Feb 01, 2009 – COSTA RICA — PART THREE – Philosophical Adherence
BY: YADU DAS & COSTA RICA DEVOTEES
In the Second Part of this series we saw how Guru Prasad Swami, Bhakti Bhusana Swami, Manonath, and Virabahu, are deviated from Srila Prabhupada’s instructions as given in the DOM, the Mission Statements, the Order of Decentralization and his Last Will.
Thus, having proved that the self-proclaimed are administratively deviated from the instructions of Srila Prabhupada, we shall proceed to prove how they are also philosophically deviated.
In their “Problems” the self-proclaimed give the following reason for not preserving the farm
Negative results according to Vastu studies made by several experts from India and other countries, giving evidence for the present and past difficulties in pushing forward the sankirtan mission, which are all due to the evil influences of the place.
The first LIE in this statement is that no expert from India has ever come to the farm to make any Vastu study. The second LIE is that the devotees who spoke of this (Jiva Tattva and Mahajan) are not Vastu experts, because they have never made a living through professional Vastu consultation. They gave this desperate and useless reason because they were acting as subordinates of Guru Prasad Swami, whose aim is “not preserving the farm”, utilizing for this purpose all sorts of means IN THE BROADEST POSSIBLE WAY (as stated in the statutes of the Lifter)
Having proved that the so called Vastu study is a LIE, now we shall prove how this constitutes a philosophical deviation, because even if it were true that such experts in Vastu would have come, and even if it were true that such study would have been done, and even if it were true that there were such negative influences from that point of view, still we do not find any instructions in any of Srila Prabhupada’s books about closing down the temples of Lord Krishna due to some Vastu influences.
What we do find is that in all of his books Srila Prabhupada constantly emphasizes the power of chanting the name of Krishna. Srila Prabhupada constantly repeats, again and again, that the chanting of the holy names of Krishna is the panacea for all evils. This is the heart of the devotional doctrine presented by Srila Prabhupada. This is the essence of the philosophical expositions done by Srila Prabhupada based on the Bhagavad-gita (satatam kirtayanto mam), in the Bhagavatam (kirtanad eva krishnasya) and on the Chaitanya-Charitamrita (namnam akari bahuda, param vijayate sri-krishna-sankirtanam).
According to the philosophy and doctrine presented by Srila Prabhupada and by ALL the Vaisnava scriptures there is nothing more powerful than the holy name of Krishna. But now Guru Prasad Swami, Bhakti Bhusana Swami, Manonath, and Virabahu, tell us that due to Vastu influences, we have TO GET RID OF KRISHNA’S FARM!, where for more than 21 years the devotees have resided and chanted Hare Krishna. (!!!???)
Put in the simplest possible language, which even the newest neophytes can understand, this is simply a MAYOR philosophical and doctrinal deviation on the part of these four international leaders: Guru Prasad Swami, Bhakti Bhusana Swami, Manonath, and Virabahu, and with this deviation they implicated their subordinates who are assisting them, and to whom they ordered to publish their “Problems”. And, why is it that they fell in such philosophical deviation? Because regarding real estate properties they want to disobey Srila Prabhupada administratively, IN THE BROADEST POSSIBLE WAY.
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This reasoning about Vastu, apart from being a philosophical deviation, is also total foolishness because the self-proclaimed themselves acknowledge the success of the farm, when they say “many spiritual programs took place and many people got involved in devotional practices, and about 40 persons moved to live at the farm”. If yesterday it was possible to do it, why not now? If now it cannot be done due to Vastu, why was it possible yesterday?
These questions cannot be answered with Vastu; the real answer is found in Guru Prasad Swami’s, Bhakti Bhusana Swami’s, Manonath’s, and Virabahu’s lack of managerial capacity and lack of ability to treat devotees as equal human beings. They cannot be considered leaders just because they are holding titles like “GBC” and “Regional Secretary”, if they are not able to manage properly or to treat the devotees properly and encourage them, or to recognize the innate capacity and potential of another person, who can lead better than them, like Harinamananda.
Another example of the foolishness of blaming Vastu is the following. The self-proclaimed recognize that after the installation of the Deities in 1994, “for a long time They were properly taken care of, and They showered blessings that generated a true enthusiasm among the members of the community for several years”. We ask the same question: if this could be done before, where was the Vastu? Why is it that Vastu doesn’t allow now to do anything, but before it allowed everything? Why is it that Vastu allowed showers of blessings before, but now is sending only thunderbolts of curses?
The farm is the same; the land is the same; its form and shape have not changed. Therefore, the Vastu of the place have not changed; it is the same. But what did change is that previously the farm was not under the control of Guru Prasad Swami, Bhakti Bhusana Swami, Manonath, and Virabahu; but now they think it is. Formerly Bhakty Abhay Charan Swami wanted to preserve it; but now these four leaders have no desire to do so. This is the only thing that has changed.
