at least for those few to run the show. However, prior to the newsletters, the youth and parents refused to have anything to do with the movement. Nothing. Zippo. This included almost everyone of those to speak at the Alachua meeting. These meetings would never have taken place had the youth not once again renewed their bond with the devotee community at large. It was here in bringing the youth back, if only in a confrontational manner, that the reunions and newsletters proved to be a vital link.

The newsletters also provided the broader community of devotees an insight into the 2nd generation. The devotees could view the extraordinary hardship that these kids tolerated quietly, in good faith and often, in good spirits. More striking still was that the kids did so as much for their survival as for their devotional sentiments. Many devotees were humbled how these devotional sentiments carried through such childhood trauma and into the struggles of their adult lives. It was the first time devotees at large reconsidered the youth as something more then rebel rousers, foolish adolescents or just "karmis - sense enjoyers." Many "average" devotees began extending themselves to the youth with open arms and deep respect for the first time. Management often maintained a "tight upper-lip." Still, good will from the others was enough to allow guru-kulis some growing sense of community with the devotees again. Without this complete change of attitude in the movement, how could there be any call for reform? Prior to this, the problem was a debauched youth, not a corrupt movement. No call to arms on behalf of a youth could work until this attitude changed. Yes, there were some parents, teachers and even some leaders who made that call for reform, but it was made upon deaf ears. The newsletter changed this paradigm by showing the severity, extent and on going abuses that was only matched by the efforts to cover it up. Prior to the newsletter, such abuse was cast as unfortunate, isolated incidents. The newsletters brought the devotees to finally begin joining the voice of the guru-kulis. This created the urgency necessary to move the GBC to respond with something more than long winded proclamations. The Alachua meeting was one, but only one, of the more resounding examples of this.

The Professor quotes the GBC's verbiage from their 1990 meetings in which they once again talked of child abuse, but this time with a decent list of recommendations. Such posturing however, impressed few parents or youth of the time. For one, it was simply an up-dated version of their long stated concerns from nearly a decade of routine discussions on guru-kula's troubles. It represented very little action like its preceding proclamations and was done in the face of resounding new scandal right there in Mayapur, the place of the meetings. This scandal was of course promptly swept under the carpet like all the others. The GBC's new "by-laws" were a disservice in that it gave several unfortunate devotees the mistaken impression that now was the time for them to step forward with their cases of child abuse. More often than not, they were not the better for it. All of the particulars that I refer are high drama cases. They would humiliate a number of leaders. I can quote the instances and devotees should there be an interest for me to do so. For now, I'm keeping in line with this publications academic over view versus a more dramatic expose of our movements history. Such a history would also prove more time consuming then my present time constraints - a few days. In short, like most societies, real change is had from a grass roots effort before it reaches someone at the top who only jumps aboard to avoid getting run over by its progress. This proves as true of ISKCON's child abuse reform as it does with most all its other reform movements.

Though I give a general sketch to the most significant events and evolution behind our child care reform, it does not explain the cause of the abuse and why our efforts with the newsletters proved so effective. They remain to be the same answer and the real purpose for writing this piece. Let me begin with a headmasters meeting I attended in the early 80's at the Long Island temple. They were there to discuss how to save our crumbling guru-kula's - one of the first such meetings wherein the failure of guru-kula was recognized as the premise of discussion. They offered me a cordial "10 minutes" out of their 2 days of meetings. I remember thinking, "that's one minute per year I was in guru-kula. They must be impressed with what guru-kula has to offer." I guess I did a great job because it was the first and last ISKCON meeting I have ever been asked to speak at. I kept it short and sweet. "Guru-kula was a grand success." I kept my comment to that as I watched at the devotees disbelief. They wanted me to explain.

"The foremost motive of our leaders for guru-kula was to have a place to keep the kids - out of the way - so parents could be put to work on sankirtan collections without distraction. On this front, guru-kula was a grand success. Its 2nd objective was to have another show piece for their public display. Again, our guru-kula's delivered. They made beautiful show-bottles for the movements "preaching." Though these were not part of the public mission statements, these goals represented the leaders real motives for a guru-kula. All the posturing about creating "men of character" and "tomorrows leaders" was more propaganda and justification for hiding the kids away then an actual "personal" goal of the leaders." I had the room's attention.

