Voice has received letters from devotees advising us to clearly state that Srila Prabhupad, the acharya-founder of Iskcon, was not responsible for the abuses we experienced as children in the gurukula schools. They are afraid and concerned that readers, unfamiliar with Prabhupad, will 'lump' him in with those in the Hare Krishna society that were child abusers. Prabhupad was never personally abusive to the children to our knowledge, but he did not implement appropriate measures to guarantee the safety of children in his movement from his disciples. We could further argue that the programs he established and interpretation of his words greatly fostered an environment under which child abuse flourished.

Many of us feel, with justifications backed by personal experience, that the structure and creation of the gurukula system fostered and amplified the chance for and reality of child abuse. We, as much as anyone, deserve a chance to express our opinions about why these things happened to us. Proponents of the religion assume that if we were ‘honest’ we would see everything in the same terms they do and therefore not question the ideals of the religion. In other words if we are believers then there is hope for us and we are great people, and if we are not believers then we are liars and cheaters like most of everyone else in the world.

It is very difficult to talk about what responsibility Prabhupad has for what happened because you feel a resistance from your potential readers and from inside yourself. Is there a way to separate and distinguish the responsibilities of Prabhupad from those of Iskcon, when it comes to the gurukulas -- schools of the guru? The implication of a responsibility on his part, brings up a number of blocking feelings in people who have adopted the view of Prabhupad's persona as being flawless. Since many of us were surrounded by people with this perception for at least some of our childhood, we also have these feelings to different degrees. We are trying to look at the whole issue with an objective and honest view-point.

As to some of the blocking feelings, when people have discussed the various abuses of power that went on in Iskcon, they have strongly avoided any allusion to implicating Prabhupad. For them to imply any unawareness on his part would mean questioning Prabhupad's state as a pure devotee.

This is a very touchy subject, we know, and one surrounded by intense feelings. It is controversial to address the status of ‘pure devotee’ because everyone is so afraid of committing the grave offense of 'maha aparad' -- great offense. This obviously leads to a problem: nobody has been or is able to talk about what is happening, and nobody will listen for fear of being an accomplice in an offense.

We have the ability now to determine how we feel about Prabhupad -- a luxury we were not allowed as children. Then we were expected to love him and accept him without question. Our parents and various ‘guardians’ adored and revered him, and we were required to feel the same. The messages we received about Prabhupad (messages from the movement), were that if you felt anything but reverence and love, you were committing the greatest of offenses.

We are talking about abuse, people say they lend their sympathy, but are actually more concerned about us defaming Prabhupad's name, then actually caring about what happened. Granted they feel like they do care about us, but for us it feels like their gut reaction is from a fear of committing an offense to Prabhupad.

Prabhupad did not have power over all those people who joined Iskcon. He was sincere in his efforts to bring the spirituality of his belief to these people. He was operating in a totally alien environment, trying to supplant a foreign culture, which had no frame of reference to many of his followers. In some ways Prabhupad was very successful in establishing his culture in foreign soil, however he may not have predicted that his followers would elevate him to a ‘god-like’ status -- an icon. This being the case, it can be very difficult for his followers to look at the facts of what happened -- to see the leadership structure, much like a corporation with a CEO, and look at the overall dynamics with a much more level headed approach.

These are our perceptions of Prabhupad’s life and his motivations. This perception entails that Prabhupad was not completely aware of all of the implications of the social structures he was both confronting and trying to implement, when he established Iskcon.


A) Prabhupad as a Person

Prabhupad was a person, who had a full life in India prior to establishing Iskcon in the west. In his life, he was married and had a family, worked at a career, and had decades of intermittent association with his guru. Prabhupad spent his whole life (82 years) practicing his faith. Iskcon is a society, founded by Prabhupad and based on his teachings, in 1965. Prabhupad died in November 1977.

Prabhupad came to America because he believed in his heart that the philosophy he learnt throughout his life (from reading, studying and learning about the ancient Indian heritage including its spiritual traditions and culture from his parents, his guru, and the sanskrit literature) were what was needed in this world. He had been brought up surrounded by these traditions and ceremonies.

As an adult, he went to college (a British curriculum) and learned about the cultures and histories of countries outside of India, including the political strife for India’s independence from Britain. All of these, combined with his influences from the ancient histories of India, helped develop his picture of how the world operated. He was, for a time, interested and participated in the work of Gandhi who was engaged in using means to extricate the British out of India. Prabhupad, who was then called Abhay Charan Dey, was politically and socially concerned for India.

