“On This Date in History”:
Hare Krishna Historian Henry Doktorski’s Daily Facebook Posts
Henry and his better half Cindy at their book booth at the annual Bhakti Fest held at Joshua Tree Lake and Campground in the California Mojave Desert (September 2024).
These are posts from Henry’s Facebook page which are based on his books about Hare Krishna history. To visit Henry’s Facebook page, go to facebook.com/Henry.Doktorski.III.
January 1, 1937: On this date in history, His Divine Grace Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada (1875-1937) passes away in Calcutta, India, at the age of sixty-two. He appointed no successor, but asked his disciples to form a Governing Body Commission to govern his mission, the Gaudiya Math, in his absence. One of his junior householder disciples, Abhay Charanaravinda De (1896-1977), later came to the United States and became known as His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
To learn more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 6.
His Divine Grace Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada, founder of the Gaudiya Math (undated, c. 1930s).
c. January 1937: On or around this date in history, Keith Gordon Ham (later known as His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada) is conceived. When Marjorie Ham and her husband—Rev. Francis Gordon Ham—a minister for the Conservative Baptist Church, attempt to conceive their fifth child, she prays “to God to have a preacher as a son.”
Decades later, Bhaktipada becomes a respected ISKCON guru idolized by thousands, and advertisements in Back To Godhead magazine promote him as a bona fide spiritual master. Novices in ISKCON are taught that their spiritual masters (Bhaktipada, Hansadutta, Satsvarupa, etc.), in previous lives, were personal associates of Lord Chaitanya and/or manjaris (servants of the gopis) during Krishna’s childhood pastimes some thousands of years ago.
To learn more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 4.
Keith Gordon Ham (undated, c. 1939).
January 1, 1980: On this date in history, Bhaktipada suggests to a French-Canadian disciple in Montreal that they can sing the morning program in French instead of Sanskrit and Bengali, contrary to the standard ISKCON morning service protocol.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 126.
His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada (1982).
January 1, 2025: On this date in history, the author publishes the essay: Faith Killer? One of my more-recently-acquired Facebook friends, Dominick Koss of East Hampton, New York, tells me, “My beef with you is that you are a faith killer.” He had just read my December 30th 2024 post about Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada instructing a senior disciple, “We may take money for Krishna using any method of beg, borrow or steal, but . . . . not for ANY reason shall we decrease the book sales and collection monthly over some small lying about Bangladesh or other things.” I find Dominick’s comment interesting. Some others have claimed the opposite:
“Regarding the book Eleven Naked Emperors, Doktorski has done an outstanding job putting the entire drama into a very well documented and highly readable account. His tone is remarkably non-partisan, non-polemical and he has tried sincerely to be fair and impartial. I might add, for those who feel that dirty laundry should not be displayed in public, that there is nothing in Doktorski’s work that seeks to undermine the faith of the devotees in Krishna or, for that matter, in the institution of ISKCON.”—Edwin Bryant, Professor of Hindu Philosophy and Religion, Rutgers University (January 20, 2020)
Another wrote, “In regards to the doubt that was expressed in the last portion of the book, Eleven Naked Emperors, namely whether Srila Prabhupada was not to blame for the fiasco of his disciples after his departure, I think every genuine disciple must encounter doubts of such calibre. We must know the knowledge side by side with the nescience. If one is to shy away from such discussion, it does not speak well of his faith in Srila Prabhupada either. It does not help if we ignore such doubts, suppress them, or demonize those who genuinely discover them. Quite the opposite, all doubts should be discussed and if they are ignored, they devour us.”—Purujit dasa, La Linea, Spain (February 19, 2020)
But on the other hand, Dominick’s observation may be correct; perhaps frighteningly correct. Actually now that I think about it, I suppose I’ve been a faith killer for over 60 years! It seems to me that Krishna selected me to battle against what I call “deranged devotion.” The subtitle for my first book about Hare Krishna history is called, The Danger of Deranged Devotion.
How was I a faith killer? At the age of six or seven, I attended a Christmas Eve party at my grandparents’ home along with my parents, brother and sisters and several aunts and uncles and cousins. At one point, a jolly, somewhat portly man with a white beard, red cap, black boots and red coat entered the living room through the back door, carrying a large sack made from a white bed sheet and greeting us with a boisterous “Ho, ho, ho!” It was Santa Claus himself, come from the North Pole!
All of us seven children screamed joyfully as Santa began reaching in his sack and pulling out gaily wrapped gifts for each of us! Everyone was ecstatic.
Suddenly, I—who happened to be the eldest of the seven children—happened to notice that Santa resembled my grandfather to a remarkable degree. I looked around the room and spied my grandmother, parents, aunts and uncles, but not my grandfather. I had a sudden realization, and after all these years, I still remember the scene in detail: That was not Santa, that was my grandfather dressed as Santa!
I began shouting to my siblings and cousins, “That’s not Santa! That’s Dziadzi!” (a Polish word for grandfather). Within seconds, my father’s sister, Aunt Joan, gently pulled me aside, and whispered in my ear, “Yes, Henry, you are very bright and quite right to discover the deception. However, please refrain from further outbursts because the other children believe that Dziadzi is Santa, and you will ruin their faith.”
So I kept my mouth shut, and enjoyed playing with my present: a remote-controlled toy robot, the nearly two-feet tall green giant called “The Great Garloo.”
Fast forward thirty years, and I found myself in a similar predicament: after serving my ISKCON-approved “spiritual master” for fifteen years, I discovered from reliable sources that he was not what he appeared to be; he had been regularly giving fellatio to teenage boys for many years, an activity prohibited for one in the renounced order of life. After speaking with him in private about this, I rejected him as my spiritual master, as he was not qualified to serve in that post, at least according to Prabhupada’s definition.
However, I was in a quandary. Should I just quietly stop my service at New Vrindaban and keep my mouth shut or should I warn my godbrothers and sisters of the danger to their spiritual lives if they continued to worship him as a pure devotee uttama-adhikari self-realized divine and infallible soul? Some godbrothers and sisters recommended I just keep my mouth shut. After all, Bhaktipada was still inspiring thousands to chant Hare Krishna and give up sinful activities. “You shouldn’t criticize such a great soul. You might ruin the faith of his disciples.”
After reflection, I chose the latter path, and although my conclusions were rejected by many, some agreed with me and rejected Bhaktipada as their spiritual master. One godbrother threatened I would be “dead meat” if I didn’t stop my blasphemy.
Fast forward another twenty or so years: during my research about the history of New Vrindaban, I discovered, much to my surprise and chagrin, that many, if not all, of the anomalies at New Vrindaban which generated much controversy and pain, were in fact recommended by the ISKCON Founder/Acharya years earlier: cheating and lying to people on sankirtan to sell more books and make more money (letter December 30, 1972), husbands beating their wives (room conversation, April 12, 1969), marrying off young girls to older men (Back to Godhead, November 20, 1958), allowing male disciples to take more than one wife (Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi lila 14.58), etc.
And I had been taught that Prabhupada was an infallible and divine being, just as I had also been taught that Bhaktipada was also an infallible and divine being. The New Vrindaban elders told me. Prabhupada explained:
“Kirtanananda is now a fully Krishna conscious person.” (letter, August 1967)
“Kirtanananda, he is a pure devotee.” (morning walk, Los Angeles, 1972)
“I bless Kirtanananda Swami to go back to Godhead in this life.” (conversation in Los Angeles temple room, June 1976)
Yes, I admit both Bhaktipada and Prabhupada, in their own unique ways, were great preachers of Gaudiya Vaishnavism and accomplished great wonders, but neither were infallible or perfect divine beings, in my opinion. I have no problem with people worshiping Prabhupada (or Bhaktipada) as a great preacher of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, but don’t they see that he sometimes made mistakes and cheated others? Worship all you want, just don’t call him infallible and divine. So some will say, as my aunt said to me, and my godbrothers said, “Keep your mouth shut; you might damage the faith of his followers.”
Henry Doktorski
January 1, 2025
“The Great Garloo,” a nearly-two-feet-tall remote-controlled robotic toy by Marx Toys, first released in 1961.
Father Henry Doktorski II, sister Cindy, brother John, cousin Frankie Chadwick, cousin Roseanne Chadwick, Grandfather “Dziadzi” Henry H. Doktorski, sister Eileen, Yours Truly, Uncle John and Cousin Kathleen Chadwick celebrate Dziadzi’s 62nd birthday (December 29, 1967).
January 1978: On or around this date in history, the author meets a Hare Krishna devotee for the first time. Henry remembers:
My first time meeting with a Hare Krishna devotee was at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, January 1978. I was 21 years of age, and had just flew in from Rochester New York, where I had auditioned for a spot as a piano performance graduate studies major at Eastman School of Music. I was returning to my college, Park College in Parkville, Missouri, near Kansas City.
In Chicago I was supposed to transfer to another plane to Kansas City, but there was a huge snowstorm in Missouri and our flight was delayed until the next day. The airline clerk told me they’d give me a hotel room for the night and I should come back in a few hours.
