We glorify Srila Prabhupada for taking such great risks, and for risking so much to please his spiritual master and Krsna. Our telling of history, however, seldom includes the risks that Srila Prabhupada took in engaging the types of people that came forward as a result of his preaching.

Almost all of Srila Prabhupada's ventures were risky, not because of the nature of the activities, but because of the people he was engaging to initiate the endeavors. He sent young, foolish devotees off to distant cities and countries, sent new recruits to India and left them there, encouraged untrained urbanites to setup farms, and -- now highly controversial -- had them set-up schools for the children.

Historically, the Vaisnava tradition excluded women and children from the asramas, and even prohibited saintly persons from going to the West, primarily because it was too risky. Srila Prabhupada was a risk taker. In fact, he's famous for it. And when you engage in risky ventures, you can guarantee that a lot of them are not going to work out.

Many of the activities engaged in by the devotees were experimental and risky, but we all understood that and went forward in the spirit of pleasing Krsna. Srila Prabhupada made it very clear that he envisioned that whoever was coming forward to help him was sent to him by Krsna, to be engaged in the preaching mission. By and large, as Srila Prabhupada liked to say, he made the best use of a bad bargain.

Many of us who were engaged in these risky ventures can testify that although the collective results initially seemed positive, and we felt empowered to do things we could never have done without the mercy of Krsna through Srila Prabhupada, we were really just bungling along. Due to divine forces, a great quantity of raw enthusiasm, and a degree of purity resulting from the devotional processes we were engaged in, we met with some relative success.

>From a material point of view, what leader would choose to engage in such activities by relying on people with the background and inexperience most of us had in the early days? Who would go into a risky venture like this with such people? If you were to pursue a business, you'd look for university graduates, people with previous experience and maturity. But in the case of Srila Prabhupada, whoever came through the door was engaged.

If there was a spiritual attraction, you were asked to do things for which you were completely unqualified, materially.

ISKCON was certainly a risky venture. At the same time, we all knew it was risky, and we still volunteered! It was a bit like joining the army: we were raw recruits who got a little training and were sent out to the battleground. Army recruits know from the day they join there's a chance they're going to be killed, but for reasons unbeknownst to anyone, millions of people joined armies at the same age we joined the Hare Krsnas.

The mood in ISKCON was undeniably militaristic. The chain of command was fairly strict, and it certainly wasn't a democracy. Our sankirtana activities soon evolved into a war on what we called "Maya", which was often more of a war on the local authorities. Every day the sankirtana devotees came back with their captured laxsmi, a head full of stories about how they'd dodged the police and the security guards, the ruffians and drunks, the atheists and Christians. It was like running the gauntlet, every day.

Today, we must deal with the cumulative effect of our risky activities.

The primary question being raised by the child abuse lawsuit is, did Srila Prabhupada know what kind of mood prevailed in the temples? All of us will testify to the fact that when we had the good fortune to receive a visit from Srila Prabhupada, we projected a totally different mood than was normally found in the temples. If those who had access to Srila Prabhupada were honest, they would admit that what they told Srila Prabhupada was happening, and what we pretended was happening when Srila Prabhupada visited us, was not really what was going on. How we got the money, how we sold the books, how we pushed the envelope when it came to the law, how we conveniently interpreted his instructions... these things were never made clear to Srila Prabhupada.

Many devotees have deceived themselves about this dynamic, choosing to believe that even thought they didn't say what was happening, Srila Prabhupada knew. We all had an essential tendency to deify someone of Srila Prabhupada's stature. It is for that reason our highest spiritual authorities have given us philosophical explanations aimed at preventing such misinterpretation. The acarya is not God. He does not have the power of God. He is a jivatma, specially empowered. There were numerous early attempts to elevate Srila Prabhupada to God-like stature. In fact, one of the few times Srila Prabhupada was furious enough to kick some of his senior disciples out of ISKCON was when they attempted to depict him as God himself.

An underlying contamination permeated our Society as a result of this erroneous conception. The leaders, including the Temple Presidents and gurukula teachers, gave everyone the impression that whatever decisions they made, whatever actions they took, it was authorized, understood and designed by Srila Prabhupada. We were just following Srila Prabhupada's dictates, which obviously made the job easier and gave more power and authority to those of us who wished to command obedience.

In reality, Srila Prabhupada established an organization where relatively little information ended up in front of him. He gave us the managerial responsibility. Srila Prabhupada corresponded only through letters. He did not spend his time on the telephone talking with his senior leaders.

Very early on, individuals were discouraged from sending letters to Srila Prabhupada -- even Temple Presidents were discouraged from writing. We also knew that letters were screened before they reached Srila Prabhupada, so we took care not to report problems that we knew the big leaders didn't want to expose. There have also been numerous accusations that some of Srila Prabhupada's letters were tampered with by those in control. To say that Srila Prabhupada knew what was going on and personally ran the organization is erroneous.

We can understand why the children thought Srila Prabhupada knew -- because that's what they were told. They were young and impressionable, and they assumed that what they heard was true. Children are naturally inclined to believe that their direct authorities are telling the truth. Especially in the mind of an unsophisticated child, the way Srila Prabhupada was worshipped and the way he was presented to them was God-like, omniscient, and omnipresent.

Although Srila Prabhupada was not any of these things, he definitely was highly perceptive, especially when it came to character analysis. I speculate that he knew how devious the leaders were getting as time went on. At the same time, Srila Prabhupada did not establish an organization in which he personally executed due diligence on every person or situation that came his way. He had to leave things up to Krsna, and pray that his senior disciples were sincere enough to take care of business.

