How Srila Prabhupada ordered the Gurukul to be closed as soon as he heard of abuse

A Memory by Kishori dasi

Video Transcription

In Amsterdam Srila Prabhupada had told me to send my little boy, 3 years old to Dallas, “We have a nice Gurukula there.” He saw I was doing so much service- cooking for hundreds of hippies everyday, and the little boy running in the street. So you see how Srila Prabhupada was concerned about everything. So he asked me personally, before, to leave. So I did.

So I took my son to America. I don’t give all the details. I had to collect money, America was something like a moon for me. All alone. I went there with him, like that. And I left him there. It was very painful and it was rude. I was not even allowed to see him again, one time, because I had to collect some money to come back. I mean, in this story the details are important. So, Later on, I was in Vrindavana— construction-serving Prabhupada. I had no news from my son, It was very difficult to communicate. And I was very happy because Dallas decided to send some boys to Vrindavan. And of course they knew that Surabhi and me was there, so my son was on that trip. So they was sleeping on the same floor where I was. And I wanted to know how they deal with the children. So I am going to the door and listening in the morning, and I am hearing..”Stand up! Wake up! You are in Maya!’ I felt very bad. And I thought, “Why is it?” Tell them, “Krishan is waiting for you.” “He’ll give you some burfi.” Small children, like that. So we got in contact with my son. It was difficult. So my son is, one night, sitting with me in my little room. And I was cooking for the deities and I kept mahaprasada for him. He was sitting on the bed with me and taking mahaprasada, I give him.

So I go back two days before, Srila Prabhupada had left Vrindavama two days before to go to Bombay. Sometimes I used to go to Bombay to cook for him. This time he is telling me, “Don’t come because I’m going in one week, so no need.” So of course I follow instruction.

So I come back, I m sitting on the bed with my little boy, I don’t see for many years. He is taking some mahaprasada and the door opens very strongly and there is one of the teacher. “Kirtan! What are you doing? Sitting on the bed with a women!” So I remember, I stand up and I said, “This woman is Kirtan’s mother!” So he starts to preach to me, “You are not the mother, he is not the son.” Like this. And then he said, “Kirtan, you have to take sannyas,” you know. I said, “But he is only seven and a half years old boy. And I was getting so upset. So then I told him, “Just go! And tonight my son will sleep with me and on the same bed. He left. So then my son, he felt supported, and suddenly he started to speak. Because I asked him, “They are always like this with you? They speak so rude?” And then he start to speak, and he revealed horrible things of beating, so many horrible things. I will not go on the details. You know all these things. Wow! So I decided to pack and immediately leave for Bombay. Take the first train with my little girl and boy. I could not leave it to Surabhi, he was too busy. And so I meet him on the way, “Where are you going?” “I go to Bombay.” I tell him very quickly.

And I go to Mathura. Take the train and I arrive in Bombay. That time was very difficult. We had all black from the choo choo train. So I’m in Bombay. And it is end of the day- little dark. I put my children with my friends and I was told that Srila Prabhupada is having a very, very important meeting on the roof, so I cannot go to see him now. But no way. Mother, you know, you treat children badly, she will do anything. So I want this known to Prabhupada. It was the most important of the whole world at that moment. So I go up the stairs. But I want to give a little detail. This construction is a terrace and there is a stair, but there is no wall. So Srila Prabhupada is sitting, and Srila Prabhupada is having a darshan with most important people of Bombay of that time. There was a great need for construction, to make life member, all that. Very important. And sitting at the feet of Prabhupada there was Bhavananada, Gopal Krishna Maharaj, Hari sauri, Jagadisha, Tamal Krishna Maharaj, so many. They had started, but very little that meeting-darshan with Srila Prabhupada, which was very important. So I am coming up the stairs. So Srila Prabhupada turned his head like this and he see me coming up, because there is no separation. So he’s seen my head coming up and he went very friendly, “Oh Kishori!” But then he became grave immediately, He said, “Is there any problem? Do you have a problem?” Because he told me not to come to Bombay. So Srila Prabhupada could be at one time in so many different situations, so many. Remember everything, catch this thing, react, give great importance to someone who is not of great importance. It is very important to know that. So I come, I offer my obeisances to Srila Prabhupada, and I remind him, “Srila Prabhupada, so you remember?” And I told him about Amsterdam, that he told me, “We have such a nice Gurukula,” I should send him. And I told him that it was very painful to me. I also told something very nice actually, And Prabhupada look in my eyes and just said nothing. I said to him, “Prabhupada, it was so hard for me to leave my son. When I come back every night, the only thing to stop my crying was your Krsna Book. When baby Krishna put his little shoes on His head and bring it to His father.” So then I tell him, “But Srila Prabhupada… “ok I come to the story that I told you before of the maha. Oh! Prabhupada gets so annoyed of that. I could see. So he sits like this, he looked at them and said, “Just see how they are! Just see how they are!” Two times. “Mother giving some mahaprasadam to her son. Just see how they are.” And he means, “Not nice.” So I get encouraged, you see, so I start to say, the first thing I said “Prabhupada they are so small, you know, Sometimes they are punished. They have to put their hands-on the head like this, infront of the prasadam. Four years old, five years old, and they are not allowed to eat. Sometimes they fall like this, in sleep, it is so long, and they beat them, put them back.” Ah! Prabhupada, his eyes and my eyes, doesn’t …you know. Then, so, one of these GBC sanyasis said, “Oh, but Srila Prabhupada, you know, Kishori, she is a mother.” And Prabhupada was like this, he went like this, he went this on his chair. He was looking at me in the eyes. He said, screaming, “She is telling the truth!” Like this. I got even a little scared. For me it was like the voice of Lord Nrishmadeva, something like that. I felt so much anger in Prabhupada. So then I felt encouraged and I go on. I won’t say now because there is all details already.