I went back into the terminal, and suddenly a fairly attractive young woman in a long skirt pinned a carnation on my lapel and asked for a donation. I declined. She pressed on, "Oh, why not give a small donation?" I was wearing a business suit. She thought I had lots of money. I said, "I'm a poor college student." She flattered me, saying, "You must be a musician," as I had very long hair. Although I was flattered, I continued to decline. Finally, she entreated, "It is good to give to God."
Okay, I thought. I gave her a dollar, and she gave me a Back To Godhead magazine. Then she disappeared.
A little while later, while waiting to get my hotel confirmation, I was sitting on a bench, and a young man wearing a wig came up to me and started jabbering. He was reciting a line. I knew it was a memorized line, because when I tried to ask him a question, he could not respond. He had to continue his memorized line. Interruption was not in his playbook.
He put a big book, maybe a Bhagavatam, on my lap, and asked for money. I tried to ask him some questions, as I was curious about his religion, but he could not answer. Within a minute or less, he took the book back, put it in his book bag, mumbled something about a quota, and disappeared.
As I still had an hour or two to kill, I walked back into the busy terminal to find the lady who gave me the carnation. I had read a few pages of the BTG and wanted to ask her some questions about her religion. After several minutes, I spied her in the crowd, and tried to get her attention. Hey, I want to talk to you! She disappeared, probably thinking that I wanted my dollar back. I continued to search and finally found her up on the second level. I caught her eye from down below, I waved, and she waved back. But when I got up the escalator to the second floor, she was gone.
It was time to get my hotel voucher and get on the hotel bus. While standing in line, I was reading a paperback book about yoga. A young lady approached me and started talking about yoga. She was also stranded, and she invited me to her hotel room to talk about yoga. I readily complied. In her room, she lit a joint and we smoked a bit, although I was not fond of inhaling smoke into my lungs, but I did it anyway. I had a mystical experience, feeling the oneness of myself with the universe and seeing it in my mind. I wanted to get in bed with her, but she declined, saying something like, it's better we don't. I accepted her explanation.
Later, I found my way to my own hotel room, got settled, and read a little more from the BTG. I discovered the men devotees shaved their heads and they didn't have sex. I threw the magazine into the trash, and got back to my college the next day.
Who could imagine that seven months later, I would be a celibate brahmachari with shaved head at the New Vrindaban West Virginia Hare Krishna Commune, and stay on for 15 years? Perhaps truth is stranger than fiction.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3.
The author at Park College, Parkville Missouri, April 1978.
Early January 1970: On or around this date in history, Kuladri (Arthur Villa), a 20-year-old University of Pittsburgh student, arrives at New Vrindaban. Years later, he becomes president of New Vrindaban and a prominent leader in the conspiracy to murder the dissident devotee and former New Vrindaban resident, Sulochan dasa.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 145.
Kuladri (Arthur Villa) presides over a New Vrindaban fire sacrifice (1984).
January 2, 2024: On this date in history, a customer posts a review of Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8 on Amazon:
5.0 out of 5 stars An explanation of the controversies. Verified purchase
In this volume the author gives the reasons for the changes in liturgy, that Bhaktipada introduced in the late 80s. These changes were very controversial amongst the Hare Krishna devotees at that time, and they were often ridiculed and mocked by devotees from other groups. Now, in this volume, we finally get some understanding of Bhaktipada’s reasoning for the changes, and they actually seem to have been an honest attempt to make Vaishnavism more available for Westerners. Ultimately, they failed, and the liturgy was reverted to the more Indian-style ceremonies.
G. R. S
Germany
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 145.
Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8 front and back cover
January 3, 1970: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada expresses optimism about his students’ spiritual progress and hopes that within five years “all of his disciples” will become sufficiently advanced to become initiating diksa gurus themselves.
“One who will pass this examination will be awarded with the title of Bhaktivedanta. I want that all of my spiritual sons and daughters will inherit this title of Bhaktivedanta, so that the family transcendental diploma will continue through the generations. Those possessing the title of Bhaktivedanta will be allowed to initiate disciples. Maybe by 1975, all of my disciples will be allowed to initiate and increase the numbers of the generations. That is my program.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, pp. 16-17.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada chants in the pavilion on the hill behind Bahulaban, New Vrindaban (September 1972).
January 3, 2007: On this date in history, after Janmastami claims in a December 22, 2006 letter posted on the Sampradaya Sun that Radhanath Swami recruited him into the conspiracy to murder Sulochan, Ravindra Svarupa, an important ISKCON guru and GBC member, accuses Janmastami of falling into the “quicksand swamp of fault finding.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 479.
Ravindra Svarupa (William H. Deadwyler, III)
January 3, 2025: On this date in history, a reader comments on Facebook:
Mr. Henry Doktorski has executed an amazing compilation work of biographies, with exact details of every event and its actors, without polluting with any type of personal inclinations. His is a fabulous literary contribution which is completely transparent and free from politics and pseudo religious sublimations.
Maha-Bahu Dasa
Brazil
Henry has completed twelve books on Hare Krishna history (photo: August 5, 2022).
January 4, 1974: On this date in history, when asked why he snorted snuff (an addictive smokeless tobacco product made from finely ground tobacco leaves which, when inhaled or “sniffed” through the nose, delivers a swift hit of nicotine), Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada replies, “Regarding taking snuff, I myself take it sometimes at night because I am working at night on my books, and sometimes I become dizzy. But it is not for you to take. You should not imitate this, neither you work like me at night.”
Snuff was an important “medicine” for Prabhupada. His personal servant said he always carried not one, but two tins of snuff, wherever he traveled. Prabhupada told several disciples he used snuff to “gain relief from high blood pressure,” despite the fact that nicotine is a stimulant which raises blood pressure, not lowers it. For a man who liked to criticize the Indian swamis who chewed betel nuts (the seed of the areca palm which provides a burst of energy), and who was terribly disappointed that his wife liked to drink tea (a product with caffeine), the fact that Prabhupada daily snorted an addictive nicotine product may come as a surprise to many.
A former ISKCON devotee from Dallas, Texas, began snorting snuff after hearing that Prabhupada enjoyed the tobacco product. Brian Birmingham (formerly known as Veda Vyasa dasa, initiated by Bir Krishna Goswami) reported, “It is true. It is Srila Prabhupada who got me interested in snuffs. It’s much better than smoking. Bumping a little bit makes you feel like you've smoked a cigarillo. Goes well with brandy or good whiskey, it does. It does not take much to get a nicotine effect. Just a few bumps. It’s really quite lovely.”
P. S. Our friend Bhima-Karma Saragrahi writes, “Did anyone else see the Prabhupada memory video where a servant of Prabhupada recalled Prabhupada drinking a half glass of red wine on the plane and explaining that a little bit was good for circulation and digestion, but if he did it openly, his disciples would become alcoholics?”
Our friend Malati dasi responded, “Prabhupada did like to take 7-Up on the plane to quell digestion. Once, in a first class seat, he was offered a glass of champagne which he thought was 7-Up so he drank it. After it was discovered to be Champagne, he commented that is was very good but he did not drink it again. When disciples heard about him drinking 7-Up, they began stock piling 7-Up in Los Angeles (I think it was Los Angeles). When he found out, he stopped it. They had no digestive issues and were only indulging for sense gratification.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 80.
Snuff
Snuff
January 5, 1987: On this date in history, the Krishna Chorale, the New Vrindaban choir, performs their first full-length concert, at the Temple of Understanding. Kapellmeister Hrishikesh (the author) directs from the electronic keyboard. The choir sings two four-part motets written by the author, two Krishna-ized choruses by J. S. Bach, four choruses, six recitatives, and five arias from Handel’s Krishna-ized Messiah, and a medley of Krishmas Carols.
Bhaktipada attends the choir performance in the temple; he is extremely pleased and pens a handwritten note of appreciation:
To all the members of the New Vrindaban Choir for a most inspiring and enjoyable evening last night in the temple. I feel something like a mother, who has just given birth to a healthy, bouncing, baby boy. To be sure, he is not full grown yet, but all of the potential is there. Already I can see him traveling and preaching vigorously, defeating all the demons! So too, I can see your future, all bright and full of hope. All that separates us is time and a little hard work and perseverance. All glories, all glories, all glories. May Krishna bless you more and more. KS
Within a few short years, New Vrindaban’s western music program includes, in addition to the choir (which the author names the Krishna Chorale), a pipe organ, an orchestra with strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion instruments, and liturgies rewritten with English texts and western music.
One of our choir members, Brihan Naradiya Purana (Bernice Roberto), remembers, “It was a fateful day when Hrishikesh asked me to join the choir. Although I had taken piano lessons and sang in my high school choir, I said I couldn’t. But that didn’t stop Hrishikesh; he kept trying to get me to join. He wanted to recruit anyone and everyone. There were even a few tone-deaf people in the choir, which he tolerated, but appreciated anyway. He was digging for gold; searching for devotees who could sing and read music. I kept making excuses why I couldn’t join. I said I couldn’t get a baby-sitter, as my daughter, Bhakti, was still an infant, and baby-sitters were so hard to find. Hrishikesh solved that problem; he made arrangements and got a baby-sitter for me during rehearsals. I was shocked; he was so fired up. I couldn’t say no anymore. So I came to my first rehearsal and loved it.”