No, Vastu cannot be made responsible. The responsibility falls on these four incompetent leaders who don’t manage properly, don’t argue properly, and don’t teach their followers to avoid the ridicule of putting forward such arguments. To speak of Vastu as a cause for not preserving the farm is not only a philosophical deviation from Srila Prabhupada’s teaching, but also demonstration of extreme poverty for philosophy and reasoning.
The self-proclaimed defeat themselves because if Vastu were responsible, their 40 and more accusations leveled against all the devotees of the Hare Krishna Farm in Costa Rica should be retracted, for Vastu is the culprit. Brilliant philosophers and brilliant arguments! And they say that they don’t want to preserve the farm because they want to go to the city, near the University, to preach to the intellectuals. (!!)
To make the Movement successful, we have to adhere to Srila Prabhupada’s directions written down in his Last Will, in the Order of Decentralization, in the Mission Statements, and in the DOM; and we have to adhere to his philosophical teachings that the name of Krishna (and not Vastu) is the panacea for all bad influences. Unfortunately, the self-proclaimed are not giving us a good example of any of these.
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The Deities of Nitai-Gaurasundar were installed at the farm because it was a place consecrated to the worship of the Lord. It was the place that has already been established as the permanent residence of the Hare Krishna Community, and the intention had always been to preserve it for that purpose. That’s why the Deities were installed there. Later, four international leaders, through illegal maneuvers put the farm in their names, and through manipulation of their subordinates stole the Deities with the ulterior motive of selling the farm, claiming that the place was no longer consecrated. Thus, the self-proclaimed declare that the farm “once upon a time was a sacred Dham”. Such is their logic: that in order to convert the farm into money, first they converted it in an ordinary place.
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The Deities were stolen from the farm in the middle of the night of July 2, 2007. The theft was reported the following morning to the police and registered in court as aggravated robbery. The perpetrators were four followers of Guru Prasad Swami, and the purpose was -as stated above- to clear the way for selling the farm.
The way the Deities were stolen has been narrated in other documents, and the summary is as follows: The disciples of Guru Prasad Swami proposed an arrangement to the other devotees at the farm regarding the Deity worship. Every other day the Deities would be worshipped by the disciples of Guru Prasad Swami (who were on his side of not preserving the farm), and the other alternate day the Deities would be worshiped by the devotees who wanted to preserve the farm. It was overtly said that this agreement was for avoiding discussions on this topic during hours of direct service to the Deity, in the temple or pujari room, but actually the disciples of Guru Prasad Swami had already hatched a plan.
One day they announced that they would move from the farm that night, after the evening daily service to the Deities, and for this they brought a truck. When the service was over, they supposedly put the Deities to “rest”. And they began to pack the truck with their personal things, such as clothes, mattresses, blankets, etc. Then, at the latest hours of night -taking advantage on the good faith of the devotees and that nobody was awake at that time- they camouflage the Deities among their things. They also stole from the temple room all the sacred books for daily readings, the musical instruments for the devotional chanting, the religious pictures decorating the temple, and they also forcibly pulled off from the walls the shelves on which the books and paraphernalia were kept, and leaving the temple floor transformed into a mess, they disappeared.
These are the facts which were known the next day, and which were immediately reported from the farm to several devotees in different parts of the world.
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During many months nobody knew about the Deities. But one of Guru Prasad Swami’s assistants published a photo in their Website showing how they had worshipped the Deities in Janmastami, in August 2007 (after the theft). However, the photo was from the previous Janmastami (2006), when the Deities were still at the farm. In other words, the Deities were made to disappear, and could not be seen even in picture.
A few days after the publication of the deceiving photograph, the Cybernetic Newsletter Virtual Istaghosti reported the anomaly. And a couple of months later Yadu again reported it in the document The Last Pillar of Religion. But Guru Prasad Swami and his followers could not give any explanation about the false picture, even though such an explanation could have been the easier thing in the world, since it was enough to say: “It was an involuntary mistake, here is the real picture”. The fact that they could not show even a photograph means that the Deities were not being worshipped, because this was exactly what they wanted us to believe when they tried to deceive us (and the public) with the photograph taken at the farm, a year earlier! But when they were caught in this cheating, they could not answer.
Now, however, with their article “The Problems” (originally published in Spanish at the very end of April 2008, almost then months after the theft, which took place on July 2, 2007) the self-proclaimed tell us again the story of the stork and the baby when they say that “the Deities left the farm”.
