BY: ROCANA DASA
Dec 31, CANADA (SUN) — A weekly response to Dandavats editorials.
Our readers will have read the recent "Letter from Satsvarupa", published in the Sun on December 21st, and later posted on Dandavats on December 25th. In today's segment of Obeisances I'd like to offer my comments on Satsvarupa's letter and the related GBC Executive Committee's preamble.
The December 21st letter is but one in a long list of apology letters from Satsvarupa, who has provided several such letters to the devotee community over the years. His most recent difficulties, which he refers to in a short opening letter as a "falldown", happened five years ago. Satsvarupa opens by giving the reader the impression that this is an "old falldown" and that he has personally rectified the situation, as evidenced by the fact that his latest apology letter "brings us closer to final closure and that the case will not be re-opened again".
Satsvarupa obviously feels he has made all sorts of progress since 2002, and he is now asking the ISKCON devotee community to consider this a "final closure". In other words, he doesn't want this matter to be brought up again.
Of course, the reason we're now gaining some new, albeit scanty insight into the whole matter is because of the pressure exerted on him by the woman involved in this melodrama, Pranada devi, who threatened to make public all the correspondence that went between them - in other words, the love letters he exchanged with her. Having understandably tired of being made the culprit in the minds of Satsvarupa, his followers and the GBC, she has now made copies of these intimate correspondences available to the GBC as evidence of the degree to which Satsvarupa was actually at fault.
In his most recent apology letter, Satsvarupa admits that his relationship with this woman stretched from 1978 to 2002 - a span of 24 years. During that time the illicit nature of the relationship unfolded and grew in seriousness. Of course, in his first letter of apology on the matter, dated May 10, 2004, Satsvarupa states that the illicit relationship only began at the point at which he took shelter of Pranada as his "counselor" in a health matter. In other words, he boldly lied in his first apology letter.
In his most recent apology, Satsvarupa does not admit that he was actually forced to write the letter because the issue has re-emerged due to Pranada making available their private correspondence with Pranada - this, and the continued focus on the matter here in the free press. Instead, he makes it sound as though he has voluntarily broached the subject… as though it were appropriate for him to do so given the GBC's recently having come to closure on the matter. His letter of apology is not evidence of a voluntary change of heart due to spiritual realization - it is simply a continuation of the ongoing lie. It is a continuation of the dishonesty on the part of both Satsvarupa and the GBC, neither of whom acknowledge that a lie was told in the first apology letter about the nature and duration of the falldown affair. And based on this flimsy, devious foundation, we are now to consider the matter 'settled and closed'.
Neither does Satsvarupa admit that it was not his idea to voluntarily assume the status of "retired sannyasi and retired diksa guru", or to be put under watch by the monitoring committee. In fact, in several recent Sun articles (and here), we revealed the fact that he has virtually reached a dead end, even in his own personal accommodations and comfort. From what we can gather from the preamble letter from the Executive Committee, his life is going to improve materially as a result of his submitting to this arrangement. So really, he was forced by circumstance, by the GBC committee and by his previous lover to accept these arrangements. He is essentially being giving him a new lease on life, materially, and of course he wants us to believe it's spiritually as well. Personally, I have great doubts about whether or not he will achieve his stated goal of reviving his Krsna consciousness, which he admits hit an all-time low point. While he didn't provide any detailed description of what that means, it's obviously the result of his long-time affair with a woman, having effectively became a drug addict, not following the regulative principles, and not chanting his rounds. At the same time he has let everyone think he's a guru and a sannyasi… and up until this very moment he continues to perpetuate this lie, as does the GBC.
Now the monitoring committee says they're going to start looking in on him to be sure he's following the regulative principles, and they'll be doing an analysis of his future writings before the new material can be published. But what about his past writings? He's now admitted that at the time he was writing the Lilamrta, which is his big claim to fame, he had an illicit attachment/attraction for a woman. During that whole period he has done a great deal of other writing. Those who had no idea that this affair was going on have continuously been reading his nonsense books (it seems that some readers are actually able to get past the first few pages) and looking at his absurd, crazy art, all the while believing him to be a GBC-approved guru/sannyasis in good standing.
Conveniently, the monitoring committee isn't vetting over any of Satsvarupa's past writings or artistic creations, what to speak of going over the Lilamrta -- a book that has had tremendous impact on Srila Prabhupada's movement. This is obviously an egregious dereliction of duties on the part of the GBC - unforgivably so.
In closing, Satsvarupa is asking for the continued support and forgiveness of his disciples -- who he's still treating as disciples, regardless of the fact he has completely fallen down as a guru. Strangely enough, these disciples are not being encouraged under ISKCON regulations to take re-initiation, regardless of the fact that as a sannyasi and guru, he's been attached to this woman since the very time Srila Prabhupada left the planet. During long stretches of time -- in fact, for five years as a Zonal Acarya -- he had her practically as a wife. She was running his press, she was his secretary, editing his books, editing his letters… in other words, daily associating with him for long stretches of time. And this is all by his arrangement.