To hear the Krishna Chorale: YouTube.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 62.
The first full-length New Vrindaban choir concert. Front row: Ragamathani, Giri Suta, Madhurya Lila, Sumati. Back row: Dhananjay, Rukmini, Saraswati, Dhirodatta, Krishna Truthful. Choirmaster Hrishikesh directs from the electronic keyboard (January 5, 1987).
January 5, 1987: On this date in history, Daruka, a New Vrindaban accountant who assisted Tirtha in the June 1983 murder of Chakradhari on New Vrindaban property, pleads guilty at his trial in Fairmont, West Virginia, to voluntary manslaughter as an accomplice in the killing.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 66.
Daruka (Daniel Reid) (c. January 1987)
January 5, 1987: On this date in history, the FBI raids New Vrindaban, confiscates computers, financial records, filing cabinets, cash, and bumper stickers and baseball caps bearing the names and logos of professional and college sports teams and copyrighted cartoon characters used by the traveling pickers to illegally generate millions of dollars per year. Practically all of ISKCON in the United States and Canada distributed bumper stickers with copyrighted logos, but the government chose to raid New Vrindaban.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 72.
FBI Insignia
January 6, 1987: On this date in history, Daruka shows investigators the place where he and Tirtha had buried Cakradhari’s body under a creek nearly four years earlier.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 66.
Digging up Chakradhari's bones (January 6, 1987)
Chakradhari's skull (January 6, 1987)
January 6, 1986: On this date in history, the deities of the fierce half man/half lion incarnation Lord Nrsimhadeva and the boy Prahlad Maharaja are installed in the New Vrindaban Temple of Understanding. the deities at first were modeled in clay by Somadasa (Thomas Graves) and then cast in marble resin by Kumar (Craig Thompson), and were installed in the temple on another altar next to the main altar.
The jet-black color of Nrsimhadeva was created by mixing powdered coal into polyester resin. Bhaktipada explained, “The deity is made from West Virginia coal—crushed coal—mixed with resin.”
Nrsimhadeva (also known as Narasimha) is a fierce avatar of Vishnu, who incarnates in the form of part lion (simha) and part man (nara) to destroy evil and end religious persecution and calamity on Earth, thereby restoring dharma. According to Srimad-bhagavatam, Nrsimha incarnated to protect his young devotee, the boy Prahlada, and destroy the demon of the ancient world, Hiranyakashipu. The saintly Prahlada happened to be the son of the powerful raksasa demon Hiranyakashipu—the evil lord of the universe—who hated Vishnu for earlier killing his brother Hiranyaksa.
When Hiranyakashipu’s son, Prahlada, rebelled against his father and became a devotee of his father’s arch-enemy, Vishnu, Hiranyakashipu tried to kill his son by many means, but all were unsuccessful. Finally, Lord Nrsimha appeared from within a pillar in Hiranyakashipu’s palace, placed the demon on his lap, pierced his gut with his iron-like claws, disemboweled the demon and draped the entrails around his neck like a garland, thereby killing him. Vaishnavas delight in reciting the story of Lord Nrsimhadeva killing the demon Hiranyakashipu and protecting his devotee Prahlada. ISKCON members daily sing Jayadeva Goswami’s "Prayers to Lord Nrsimhadeva" during the morning service. When Bhaktipada was asked how a relatively inexperienced sculptor (Somadasa—who had begun making statues only two years earlier, around when Bhagavatananda left) could make such an exquisite work of art, Bhaktipada answered, “When Lord Nrsimhadeva wants to appear, no one can stop him.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5. p. 116.
Altar of Nrsimhadeva and Prahlada.
January 6, 1998: On this date in history, Bhaktipada’s attorney Nathan Dershowitz appears, along with Bhaktipada, at the Springfield prison facility to argue for Bhaktipada’s early release. His sentence is reduced from thirty to twelve years.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 49.
Nathan Dershowitz (September 11, 2012 photo).
January 7, 1990: On this date in history, at the North American GBC meeting in San Diego, Nityananda dasa (Nico Kuyt) debates the GBC regarding the Ritvik-In-Absentia system of initiating new disciples.
During the GBC meetings in Mayapur two months later, ISKCON officially denounces the Ritvik-In-Absentia theory as “a concocted system” and threatens excommunication to anyone who “advocated” or “supported” its practice. In addition, ISKCON publishes a collection of seventeen essays, interviews and testimonies “exposing the proxy-initiation fallacy” in the first issue of the ISKCON Journal.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 355.
Nityananda dasa (Nico Kuyt).
January 7, 2025: On this date in history, a reader comments on Facebook:
Doktorski’s * books * can be informative. The “GGG” volumes, the Eleven Naked Emperors, and Killing For Krishna, (really killing for Keith) highlight the ramifications of deranged devotion. [In addition] Doktorski’s Facebook page reveals the existence of deranged detractors of Srila Prabhupada.
Suresh Persaud (Chand Prasad)
Maryland, United States
Chand Prasad (Suresh Persaud).
January 8, 1976: On this date in history, during a morning walk in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, India, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada declares, “Vaishnavism means real religion. All other[s], bogus, cheating religions.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 160.
Morning walk in India.
January 8, 2007: On this date in history, Tirtha, in prison, attempts to discredit Janmastami (who had a few weeks earlier claimed that in January 1986 Radhanath Swami had recruited him into the conspiracy to murder Sulochan) by calling Janmastami the “plumber’s helper.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 480.
Tirtha (Thomas Drescher) in prison.
January 8, 2018: On this date in history, the author’s first nonfiction book of Hare Krishna history, “Killing For Krishna: The Danger of Deranged Devotion,” is published. To purchase the book, go to: Amazon.
Killing For Krishna, cover.
January 8, 2023: On this date in history, a reader posts a comment on Facebook:
Over time these books will be read by millions—perhaps. After all it is very well researched history in ISKCON’s post-Prabhupada era. Couple hundred years from now it’ll be a classic and one of the few books from this time that is honest.
Daryl Mark Johnston
Winnipeg, Canada
Daryl Mark Johnston
January 9, 1973: On this date in history, in a letter to a leading disciple, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada declares, “Polygamy is allowed.”
Polygamy was common in many human societies until recently and is still common in some countries. It was especially prevalent in China, India and in Muslim nations. The Hebrew scriptures document approximately forty polygamists, including such prominent religious figures as Abraham, Jacob, Esau and David, with little or no further remark on polygamy as such.
In Islam, polygamy is allowed, with the specific limitation that men can only have up to four wives at any one time. Before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, it was lawful to have a wife and multiple concubines within Chinese marriage. An emperor, government official or rich merchant could have up to hundreds of concubines after marrying his first wife. After the Communist Revolution in 1949, polygamy was banned. This occurred via the Marriage Act of 1953.
Polygamy was accepted in Hindu India. The demigods in Heaven and the ksatriyas on Earth often had multiple wives. According to Srimad-bhagavatam: King Chitraketu had ten million wives, Lord Krishna had 16,108 wives, Sasabindu had ten thousand wives, Saubhari Muni had fifty wives, Kasyapa Rishi had seventeen wives, Krishna’s father King Vasudeva had sixteen wives, Dharma had thirteen wives, Lord Siva had eleven wives, Dharmaraja had ten wives, Arjuna had four wives, King Dasarath and Maharaja Bharata had three wives and King Pandu had two wives. Even Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada had attempted to make arrangements to marry a second wife when he was a young man.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 145.
The Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII (1886-1967), had 7 wives, countless concubines and mistresses, 34 legitimate children and countless illegitimate children. The Nizam was so wealthy that he was portrayed on the cover of Time magazine on 22 February 1937, being described as the world's richest man.
January 9, 1977: On this date in history, during a morning walk in Bombay, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada declares, “All women, you cannot have freedom. You have got only thirty-four-ounce brain, and man has got sixty-four-ounce. . . . Actually that’s a fact. Where is woman philosopher, mathematician, scientist? Not a single. . . . Up to date in the history there is not a single woman who is a great scientist or great philosopher or great. . . .”
At this point in the conversation, an Indian doctor mentions the famous woman scientist, Marie Curie (1867-1934), a great scientist who pioneered research on radioactivity and won the Nobel Prize in 1903. But Prabhupada rudely cuts off the Indian doctor, stops him from speaking further, and retorts with a conviction born of his religious beliefs, “All bogus. (laughter)”
It appears that Prabhupada really believed that women's brains were 50% smaller than men's brains (not correct by a wide margin), but during this conversation he also revealed his ignorance regarding basic history: the great contributions women have made to the advancement of science and knowledge.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 30.
January 10, 1972: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada tells a Dallas ISKCON gurukula teacher how to discipline an unruly child, “If there is need you may shake your finger at them but never physical punishment is allowed. Try as far as possible to discipline them with love and affection, so that they develop a taste for austerity of life and think it great fun to serve Krishna in many ways.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 231.