Guru-kula did succeed on a number of its claimed mission statements. Guru-kula was to teach kids to become versatile in the Vedic philosophy, arts and culture. The students meanwhile were to imbibe the devotional sentiments and develop a sense of austerity, simplicity and detachment in an environment "safe" from material degradation. Again, the guru-kula's proved a resounding success. This explains why everyone was so oblivious to guru-kula's obvious horrors. By everyone of their "measures of success," guru-kula was doing great. They did not have the tools to see the abuses. Never were the kids, their well being, their potentials, their ambitions a real concern to anyone but the parents. Those things were as trivial as were the blaring problems that fostered in these areas of child-care. All too often, the parents didn't or could not care either. The cultural trappings - rhetoric - and economics of the time would not allow it. To do so was "maya - nonsense" - or a "deviation" from their "devotional service." The kids - like everyone else - was a prop for the leaders goals, projects and ambitions which was more about numbers & size then quality to individual care: how big the schools, how many teachers, students and programs. In return, the leaders got exactly what they wanted from both the guru-kula's as well as the kids - lots of both. Only in the end could they finally realize that numbers and size proved useless. Here lies the root cause of all other problems: they "wanted" the wrong thing. They worked for the institution, not the individual. They worked for the "status quo," not the individual. Therefore, the institution benefited at the expense of the individual in the short term, but collapsed in the long term. The 2nd generation was gone along with most of the schools and their parents.

I find this to be somewhat as true of today's "projects" as then. Today's approach does not so much bully the individual into some agenda slots, as it does misrepresent or work with only those that do. All the grand standing about the youth and child protection, is again more about another agenda then the well being of the youth it claims to represent. I was invited to speak at a "ritvik" meeting several years ago. I told the meeting about my point made in Long Island and concluded that all the child abuse cases they throw around is nothing more than a weapon against the management they don't like. Grand standing on our history of abuse has nothing to do with our well being. Therefore, it is not much different than the movements misuse of us - other than in degree. Once again, we are simply a pawn for someone's agenda other then our own. If they were concerned for our well being, I concluded, there were many things more useful then having our sordid past waved as weapons against ISKCON. Resources, housing, transportation, jobs; these would do wonders for us. Even just a kind word would be great. No volunteers stepped forward that day. Yet, most had used our stories as a punch line in their complaints against ISKCON. To conclude, I asked the spokes person if he would talk so freely about these incidents had his own child been the victim. He offered to reconsider how he used our stories in the future. I have not been invited to speak at a ritvik meeting again either.

Most of the reform measures and groups we see in ISKCON are similarly more about the institutions needs then that of the youth for which they stand. The movements Minister of Education, Sri Rama, during the late 1980's had collected an impressive portfolio of case studies documenting abuse after abuse by "teachers" he personally did not like. He hoped to throw these individuals out of their positions with these testimonials. He could never understand why so few kids had any interest in getting involved with his "reform." "It has nothing to do with them." I told him. "It has to do with your own political agenda, not theirs." He was as bewildered by this explanation as by the explosive success of my own clumsy efforts with the newsletter and reunions. Sri Rama's efforts also remains one of the many examples to the vast information collected and communicated to the top GBC brass about guru-kula's on-going abuse with little more then a filed away folder.

Children of Krishna has a similar history. It came to be hatched under the threat that non compensation for their stated abuses in the Alachua meeting would result in "something" - meaning law suit. Such hard-nosed threats were only possible because Alachua is not an ISKCON temple under GBC supervision. Its an independent community with GBC affiliations. Similar instances throughout the movement where met with fierce opposition from the GBC. Annutama, who had been talking about putting together a youth organization for several months, took the opportunity of Alachua's "crying" devotees to get pledges. He is a parent to a "victim," as well as the director for the PR department. 80% of the $50,000 collected through Children Of Krishna went for just one of their self appointed "directors" and other "office expenses." Most of the youth was disgusted. However, the immediate threat of a law suit had dissipated. Coincidentally, the GBC found the Children of Krishna a great success. Today's Youth Minister was similarly viewed by most as an appointed "Representative of the GBC" for their business with the youth. The Youth Minister is NOT the "Representative of the Youth" to the GBC. Never has the 2nd generation been asked who they would like to represent them and its clear that they never will be asked. Nor should they ask to say. This Youth Minister appointment was also done under a similar cloud of potential law suites. So is the movements latest grand reform measure, the Child Protection Agency. All of these efforts are more about the movements legal, if not moral, self interest then the well being of the 2nd generation. The youth and children banner on which they stand is more a platform to launch their varied objectives.