In India, there are sadhus or a holy man, who people will provide charity and invite into their homes for food. Some of these sadhus become gurus and have followers. Throughout his childhood and youth, sadhus had visited Abhay's home, where he had the chance to see them and hear them speak. By the time he was in college, Abhay did not find the sadhus’ orations very appealing. Although he had great respect for his cultures' ideological and cultural history, it would seem that the sadhus’ philosophies were not very inspiring to him. He saw the wars and unrest in the world and in his own country and felt skeptical about listening to these sadhus because it apparently wasn't having an affect on the world. Gandhi was at least making a difference and would hopefully succeed in getting rid of the British.

One day some of Abhay’s friends invited him to join them to visit a sadhu. Initially, he resisted, but his friends convinced him that this sadhu was different. Abhay went and listened, after which he felt that this man (Bhaktisidhanta) knew a lot and could teach him what he wanted to know. Abhay became convinced that this was who he wanted to be his guru.

Later on he became married, had several children, worked, and lived in a household for some time. When he no longer felt that he had a responsibility to his children, he took sanyas or the order of life where a person retires from worldly life.

Although it is speculation, judging from the emphasis that Prabhupad’s later works placed on the better value of renouncing family, he personally felt very good about taking sanyas. Perhaps it appealed to him, because there are indications that his family life was not very palatable. Yet he stayed with his family responsibility out of a strong sense of duty, and looked forward to his chance to absolve himself of it.

One of the things Prabhupad’s guru had said to him when he was a young man, was that he should bring this knowledge to the West. For the rest of his life he fervently held that idea as something he was going to do. By the time he was in his late sixties he had to have been wondering whether it was going to happen, when he came across the opportunity, he seized it. It was not a choice made for pleasure or anything besides a deep feeling of fulfilling his guru's wish.

He felt very strongly that the philosophy he had become well acquainted with throughout his life, was the panacea for the world and he wanted more than anything to teach people about it. He was finally able to get to the West when he was in his seventies. Traveling by steam ship he docked in a strange land, New York City, where everyone had a completely different history and culture than his own.

B) Prabhupad as a Foreigner with a Mission

The reason for giving this very abbreviated rendition of Prabhupad’s life prior to his establishing Iskcon, is to demonstrate that he came to North America with a specific mission to accomplish. He was old and knew he didn’t have much time. He was absolutely convinced that he had a part, if not all, of the knowledge that God wished the world to know, in order for it to be what it was meant to be. This knowledge was that all living entities were parts of God but with separateness, and that we needed to be reconnected with God to actually be happy. Prabhupad had a certain process and set of practices that he believed would get people to understand and reconnect with God.

Granted, Prabhupad was an extraordinary person who was very special and unique, and is easy to admire. We admire his conviction to his faith and his ability to follow his heart -- his tenacity to travel across the Atlantic Ocean on a steamer during his 70’s, and within the timeframe of 11 years, he established over a hundred temples around the world, wrote dozens of books and made the Hare Krishna’s easily recognizable to everyone (bald headed saffron robed people dancing and singing on the streets). We also acknowledge his weaknesses and awkwardness.

Prabhupad abided by the philosophical belief that everyone was inherently the same and would be happy by doing the things prescribed by his culture. He perceived that the Western culture, as it was referred to, was degraded and fallen and that the people who had now begun to worship him, would become happy by imbibing the procedures he recommended, into their lives. He was not familiar with the western psyche.

All of these newly joined members who had embraced his philosophy, were from a completely alien culture from the one Prabhupad was presenting. It is difficult to conceive that Prabhupad was so aware of the degree of, and number of varying personalities he was and would be dealing with. At the beginning he had personal contact and observed these young people, but this was not possible when their numbers grew quite rapidly. He did observe that there were violent and strange crimes in this culture, but he didn't know the history and nature of this culture. He also didn't have the time at his age to become better acquainted with it.

Prabhupad truly believed, that as spirit souls, we were all the same in that we are seeking our connection with God. He seemed to believe that this similar essence would be exposed when we ‘shed’ our illusionary selves, and thus the radical transformations (though they were mostly superficial) that he endorsed for those who joined the movement. He intended that those joining would completely adopt the new culture and shed themselves of all remnants of their previous cultural influences. Further, there are many indications in Prabhupad’s writings that he did not seem to see many redeeming characteristics to the western way of life - their culture was degraded and had very little worthiness.

After the Hare Krishna religion began to boom, he was not able to control many of the ways people were perceiving his words and he was confused by their ways of doing things. He could not personally answer all the questions to clarify the meanings of his instructions. He saw, after some time, that there were among the members and leaders of the group of people who had joined, those who were prone to behaving in ways that were disturbing and unpredictable to him. It was his assertion that even if the people he was recruiting had 'bad tendencies', by their following strict rules, they would be held from doing anything too bad.