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
January 10, 2007: On this date in history, a few weeks after Janmastami (John Sinkowski), one of the conspirators in the plot to assassinate Sulochan, breaks his self-imposed 20 year silence and announces in a December 2006 letter posted on the Sampradaya Sun that Radhanath Swami (a famous ISKCON guru and former New Vrindaban resident) recruited Janmastami into the murder conspiracy in 1986, Radhanath Swami announces, “As far as what Janmastami dasa has written on the Internet, every single allegation against me is totally false. I was not involved in any criminal activity.” Who is telling the truth and who is concealing the truth?
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 482.
Janmastami dasa (John Sinkowski) at New Vrindaban (1991)
January 10, 2021: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a godbrother:
Hrish, I have just finished reading Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3: Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold. This is a good service you are doing. Eventually many people will read these books. Except, of course, those who are desperate to forget the past. Enclosed is $40. Please send me volumes 1 and 5.
Former disciple of Kirtanananda Swami
New Vrindaban, West Virginia
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3.
January 11, 1977: On this date in history, during a train ride from Bombay to Allahabad, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada tells his disciple and personal secretary, Ramesvara Swami (Robert Grant), what will be ISKCON’s foreign policy with atheistic nations once ISKCON, in the future, takes over the United States government: “Surrender to Krishna or else we will drop this atom bomb.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 508.
January 12, 1969: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada requests Kirtanananda Swami to establish a gurukula at New Vrindaban, “So you have now taken charge of the sunrise of New Vrindaban. Our program there is to construct seven temples. One—Rupanuga Vidyapitha [Academy for followers of Rupa Goswami]—that is a school for educating brahmins and Vaishnavas.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 221.
His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada attends the Open House Festival for the opening of the New Nandagram gurukula in Wilson Valley (November 3, 1982).
January 12, 1986: On this date in history, Bhaktipada’s former housekeeper mails a second letter to the ISKCON acharyas (she wrote to them also a month earlier in December 1985) in which she states that her “spiritual master” drinks alcohol to cure his pain, engages in sex with his house cat, and uses many different objects to sexually stimulate himself.
None of the acharyas respond, except for Jayapataka Maharaja, who writes directly to Bhaktipada and suggests Bhaktipada “take legal steps” against her.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 356.
Letter to Jayapataka Swami from Bhaktipada’s housemaid (January 12, 1986), Part 1.
Letter to Jayapataka Swami from Bhaktipada’s housemaid (January 12, 1986), Part 2.
Letter from Jayapataka Swami to Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada (April 23, 1986).
January 13, 1990: On or around this date in history, during a New Vrindaban interfaith conference held January 13-15, a Native American peace pipe ceremony with tobacco is celebrated in the temple room. The assembled devotees and visitors do not puff on the the pipe; only Bhaktipada, the Native American elders, visiting interfaith dignitaries and a small handful of high-ranking New Vrindaban leaders partake.
During the same interfaith conference, a Native American sacred rock lodge is also celebrated. The rock lodge (the term “sweat lodge,” although commonly used, was not used at New Vrindaban as we were told the term is disrespectful to the Native American tradition) is used for a ceremony that involves purification, healing, and spiritual cleansing.
The lodge itself is a small dome-shaped structure high enough to only allow participants to sit inside. You must crawl on your hands and knees to enter. Most participants wear only a loin cloth. The lodge consists of a frame of saplings which is covered by blankets or animal skins. A door is created when one blanket or skin is thrown aside. A fire is started outside the lodge in a fire pit and small dry boulders are placed in the fire for an hour or two. River rocks are never used, because they can explode. When the boulders are red-hot, they are carefully carried inside to the center of the lodge. The participants in the ceremony sit on the earth in the lodge in a circle around the hot boulders with their backs toward the perimeter of the lodge.
Participants chant the holy names while the lodge leader, usually an indigenous elder who knows the language, songs, traditions, and safety protocols of the Native American culture's inherited tradition, pours water on the rocks from time to time. This produces immense quantities of steam. Sometimes pulverized roots are added to the water to create a decoction which is used for healing purposes.
I participated in several rock lodges at New Vrindaban. The steam is intense. If the lodge was held in the winter, when we were finished, we’d all exit the lodge and lay on the snow to cool off. Sometimes Murti Swami, who really appreciated the Native American rituals, led the lodges. Once I heard him boast, “We placed 56 stones in our rock lodge yesterday; it was hotter than hell.”
In all, a total of fifteen interfaith conferences were hosted at New Vrindaban between 1988 and 1994. During New Vrindaban's City of God Interfaith Era, dozens of spiritual leaders from different traditions visit or come to live at New Vrindaban. It appears that Bhaktipada is fulfilling Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s prophetic words, written 29 years earlier for the Congress for Cultivating Human Spirit, an international religious conference on world peace held May 10-20, 1961, in Tokyo, Japan, later published in the book, Light of the Bhagavat.
Prabhupada writes: “In this age of a godless civilisation, the sages of world-recognised religious sects who believe in God, must come out of their secluded places and preach the science of God to the people in general. Hindus, Muslims and Christians and members of other sects that have convincing faith in the authority of God, must not sit idly now and silently watch the rapid growth of a godless civilisation. . . . Responsible leaders of religious sects must meet together and form a common platform of a league of devotees of the Lord.”
Nityodita Swami ACBSP (Carlos Ordonez), a longtime New Vrindaban resident, spoke about the Interfaith Conferences, “This is a dream come true. Sometimes we think it’s Bhaktipada’s vision, but it’s not Bhaktipada’s vision (although he is pushing it); it is God’s vision. It’s in every true lover of God’s heart to bring together the peoples of the world under the banner of love of God. To see it actually happening; getting a taste for what is the full-blown daily life of the City of God resident is ecstatic. There was such tremendous energy. . . . I feel very grateful to be a part of this. It’s like being swept along in a hurricane of devotional service that is being manifest. . . . I feel lucky to be near this hurricane.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 246.
Native American peace pipe.
Lakota Chief Charles Chipps, with Dog Man and Fantuzzi at New Vrindaban.
Justin Wing and Laura Morningstar assemble the frame for a sacred Rock Lodge, while Murti Swami sits with two children (May 1991).
Native American teepee at New Vrindaban (May 1991).
January 13, 2021: On this date in history, a reader posts a review on Amazon of Eleven Naked Emperors:
Five Stars: An important book about a significant time in ISKCON
This book gives some important information about the zonal acharya era of ISKCON. Since this is a time period that the ISKCON leaders would like to cover up or sweep under the rug, it is especially important that people who remember it can give their stories. Mr. Doktorski is entitled to do so, since he is a former disciple of one of the zonal acharyas, and also no longer a member of ISKCON, so he doesn’t have to sugar-coat the story to fit the present dogma. The book does not only give information about the time period itself, but it also covers some relevant events before 1977 and after 1987 as well. This book is well researched, and gives the story from an academic perspective as well as from a devotee perspective. It is a good book for those who want information about the ISKCON history from other sources than the official ISKCON ones.
G. R. S.
January 13, 2024: On this date in history, a reader writes to the author:
Namaste. I am in India for a few months filming videos in Tiruvannamala in Tamil Nadu. Thousands of westerners come here every year. Yesterday in a restaurant I met a lady name Kelly, an American woman about 45 years old who has been around ISKCON for the last ten years. When she finally decided to get initiated she chose Radhanath as her new guru, but two weeks before the initiation ceremony she watched my interview with Henry Doktorski saying that Radhanath was an important member of the conspiracy to murder Sulochan. Kelly told me that in this interview she found Henry’s arguments very convincing and decided against being initiated by Radhanath. She said to me, “Please thank Henry for saving my life.” One of her lady friends got initiated and now offer prayers to Radhanath every day. She says she will look at Henry’s books. At least one small miracle came from Henry writing those books.
Henri Jolicoeur
formerly Hanuman Swami, ACBSP
Montreal, Quebec
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
Henri Jolicoeur (formerly Hanuman Swami, ACBSP)
January 14, 1981: On this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, the ISKCON-approved guru, leader of the New Vrindaban West Virginia Hare Krishna commune and the driving force behind the building of Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold, explains why the murti of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada at the Palace should be adorned with a jeweled crown, “Because he [Prabhupada] is the King of Kings! Ordinarily kings wear a crown, and he is the King of Kings. He has not conquered any land, but he has conquered the modes of material nature. So all these earthly kings, even though they’ve conquered so many acres and miles of land, they’re all controlled by the modes of material nature. But he has conquered the modes of material nature, therefore he is the King of Kings.”
By offering Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada a crown at the Palace, Bhaktipada delighted many New Vrindaban residents. However, most ISKCON devotees, including his GBC godbrothers, believed crowning Prabhupada was sacrilegious, as they considered that Prabhupada was a renunciate of the highest order and not a mere monarch. They believed that crowning Prabhupada as a king reduced his exalted status from a brahmin to a ksatriya.
