An Appeal to Tejaprakash dasa

BY: GOVINDA DASI

Jun 30, 2011 — HAWAII (SUN) — Dear Tejaprakash dasa, thank you for your elaborate response, and since I believe that much of it just isn’t true, I won’t bother to address that part. Your personal criticisms of me are well taken, however, as certainly I am full of flaws. I am very troubled, however, that you say I have grievously offended all these honorable Vaishnavas.

If you can kindly ask them how and when I offended them, I will certainly beg their forgiveness. And I shall ask the same of you, so that you can hear from each and every devotee here in Hawaii that you offended, and thus make amends. Since you publicly offended them, banning them, calling the cops on them, having them arrested, etc., then it is only fair that the devotees here have the opportunity to publicly air their grievances, so that you have an opportunity to apologize to them publicly. Don’t you agree that is fair?

Malati, however, may require some special attention. I spoke with her yesterday; she assured me that her daughter never “picked up her things” as you said. Shanti told me he saw them sitting outside, and may even have some of her Deities and things, since they were abandoned and people took what they wanted.

You had assured Malati you would send them to her, however, and she trusted you. She also gave you her car, along with the title papers, since you told her you would deal with it properly. Instead, you set it on the street so that she still has a huge towing bill with the State of Hawaii. Perhaps you could offer to pay that for her, so that she can get her driver’s license renewed here?

The thing that troubles me most is your ridiculous description of our Hawaii temple during the prior management of Sruta Kirti and Kusha devi. The things you said are absolutely outrageous, and I must testify that these things are elaborate fabrications on your part.

I have known Sruta Kirti and Kusha for about 40 years; they are my dear friends. To say that our Hawaii temple was full of “druggies, lazies, etc.” while they were in charge is a direct insult to them and their service to Srila Prabhupada.

Kusha also helped to open the Vrinda Kund temple, a great boon to ISKCON, and had to balance that with her service here. Sruta managed the temple in her absence. Kusha was born and raised here, joined the temple here in 1969, and is one of our seniormost devotees here. Sruta Kirti served Srila Prabhupada here in Hawaii in many ways, both as his personal servant as well as former temple leader. So I strongly object to your defaming them or their management, since they were running our temple just prior to your regime.

According to GBC statements, you were removed due to a “conflict of interest.” What exactly was that “conflict of interest?” Was it that you opened a restaurant in your name using temple funds and manpower, thus misusing a non-profit corporation?

Why did Shesha Prabhu, one of our board members, an honorable attorney and fine Vaishnava, resign as soon as he learned of this? We heard that a colleague told him he could lose his license to practice law for being a board member who allowed this.

Using a non-profit as your own corporation, doing business under its umbrella, and harvesting the funds for oneself would be quite illegal — a definite “conflict of interest.” Board members can be held accountable, especially when they are thousands of miles away and have no idea what is really going on.

In addition to the lack of responsible accounting, you created numerous permit violations at the temple property with debts totaling in the thousands. These fines were from illegal and unnecessary construction of large coolers for your restaurant. ISKCON Hawaii already had a very large walk-in cooler, and didn’t need the one you had installed without proper permits.

The violations and the accompanying debts were not there when Sruta and Kusha left. They came when you took over. When you left, and the temple was flat on its back, struggling to pay off those thousands of dollars in fines for your violations. Did you ever offer to pay them? Narahari helped negotiate the fines down to lesser amounts, but did either of you offer to pay them?

So far as your “accounting”, you never allowed an independent accountant to look at the books. All we are asking is that you allow a professional accountant, Dirk Von Guenthner, to go over the books. That would publicly free you of any suspicion. If you have nothing to hide, why would you object? Instead of changing the subject, and going into personal character assassinations, why not simply agree to have our forensic accountant go over everything with you? We want to believe in your honesty.

There were a number of times that various devotees asked for an accounting. Most were banned from the temple. The last time, however, was when a temple meeting was called by Dr. Bhawuk, the respectable Indian Professor of Economics at the University of Hawaii. He was trying to help, acting as mediator. Practically every devotee in Hawaii came for that meeting, hoping to work together with you. Instead, you greeted us with 3 cop cars in the temple parking lot, blue lights flashing, and Daiva, Adi, Sundara, Adhoksaja, Harichakra and others were forced to leave the property, or be arrested. So no meeting was held. No independent accounting was ever done.

Everyone here hoped to be able to work with you, so almost everyone came for the meeting. It was tragic. Women and children were crying, devotees were staring in disbelief, and some devotees were even trying to reason with you. (Want to see a video of it?)

