08/30/98 - 2093

Rakshasha Influence: Is It in the ISKCON Body?

Editorial (VNN) - by Dharmapada Dasa

It seems that since the disappearance of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, Prabhupada in 1977, the Hare Krishna movement has collapsed to a great extent. Even places where the movement penetrated after Shrila Prabhupada's death and initially grew, for example, in Eastern Europe, collapse has finally come about for the same kinds of reasons as the rest of the movement. I think that we can all agree that the collapse has been internal more than as a result of any external aggressions.

Abusive treatment of its own members and absolute authoritarianism, including the presentation of the new spiritual masters as divine, have contributed to the wholesale alienation of its older members and the repellent filtering of much new blood. At times it has appeared as if an element of the Hare Krishna movement's own management cadre wants to tear it down from within, almost as if it were some kind of fifth column against the movement.

On the surface, this tendency seems simply to be brought about the reasons which are exteriorly apparent: differences of opinion, ambition, immaturity, greed, thievery and sexual abuse on the part of management and gurus, and a misplaced submissive attitude amongst the rank and file, which is akin to that of lambs being led to slaughter. One reason for the lack of resistence offered, or not offered, by the average devotee probably has a lot to do with a false fear of committing offenses. (For example, there is nothing offensive about calling a thief a thief ). But if we scratch the surface a little, we might find a deeper, more remote cause. A nice clue is be found in Varaha Purana, as quoted by Kedaranath Dutt in his book " Jaiva Dharma:"

Raksasah kalim ashritya Jayante brahma-yonishu

"In the Kali-yuga demons take birth in the families of brahmins."

This idea of beings from other realms taking birth on Earth with agendas is not unheard of. In the tenth canto of Shrimad Bhagavatam, Shree Vishnu instructed the demigods to take birth ahead of the Krishna avatar in order to assist Him in His pastimes. The other way around, however, it seems that asuras, too, either take birth as residents of Bharat or that they express their influence through earthly beings, as we will see in the case of Duryodhana.

To develop our understanding of this phenomenon, we will draw heavily on the presentation of Dr. Richard Thomson ( Sadaputa Dasa ), in his book Alien Identities (P - 241), to investigate the case of King Duryodhana: " King Duryodhana once had an encounter with some Ganharvas who had cordoned off an area around a lake for recreationaal purposes and had blocked Duryodhana's army from entering. When Duryodhana tried to enter anyway, a fierce battle took place, and he was captured by the Gandharva forces. At this point, Arjuna, who was staying nearby, used his political connections with the Gandharva to free Duryodhana. Arjuna and his brothers had been driven into exile by Duryodhana, but Arjuna intervened to save him from the Ganharvas on the grounds that he was a relative and a human being.

Duryodhana was humiliated at being saved by a person he had scorned and mistreated as an enemy, and he decided to give up everything and fast until death. However, it seems that other parties had long-standing plans for Duryodhana and they weren't at all pleased by this turn of events.

'Thereupon the Daityas and Danavas, hearing of his decision, the gruesome denizens of the nether world, who had been defeated by the gods, now, in the knowledge that Duryodhana would wreak their party, performed a sacrificial rite in order to summon him.' (Mahabharat)

Once Duryodhana was in the presence of the Danavas, they explained to him that his birth on Earth was arranged in advance as part of their plan. His great bodily strength and his near immunity to weapons were arranged by their manipulations. He therefore shouldn't spoil everything by taking his life. Daityas and Danavas, taking birth as Earthly heroes, would assist him in his battle with the Pandavas. The Danavas also pointed out that they would use mind control to make sure that this battle had the desired outcome.

'After it was over, King Duryodhana thought that it had all been a dream, Bharat, and he was left with this thought: I shall vanquish the Pandus in battle.' "Thus was Duryodhana empregnated with asuric agendas.

Another clue is provided in the recently discovered phenomenon of UFOs. Again, we will draw heavily on the comparison given by Dr. Richard Thomson (Sadaputa Dasa) in Alien Identities (P 224 - 225). There, the good doctor points out the tenth-canto Bhagavatam narrative of Salva's wonderful Aircraft and the similarities with modern UFOs. " A number of interesting parallels with UFO accounts can be found in the story of Salva in the tenth canto of the Bhagavat Purana.' The aircraft occupied by Salva was very mysterious. It was so extraordinary that sometimes many airplanes would appear to be in the sky, and sometimes there were apparently none. Sometimes the plane was visible, and sometimes not visible, and the warriors of the Yadu dynasty were puzzled about the whereabouts of the peculiar airplane. Sometimes they would see the airplane on the ground, sometimes flying in the sky, sometimes resting on the peak of a hill, and sometimes floating on the water. The wonderful aircraft flew in the sky like a whirling firebrand- it was not steady even for a moment.'

