Fanatacism, the Ultimate Goal
BY: BHIMA DASA
Oct 10, HUNGARY (SUN) — I am writing in hope of giving a broader picture concerning the happenings in Hungary. My name is Bhima das, and I have been involved with ISKCON since I was an infant. I attended Vrindavan Gurukul from 1995 to 1997 and Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami's Mayapur Gurukul from '97 to 2001.
So the general picture everyone has about ISKCON in Hungary today is that it gives home to the only successful and working Varnashrama Community in ISKCON. It is brought up at almost every GBC meeting, that this is what Srila Prabhupada wanted and hence, his desire has been fulfilled . This community is known as "Krishna-Valley" or "New Vraja Dhama". It is located in southwest Hungary, about 130 kms from the capital, Budapest.
This land was acquired by Sivarama Swami, the guru for Hungary, in the early nineties. My father, Haripada das, was given the service of building up this piece of land, and converting it into a devotee community. All went well and the Deities were installed in 1996. In 1999, my father had some disagreements with Sivarama Swami, so he resigned from his position as Temple President and moved to India. After this we were banned from ISKCON temples in Hungary, and no one was allowed to associate with us.
We realized that the whole of ISKCON is rotting from the head. We got to know about the cover-ups, philosophical deviations, and the position of these unauthorized gurus acting in ISKCON. We started to spread this throughout the devotee community, thinking that there may be some devotees who have noticed the facts we have. And indeed, there were. But due to our preaching, the "guru camp" started to blaspheme us with measures exceeding the previous ones. They adopted the usual "cult" tactics so widely practiced within ISKCON. This - as everyone knows - consists of brainwashing the devotees with false facts, telling them we are demons, anything can be done against us, etc… the usual stuff.
I had a personal experience recently, when one of the devotees busy collecting money on the street stopped me and asked me if I would give a donation. I objected, and explained the reasons of my objection. So the devotee -- we have known each other for about 3 years, and who was working for us earlier -- starts to say, "you know you are going to hell, all of you, you are all losers," etc. I asked him to support his claims with facts, but he failed to. After this he jumped at me, and got physical, throwing punches. This all happened in a public square.
Now this is not an unusual behaviour for a person entangled with a cult. All we can do is just observe the amount of brainwashing these devotees get. They are not taught any sastra, they are taught not to think, not to question anything, and to beat anyone who offends their "spiritual master". But this is just the opposite of what Srila Prabhupada had taught us:
"Krishna Consciousness Movement is for training men to be independently thoughtful and competent in all types of departments of knowledge and action."
(Letter to Karandhara, 12/22/72)
But since this is not taking place, ISKCON has become scarce of educated and thoughtful people. The majority of the newly joining devotees are mostly "rice and dahl" devotees. That is, they engage in the Krishna Conscious movement for material benefits, and not for spiritual ones. This was also condemned by Srila Prabhupada:
"I want to see a few sincere devotees, not many false devotees or pretenders."
(Letter to Karandhara, 12/22/72)
It is certainly painful, but we have to disappoint Srila Prabhupada here, since this is not happening. Rather, the exact opposite is taking place.
Now this "Krishna-Valley" is advertised throughout the world as the only varnashrama community in ISKCON, as mentioned above. Many ISKCON "gurus" brag about this, that they have succeeded in fulfilling this task of establishing such a community. I will have to disappoint all of you who have believed in this, since this has not happened. There is NO varnashrama community in Hungary. Let me support my claims with a few facts.
The Varnashrama community means self-sufficiency. Now "Krishna-Valley" (henceforward referred to as "the farm") is far from being self-sufficient. It has its income from the devotees doing "sankirtana", in other words, begging for money from countries throughout Europe, starting with Sweden, the U.K. etc. Adding to this, the community gets large amounts of donations from the government, since it is a registered and legal church. So the government pays, and the Hungarian "Hare Krishna's" are in the top 5. They get even more money than the Jewish church. And the money obtained from the government is spent largely on upholding the farm. So self-sufficiency is not an issue here.
The other characteristic of Varnashrama is that everyone occupies himself with some service, everyone is happy. Now the farm is found lacking in these too. First of all, the farm itself is connected to the world via a village. Many devotees, mainly householders, live in this village rather than on the farm itself. Due to this there is a very strong distinction between "outsiders" and "insiders". "Outsiders" here mean the devotees living in the village, and "insiders" refers to the devotees living on the farm respectively. This distinction is of such measure that the 2-year old son of an "insider" cannot play with the 2-year old daughter of the "outsider" because the 2-year old kid will fall in maya.
There is also a Gurukula, located on the area of the farm. Suffice to say, there are at most 5 children in the entire building. The gurukula is not just a "primary school" but a nursery too, so even 3-4 year old kids HAVE to attend it. Now of course, the gurukula children, independent of age, have to attend the morning programs and chant the usual 16 rounds. Even the 3 year olds. Now this is not new in ISKCON, but it would seem that such practise has been abandoned by ISKCON gurukulas.
Another question is what they teach in this gurukula? Well, it so happened that one of the "outsider" devotees took his 4-year old daughter, who was a student of the gurukula, to a shop and asked her if she would like anything. The daughter chose her words very simply by stating: "You are a demon." This is also not new to us, being called demons, but by your own 4-year old daughter? Now, that is new. So we can have a guess at the educational system established in the gurukula.
The other concern is that there have been quite a few infidelities between couples living on the farm, such that many of them have been banned. This can be attributed to our imperfection and approval to the craving of our senses, but in a perfect Varnashrama community, this would never happen, of course, since everyone is fully absorbed in his/her service to the Supreme Lord. It is also worthy of mention that divorced couples are not permitted to occupy the farm. Naturally we can understand this, but as the saying goes, the leaders should "practice what they preach". Unfortunately this has yet to happen, since the Temple President of the farm himself got divorced while being a Temple President, and remained in his position ever since. He has justified his actions by stating that he did not want to get divorced, but his wife wanted to. A relationship on the other hand depends on both participants, so we can clearly deduce that his argument fails to have weight. So if even the Temple President cannot follow the rules he set up for the devotees, then we can hardly speak of a Varnashrama community.
And I could go on and on, but I believe that this much information was enough to establish the fact that, the "Krishna-Valley" community in Hungary is far from being a Varnashrama community.
Unfortunately, the devotees are so brainwashed, fanatic and scared that they don't dare say a thing against the happenings, but blindly follow and have absolutely no free will. Like so many places in ISKCON today, the ultimate goal is to breed fanatics who can be controlled, manipulated and sacrificed. The root of the problems are always found in the management, so the only reasonable conclusion is that ISKCON leadership itself must change. And there is time for this. Srila Prabhupada said that the Krishna Conscious Movement will be present for another 9,500 years, so in comparison, the past 30-year corrupt history of the movement will surely proceed into oblivion.
All Glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Bhima das