To change the language from “theft” to “left”, from “the Deities were stolen from the farm” to “the Deities left the farm”, is another cheating maneuver, like the false photograph. With the change of language they pretend to change the history. And indeed they can change the history in front of an innocent audience, but they cannot change the facts. What they committed was a theft, never mind how they want to call it.
With this manipulation of language, are they pretending to make us believe that the Deities “left” out of their own sweet will, as if they would have walked away with their own feet? If that would have happened, why couldn’t the self-proclaimed give us their version a little bit earlier? Why do they have to wait almost ten months, longer than a baby waits in the womb? Is it because they were inventing their new story of the baby and the stork?
It is possible that a Deity walks and leaves the temple for some specific purpose, as it happened in ancient times with the Deity of Saksi Gopal in Orissa, because the miracles of faith are extraordinary. But such miracles happened only to saints, not to thieves.
There is no doubt that Guru Prasad Swami, Bhakti Bhusana Swami, Manonath, and Virabahu are behind this premeditated robbery and sacrilege because their subordinates would have never dared to perform such an action without their permission. Furthermore, although initially Guru Prasad Swami and Bhakti Bhusana Swami denied (to two of our friends) to even knowing what their disciples have done, later on -when the annual GBC meeting were approaching- they were obliged to find a more credible version, and they said exactly the opposite. So, in February 2008 these two Swamis publicly declared at the Pamho Conference: “The Deities were taken away from the farm with the permission of the local GBCs”, which means with the permission FROM Guru Prasad Swami, Bhakti Bhusana Swami, and Virabahu. This declaration from their own mouths proves that they planned everything and that they gave the order to their subordinates. In other words, unwittingly they confessed that they are the intellectual authors of the theft.
To justify the theft of the Deities, the self-proclaimed accuse the devotees of the Hare Krishna farm of “negligence” in the service of the Deities, of being bad devotees, and of committing many “offenses” in sacred areas. On top of this, Guru Prasad Swami and Bhakti Bhusana Swami in their public defense (Pamho Conference, February 2008) made the accusation that: “Some local devotees threatened to kidnap the Deities”
It is interesting that the accusations invented against the Hare Krishna Community of Cartago, are exactly the same things that they themselves have done.
1) For months and months, from July 2, 2007 (the day of the theft) to January 13, 2008 (the day they brought the Deities to their center in San Pedro -a neighborhood adjacent to San Jose- no one knew about the mysterious whereabouts of the missing Deities. But in the meantime, to make a show that they were worshipping Their Lordships, they published a photo taken at the farm, a year earlier!! This is indeed NEGLIGENCE.
2) Stealing the Deities from the altar in the middle of the night, stealing the sacred books used for the daily readings, stealing the musical instruments used for the chanting of mantras and devotional songs, and making a mess of the temple room, all this is indeed an OFFENSE committed in sacred areas.
3) Regarding the KIDNAPING of the Deities, obviously they were the ones who did it.
The leaders of the self-proclaimed -that is: Guru Prasad Swami, Bhakti Bhusana Swami, Manonath, and Virabahu- know very well what they themselves have done. Therefore they don’t require a great brain to invent such accusations, for the only thing they have to do is to superimpose them to others. Another sample of the same mentality is shown when they say that the devotees of the Hare Krishna Community of Cartago have demanded “to put in their names the whole property”, when in reality the only ones who have done this are: first, Guru Prasad Swami, and later Bhakti Bhusana Swami and Manonath through the creation of The Lifter of the Hill, Limited, and with the complicity of Virabahu (the supposed property trustee) (!!!).
Treating the Deities in this way is very regrettable, as if they were a commodity that can be moved here and there for real estate purposes. It is not only a managerial mistake but also a very serious philosophical and doctrinal deviation. Furthermore, it is also FRAUDULENT behavior because as leaders of a religious institution in which they play the role of gurus, they supposedly have enough knowledge of the theology and philosophy, and therefore they necessarily knew that when they stole the Deities, the only thing they could steal were the three-dimensional forms. They know that deity means divinity. And the Divinity is not subject to theft. However, they executed the theft with the purpose of deceiving the public and invented the story that “the Deities left” as if they had the power to steal the Divinity. The fraud consists in that with this story they tried to discourage devotees and the congregation to continue their worship at the temple where the Deities were duly installed, as if the temple and the Deities were no longer at the farm.
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These international leaders (Guru Prasad Swami, Bhakti Bhusana Swami, and Virabahu) knowing well that the Hare Krishna Farm in Cartago doesn’t belong to them, have put it in their name and made plans to sell it. When we present this anomaly to our ISKCON readers some of them cannot believe it, and argue that these leaders are good authorities and that no injustice or fraud has taken place. So we get the following reaction: the self-proclaimed accuse us of slander, and others -who are no less generous- accuse us of politics. But it is not so. These are not politics or slander. This is something wrong that needs to be corrected. That’s why we are addressing it publicly.