He may have felt at his age somewhat overwhelmed, or the desire to wash his hands of it. It must have been an internal struggle within him. He wished to mold these new members into his picture of the upright Vedic citizen, and believed that the techniques he was implementing, were going to assure this transformation. When this was not working, perhaps attributed to the corruption of many of the leaders, Prabhupad did not seem inclined to analyze the effects and drawbacks to his programs and make changes. Instead he wanted to give it more of a chance, believing that it would still work.

At a certain point there were definite indications that Prabhupad was exhausted with trying to be on top of this big organization. There were peoples' big egos becoming involved. There were thousands of people each wanting to be with him and have his attention. He had become a star, in the American sense. Based on his travel patterns, one can infer that he felt an urge to escape from a huge headache and retire to his peaceful life in India to write. He was much happier, he reminisced, when he was in the peaceful Indian village which held great spiritual significance to him. Near the end of his life, perhaps because of his mission’s sense of responsibility, he stayed in contact with the activities of Iskcon through advisors, many of them members of the GBC - Governing Body Commission.

C) Cult Leader?

We feel that Prabhupad did not wish to be a ‘cult’ leader, since he was a guru/spiritual leader. However, many of his policies for making the transition from western life to eastern, required radical changes to life practices, appearance and personal recognition that are associated with cults. Also western followers, seeking an icon, have metamorphosed his image into one that is worshipped and adored, as a god.

Prabhupad was by Hindu standards a connection to God (stronger sense than priests in Christianity), but not a god himself. After his departure from this world (death), he was superseded by 11 ‘western’ gurus and other people who were leaders from his closest entourage during his time developing Iskcon. Many of them in contrast seemed to encourage being treated and revered as gods, which manifested as them being charismatic cult leaders. There is currently much debate about the legitimacy of these western gurus, who don’t display the qualities of spiritual leaders.

D) Actions that Prabhupad Implemented

What actions were carried out:

1. Very young children were separated from their families. 2. They were often sent far away, and to places which were completely strange to them. 3. The teachers under whom they were to be cared for, were not qualified academically or psychologically. 4. The leadership and teachers treated the children coldly and had them following strict rules and regiments. 5. And last but not least, much of our time spent in the schools was spent being intimidated, 6. punished, yelled at, falsely accused, physically abused, or sexually abused.

There are a number of things which were held as 'normal' by the religion which to the majority of society would not be, which for us also felt harsh and as mistreatment. Many of these things will be talked about in due time because they were so imprinted on us in such a manner that we were made to think that it was supposed to be that way. Most of these things were very guilt inducing and this a small sample of them.

1. Having our heads shaved all of the time.
2. Not being allowed to mingle with the opposite sex.
3. Having to wake up way too early in the morning.
4. Being allowed hardly anything in the way of entertainment, etc.

E) List of Some Factors Prabhupad Has Responsibility For

Here are some factors

1. Prabhupad set up the gurukula schools and ordered parents to send their children away to the gurukulas.
2. Prabhupad preached that family and material life were/are illusion and hindrances to spiritual life. At the same time he was encouraging families to have children - for the second generation.
3. Prabhupad was in a leadership position, and during his time here he appointed or passively accepted the appointment of many of the people, who abused us, to positions of leadership with jurisdictions of control over children.
4. It would seem logical that if you are going make people send their children away, to implement a system were there is assurance that they are going to be well looked after.

We are saying that Prabhupad and Iskcon are not one and the same, but that they are connected. Prabhupad and Iskcon have been indivisibly linked for us. We grew up in Iskcon, Prabhupad is the founder of Iskcon and no other movement, and Prabhupad books are ‘owned’ by Iskcon. Although Prabhupad, to our knowledge, was never personally abusive and it was not in his character or personality, he does in our minds share some of the responsibility for our experiences as children in Iskcon. Just because we can not separate Prabhupad and Iskcon, we do not doubt Prabhupad's sincerity in his mission to ‘show compassion and bring true happiness to suffering humanity.’ We agree that this is what he was trying to do, but we also have to look at the fact that we were suffering inside what was to be a haven from suffering.

Proponents to protect Prabhupad say that we should be absolutely clear that the ‘demonic’ behaviour of our guardians in gurukula should in no way reflect on Prabhupad. This appears to be saying the Prabhupad had no responsibility in the matter. According to them, this would seem to leave us two options, it is an either or, either we should say that Prabhupad is a demon to be lumped in with the other demons, or he is kind benevolent and merciful with no responsibility, but we are saying neither. We see mistakes were made that led to negligence and, for us, it is impossible not to assign some of the responsibility to Prabhupad. We will look at what happened from three vantage points; circumstantial, philosophical and emotional.