By studying ISKCON's pre-samadhi history (1966 - 1977) in an objective way, we can see definite shifts in Srila Prabhupada's decisions which reflect his perception that some of his original ventures were not going to turn out as he'd hoped. In the early days, Srila Prabhupada encouraged the opening of western temples, and had a program in place to develop them.

But in the later part of his lila, he took the majority of the money off to India, knowing full well that Indian temples would remain for thousands of years regardless of shifts in politics and management. He could see that here in the West, there was a likelihood that the temples would end up in the hands of the lawyers.

All of us involved in the movement, or at least the senior people, were aware of the priorities that Srila Prabhupada set in terms of allocating time in his own life. First and foremost, he was dedicated to his writing pursuits, and was continually attempting to extricate himself from managing the Society. From his perspective, which is the perspective of a pure devotee, the writing of his books was paramount, because they would reach the conditioned souls for many, many years to come. Our philosophy emphasizes the fact that dealing with societal manifestations of material nature is of less importance than dealing with the spiritual health of the fallen conditioned souls. Naturally, Srila Prabhupada was more concerned with the latter, and chose to write for the future good of the many rather than spend his time trying to manage for the benefit of the few.

We can assume that Srila Prabhupada understood the nature of this sacrifice, and we can speculate about his feelings. As his disciples, we have to come to grips with the reality that God and his pure devotees have an entirely different perspective than we conditioned, embodied beings do.

They are not sentimental in the same ways we are. Krsna allowed the battle of Kuruksetra to take place. He orchestrated having the entire Yadhu dynasty commit suicide. He allowed his closest disciples, the Pandavas, to be exiled by Duryodhana and company, even though as God, he had the power to stop all these things from taking place. But Krsna had a particular plan, and he did not change his plan so that the fallen conditioned souls -- even his pure devotees -- would avoid suffering. From a mundane point of view this may seem heartless, and even gruesome. That's why the pastimes of Krsna have to be explained by a pure devotee -- otherwise, we come to the wrong conclusions.

This brings us to one of the strongest arguments the atheists make: if there is a God, why are so many innocent people suffering? Why are they put into miserable conditions? Why has he allowed the threefold miseries, and birth, death, old age and disease. Thanks to the mercy of Srila Prabhupada we have answers to these questions, but we still have a hard time applying our knowledge.

Many times Srila Prabhupada stated that the biggest problem we Westerners have is we're not afraid enough of Maya. In other words, we are far too reckless -- with the government authorities, with so many aspects of our service. In the case of the gurukulas, we far exceeded calculated risk -- we were totally reckless. Anyone with a degree of common sense would know that if there's one thing that the Western public has a high degree of sensitivity to, it's the treatment of children. For us to march boldly into a venture like setting up boarding schools without a carefully researched plan, proper capitalization and ongoing funding, organization and qualified people, was just absolutely foolish. I don't think we ever had a school in the West that met the qualifications in any of these areas.

Our buildings were far below government standards, our teachers were not professionally trained, we never had enough money. The entire mood of the Society was not conducive to this type of venture. It was like starting a school in a war zone. The best troops were sent to the front, and all available money was spent for ammunition (books).

When we look over time at Srila Prabhupada's risky ventures, we have to honestly admit that many of them weren't successful. In the long run, many failed because the risk factor was too high. The people who were involved weren't of high enough caliber to pull it off. From a business point of view, we were like one of today's high tech start-up's -- Prabhupada.com -- a fast company in the fast lane with kids behind the wheel. Today, many of the temples are in decay, the book distribution mechanism has broken down, and the farms projects are unsuccessful -- what to speak of the schools, which were a dismal failure. Perhaps the biggest failure of all was Srila Prabhupada's attempt to establish the GBC, which never functioned the way he envisioned it while he was present, and which ceased to exist after Srila Prabhupada left. From the very onset, these efforts were risky. But that's from a mundane point of view.

>From the spiritual point of view, there were many successes. Countless people know about Krsna who otherwise would not. They know about the mahamantra. They've chanted, taken prasadam, millions of books are in circulation. Personally, I believe that in the long run, Srila Prabhupada would feel that the results manifested, both short term and long term, were worth the risks. If we had it to do over again, I don't believe he would forfeit the successes in order to avoid the failures. While I know the children and the lawyers strongly disagree, I also understand that many of them openly admit that they're not devotees. And unless you are a devotee, you can't appreciate the spiritual results and accept them despite the casualties.

The most intelligent participants understood well that risks were involved.

Like good soldiers, they prepared themselves to deal with the risks.

Today we have to reconcile the fact that our children weren't volunteers.

Their parents brought them along, made a choice to stay in the movement and subject their children to the overall risk. No one can honestly claim that they didn't have a choice to leave the Society and continue to be a devotee while getting a proper occupation and providing for their families. That option was always there, but we chose not to take it.

Today, we're all forced to decide whether or not it was worth the risk to our children and ourselves. In the face of the looming court case, we have to come to our own personal conclusions as to whether or not we think the risks Srila Prabhupada took were worthwhile. We are faced with the challenge of discovering the truth, and must decide whether or not to make the effort to penetrate through the calcified concepts formed in our early years. Will we attempt to find out the absolute truth: who is Srila Prabhupada, what is a nitya-siddha acarya, and what actually happened in the name of ISKCON?

I propose that Srila Prabhupada was a "risk taker", and he attracted other risk takers. But unlike him, we quickly evolved into reckless fools, dangerously riding on the wave of false philosophical conclusions. We thought Krsna would protect us even though we knew in our heart of hearts that if Srila Prabhupada were witnessing our actions, he would be appalled.

Paramatma and the demigods were observing, however, and they meted out the reactions. This lawsuit is just one of the blows.

Wherever Srila Prabhupada resides at present, is he aware of what is happening? Does Sri Krsna wish to inform him, or out of affection is he sparing Srila Prabhupada the pain?