Some feel that this ISKCON Communication Journal for which I write this essay is as much about public posturing for the media as it is for developing a professional review of the movement. The professors articles delivered on this very goal by creating a sense of legitimacy for the GBC's efforts at child- care reform vs. their terrible guilt in its perpetration. The 2nd essay, for example, compared ISKCON's child abuse against that of other American schools and churches as if it there was something common about it all. The nature of the cases may seem similar, but I doubt they are similar by degree of severity or in the number of different kinds of abuses that ISKCON fell prey to. Most every form of child abuse imaginable took place in ISKCON and more often then not, did so to its greatest expression. Few if any other cited "karmi schools" could make such a claim. Nor was the percentage of students affected in these other school systems comparable to that of ISKCONs. Yes, 1 million or so students are abused in America's school, but compared to 30 million students or what ever it maybe. Compare percentage of students abused in "karmi" schools to that of guru-kula, and guru-kula will "take the cake." I believe it fair to estimate that as much as 90% of all ISKCON youth - by the late 80's - had been subjected to some kind of abuse whether in the form of SEVERE NEGLECT (starvation, terrible living, academic and medical care conditions etc.), harsh punishment (of every kind - physical or otherwise) or sexual molestation. Although ISKCON's "schools in LA, Europe and Australia" proved better then the others, most of the students from them had been subjected to an abusive guru-kula prior to - or after their stay in - those "good" schools. A 90% abuse ratio maybe high. A more careful poll may reveal otherwise, but the point still stands - it is far higher then all other schools that ISKCON was compared against by the professor. Yet such unfavorable comparisons were overlooked - for what ever reason. The media responded in kind by presenting all the movements abuse as a step taken towards reform by the leadership rather then an indictment of their massive crimes. The Professors and ISKCON "COMMUNICATIONS" Journal had delivered a media coop. A job well done.

Are these efforts a bad thing? Well, it may give ISKCON what they "want" just as the guru-kula schools did, but it may not really be the best of what's needed for those in whose name its done. It will still miss the mark - the individual, just as all the other programs and guru-kulas did in the past. It is only a question of how much that target is missed. To the degree it is about an agenda other then the youth, to that degree they will miss the mark. There is a direct correlation. Today's programs are far closer then guru- kula's past, yes, but not entirely on the "bulls eye." One demonstration of this would be the GBC's satisfaction with the Children of Krsna and Youth Ministry in the face of the youths initial dissatisfaction with them.

Even more telling is the blindness to all efforts outside that of the institution. Parents and friends, for example, are hardly noticed though they helped guru-kulis through their most dreadful times. When the institution itself is the first priority, then only those efforts done through the institution are recognized - exclusively. Such recognition has to do with glorifying the institution, not the cause of the youth. Being personally overlooked is a symptom of this. Recognizing such non-institutional heroes as parents is an important litmus test. Svavasa, for example, has provided about $30,000 over 2 years in free or reduced room and board to over 100 guru-kulis. Again, all of these contributions have never been officially noted because they were made outside of the designated "youth" institutions. To recognize such efforts provides "the means of discovery." For example, the role and value of the broader community of devotees in all of this or the most effective tools for reaching out to guru-kulis will become more apparent by recognizing the contributions of the different devotees. It is in recognition that we find the sign post to our journey.

Over looking the newsletter is especially unfortunate. The newsletter accomplished each and every goal the GBC had ever hoped for and failed to achieve in spite of all their other programs, hundreds of costly meetings, and personal qualifications. Guru-kulis began to heal for the first time. They began to come to terms with their past, their parents and the movement. They started the reform of our child-care, re-ignited their spiritual lives along with their relationships with devotees and even ISKCON - to the point of moving back into communities and taking on active service and preaching. This was all had in one fell swoop by nothing more then a simple newsletter and reunions. To over look the role the newsletter played in all of this means to overlooked the secret of its success. The secret of success to the ISKCON Youth Veterans newsletters was that it provided a friendly refuge to the guru- kulis for the first time with no other "agenda" but appreciation and fair review of them. The reunions provided the same, but in a personal face to face forum. In short, we provided something akin to a community for ourselves. For many, this was the first time in a long time. Community means a resource center for the individuals' social, economic, emotional, intellectual and spiritual development and detailed in scripture more broadly as Varna-Asrama Dharma. We created the beginnings of this sense of community missing from our lives from both the world and the movement. This new found community of friends was the newsletters "secret of success."

Calls for this kind of priority to the individual - the real meaning of community spirit - is dismissed as too vague a policy, too sentimental for our standards or unpractical for implementation. I have therefore made such a case out of the success of the newsletters and reunions simply to demonstrate the impact of this approach. I similarly point to guru-kula's abuses as a testament of the worse to happen when the individual is forsaken in the name of a cause or institution. Many devotees seemed stumped by this idea. They assume the movements success was had because the individuals sacrificed themselves for its greater good. Though true, this remains only part of the story. The real story is that we loved Prabhupada because the devotees felt he loved them. The devotees felt that he would do for them what ever they needed most and so did for him what ever he needed most. I realized how strong this sentiment was only after transcribing Sidhanta's "Prabhupada Memory Video Series." Devotees from that era relay story after story how Prabhupada continuously made accommodation for each of their individual needs. Prabhupada made them feel loved and though their lives where austere, they felt better cared for than they had at any other time in their life. It can be hard to understand at times, but it was the magic that made this movement run. It was Prabhupada's magic.

Comment on this Story

This story URL: http://www.vnn.org/editorials/ET9901/ET13-2838.html

NEWS DESK | EDITORIALS | TOP

Surf the Web on