A) Circumstantial Connection

Child abuse was happening while Prabhupad was here and also after his departure. It is possible for us to view Prabhupad as unique from Iskcon, but it is difficult to separate Iskcon from Prabhupad. We were children who grew up in Iskcon, and we knew Prabhupad as the ‘grandfather’ guru, we studied and memorized his translations of the Bhagavad Gita and other Vedic book, and we had his words quoted to us continually. Prabhupad set up the gurukula system. We were told by the abusers that they were following Prabhupad. There is a connection.

The image of Prabhupad held both then an now, by Iskcon members, is as a person on a different level from ordinary people, in that he was 'directly ' connected with God. We will acknowledge that each person has their own interpretation of what it means to be 'connected' to God. We do not wish to contend that view, it is a matter of accountability for actions, why they were carried out, and what the effects of those actions were. The most accepted perception attempts to create a scenario in which every situation is looked at with the underlying assumption that everyone besides Prabhupad is responsible.

Take the analogy of a large company. If a number of large mistakes are made and the causes are being looked into, it is not common sense to isolate say the founder/ceo and preclude him/her from scrutiny. As in the case where policy and consensus understanding of the leaders' wishes, leads a worker to make a judgment that is later found to be in grave error, does all the blame lie with the worker? In this instance the boss did place the order, which was widely accepted, implemented and followed, and the outcome was very negative for all the parties who participated. Is it then all blame on the worker who did what they were told, or does responsibility lie in a more evenly balanced pattern? We believe this to be the more equitable placement of responsibility.

In this instance, followers practically demand that our first imperative is to avoid looking at any connection to a certain head figure (Prabhupad in this case), and that if we must continue our scrutiny, then any incongruencies in the ‘company’ policy are really inadequacies in our understanding. To us, this is an avoidance technique. Besides we feel that we are scrutinizing both the structure and our understanding.

1) The Order

Prabhupad directed that children of four and a half, as well as any age above, be sent to gurukula. Because of the way our parents and others viewed him, this 'instruction' translated to an 'order'. Indeed, if he saw one of his disciples with their child, he would ask why isn’t this child in gurukula? Prabhupad, nor any of the leadership, made any indication, not to speak of effort, to suggest that children be in close proximity to their parents. Parents were under the impression that it was his order that their children be sent to the gurukula, with no emphasis having been placed on it's proximity to them. In the boys' case it was actively propagated that they be sent to India, where, if there had been any concern, it was obvious that very few if any parents, could be a part of their child's life, or even visit.

The teachings and behavior which were expected of the parents, teachers, and children were directly interpreted from or taken from Prabhupad’s words and books. There could be endless debates on the topic of what he 'really' was saying. This of course would call for interpretation, since everyone who reads and tries to imbibe words into their life must interpret. Of course this argument, from recollection, is not accepted as bonafide, because supposedly the 'truth' is there to be read and should not be interpreted. The fact is that anyone who reads written words, perceives them to mean what they themselves conclude the words to mean.

The point is, even with many personal interpretations, there was a consensus by the Iskcon (the Hare Krsna's) society at large on the meaning of his order. They established gurukulas, and parents sent their children away.

2) Foundation of the Order

One of the factors which directly facilitated an environment where child abuse occurred, both inside and outside the gurukulas, was the philosophies' consistent attitude toward love, as it relates to families. Marriage was a concession for those too weak to control their 'sex desire'. Sex was of course the biggest illusion and was not looked on favorably in any way. Love, it was constantly stressed, is not to be associated with family relationships and least of all sex. These and other factors created for an environment where women and men did not give credence to their feelings and emotions which bonded them to their families. In fact they felt guilty for them. Even if they were to 'lovingly' embrace family life, they were supposed to be apologetic and acknowledge they were weak, holding onto an illusion, and that they longed to be strong enough to renounce. All of these beliefs were directly supported and enforced by Prabhupad quotes.

3) Results of the Order

The perception of some people both in the past and in the present, is that Prabhupad was aware of all aspects of his actions at all times, this includes the repercussions. The term 'pure devotee' is one that is used and defined in numerous ways in the scriptures. It is readily agreed by all followers that Srila Prabhupad was and is a pure devotee. The term ‘pure devotee’ is not one that is defined by any culture besides the scriptures of the religion, which are all books written in sanskrit from ancient India. It refers to a person who knows real love of God and has reached his/her stage of being in a direct and personal relationship with Him. In the consensus opinion amongst devotees, one of the defining intellectual properties of a pure devotee, suggests that he/she is incapable of making a mistake.