After five years, little detail has been provided as to the degree they were "associating" beyond these services. We don't know how much Pranada really understand or appreciated the depth of attachment Satsvarupa had for her. Anyone with common sense would assume that it was a mutual infatuation and understanding between them, and that they were having this affair in front of all the devotees. We've heard from some of the devotees who were at Gita Nagari during this time, and they have stated that it was a well-known fact amongst the community, except for the blind ignorant types, that this was an unhealthy relationship. It was a sordid affair they were forced to ignore, or come up with some sort of strange justification for in their minds. All along, of course, their common sense was right.
Satsvarupa admits in his latest apology letter that obviously things were getting to a point where he had to do something, so he just banished her from everything -- from the community and her service, even her own child, so as he could escape the circumstance and "save his reputation" instead of just being honest. Of course, one can only imagine how that affected her. Of course, such behaviour is very typical of much that went on during the Zonal Acarya period. If anybody happened to criticize or question any of these gods in the form of Zonal Acaryas, then they were drummed out of their service, if not out of the entire society, on the whims of personalities like Satsvarupa.
Of course, we're really getting the sanitized reader's digest version in Satsvarupa's latest apologia. The reader is left to cull out the hypocrisy, sentimentality and continued deceptive writing practices Satsvarupa employs. Even in this 'heart-felt apology', he's still not straightforward with us, but rather does his best to dampen down the actual truth of the circumstance. He explains his situation in very sanitized language, using terms that downplay the truth of the matter, trying to tweak our heartstrings by telling us about his "anticipatory anxiety disorder", and that Pranada was "called in to help him with this".
We can see that he is constantly placing non-devotees or his lover in a higher position than any scripture or his own guru, Srila Prabhupada, who he mentions in only a cursory way. Instead, he states that he's taking psychological counseling and medical psychiatric care, and changing his medicine intake. Now he says: "For the sake of honesty and spiritual improvement, I feel it is necessary to make some adjustments in my service and position in ISKCON." So after thirty years of admitting he was attached to a woman he finally decides to be honest, and this letter is what he considers to be honest. But it's obviously not honest at all - he hasn't even admitted that the first "sincere apology" letter was built on lies. So these things that he considers "sincere apologies" are really just admissions that he's lied all these years.
He makes it sound like he's personally decided to make these adjustments in his service, but in reality he's been forced to do so. He's even been forced to have an "open door" policy with his godbrothers - but which godbrothers, exactly? I'm sure as his godbrother and a person who has served with him for years, if I knocked on his door or told him I was arriving, the door would not be opened for me -- nor for thousands of other godbrothers like me.
In his closing paragraphs he shows us what remains of his puffed up attitude, assuming there are so many devotees who want to come and visit him, and now he's generously giving them an opportunity to do so by his new "open door policy". He'll kindly be traveling around, giving everyone an opportunity to have his darshan while he gets to visit the holy dhamas in India. Of course, someone's got to pay for all this and as usual, it will be paid for with Srila Prabhupada's money.
So here again we have ISKCON making all sorts of accommodations for someone like Satsvarupa, re-writing sastra to accommodate him by coming up with completely unbonafide terms like "retired sannyasi" and "retired diksa guru" - terms which will now enter the ISKCON lexicon along with "approved diksa guru" and "re-initiation".
Satsvarupa closes by telling his disciples that they can hear from him by reading all the nonsense books he wrote while engaged in a love affair, under the spell of intoxication. They can still put his absurd 'outside art' on their walls and meditate on it. That hasn't changed at all.
Like I've said many times - in fact, I say it every week - it's obvious that Satsvarupa's Lilamrta is the source of much of the suffering that he's had to undergo -- both the headaches and all the anxiety of being a "sannyasi" and "guru" while having a secret love affair going on for years on end. No wonder he has headaches!
It's my conclusion that his greatest offense is towards the Sampradaya Acarya, Srila Prabhupada, but he doesn't mention that at all. The greatest offense he's committed was to write the Lilamrta. Of course, none of this is being dealt with at all in ISKCON. Not only is Satsvarupa pathetic, but the GBC is pathetic, and they're all committing a great offense to all the Sampradaya Acaryas. In fact, this proves to us that Satsvarupa was never in the Sampradaya. You can just imagine what Srila Prabhupada would say, what to speak of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati and Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur.
This is just a litmus test, a small taste of the ocean -- here's a big glassful of taste of just what's going on in ISKCON today. Anyone who directly participates in this charade - especially those who are participating in this hoax of a monitoring committee - is sure to be incurring the reaction to their offenses towards the Sampradaya Acaryas.
We'll likely never hear anything more from this committee. The reports or updates they produce will be hush-hush, behind closed doors… at least until they're leaked. Unless he's involved in yet another public scandal or some new facts are revealed, the Satsvarupa affair will just go down as another ISKCON cover-up. But like all the other cover-ups, it's not going to go away. And I for one, until the day that I die, will be relentlessly exposing the Lilamrta for what it is.
Obeisances to Dandavats, to Satsvarupa, and to the GBC committee members responsible for him.