So I wanted everyone to know how Prabhupada reacted. Because he sees so bad. So at one moment, Srila Prabhupada said, “I told them to have a stick in the classroom, and to show the stick, never to beat.” So I get encouraged, I speak horrible things. Then Prabhupada said, “I told them, with two fingers, if the ego of the boy is getting too high and he is arrogant, that the teacher, with his two fingers, go like this. That will be enough to put the ego down, because he is a teacher.” So, “Just see what they do in my name,” Prabhupada said. So then I get encouraged. One moment Srila Prabhupada said, “They are all Hiranyakashipu teachers! You expel them all, and before to expel them, you hang them all!” Wow! Srila Prabhupada was so angry, I felt something like, “I have told too much. He is so angry.” I wanted to appease him. He went like this. I had the feeling of Lord Nrsimhadeva. And then Srila Prabhupada said a few instructions. He said, “Actually there should be ladies.” There was no ladies teaching because they have a a softer heart. Then he said, “Of course there is no one better than the parents to raise their children”

So… What I want to say…Oh! I forgot to tell you, one of the most important things actually, to show how much Srila Prabhupada cared for his devotees. I always feel that one devotee is like two thousand devotees for him. No difference. Whoever he is, whatever he does, he can’t see his devotee in pain. What Prabhupada felt, because I was telling him, “Prabhupada, you told me to bring my son.” I suffer and he suffer. So how much responsibility we must have feel. As I get older, older, I realise more. But one very important point. When I said, “Yes, Prabhupada, there is problem,” and I start to walk towards him. So he was sitting like me now and there was the whole group of this very important, rich men, and they had just started the meeting, but very little. Srila Prabhupada when I was approaching him, telling him, “Yes, there is a big problem. Prabhupada went to the assembly of these gentlemen, he went like this, “Now you can go.” Everyone left. And there was the little mother, crying and telling to Srila Prabhupada, “How his beloved children…” That he had said so many times. Like when my daughter born, he wrote to me a letter, “So nice! Vaikuntha’s child have come.” Everybody knows how much, how much, he loves his children. How much the children love him. They had become like orphans in this Gurukula. You see, he gave the most importance to that little mother. But those rude sanyasis and GBC, I am not afraid today to say they tried to cover it up. They did not hear what he said, they did not hear. They were just seeking the meeting with the rich people, you know. They were not hearing even the children crying, suffering, all that. Such a hard heart. But Prabhupada hear and actually later…

Because you see, I’m not a politician. I’m not after the food, this and that. My world was Srila Prabhupada. So after that, I don’t know what happened, because I never had a position in ISKCON. I’ve always been serving the devotees, that’s all. So I didn’t know what really happened. I trust Srila Prabhupada. But then little by little, years after years, some devotees was coming. I didn’t know what happened. And they were saying, some devotees, I don’t know, “Oh, Kishori”, in Vrindavan, “You are Kishori? Wow! Thank you. Thank you, Prabhu. You made this Gurukula close!” I didn’t know even. I just wanted Prabhupada to know, I knew that he will stop it. But after he left, you know, there’s New Vrindavana. So, I am one of the mother, who had this child totally…he’s telling me that, “Mom, I am not even feeling like a human being.” So he’s one who can’t recover really. He is now fifty years old. He will not recover. So many. So nothing to do with Srila Prabhupada, nothing to do with Krishna. So, it should never happen again. And today we have so many of these young gurukulis that we don’t give enough attention, no training, no place, they was the most favourite future of Srila Prabhupada.
Hare Krishna