There is an issue that comes up whenever this matter is discussed with some of the people who consider themselves to be the followers of Prabhupad. As it seems to them, Prabhupad is accepted as an Uttama Adhikari (pure devotee). They hold that he took on himself the role of acting as a Madhyama Adhikari (somewhat elevated devotee) so that he would be able to recognize the fallen condition of all the people to whom he intended to preach. The logic being that an Uttama sees all beings as more advanced than himself and therefore finds no need to preach, thus Prabhupad's accepting that role because he needed to preach.

One of the qualities of an Uttama which Prabhupad was to have possesed even though acting otherwise, is that he sees and knows things as they truly are, meaning that he is not tricked or illusioned. This stems from the fact that Krishna(God) communicates directly with that person, thus empowering them. Therefore, an Uttama does not err, cheat, or become illusioned. This being the argument, the implication is that Krishna and/or Prabhupad had us abused on purpose, or at least implemented a system knowing that it would lead to that. Furthermore, that Prabhupad was not fooled by the acting of the so-called "advanced" devotees who were our teachers; implying that he knew precisely what kind of perverts were looking after his god-children.

It is understable that a desciple would want to hold their guru in the highest regard and thus include this conception of all-awareness as part of their reference when they say their guru is "pure". However to truly believe that, while taking into account the horrible abuse of children that occured, would, in the eyes of any of the civilized world, be the worst indictment of Prabhupad and Krishna imaginable.

Among others there is the contradictory statement that Prabhupad had no idea what was going on, or at least the severity of it. To them this is nesecary so as to exclude him from any culpability in the matter. This is to absolve him of any responsibility and lay it squarely at the feet of the individuals involved, both teachers and others.

Again, this does not absolve him entirely, as it is meant to, but instead implicates him in other ways. Consider the fact that we would never have been in the custody of those abusive teachers had Prabhupad not given the order to start a school. Furthermore, gurukula would never have been conceived had he not suggested it and given the guidelines for it. In fairness, it is highly improbable that Prabhupad intentionally stuck us with abusive teachers so that we would be abused or for any other reason. Moreover, we can see from the letters that he wrote on the subject that he was very much against many of the things that were happening at Dallas. However, the system was very much his creation and the results of that system can thus be laid, partially at least, at his feet. If it be said that Prabhupad felt that the parents were incapable of raising their children properly, the statement does not hold because he then created the gurukula system which also proved incapable of raising the children properly.

There is another argument that involves the fact that Prabhupad did everything in a hurry because he had very little time. This expedience is used as an excuse for any mistakes that might have been made - like giving pedophiles high positions of power. This similarly flies in the face of the Uttama argument. If Prabhupad was so pure and fulfilling Krishna's desire, then Krishna would give him as much time as necessary to carry out Krishna's mission. Furthermore, Prabhupad would know that whatever Krishna wanted to accomplish would be done and the time would be provided as necessary. So, while there might be some measure of urgency, the time would be taken to ensure that something as important as raising the children, the potential future, would be done right the first time, as there is no second chance. This argument, similarly, provides some evidence for Prabhupad's culpability insofar as it shows the fact that he didn't take the time to ensure that there was nothing putrid and rotten lurking below the surface of his, what was to be, glorious gurukula experiment.

We contend that it is not a forgone conclusion for a ‘pure devotee’ to know everything that goes on in everyone's mind, and they can not control what everyone does. This statement may seem to lend weight to the viewpoint that Prabhupad does not share responsibility. This is not what we are saying. Simply he placed perverted people in controlling positions over children, either by direct orders or lack of taking an effort to have someone removed, because he was not fully aware of their tendencies and the situation. He may not have recognized their deviant nature, and/or he over- judged their competency, and/or he expected it would go away. The other possibility, though far less appealing, is that he knew all about men sexually raping children and felt for some high reason that it was supposed to go on. It would of course be absolutely despicable, to sit back knowing that children would be molested by people under your guidance when you had the power to stop it but didn’t do anything because this was how God wanted it. Since this does not seem to be possible, we conclude that Prabhupad made mistakes.

B) Philosophical Connection

We can not isolate Prabhupad from having any responsibility for what happened to many of us as children in Iskcon. We do not feel that we are committing any offenses. We feel, based on our knowledge of Prabhupad being forthright and honest, that he would be the first one to take responsibility, if he were here. We suspect that he would admit that even though he put the future success of Iskcon with the generations born within the movement, his top priorities were establishing the roots of the movement, by establishing centres (temples), distributing books and initiating people.