Although Gaudiya-Vaishnava devotees regularly worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead and his plenary portions, such as Krishna, Balarama, Nrsimhadeva, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and his internal energy, such as Radharani, Sita and Laksmi, with crowns and jewels, they had never worshiped a spiritual master—a jiva tattva living entity—with a crown.
ISKCON devotees considered this insulting to the pure devotee, who, they claimed, would never accept worship like this during his lifetime. Although Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada had routinely accepted worship by sitting on elaborately decorated thrones (vyasasanas), wearing exquisite flower garlands, and sometimes wearing expensive gifts from his disciples, such as gold rings, Rolex wrist watches, embroidered silk chaddars (shawls) and woolen Kashmir sweaters and socks, he had never accepted a crown.
Most New Vrindaban devotees, however, including Radhanath dasa Brahmachari and Kasyapa dasa Brahmachari, recognized the logic in Bhaktipada’s innovation as it was simply a natural extension of the opulence of the Palace. If Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada could be worshiped in great luxury by sitting on a gold-plated altar in a palace of marble and gold, why could he not also be worshiped by placing a crown on his head?
This practice was not unknown in at least one Vaishnava tradition, as a murti of Ramanujacharya (1017–1137)—the founder of the Sri Vaishnava Sampradaya—at the Sri Rangam temple in South India is also worshiped with a crown.
Visitors to the Palace were particularly impressed with Prabhupada’s crown and royal garments. Garga Rishi, a longtime Brijabasi who later became editor for the Brijabasi Spirit and manager of Prabhupada's Palace, explained, “When many visitors saw Srila Prabhupada, they were impressed by his majestic kingly attire. Some would bow down, even people who had never heard of the devotees before. Even the disinterested would suddenly turn soft and ask questions or sit down and read one of Prabhupada’s books. Their faces would change as if something inside was saying, ‘Here is a great leader, a saintly person, a great king, who actually cares about you.’”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 324.
Crowned Prabhupada at his Palace (c. December 1980).
Crowned Prabhupada at his Palace (c. December 1981).
Crowned Prabhupada at his Palace (c. December 1981).
Crowned Prabhupada at his Palace (c. December 1981).
At Prabhupada’s Palace. From left to right: The author, Marudeva, Ambarish, Bhaktipada, Ramachandra, Tapahpunja, Rishi-Kumar, Jagannath-Mishra, Ajeya, Shikshastaka (undated).
January 14, 1989: On this date in history, in a letter to the GBC, Ravindra Svarupa—an ISKCON guru and Philadelphia temple president—warns that Bhaktipada’s liturgical reforms (Western music, English lyrics, chanting the mahamantra in English, giving English names to new initiates, offering women sannyasa, chanting silently and in the dark) are “spooky, sinister and ominous,” and that Bhaktipada might force a deadly confrontation with law enforcement at New Vrindaban in order to die a “martyr’s death.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 20.
Ravindra Svarupa dasa, ACBSP (William H. Deadwyler, III)
January 14, 2018: On this date in history, a reader writes a review of Killing For Krishna, on Amazon:
5 stars. Want the truth about perhaps the most pivotal event in the latter day history of the Hare Krishna movement? Researched to a degree that defies the imagination and painfully objective, as well as completely free from mudslinging and sectarian agenda! This account goes miles beyond Monkey On a Stick in regard to the facts and strenuously avoids its sensationalism. Equally interesting to Krishna devotees and non-devotees. Despite the grisly subject matter, the book presents Krishna consciousness as it is. The book is as independent as anyone could want—it was not filtered through any institutional leadership and represents no one’s vested interest. All my respects to all the devotees who contributed. Srila Prabhupada said that brahmanas adhere to truth. This book cannot, therefore, be displeasing to him.
Bhakta Eric Johanson (formerly Vrindaban-Chandra Swami),
former ISKCON member and former disciple of Hansadutta Maharaja,
Moab, Utah
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
Bhakta Eric Johanson
January 14, 2024: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Today I finished reading Eleven Naked Emperors except for the Afterward and Addendum. This book is essential reading for anybody who is seriously interested in learning about ISKCON’s history. It’s very thoroughly researched, and is well-written and accessible to devotees and secular readers alike. I cannot recommend this book enough. Thank you very much, Henry, for the invaluable service you have done for the devotee community in the writing of this and your other books. Killing For Krishna, I read in pieces, not cover to cover, but Eleven Naked Emperors I did read cover to cover, and now I am going to read Killing For Krishna, again the same way. Emperors is probably the best work of non-fiction I have EVER read. It’s definitely one of the best. Epic, it is.
Brian Birmingham
formerly Veda Vyasa dasa, a disciple of Bir Krishna Goswami
Dallas, Texas
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors.
Brian Birmingham, with his second cousin, Tony Compici, a deacon who assisted in Brian’s confirmation at the Easter Vigil Mass at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Dallas, Texas (April 19, 2025).
January 15, 1968: On this date in history, in a letter to Hayagriva, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains: “Kirtanananda made everything topsy-turvy. . . . He was also very eager to take sannyasa and I awarded him the sannyasa order; and I do not know, he wanted a certificate of his sannyasa. We never took any certificate of our spiritual master or anyone, but he told me that it was required for facility of preaching, so I gave him the certificate, but unfortunately the whole thing was smashed by different doctrine. Now it is understood from Umapati that Kirtanananda does not believe in parampara or in the necessity of scriptural authority. He seems to feel that this is a sort of tyranny.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, pp. 236-237.
Bhaktivedanta Swami and his disciple Kirtanananda dasa Brahmachari (c. early 1967)
January 15, 1984: On this date in history, Moundsville Chamber of Commerce manager, William O. Sievertson, notes, “I can’t see that the Hare Krishnas really offend anybody around here, but their appearance aggravates some people. We get a lot of calls from people from all over who want to come here and see that gold palace.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 221.
The Palace main dome, framed by roses in the Garden of Time (undated).
Prabhupada’s Palace illuminated at night (undated).
Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold, detail (undated).
The Palace dome, flag of Hanuman, and upper portion of gold-leaf tilak (undated).
January 15, 1990: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja, a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s sannyasa guru, confirms that a madhyama adhikari can serve as guru: “[The] uttama adhikari [guru] can [bestow Krishna prema: unadulterated love of God upon his disciples.] But the madhyama adhikari, if he gives initiation, by practicing will show the disciple the way he is going personally, and by following this the disciple will [also] achieve Krishna prema. It can be done.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 131.
Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja (undated)
January 15, 2018: On this date in history, a reader writes a review of Killing For Krishna, on Amazon:
5 stars. Excellent, important, timely. This book is an incredibly well researched, nuanced and intelligent treatise on one of the more notorious chapters of ISKCON’s history. In contrast to earlier accounts (such as Monkey on a Stick), this book offers an insider’s view on ISKCON, New Vrindavan and Swami Bhaktipada. Indeed, Doktorski references sources only an insider can have access to (he had access to the Keith Gordon Ham/Swami Bhaktipada Archives), and the story he tells is a story to be heard. All of this, and the lucid style of the author, adds up to a highly recommended book—for both devotees, former devotees, anyone ever touched by, or interested in ISKCON, and, above all, for researchers. A new standard work on ISKCON and its history. Perhaps, just perhaps, this book will ignite the open dialogue the movement so sorely needs. Let’s hope.
Zinnober
Germany
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
January 15, 2023: On this date in history, the author completes the Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, and explains how his heart was finally healed and freed from 15 years of conditioning and illusion caused by deranged devotion.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 260.
Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9 front and back cover
January 15, 2023: On this date in history, a reader posts a comment on Facebook:
It is my opinion that every person interested in Krishna Dharma, especially if you are a long time in ISKCON, should read these books, Gold, Guns and God, by Henry Doktorski. They are to be read as a duty; not an easy read, because they give laser-beam truth of what was really happening behind the scenes. All beings do that to some extent; they pretend they are fine and happy, etc., but religious groups usually put on a big show of pretense. It’s human nature. These books show very clearly what was really going on and reveal so much hypocrisy which we can all learn from. And we can choose to not follow blindly with pop-star worship of spiritual teachers. Often the negative experiences are the best teachers. Nothing has been held back here; everything is the naked truth. Most folks want tea-cup spirituality. If that’s your thing, don’t read these books. The awful truth is like bitter medicine. Well, Henry’s books are like that.
Clifford McKellar Kirk (Keshimardana dasa)
Derrylin, Enniskillen, United Kingdom
Clifford Kirk
January 15, 2023: On this date in history, a reader posts a comment on Facebook:
What I find most interesting in your writings, and that is different from other ex-Hare Krishnas, is that there is no criticism of Krishna consciousness. Only the historical facts of what happened. In this view, I see it as a great service to the Hare Krishna Movement, as to become aware to not become a cult as it happened in New Vrindavan and still happens in many cases in the present time, where people serve bogus gurus who in reality are sense enjoyers.