By Krishna’s divine arrangement, our forensic accountant Dirk was also present at the temple. He too had been invited to the meeting. When he witnessed your horrid display of Hitlerian power, Dirk told us, “I’ll help you folks here pro bonum” (without charging his usual $250 an hour.) “This guy’s got to be hiding something to act like this!”

So in order to prove that you are indeed innocent, Teja, why not allow Dirk to meet with you and go over the books, and prove that you did not take the over $750,000 dollars that we estimate?

Everyone you banned is still in ISKCON, either in Hawaii or elsewhere, serving Srila Prabhupada’s mission. Many are here in Hawaii, and would be happy to make peace with you if you could simply have the honesty and the humility to come forward and make an effort to repair your relationships. It hurts us that you seem to look upon the Hawaii devotees as some sub-human species, and our Hawaii temple as not being a valuable asset to Srila Prabhupada’s movement.

Srila Prabhupada loved Hawaii, he spent a huge amount of time at this temple, and even translated most of Chaitanya-caritamrita here. Therefore it has been declared by the GBC a “Srila Prabhupada Tirtha.” He loved the climate, which is warm and balmy like his native Bengal; it was an inspiring place for him to write. He also loved the fresh mangos, the fresh coconuts, “dabs”, the papayas, and most of all the lush Tulasi gardens. He loved the devotees here as well, and he still does.

As for your mention of Srila Prabhupada having “slack standards” for Hawaii, I never told you that, nor have I ever heard of it.

One of my fondest memories is of Srila Prabhupada is sitting on the temple’s rooftop lanai, just above his circular, purplish-green Tulasi garden, palm trees swaying in the distance, and looking out at the colorful rainbows bending gracefully over the back of the beautiful Nuuanu Valley. Sruta Kirti was massaging his legs and we were both listening to Srila Prabhupada compare the vibrantly pure colors of the rainbow, the “Ram’s Bow,” to the three modes of nature: red: passion, blue: ignorance, and yellow: goodness. He was describing how these are the only colors in the whole creation, the primary colors on the artist’s palette: red, yellow, and blue. And how Krishna mixes these 3 colors to make all the millions of varieties of colors in this creation. And also how the many varieties of nature of the millions of living entities are also mixed by these three modes, goodness, passion, and ignorance. He was inspired and poetic during this relaxed, sunshine-bathed massage, with the fragrance of mustard oil and almond oil filling the plumeria scented air. Yes, it was heavenly.

His presence here is felt by most of us devotees here, and we are repeatedly saddened when leaders come here from the mainland and fail to appreciate the special spiritual qualities of Hawaii. We have huge Tulasi plants, a sign of great blessings for our temple, and we have beautiful Amalaki and Parijata trees, (though I have heard they have been recently hacked down by devotees from the mainland who don’t know what they are, or about their incredible spiritual value.)

The reason for the repeated problems in Hawaii is that sometimes people who come into this sacred realm are just not sensitive to the spiritual beauty of the place, and they instead get diverted by lust or greed or other of the lower modes. That is very unfortunate, because such persons miss out on the real beauty of the Islands. Srila Prabhupada was not such a person. He relished the gentle modes of nature here. And that’s why he named it “New Navadwip” over 40 years ago, when we first came here. He loved New Navadvip, and we who love him, also love the places and things he loved.

Srila Prabhupada both designed and installed our beautiful Sri Sri Pancha Tattva Deities here. These were the first Pancha Tattva Deities in the whole movement! Because he knew that I sculpted them, along with Kusha devi’s artistic help, he told me “Govinda dasi, these are YOUR Deities; don’t ever leave Them.” It is for this reason that I am very protective of Them, of Their Hawaii Temple, and of Their dedicated devotees here.

Our Temple Festival Director, Daiva Prabhu, along with others, is planning a grand celebration for our Pancha Tattva Deities’ 40th Year Anniversary next May. We will be inviting devotees from all over the world, especially those who contributed years of their lives to making New Navadwip Hawaii a thriving community.

Please, Teja Prakash, don’t write off the sincere devotees here and create bad rumors about them. This is bad for your bhakti, and it has hurt the hearts of many devotees here. One prominent devotee here recently told me, “I can’t even think about Teja Prakash, it causes me too much pain.” Why would you want that to follow you into the next life?

Better to resolve it all this life; we don’t have that many more years in this human birth, and we have all been given a golden opportunity of grace. Let’s try to make amends.

Your servant and sister in Srila Prabhupada’s seva,

Govinda dasi