His top priorities were not the children. We speculate that he naively thought that if his disciples followed the rules, and thus purged their other influences, they would automatically treat the children very well. We do recognize that Prabhupad had a life before Iskcon and that Iskcon has created its own reality since Prabhupad’s departure. Throughout Iskcon’s ‘life,’ they have provided shelter for many ‘crazies’ both when Prabhupad was alive and afterwards, who are also responsible.

Prabhupad was, as an initiating guru, taking on all the ‘karma’ of his disciples, so long as his disciples followed his instructions. Prabhupad ordered parents to send their children to gurukula. Further, according to the Vedas, parents are responsible for the karmic reactions of their children. Consequently the parents must suffer some of the ‘bad’ karma that the child experiences. Thus, if the initiated parent is following the guru’s instructions, the guru is responsible for the child’s ‘bad’ karma as well.

1) On Happiness

It was almost impossible for us to reconcile the contradictions of seeing Prabhupad’s peaceful image, and living in ‘his’ violent atmosphere. Everyone was supposed to be happy doing as he instructed, so why were we feeling miserable. Were we supposed to be happy having the ‘karma’ beaten out of us? Were we supposed to be happy having to be 'behaved' and not express ourselves? Were we supposed to feel proud going out on the sankirtan book distributing parties as teenagers, looking like a bunch of freaks?

When you're a child, as you become more versed in the teachings, you are faced with a dilemma. The teachings claim to induce pure love, not guilt and fear, and everyone is following, but every one around you is fearful and full of guilt and none of them, including yourself, is happy. This makes you question the claims and validity of the teachings. While you are concluding that the environment inside the movement is unhappy, you are simultaneously constantly bombarded with reminders of how horrible it is supposed to be for the people outside the religion, the karmis. They are the miserable truly lost souls, you are told. So there seems to be no hope.

The basic gist was that happiness does not really exist in this material world. When a person thinks they are feeling happy, it is just an illusion. This world is of illusion and is meant to trap souls and cause them pain while at the same time making them think that they are happy. Family life is one of the entrapments. All of the relationships in a family are temporary and therefore illusion. This means that the relationships between mother and child, father and child, husband and wife, etc., are not real, and they were actually held to be hindrances to real spiritual life.

2) Women

Women, because of their close connection with children and deep natural concern for family matters, are held to be less intelligent and less capable of detaching from those false relationships. It was preached that one should not 'interpret' on their own but should simply follow the instructions as they were given. Given these belief structures, which are quite easily reached by many, whether they're what he meant or not, the family relationships were not given as much importance as most other parts of the 'spiritual' life. It was taught that to renounce those ties was the goal of the effort.

In all this discussion of Prabhupad it is usually largely forgotten that he was from the Eastern Indian culture. One idea, which can be corroborated by a look at it's culture, is that fathers and men in India have little to do with raising children, it is considered to be the women's duty. When Prabhupad was establishing Iskcon, he could not care much for the children or understand children's needs, having never had(assumingly) much practice with children. Hence, many of his ideas about children and how they were implemented, were very much theorotical and did not work in practice. It is true that when you stick a large group of children together ranging from 4 and up, they are not always going to be angels and there will be a number of individual children with unique fears to deal with, especially when taken away from any of their familly. As it was, there was very little room for indivdual behavior, children were all supposed and expected to be good little devotees.

The responsibility was likely to be mismanaged, even if the ashram teacher was not horribly abusive. So, the responsibility does lie with Prabhupad because he had little idea about what he was dealing with. He did not understand the vulnerability or the vast needs of children. At least one hopes that he did not understand, rather than that he just was not caring. He created a system that could not work out. A system that would attract pedophiles and other abusers, as such people have a very good nose for situations in which they will be able to take advantage of children. Truly, he created a movement for sanaysis and brahmachari's. In some ways it can be presumed that he just didn't know the reppercussions of his orders; if that is so, in that instance, he is 100% responsible.

3) Renouncing

People who didn't participate in family life would be held in higher regard and so on. This ‘status’ of the renounced person in India is very well culturally established. The virtues of renouncing were stressed by Prabhupad.

Some of us speculate that Prabhupad did not personally enjoy his family life and was eager to renounce these attachments.

He does hold some responsibility for how prevalent ‘renunciation’ became. Many of the young men took the renouncing order of sanyasa. The position now gives the sanyasa the rights and funds to travel, take power positions and be adored. Not Prabhupad’s original intention. Per capita, there are probably more sanyasis in Iskcon than in India.