Ramananda Dasa
Vrindaban, India
January 15, 2024: On this date in history, a reader posts a comment on Facebook:
Killing For Krishna, was the first of Henry Doktorski’s books that I read. I honestly could not (did not want to) put it down. Tragic chapter in the history of a wonderful movement.
Russ Thomas
Post, Texas
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
January 1964: On or around this date in history, Keith Ham and Howard Wheeler discover peyote, a small, spineless cactus which contains psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline. Howard described his mind-altering experience on the drug which forever changed his life and perspective.
He said, “It [psychedelic drugs] tore the doors of perception off their hinges to reveal a flaming Sistine vision. . . . I actually left my body and journeyed into the universe to behold the Milky Way from an incredible distance, I discovered my real self extended beyond the body was eternal.”
Howard wrote in his autobiography:
I turn and see Keith before me, deified in dazzling light, blue and gold auras playing about him. I feel within a deep echo traveling from some awesome infinite Being into my flesh, inarticulate in mind, bursting through my hands with cosmic energy. Spouting wings of ecstasy, I leap rebounding through space, and time only a word in the dictionary. Cushioned by accommodating universal float, I am myself the universe throbbing infinite space with inextinguishable light, an infinity of million lighted centers of the world whose arcs sing to broad Bartokian violins, singing the word and spirit throughout the cosmos—mind, energy and love catapulted and triangular unity.
Then I turn suddenly into a monstrous throbbing phallus spouting the genesis of orgasms. Boys, I think, and myriad loins thrust at me at once. I shrink from them in terror.
“Away with them, Keith,” I cry as phalloi withdraw into unseen pants. Freude, schöner Götterfunken [Joy, beautiful spark of divinity].
Keith leans forward on the bed before me, then stands. His features metamorphasizing into an Aztec god’s, muscles bulging fiery energy, his flaming hand outstretching towards me as Michelangelo’s Creation’s God swept the touch of life to Adam, and I, my godship latent focusing and exploding, lift tapered receptive hand to meet the touch.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 100. Images: Peyote1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
It tore the doors of perception off their hinges to reveal a flaming Sistine vision. . . . I actually left my body and journeyed into the universe to behold the Milky Way from an incredible distance, I discovered my real self extended beyond the body was eternal.
Spouting wings of ecstasy, I leap rebounding through space, and time only a word in the dictionary. Cushioned by accommodating universal float, I am myself the universe throbbing infinite space with inextinguishable light, an infinity of million lighted centers of the world whose arcs sing to broad Bartokian violins, singing the word and spirit throughout the cosmos—mind, energy and love catapulted and triangular unity.
Then I turn suddenly into a monstrous throbbing phallus spouting the genesis of orgasms.
Boys, I think, and myriad loins thrust at me at once. I shrink from them in terror. “Away with them, Keith,” I cry as phalloi withdraw into unseen pants. Freude, schöner Götterfunken.
Keith leans forward on the bed before me, then stands. His features metamorphasizing into an Aztec god’s, muscles bulging fiery energy, his flaming hand outstretching towards me as Michelangelo’s Creation’s God swept the touch of life to Adam, and I, my godship latent focusing and exploding, lift tapered receptive hand to meet the touch.
Early January 1975: On or around this date in history, while speaking to the congregation of the Trinity Episcopal Church on Oak Avenue in Moundsville (founded in 1836), Kirtanananda Maharaja explains, “We must be God conscious at every moment of the day. That is our purpose. Our purpose is not to convert you away from being Christians, but to help you become better Christians.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 233.
Trinity Episcopal Church, 1 Oak Avenue, Moundsville.
January 1986: On or around this date in history, the conspiracy to assassinate Sulochan revs up into high gear: Sulochan, who is writing a book exposing the eleven ISKCON gurus as pretenders, walks into Govinda’s Restaurant on Venice Boulevard near the Los Angeles ISKCON temple. On finding out that Ramesvara Swami, the zonal acharya for Southern California, is in the restaurant, Sulochan goes back to his van, gets a .45 pistol, and tucks it in the front of his pants. He tries to re-enter the restaurant, but is barred from entering. According to documents in the Swami Bhaktipada Archive, when Ramesvara hears about this, he says, “He [Sulochan] should be transmigrated to his next body.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 263.
Ramesvara Swami (Robert Grant, undated)
January 16, 2021: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1 on Amazon:
Five Stars—Disturbing, eye opening, exciting, and relevant - a must read!
I had to put this book down several times due to its graphic and sexual nature. This part is not even the author’s writing—it’s entirely the unpublished diary of Howard Wheeler (and all I can say is Holy Crap!). Please be warned that the sexual (homosexual) escapades, seduction of a minor, and deviant behavior is entirely captured in great detail in the first person. Brace yourself as you will be introduced to a world I was completely unfamiliar with—the promiscuous world of anonymous male homosexual encounters—going to public bathrooms and other places for gratification.
From a historical perspective, the work laid out in this volume will shed plenty of light and help us understand how New Vrindaban came to be. Additionally, it is now easier to understand why the demise of New Vrindaban came to be under Keith Ham.
From a broader perspective, this book is extremely relevant and important in today’s political landscape. ISKCON and Prabhupada’s prescription that, “the spiritual master is never at fault! And even if he is, it is your duty as his disciple to do whatever he asks” set up the perfect framework from which Keith could operate, exploit, deceive, sexually abuse children, lie, steal, and deviate philosophically in New Vrindaban. It made me super sad to read that Prabhupada had very serious problems with Keith from the very beginning. The writing was already on the walls of 26 Second Avenue.
Reading this book was frightening, as the parallels between Keith and Trump turn out to be examples of the dangers of “deranged devotion.”
Pedro Ramos
Atlanta, Georgia
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1.
Pedro Ramos
January 17, 1967: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami flies from New York City to San Francisco, where he opens the second ISKCON temple, with the help of Mukunda dasa Adhikari and others. Kirtanananda and Hayagriva soon follow from New York and join him on the west coast. Here we see Hayagriva and Prabhupada chanting with devotees at the beach in Golden Gate Park. The weather is a bit chilly.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 203.
Bhaktivedanta Swami, Hayagriva and other disciples chant Hare Krishna at the Pacific Ocean beach at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.
January 17, 1973: On this date in history, the property called Guruban, where Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold will eventually be built, is purchased. The Palace was dedicated 5.5 years later, in September 1979.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 196.
U. S. Geological Survey topographic map of McCreary Ridge showing location of principle sites of New Vrindaban. Guruban is where Prabhupada's Palace of Gold is located.
January 17, 1974: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains, “So the human law is imperfect always. . . . There is partiality always. But in God’s law there is no such thing, partiality.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 57.
A statue of Themis, the Greek Goddess (actually, a Titan) of Divine and Human Law and Justice.
January 17, 2024: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Prabhu, I started reading your book, Killing For Krishna. Your Introduction and Preface themselves *Enlightened* my consciousness. I had tears of emotion just reading these sections. I don’t know, when I complete this book, what my consciousness is going to feel about ISKCON. Srila Prabhupada, whom I adored so much with his philosophy initially, though I never met him, was truly inspired, but I too realized this after 20 years in association with many so called fakes. I have been with ISKCON since last 20 years. Everything was hidden & was thoroughly brainwashed. I know how those fake, who controlled ISKCON, as we were treated as slaves under their control. Anyways, I am not going into the past, but my practice will continue as our goal is back to Godhead. Thanks a ton, Prabhu!
S. N.
Bangalore, India
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
January 17, 2025: On this date in history, a reader posts a comment on Facebook:
When I started my KC journey in the brahmacari ashram at New Vrindavan, I was surrounded by ashram-mates who were Radhanath Swami disciples. I wouldn't say there was undue pressure to take initiation from him eventually. That was entirely my choice. But he was definitely presented as the most attractive option.
Initially, it was wonderful and inspiring. I received no small amount of personal attention from him, especially when I spent time doing research at the Govardhan Eco village for my doctoral dissertation.
All the while...you hear those rumours. They sneak into your search engine searches. Something had gone terribly wrong there. Something that wasn’t really processed, even if people said it was (the cognitive dissonance of living with many of those devotees at New Vrindaban during my ashram stay, looking like people who had moved on from that period but who really hadn’t moved on).
It was Henry Doktorski’s books which really clarified that those rumours actually had a lot of validity to them. That the person I took initiation from, that I was taught was my gateway to Goloka if I pleased him, who was and IS considered a perfect pure devotee by SO MANY people, was a very confused, fanatical young man in the 1980s who was the right hand of the cult of Bhaktipada (listen to Radhanath Swami’s lectures from that time—he is so fanatical it’s hard to listen to). That Radhanath Swami is credibly accused of being involved in the murder of a devotee. Even worse, I cannot tell you anything he did to protect any of the children who were being sexually abused at that time.
You can say, “well, that was then and now he has grown and learned from that.” Has he? If one personally witnessed what could happen with a cult of personality at such close quarters, why would one then take on that cult of personality as your own? Try asking him about this. Try asking him what he was doing when those children were being sexually abused by people he later publicly forgave and supported.
