Unrepentant Prodigals
BY: ROCANA DASA
Oct 15, 2011 — CANADA (SUN) — Of late, we have published various articles in the Sun by Pusta Krishna das. If time had permitted, I would have made a direct commentary on each of his articles, because they contain an overall theme and mood that he personifies, which I'd like to address. My comments are not only applicable to Pusta Krishna, but also speak to a phenomenon that has been taking place within the devotee community for quite some time now.
Over the years, we have watched the return of a long line of unrepentant prodigals who are resurfacing in ISKCON. They sometimes reappear after many decades, as in the case of Pusta Krishna das. They return to the devotee scene, apparently trying to recapture some of the original excitement and ecstasy they once experienced as a youth, when they were associating with Srila Prabhupada during his ISKCON lila period. Pusta Krishna is joined by Shyamasundara (Malati dd's ex-husband), Gurudasa (Yamuna dd's ex-husband), and some of the Zonal Acaryas like Bhagavan. Even Rameswar appears once in a while, although we don't see him trying to regain notoriety, as some are.
Some of these devotees go to the ridiculous extent of publishing their memoirs of Srila Prabhupada, after which many other foolish devotees invite them to take a prominent seat at festivals and temple programs, where they narrate reminiscences of their pastimes with Srila Prabhupada. Of course, they don't share with the audience why it was that even during Srila Prabhupada's manifest lila, having been given a rare opportunity in this human form of life to directly associate with such a rarified spiritual personality, they chose to instead leave Srila Prabhupada's service even before his lila ended. In many cases, they left behind them a wake of offenses, committed during their tenure in prominent positions such as GBC, guru and sannyasi and other responsibilities Srila Prabhupada had given them, which they made a big mess of.
These devotees tend to have selective amnesia not only when it comes to the detailed circumstances surrounding why they left the movement, but also while they were in maya prior to leaving, while they were causing a lot of chaos and disturbance in the lives of many devotees. Pusta Krishna das, for example, hasn't told us why he left.
In Pusta Krishna's case, he played a significant role in a crucial circumstance that transpired here in British Columbia. If he even remembers it, I doubt that he has given much thought to how his actions, or lack of action, impacted so many Vaisnavas.
The story involves a rural project that Jayatirtha, the GBC, had instructed Bahudak das to establish in the interior of British Columbia, in a place called Bridesville. Due to some local circumstances, I had to take responsibility for this project about a year after it had been established. I stepped into a crisis situation and a set of circumstances that I felt the GBC should be aware of, so they could make a decision on how to proceed. It just so happened that Srila Prabhupada was in New York at the time, and I decided it would be best for me to go to New York and present the situation, either directly to Srila Prabhupada or to the dignitaries and notorieties there.
While Srila Prabhupada was at Gita Nagari, a rural project similar to the one I was dealing with, I presented the problems that we were having in Bridesville. Srila Prabhupada very wisely deputed Pusta Krishna Swami, a GBC, to come out to Bridesville and assess the situation. In due course, within a few weeks, Pusta Krishna das showed up at Bridesville. Unbeknownst to us, prior to his arrival he had fallen completely into maya. He already had an exit strategy in place, and was preparing to leave Srila Prabhupada – without telling Srila Prabhupada, without telling us. When he arrived at Bridesville, he did virtually nothing. He went into his cabin, closed the door and stayed there for a few days. When he came out, he announced that the whole place would be shut down, then he disappeared.
A few decades later, after he'd reconnected with his karmic destiny, becoming a doctor with a practice and a family, Pusta Krishna das has re-surfaced and is now back on the scene. And that's fine. It goes to show us all that leaving Krishna Consciousness and trying to enjoy the material world, succumbing to maya and destiny never gives you the happiness that you could experience by remaining in Krishna Consciousness and enjoying the mercy of Krsna and the pure devotee.
The problem I have, not just with Pusta Krishna das, but with most of the other "leaders" who come back, is that they're not at all humble. They're not repentant, or apologetic for the mistakes they've made. Instead, they seem most interested in letting everyone know that they had all sorts of association with Srila Prabhupada. They go about telling all their anecdotal stories, which of course feature themselves, but have no real philosophical value… because philosophically, they didn't understand back then who Srila Prabhupada is, nor do they understand it now. Instead, they do what Pusta Krishna is doing. He is writing articles, stating in very absolute terms that he personally knows that Srila Prabhupada would do a certain thing in a given situation. He supposedly knows this on the basis of his past immature, juvenile observations – unenlightened, unphilosophical observations of Srila Prabhupada that he had after a few years of direct service, including the period when he was in complete maya and preparing to leave the pure devotee's service. And this I find frustrating, if not infuriating.
The reason that Srila Prabhupada's mission has been nearly ruined is primarily because the senior people in his lila did not recognize Srila Prabhupada's rarified status. They did not understand what it means to serve the Sampradaya Acarya after his departure, taking a humble position and trying to capture Srila Prabhupada's mood and realize what his desires and expectations of his followers were. Instead, they wanted to imitate Srila Prabhupada and carry their own immature conceptions forward as being absolute, without introspection or analysis, and without humility. They don't accept that their perceptions are sadly lacking in true understanding of Srila Prabhupada, Krishna Consciousness, and Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu's Sankirtan movement.
Whether it's Satsvarupa writing the Lilamrta or other sentimentally saturated memoir books and personal journals, all such unphilosophical literatures and self-glorifying reminiscences by notorieties from days past are now shaping the minds and consciousness of those who read them, giving a false perception of Srila Prabhupada and what it means to actually serve and follow the Sampradaya Acarya. So this is very maddening.
We would prefer to hear the untold stories of the sincere devotees who were actually following Srila Prabhupada, who did not leave his service even during his manifest lila. Some of them stuck it out through the Zonal Acarya period. In reality, they were the ones whose service kept the Sankirtana movement going. The remnants of those with a sincere and profound understanding of who Srila Prabhupada actually is continue to fuel the Sankirtana movement today, but nobody writes memoirs of these people. They depart, at an ever-quickening pace, often in obscurity and poverty.
Meanwhile, their service is being supplanted by the so-called devotees who are pretending to be great acaryas, riding high on the 'good old days' when they had some institutional power and prestige. Always subtly putting the focus on themselves, they're creating an illusion that's distracting devotees from understanding and focusing on Srila Prabhupada. As a result, some newcomers are losing their initial enthusiasm and the opportunity to make true advancement by worshipping, following and attempting to understand the true nature of an absolutely pure, unalloyed devotee, a nitya-siddha Sampradaya Acarya, HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada.