Still many followers cling to the notion that renunciation will lead them to real happiness and the only reason it has not worked thus far is because the people who implemented it were flawed. We, as children, led enforced renounced lives, and many of us were not happy. Our feelings were ignored, we were not allowed families, we had few possessions, we could not associate with the opposite sex and we endured great torture. Our general conclusion is that there is potential for real love in families, that the love between child and mother/father is real and is as important as anything else in life. Also sexual relationships can provide opportunities for real love and happiness. Why should anything because it might be temporary, be construed as false. Feelings are very real.

Here is the problem, a devotee who perceives themselves to truly grasp what Prabhupad was saying will disagree with the last few statements that have been made. They will internally agree with many of the things that were said about how people would be truly happy if they would only follow the rules, though they may not express it so much outwardly for fear of scaring people away. At the same time they will hold that none of those thought processes were in any way responsible for our experiences. They would contend, and we would partially agree, that Prabhupad did value families and children, that he was very loving in his dealings with people, and that in his writings he made it clear that all living entities should be treated with love and respect. In their arguments, they would probably bring up some points that are mentioned now.

4) Value vs. Devalued

There is a contradictory aspect to what Prabhupad taught. From peoples' contact with him, he was a very genuinely wise and loving person. This is a reason why many of our parents in the early days followed him. They felt that intense feeling from him and were convinced that he knew what they needed to know and decided to do anything he said. Other factors which give support to the notion that family life was valued, were that many of the stories were about 'loving' relationships between family members. It was preached however that these instances were only because they existed in the spiritual world and it was still held that they were not comparable to 'mundane' relationships that exist here now.

Despite these and other factors which do give some credence to the notion that family life is just as important as anything else, the over weighing majority of information lead many to act otherwise. In most cases it manifests as an intense internal struggle that goes on inside of people. Any 'attachments' or 'love' they feel for child or partner are immediately accompanied by a barrage of judgments. The judgments are that those feelings aren't real, that 'love' is false, they are not elevated because of their attachments, they had better try and give up these attachments, and that the sooner they renounce all this stuff the better because after all there is danger at every step and if they died still being 'attached' they would have to continue suffering. It is not difficult to see that given the above internal struggle, a person would neglect their family and be generally very disconnected from their responsibilities or cares in this world.

Do you see the mixed messages? Do you see how it could be confusing, especially for a child? We constantly found ourselves in catch-22 situations, whose outcome was that we could never protect ourselves, because we could never question the religion or Prabhupad.

5) Dissempowered Questioning

To us and according to Prabhupad's writings, those who believe and abide by his sampradya’s interpretation of the Vedic philosophy are in one form or another a part of Iskcon. The question of who is actually 'doing' what it says or just wrongly interpreting, is a strongly disputed topic depending on who you're talking to. It is neither our role or desire to define these terms. Some of these people, who profess to be following Prabhupad, but not being in Iskcon, say that they are spreading the ‘real message’ of Prabhupad. What does this mean? Supposedly, there is not supposed to be any reinterpretation of the teachings in the sampradya. The guru is to repeat exactly what they learnt from their guru. So there is no way out!

The religious dogma goes something like this. You can not interpret the religious teachings correctly yourself, therefore you must find a qualified teacher (i.e. Prabhupad), but since there is no qualified teacher alive, then the only option is to study the teachers books. So you read the books and discover to your great relief, that Lord Chaitanya (the founder of the Hare Krishnas branch of Hinduism 500 years ago) says that you should follow your heart to God and that there are no hard and fast rules. Then you are accused of misinterpreting the books because you are not qualified to truly understand.

Love for god is what you feel in your heart, it isn't following rules and being afraid. But on the other hand you would find in the books that you have to follow the 'right' sampradya. But then Lord Chaitanya says that there are no hard and fast rules. Then they say, their fear is that you shouldn't try to interpret it on your own, that you need to find a true person to follow, but then the circular arguement.

You inform your ‘accuser’ that by default they are assuming that they are qualified to tell you how to correctly interpret. Then the quoting battle begins and the person who can out quote temporarily wins. But you go away, even more confused, because any choice of quotes requires the use of judgment and interpretation. As children, being forced to defend yourself on the basis of quotes from religious books, is very exhausting and discouraging. The whole process demonstrates the lack of emotional expression. You become very afraid and guilty for feeling, especially when those around you feel different. You know that you are missing something -- love, affection and understanding, but you despair because you know that you can’t allow yourself to hope.

C) Emotional Connection

Thinking of Prabhupad, there is a mixture of conflicting emotions that are at times difficult to clearly resolve. He was at times a grandfather figure whom we love and admire. There is genuine affection, but this has been tempered with a milieu of other messages. It is a complex relationship, as with any ‘family’ relationship, were a whole series of circumstances and experiences create the impressions we carry of people. This is made even more complex and confusing for us, because our childhood ‘family’ had few boundaries, and changing figure heads.