Again, some ISKCON members have difficulty in accepting these facts, due to sympathy or awe and reverence for Guru Prasad Swami and Virabahu (or the likes). But when we present the same things in court, the judge (who is expert at detecting lies and is not affected by awe and reverence) has no doubts that something is wrong and illegal. Why? Because he has the capacity to be neutral, and thus he immediately took the case.
The plans of these leaders are not something that they are carrying out only and exclusively in Costa Rica. In Argentina the same thing is happening, where the international leaders of the Hare Krishna Movement are also not interested in preserving a farm that the local devotees bought in that country. We quote a couple of paragraphs written by a devotee from Argentina who requested us to keep him anonymous, in which he describes the farm Bhakti-lata-puri in his country.
It has an extension of 25 hectares [more than 50 acres] with super first class quality soil. From there super fine quality flour was provided for bakery all over Argentina… Crops of excellent quality wheat were harvested there, and the production by hectare was more than sixty sacks, each one with no less than fifty kilos. The farm, apart from being excellent in producing vegetables, also provided such cheese and milk-sweets, everything made by the devotees, which were just nectar… The people in the city could not even wait for the devotees to arrive with their products… and they were paying a very good price. They were also making bread and related products which had the same happy ending: in a question of minutes all the products were all sold and gone.
Inexplicably such a successful farm sank into misery… the cows were sold… the machinery broken and unused… the devotees were inexplicably relocated to other places… I knew excellent devotees, hard-working and honest, who left there part of their lives, and who have to leave because they were not given any facility or any help, even to buy a dhoti. Well, this farm, by the way, is coincidentally for sale and coincidentally also in the name of Bhakti Bhusana Swami.
Amazing? No, why should it be? The devotees in Argentina bought a farm, and it ended up in the hands of the German citizen Bhakti Bhusana Swami, just as in Costa Rica, where the same Bhakti Bhusana Swami is now claiming ownership of the Hare Krishna Farm in Cartago, through the Lifter, Limited.
It is also not amazing that the three international leaders maneuvering the operations in Argentina are the same ones who are implicated in the Costa Rica issue, namely: Bhakti Bhusana Swami, Virabahu, and Guru Prasad Swami’s universal inheritor. In Costa Rica Guru Prasad Swami named George Levinton (Gunagrahi Swami) as his only and universal inheritor. Then he “sold” the farm to Bhakti Bhusana Swami, and ordered him to name the same George Levinton as universal inheritor. This proves that it is the same little group of people who are pretending to sell the Hare Krishna Farm in Costa Rica and the Hare Krishna Farm in Argentina. And the reasons for selling? Our friend from Argentina informs us:
Now, very happily they are saying that the farm is for sale because the devotees are not diligently doing the service at the farm, and that because in the face of so much apathy it is better to sell it and buy a property in the urban area of Buenos Aires to serve all the devotees, instead of having an unproductive property in the middle of nowhere…!!!???
It is the same argument that they give for the Hare Krishna Farm in Costa Rica: Better to get a location in San Jose instead of having a useless property that the lazy devotees don’t know how to work… bla, bla, bla.
We see with full clarity a parallel pattern between Costa Rica and Argentina. 1) The same leaders: Bhakti Bhusana Swami, Virabahu, and the universal inheritor of Guru Prasad Swami; 2) The same arguments: the devotees are bad; 3) The same history: the farm was a success, but under the leadership of these individuals it is declared useless; 4) The same solution: to convert it into cash money; and 5) The same excuse: to preach in the capital city.
This parallelism tells that we are not dealing with a group of four leaders dedicated exclusively to religious activities, but with a group of manipulators who make all kinds of illegal maneuvers to put properties in their names, taking advantage of the faith and goodwill of others. They are not the type of leaders Srila Prabhupada wanted.
The managerial deviations from Srila Prabhupada’s instructions as established in the DOM, in the Order of Decentralization, in the Mission Statement, in the Topmost Urgency letter, and in his Last will; and the philosophical and doctrinal deviations like the nonsense about Vastu, or treating the Deity as commodity for real estate (and others such deviations which we don’t address in this documentation) have upset numerous devotees to the point of using very strong terms. The Sun and the Sampradaya are the witness.
I avoid such terms, but when I describe an action I do use the correct word to name it. And the behavior of these four leaders (Guru Prasad Swami, Bhakti Bhusana Swami, Manonath, and Virabahu) in reference to the farm in Costa Rica is crooked. This is the correct word. It is not straight. That’s what I know, for sure. And I want others to know. Why? Because things cannot go on in this way.
Continues in the FOURTH PART
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