I don’t wish the heartbreak I feel on anyone, even as sometimes, in my anger, I wish this whole damn thing would just fall on all of your heads.
So yes it is always a risk to put your trust in someone as a guru-figure. I just wish it didn’t require so much brainwashing and the necessity to see/hear/speak no evil just to function as a devotee with these “gurus.”
But the model of guru I was presented with (the ISKCON model) requires a kind of surrender of one’s critical thinking, of one’s empathy towards others and the world, and of any capacities one might have to see something wrong and THEN say something about it, that I can’t but consider that model way too close to genuine cult-thinking, if not a genuine cult itself.
Even amongst the seemingly well-adjusted, non-fanatical members of this “cult” there is a deep attachment to the “exalted” status of their guru and the “exalted” status they feel being a disciple of said guru. Just try poking at that even amongst the most gentle of the disciples and a monster will come out.
I know that back in my most committed days to Radhanath Swami I would’ve wanted to literally pull the tongue of out of someone like myself now who is saying the things I am saying now.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
January 1969: On or around this date in history, 22-year-old Shama dasi (Cheryl Wheeler) leaves her home State of California and comes to live with her new husband (Hayagriva/Howard Wheeler) in Columbus, Ohio (where Howard works as an Instructor of English at Ohio State University) and New Vrindaban, West Virginia (on weekends). She serves as a typist and works on Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s books. At this time in her young life, she is hopeful for the future and dedicated to her spiritual master. She has no idea her husband (a life-long and incurable homosexual) was forced to marry her by Prabhupada, or that her marriage is destined for suffering and failure.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 92.
Polaroid photo of Hayagriva’s wife, Cheryl Ann Morris Wheeler (Shama dasi) at New Vrindaban (July 1969).
January 1979: On or around this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami declares, “I would rather die than miss the brahma-muhurta [the time just before dawn reserved for chanting japa and other spiritual practices].”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 164.
Kirtanananda Swami, on the porch of his cabin at Bahulaban, New Vrindaban (c. 1977)
January 1979: On or around this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada declares, during a darshan at New Vrindaban, “Ordinarily we don’t break the law, we should not do anything that is illegal. [But] Sankirtan cannot be illegal, no matter what any policeman or government says. Sankirtan cannot be illegal. That is higher law. . . . They may say it is illegal, but it is not illegal.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 84.
Kirtanananda Swami plays the tamboura at Pittsburgh ISKCON (1972).
January-March 1980: During these dates in history, the author serves as the president of Pittsburgh ISKCON at 1112 North Negley Avenue. Here’s a story from my tenure as temple president of ISKCON Pittsburgh from early 1980: Oh, to be a brahmachari (celibate monk)!
Pittsburgh ISKCON was essentially little more than a New Vrindaban sankirtan outpost. Weekend warriors (money collectors) from New Vrindaban, while working the area, stayed overnight in the ashram at the Pittsburgh temple.
I remember one night, a sankirtan mother came in late after a hard day doing the pick. She was a Prabhupada disciple, Muralidhara’s wife (Muralidhara, perhaps ISKCON’s best artist at the time, lived at New Vrindaban and produced spectacular paintings for Prabhupada's Palace, the temple, and he was commissioned to produce two enormous murals for the Wheeling Civic Center).
She was about 26 years old, I was 24. I thought she was quite attractive and pretty and energetic and sexy with a slender waist, but on this particular evening she was distraught after a very bad day on the pick and needed a shoulder to cry on. No one else was awake except for me, so recognizing my duty to my spiritual master and Krishna, despite the fact that I was a pukka brahmachari and not supposed to associate with women, especially hotties like her, I stepped up to the plate for my service.
We sat on a step of the stairway leading from the temple room to the ashram upstairs, and she poured her heart out about the extremely terrible and stressful day with profuse tears dripping from her eyes. I consoled her, and preached to her, that we should try to be steady in happiness and distress, heat and cold, pleasure and pain, and big collections and small collections. My natural inclination was to put my arms around her and give her hugs and affectionate petting, as any father would do for a distraught teary-eyed young daughter. However, as I was a strict brahmachari at the time (I followed the regulations totally), I refrained from this natural expression of compassion and remained inches away without touching her. It wasn’t easy for me. Most normal men I think are naturally protective of women, especially a gorgeous, distraught, crying woman, and she desperately needed some masculine attention, but I kept my distance, although, to be frank, I would have appreciated some intimate female association myself.
After five or ten minutes, her tears stopped, she thanked me, and she went upstairs to the ashram.
I guess I passed the test. I don’t know if she was actually distraught, or was she ordered by the New Vrindaban administration to try to tempt me into illicit activities to test my determination? In any case, soon after, in March 1980, I was given a van filled with broken candles, a traveling partner (my godbrother Dasarath dasa), and ordered to go out on the pick, and not return until all the candles were sold! I remained on the pick for seven years, not including a few breaks here and there.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 60.
The author plays the harmonium at the New Vrindaban Bahulaban temple. Drawing by Krishna Katha (Chris Carlson), published in the February 1982 Brijabasi Spirit.
January 1986: On or around this date in history, Janmastami (John Sinkowski), a decorated Vietnam combat veteran who makes a substantial amount of money for New Vrindaban from his flower-selling business in Philadelphia, visits New Vrindaban after the Christmas marathon and is recruited by Radhanath into the murder conspiracy. Janmastami subsequently drives to California with a handgun and a vial of cyanide, where he searches for Sulochan in Berkeley and Los Angeles. However, Sulochan is no longer in California; he is staying with his parents in Royal Oak, Michigan.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 216.
Janmastami dasa (John Sinkowski) at New Vrindaban (1991)
January 18, 2018: On this date in history, a reader writes a review of Killing For Krishna, on Amazon:
Killing for Krishna—The Danger of Deranged Devotion by Henry Doktorski is a nuanced, intelligent, and impeccably researched work on events and developments which continue to haunt ISKCON to this very day. The author writes from a unique perspective: he has methodically studied the Keith Gordon Ham/Swami Bhaktipada Archive for fifteen years, and as a former inhabitant of the New Vrindaban Community, he is both personal witness and chronologist of most of the events described in this book.
Additionally, and in contrast to former accounts of the decline of the New Vrindaban Community, Doktorski refrains from oversimplifying an inherently complex narrative. Rather, he acknowledges ambiguity where appropriate and clarity where it is possible. The outcome, then, is an extremely well written, and important and timely work—and while it is foreseeable that its publication may not be welcome by everyone within ISKCON, one would hope that it nonetheless will be instrumental in opening an honest and unbiased reflection within a movement which so far has been somewhat reluctant to meet up to its past and responsibility.
Professor Dr. Alexander Batthyány,
the Viktor Frankl Chair for Philosophy and Psychology at the International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality of Liechtenstein
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
Alexander Batthyány: Das Anerkennen der Wirklichkeit ist der erste Schritt auf dem Weg zur Heilung
January 18, 2023: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Subject: New Vrindaban Recordings
Hello Henry,
Thank you for uploading the vintage New Vrindaban interfaith musical recordings on YouTube. I have been listening to them for many days now. I have to say they are a real eye opener. I had no idea what this experimental era of New Vrindaban sounded like. I saw the photos and read the stories of this time era, but hearing what you were actually doing really changes things. For some reason I never thought the Western classical music at the City of God would be so technically proficient and, well. . . musically convincing.
I think you were really on to something with this musical approach to presenting the Vaishnava philosophy within the framework of Western tonality. I hate to say this, as it seems to reflect well on Kirtanananda, but maybe on this idea he was correct.
I also purchased your book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8. Looking forward to reading more about this era of New Vrindaban.
Best Regards,
JJD
Jersey City, New Jersey
P. S. The Ragamathani devi dasi recordings are extremely beautiful and sincere. The reworking of the classic themes are quite successful and many moments of her recital are very moving. The children’s bhajans are wonderful, but knowing the history: sad and tragic.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8.
To hear Ragamathani sing, go to YouTube.
Visiting flutist Miranda Krenzer, Hrishikesh on piano, and soprano Ragamathani perform a Krishna-ized version of Mozart’s motet Exsultate, jubilate at Bhaktipada’s 50th birthday party (September 7, 1987).
January 1986: On or around this date in history, Tapahpunja Swami (Terry Sheldon), the president of Cleveland ISKCON, flies to California and attempts to convince Yudhisthira (Jeff Cornia)—a drug addict and dealer who serves at ISKCON San Diego as the “bouncer”—to assassinate Sulochan.
Yudhisthira says he’ll do it for $5,000 by giving Sulochan a heroin overdose. Tapahpunja, a cheapskate, balks at the price and returns to Cleveland, Ohio.
Around the same time, Radhanath Swami (Richard Slavin), the most beloved and respected sannyasi at the New Vrindaban community, visits Los Angeles ISKCON. Some say he speaks with Ramesvara Swami (Robert Grant), the ISKCON guru for Southern California and head of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, and requests the cooperation of his Los Angeles ksatriya “enforcers” to help the New Vrindaban hit men (Janmastami and Tirtha) to hunt down and assassinate Sulochan.