The flight characteristics of this " airplane " resemble those of UFOs in many respects ... UFOs are well known for this kind of behavior, and they are also described as hovering over water and then abruptly taking off."

Modern accounts of abductions similar to that of Duryodhana's, in craft similar to that of Salva, simply abound. In the above-mentioned book by Dr. Thompson as well as Secret Life by David M. Jacobs, PH.D., scores of cases are investigated in a serious and scientific manner. For example, UFO abduc tion victims are interviewed separately with no knowledge of or contact with other such victims; even so, they uniformly describe similar experiences. Their descriptions of UFO interiors are also astonishingly uniform. The film " Communion " depicts the true story of a New York playwright who had abduction experiences and was influenced. Typically, abduction victims are influenced by some suggestions made hypnotically, literally made to forget the experience by some kind of hypnotic suggestion, and then set down again on Earth with an agenda to carry out, as in the case of Duryodhana, little more than marionettas of beings little inderstood. The abduction victims who do receive suggestions and agendas are often influential people, such as politicians, musicians and authors.

Armed with Vedic descriptions and definitions, we can understand these UFO beings to be none other than the Daitays and Danavas of Vedic lore.

Their influence did not stop in Vedic times. It would be naive of us to think that, even though during the Dvarpara yuga the asuras made such an impact, they now exert no influence, even though we have entered Kali yuga proper. If anything, their influence has been greater in this yuga that in the past. Due to their manipulations, the once world-wide Vedic culture has been truncated again and again, and the off-shoots transformed into the materialistic cultures we have witnessed over the last several thousand years. And it is not as if the members of the Hare Krishna movement are automatically immune just because they are devotees. The Supersoul awards according to one's desires, efforts and actions. So if the demons desire to cause trouble to the Hare Krishna movement, then it is reasonable to assume that Shree Krishna will permit them because he even permitted them to do so during his own lila.

Besides, Shrila Prabhupada himself made comments to the effect that, although there are demons in the movement, they will not be able to stop it. Our understanding of these types of comments may be ready to mature and broaden.

With this reasoning in mind I am going to suggest, at the risk of appearing extreme, that members and well-wishers of the Hare Krishna movement make a connection between the direction in which management has taken the Hare Krishna movement and the manipulative modus operandi of the asuras. It actually seems more than strange that the movement has experienced such collapse and such abuses given the fact that:

1. The rank and file has usually been quite cooperative, and ... 2. It has typically been the high-level management which has been almost singularly responsible for the direction which the movement has taken, as well as for each and every individual mess.

Given such pliable membership, it seems that it would almost be kind of hard to bring about such a string of disasters, almost as if the bad luck weren't bad luck, but as if it were being orchestrated.

For example, if I were an asura in a "wonderful airplane" like Salva's a UFO), I couldn't think of worse evil than driving away the watchful eyes of older devotees and parents, then being left alone with little devotee children to rape and sexually abuse them year after year. Later on, when I remember that " I " am a hypothetical asura, a demon, in a UFO) found out that the embittered children had left the movement in disgust, ignored their spiritual legacy, and ended up working regular jobs in the material world, wasting their valuable time watching TV and in the worse cases, eating meat, I would laugh. I would laugh that their parents were sent off in the name of being " unattached " and doing service, while some demon in human form, or a pervert with a demoniac agenda implanted in his mind, performed anal rape on their devotee children. If I were a demon I couldn't have planned it any better.

And that's why I'm asking the readers to consider that maybe it was planned, because the asuras do influence the affairs of this world, even the affairs of Krishna's devotees in this world, without their misguiding hand being readily apparent. Maybe now we'll make the connection and treat the leadership of the Hare Krishna movement for what it seems to be- marionettes of asuras or even demons in human form, in the worst case scenarios- and clean house, I mean GBC, I mean guru, I mean clean house, because the International Society for Krishna Consciousness is a house that needs cleaning.

And I strongly urge the reader to read the book of Dr. Richard Thompson Sadaputa Dasa, Alien Identities, published by the Bhaktivedanta Institute, and another good book I'll recomend is Secret Life by Dr. David M. Jacobs, a Fireside Book, published by Simon & Schuster. If we inform ourselves about who is actually kicking us, it might help us to re-establish our own agendas.

Thank you all for the attention and I look forward to a few comments by the readers.

Dharmapada Dasa
Dean@internetcom.com.br