© 2000 VNN
|
EDITORIAL June 25, 2000 VNN6051 Related VNN Stories The Inevitable Gurukula Lawsuit BY ROCANA DASA EDITORIAL, Jun 25 (VNN) — From my vantage point, which is outside of the institutional perspective, I've long been aware of the fact that this case was due to manifest. It is, essentially, the predictable outcome of how the children were perceived -- and therefore treated -- since the very early days of ISKCON. My own experience goes back to the day when I joined, as one of the few young devotees to come to the movement with a wife and child. My child was less than six months old at the time, and was one of the first children to go to the Dallas gurukula. When I joined, my direct authority was Jagadisa dasa who, along with his wife, Laxmimoni, quickly emerged as key figures in the gurukula system. Due to my friendship with both of them, I was aware of the ongoing struggles they faced in creating and maintaining the gurukulas. I eventually oversaw one of the schools for a few years, which manifested in Seattle after the sudden closure of the Dallas gurukula, around 1976. Today my daughter, Maya Charnell, is one of the key personalities instigating this court case, along with Jagadisa's son, Nirmal Hickey. While Maya lived with my wife and I for a period during the mid-1990's, she helped me become aware of many issues regarding children and the gurukula. I discovered what I'd been sublimating, and was in a certain amount of denial about. In some ways, the bottom line is not whether a particular event happened exactly how they recalled, or not. Most of these children passed through the whole ISKCON experience, coming out the other side, with a very negative impression of everything to do with the society. Many left with a negative impression of Srila Prabhupada, what to speak of not being followers of Lord Sri Krsna. Overwhelmingly, A large majority felt they had been abused. Their stories bring up a lot of issues, not only about how we as a society treated our children, but about how we treated each other, and the embarrassing degree to which we were harboring impersonal attitudes. We're now on the brink of receiving a severe case of karmic reaction for our unconsciously ignorant acts. Each individual devotee will have to come to certain conclusions, based on their own history in ISKCON, about the reactions they personally experience. Our individual conclusions will be colored by how far back our service goes, what temples we were involved in, and whom we sided with on various contentious issues along the way. Many will feel that they are being forced to take sides. On one hand, the court case is attacking Srila Prabhupada: threatening the confiscation of temples where deities have long been residing. This is likely to impact a large number of sincere people. On the other hand, our children were offended -- and there were an amazing number of offenses committed against them. Our philosophy tells us that we have to suffer the reaction for committing offenses. We're all aware of the many quasi-illegal activities that were perpetrated and performed under institutional auspices, but these activities were seldom serious enough to catch the attention of the government. Until the child abuse issue -- and this one is likely to bring focus to many of the seemingly less serious activities. The leadership of ISKCON obviously never considered the future devastation that could be wrought by the gurukula abuse issue. We're now well past the point of safe return, and are left to consider what it is that Krsna himself is now teaching all those who care to learn. It's my opinion that the original ISKCON has not existed since Srila Prabhupada left, and neither has the GBC. In large part, those who wanted to exploit the concept of GBC and the concept of being in Srila Prabhupada's original movement have created this fiasco. If they were honest, they would simply have admitted a long time ago that ISKCON was immediately divided into various different guru-doms. These factions had a loose alliance with one another, and saw the advantage of flying the ISKCON flag. Consequently, the legal system can now use this facade to prove that legal links existed between many of the temples, and they can thus attack the whole organization. The GBC's futile passing of a multitude of unenforceable laws can now be shown as legal proof that it was all one organization, ruled by an entrenched oligarchy. ISKCON's leaders did not do as Srila Prabhupada mandated. The GBC were instructed to become saintly persons, preaching and traveling from temple to temple to see that spiritual standards were maintained. Instead, they immersed themselves in creating a complex system of government that served no real purpose. They were simply a group of individuals pretending to be in control. They passed laws and issued dictates, and gave the legal perception that they were in control of the entire movement, which wasn't at all true. For this reason, I believe that they deserve much of the blame for what we're about to see unfold. Srila Prabhupada's original plan was to set-up individual temples, overseen by non-administrative GBC. He knew that we were likely to make mistakes, and wanted the ramifications to be localized, so that each temple got the results of their own activities, rather than all the temples having to bear a collective burden. The situation we now face is a perfect example of the risk that should have been avoided. The Defendants It will be particularly interesting to watch how the defendants go about organizing their defense. Knowing them personally, I expect to see them staking out very individualized defenses. I know very well that many of these men strongly dislike one another. Many have been outside the movement for years, and are going to defend their own personal positions, not ISKCON or Srila Prabhupada. They'll be saving themselves, and will not hesitate in pointing the finger at their so-called Godbrothers. The legal fees for their defense are going to be astronomical. If they would surrender to a collective defense, one law firm could probably handle the case for them. But instead, most are likely to retain their own lawyers. How prominent the lawyers are will depend on how much money they have, and how vulnerable they are to being made responsible by the testimony of the others. This case will become a major expose of what has been going on behind the scenes of ISKCON. What has long been perceived by many to be a strong, cooperative movement will be exposed as a bunch of individuals fending for themselves. Regardless of the outcome, we must keep in mind the historical reality. The Muslims went into Vrindaban and tore down the temples of the Goswamis. Krsna himself arranged the destruction of the Yadhu dynasty. To think that the ISKCON child abuse lawsuit is not Krsna's arrangement, but strictly Maya's attack, is completely erroneous in my mind. We cannot know for certain what will happen, we can only watch the future unfold. We have posted a new section to the Hare Krsna website in response to this lawsuit -- http://www.harekrsna.com/lawsuit -- and welcome your contributions. Related VNN Stories  Comment on this storyContact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
NEWS DESK | EDITORIALS | TOP |