There didn’t seem to be any working safety measures taken, and if there were, they were not top priority. Prabhupad did not set up the gurukula institution to abuse, but it is equally evident that he didn't go out of his way to make sure that it didn't happen. Because of the attitude, which is evident by the language and tone people use, of Prabhupad being beyond any scrutiny, all the blame or responsibility that is attributed, is deflected to anyone in the immediate proximity, including saying it is our fault - as in our karma?!

We lived in a communal atmosphere, were we often knew our biological parents, but they did not have the ‘definitive’ say in the direction of our young lives. Any of the school teachers could tell us what to do and punish us. Adults in the temple would pull power trips on us. None of them was made to be strictly accountable to a dedicated caring guardian, like our parents. This made our lives and expectations very unpredictable and unsafe. In so many ways, Prabhupad was the force that controlled the overall situations and direction in our lives.

1) Perceptions as Children

Since it is at times difficult to sort out how we feel about Prabhupad, we need to talk about all the various ways we feel about him. Since, as children, we grew up only knowing of Iskcon, we naturally have been very conditioned and influenced by the experience. Many of us, were very young children when Prabhupad was alive and some of us associated with him. Given our unique vantage point, it follows that we would see Prabhupad and his teachings quite differently from a westerner that joined in their early adult life, after say 20 years of western (or other) influences.

The members of Iskcon, including our parents, were ‘following’ him, and they usually felt righteous and bound to strictly follow their interpretations of his directions and instructions. The control and punishment we received from all the assorted people, was often guised as direction taken from Prabhupad’s letters and books. This attitude became even more pronounced after his death in 1977. He was no longer available for personal comments, but his writings were still around for interpretation. At this point, his personal role and responsibility is less defined, except that in our minds, his images and words were constantly used to subjugate and control us. So understandably it is difficult to make a separation between Iskcon and Prabhupad.

To give some examples for clarification. We, as children, had to follow the rigorous adult program. We were forced to attend the morning services (aratis) starting at 4:30 am in the temple room - a room with deities of God and a statue of Prabhupad and pictures of him. This included giving him and his guru lineage (sampradya) obeisances, or glories and pledges to strictly follow, without question. Then there was the hour plus Bhagavatam lecture, were we had to sit still and listen to readings from the religious texts that Prabhupad interpreted. Then chant the maha mantra for hours (the optimum recommended was 16 rounds on 108 beads), because he 'said' that this was the only valid way to escape the ‘endless cycle of birth and death.’ This was everyday, before breakfast.

After the morning program, it was hours of classes with short tempered teachers, who would hit us, with the excuse that they were following Prabhupad’s desires to educate us and rid us of our karma. We received few shows of love and affections from our parents because Prabhupad said that this form of love expression was an illusion -- the only ‘true’ love was love of God. We were in gurukula because Prabhupad said that the children should be in this school system.

Without getting into a thorough investigation of all of the various aspects and their repercussions, it is clear that the belief pattern just described led to us as children being isolated, devoid of affection, full of self doubt, unable to trust anyone, sexually deviant and guilty, devalued, and expected to like it. It was also held that 'real' love was love for God. By chanting and performing activities in service to God we could become truly happy. It was expected that by us chanting, being devoid of the false love of family, and constantly engaged in service, we would be naturally happy.

Perhaps childhood familiarity with Prabhupad and his work (books and Iskcon) had made him less mysterious and awesome for us. Having grown up in the movement, perhaps has made Prabhupad more obtainable to us, we can more easily see him as a person and not the ‘god-like’ figure our parents have made him. He is a person, who made decisions, albeit with good intentions, that had traumatic repercussions for us. We can not ignore this reality and we will not feel guilty for talking about him and his role.

We understand your desire to protect Prabhupad, because you believe that following him will be your path to salvation. By speaking of our version of our history in Iskcon, we are not trying to test or change your faith. The discussion of this topic is not meant to debate the philosophy, it is meant to demonstrate why there is a connection in our minds between our experiences and Prabhupad. What we have found is that there are any number of groups who consider themselves part of Prabhupad's 'real' movement.

If it is your path to follow the religious path set by Prabhupad’s lineage, then this is your choice and one we hope will bring you happiness. We ask that you show us enough respect, albeit for the simple reason that we were the first generation to be brought up in Prabhupad’s Iskcon, and we need to talk about our views of our upbringing and sort out responsibility.

You are not helping us by ‘humbly’ telling us what we should do. We will taste love and life as we see fit.