Hridayananda's Shoes
BY: RADHA KRISHNA DASA
Jun 04, INDIA (SUN) — Hridayananda initiating people while wearing shoes.
Recent photos of Hridayananda das Goswami (Dr. Howard J. Resnick, Ph.D.), or "Acharyadeva" as he has his disciples call him, show that he has apparently fallen to a very low standard of devotional life. For example, the following three photographs from his disciple's website show that he performs the sacred diksa initiation ceremony while wearing shoes. And even worse, he is shown wearing shoes while performing arotik to Lord Krishna.
Look closely at the picture below, where Hridayananda offers a candle to Lord Krishna while wearing his shoes. One may argue that these shoes are "specially kept for indoor use", but that is irrelevant. One may never wear shoes while worshipping Lord Krishna. Only the most sinful person would dare to do such a thing.
Pictures two and three show Hridayananda recently initiating a new devotee. Note how he lounges in a chair with huge shoes on as he hands the sacred diksa mala to the new disciple. Is this what initiation has degraded to now in ISKCON?
There have been many reports in the past of Hridayananda living a lifestyle not compatible with that of a Vaishnava sannyasi. For example, he wears pants and shirts most of the time instead of the saffron sannyasi dress, lives privately in an expensive house in Beverly Hills, is constantly surrounded by female servants, encourages young females to stay at his house to do "service" to the guru, spends time listening to western classical music, gives "lectures" on mundane topics such as this classical music, and brags about how much he loves eating chocolate (but that he buys it "with his own money"). He is certainly not an acarya, what to speak of an "acharyadeva".
We should also note that he refuses to comply with GBC Resolutions banning the use of "acarya" titles such as "acaryadeva". In fact, his official website is www.acharyadeva.com, and till this day he allows his disciples to call him "acharyadeva".
Some recently posted YouTube videos show the Swami arriving at an airport dressed in a blue shirt and karmi clothes, while a hundred or so of his disciples dressed in devotee attire great him at the airport. Why are 100 disciples able to come to the airport dressed as devotees, but the guru has to go around in disguise, dressed as a karmi?
Another video of him arriving at the airport shows 100 devotees performing loud kirtan at the door, but he comes through dressed in a blue shirt and brown pants:
Obviously he has never been the strictest follower of Vaishnavism, but these recent photos of him offering arotik to Lord Krishna with shoes on show that he has really sunk to the bottom of whimsical living. He is certainly not fit to be called "acarya" or "acaryadeva".