Soon after, Ramesvara speaks to his security guard disciple, Krishna Katha (Jeffrey Breier), who carries a handgun and is known to Los Angeles ISKCON residents as the “Campus Cop,” and tells him, “K. K., if you ever see Sulochan, call New Vrindaban.”
Regarding documentation: The story about Tapahpunja comes from documents in the Swami Bhaktipada Archive. Radhanath flying to Los Angeles in January 1986 was confirmed by a telephone call from a Los Angeles devotee to me, who said he definitely saw Radhanath Swami at Los Angeles ISKCON in January 1986, and he suspects his visit was related to Sulochan. The story about Ramesvara and his disciple Krishna Katha appears in the 1991 Martinsburg West Virginia Trial Transcripts. K. K. testified at that trial, and those are his exact words as reported by the court. This is all noted in Killing For Krishna.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
Tapahpunja Swami and Radhanath Swami offer respects to Tulsi devi in the New Vrindaban temple room (c. 1983).
January 19, 2015: On this date in history, Willem Vandenberg (Varnadi das), a scholar who joined ISKCON in Amsterdam in 1990 and defected 20 years later, publishes a paper titled “From Master To Disciple: The Disciplic Succession That Never Was.” See From Master To Disciple
January 19, 2024: On this date in history, a reader writes to the author:
Henry Prabhu, I served as a faithful servant for 24 years in the ISKCON ashram, and then I was thrown out onto the streets!! I began “researching” about this stuff (anomalies in ISKCON) when it was not even legal to talk about it in the temple. I was marked as, what did they say, incorrigible! I really appreciate your work, Prabhu. The value and importance of your work will be felt for hundreds of years!!!! I will make a mission to buy all your books and work on presenting them to the world where ever I go.
Vaughn Knee
London
United Kingdom
For more about this topic, see Henry’s 10-volume series “Gold, Guns and God.” Gold, Guns and God.
Vaughn Knee (Vidyapati dasa).
January 19, 2025: On this date in history, Bhaktipada’s successor and current link in the disciplic succession, His Divine Grace Madhusudan dasa Bapuji, currently living at Anand Vrindavan Dhama in Ulhasnagar, India, shares his transcendental knowledge with devotees in Pakistan at Sri Radha Raas Bihari Centre by video call.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10. Image: BapujiVideoCall
Poster to promote Bapuji’s video call.
January 20, 1976: On this date in history, in a letter to Jayatirtha dasa, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada says the Dallas gurukula (currently under investigation by the Dallas Board of Education for violations of children’s safety regulations) should be moved to Vrindaban, India, and once a year during April, May and June, the children may return home to live with their parents.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 294.
The Dallas Gurukula (publicity photo).
January 1986: On or around this date in history, Back to Godhead, the official magazine for ISKCON, publishes an editorial by Satsvarupa dasa Goswami which compares Bhaktipada to Jesus Christ, Haridasa Thakur, and Prahlad Maharaja. Sulochan tells his buddy, “Puranjana, did you see this? This article by Satsvarupa, it paints a big bull’s eye target on my back. He is making it look like I am criticizing Jesus, Haridasa Thakur and Prahlada.” Puranjana says, “We began to call this article, ‘Our Death Certificate.’ It was the GBC’s way of fanning fanatical action against us, and it could be severe.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 104.
Cover of the January 1986 issue of Back To Godhead which includes the editorial by Satsvarupa dasa Goswami about Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada titled “Tribute to a Pure Devotee.”
January 20, 2014: On this date in history, Brijabasi Spirit Online reports about Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold, “Today, chunks are missing from the outer wall, wrought iron pieces are rusting, the chatras and other cast concrete pieces are crumbling, and the granite on the steps leading up to the Palace is shifting from faulty concrete underneath.”
Eight years earlier, GBC representative Malati dasi plainly stated that New Vrindaban needed “a miracle” to survive.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 29.
Makeshift sign warning visitors to Prabhupada's Palace of Gold to avoid this area due to unsafe conditions.
January 20, 2020: On this date in history, Edwin Bryant, Professor of Hindu Philosophy and Religion at Rutgers University, writes the Foreword to Eleven Naked Emperors. He writes, “Doktorski has done an outstanding job putting the entire drama into a very well documented and highly readable account. His tone is remarkably non-partisan, non-polemical and he has tried sincerely to be fair and impartial. I might add, for those who feel that dirty laundry should not be displayed in public, that there is nothing in Doktorski’s work that seeks to undermine the faith of the devotees in Krishna or, for that matter, in the institution of ISKCON.”
For more about this topic, see Henry's book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. xxx.
Edwin Bryant
January 21, 1976: On this date in history, during a morning walk in Mayapur, India, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains, “We have to kill this civilization of mudhas [foolish men]. That is Krishna consciousness movement. Paritranaya sadhunam vinasaya ca duskrtam [Bhagavad-gita 4.8]. Those who are actually human being, you have to give them Krishna. And those who are mudhas [less than human], we have to kill them. This is our business. Kill all the mudhas and give Krishna to the sane man. Yes. That will prove that you are really Krishna’s. We are not nonviolent. We are violent to the mudhas.”
P. S. Mudha is a Sanskrit word that means “fool” or “idiot.” It can also refer to a state of confusion or ignorance. In yoga, it can describe a state of mental dullness or sleepiness. This photo appeared in the article “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Guns ‘n’ Ammo, Guns ‘n’ Ammo,” High Times (January 1981), which told the story of Hansadutta, and his infatuation with guns. We think the photo was staged by the magazine using an actor dressed as a devotee.
But the photo accurately depicts the mindset of Hansadutta and some of his disciples, as well as followers of Kirtanananda Swami, who also sometimes carried guns, some high-powered. Prabhupada himself said, “Our men should have guns and be trained to kill!” He said this to his personal servant and chef, Nanda Kumar, who decades later told me.
For more about this topic, see Henry's book Killing For Krishna, p. 507.
Image from "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Guns ‘n’ Ammo, Guns ‘n’ Ammo," High Times magazine (January 1981).
January 22, 1968: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada coins the name “New Vrindaban” in a letter to his disciple Hansadutta (Hans Jürgen Kary), suggesting that he purchase land for a country ashram.
To learn more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 12.
January 22, 2025: On this date in history, a reader comments on Facebook:
Henry, thanks for your books bringing light to the darkness that permeates ISKCON. That is the only way it can be reformed. There must be accountability.
C. F. Link
Orlando, Florida
January 23: January, 1972: On or around this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada tells his disciple Svati dasi how to train children, “We should avoid as far as possible any physical punishment to train children. It is better to use sweet words or if it is absolutely necessary to punish then you may bind with ropes in one place or show the cane, but do not use [force]—like that.”
To learn more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 231.
To punish him for his mischief, according to Vaishnava mythology, Mother Yasoda ties up her little son Krishna with rope to a heavy grinding mortar.
In contemporary society, duct tape also works well to restrain naughty children.
Rope worked to restrain disobedient Krishna 5,000 years ago, and today rope still works to bind disobedient children.
January 23, 2019: On this date in history, a reader writes to the author:
Dear Hrishikesh—Hare Krishna!
I have finished reading your book Killing For Krishna. Once I started to read it, it was difficult to put down. The book is an exhaustive, comprehensive and very objective analysis of the unfortunate murder of Sulochan. You definitely are a writer and you are a “writer” with a purpose: to shed light on things which are usually “beyond the veil.”
As I read your book, this is what I constantly felt on a more subtle level: your deeply felt disappointment and frustration with the way that things transpired. I did not detect resentment but rather a profound “wound” left by Kirtanananda’s actions.
I do not feel that you are on a “crusade” to pull down anyone or an organization. Your personal feelings about ISKCON have some merit; I just hope that things will be better—for everyone involved.
Once again, thank you for your diligent and resourceful book. Yes, I felt a deep frustration and pain within its pages.
B. dasa,
Dallas, Texas
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing for Krishna.
January 24, 1948: On this date in history, Ronald Nay is born in a small mid-western American town. He comes to New Vrindaban and receives diksa and the name Gopinath dasa on Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Prabhupada’s appearance day (December 13, 1973). He becomes the headmaster at the New Vrindaban Nandagram Gurukula.
He serves as the head pujari at the new Radha Vrindaban Chandra temple (July 1983) and receives sannyasa initiation and the name Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami on June 4, 1986. He plays the pipe organ in the City of God Temple Orchestra. He becomes Bhaktipada’s secretary, treasurer, confidant and most-obsequious sycophant.
When Bhaktipada is released from prison, Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami moves with Bhaktipada permanently to India, where Bhaktipada still has hundreds of adoring disciples and thousands of followers. After Bhaktipada’s death, he becomes known as His Divine Grace Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami.
On August 30, 1999: ISKCON’s Central Office of Child Protection concludes an investigation and determines that he had physically abused and sexually molested boys at New Vrindaban, including forcing at least one to perform oral sex on him. He is presently supervising the construction of Bhaktipada’s magnificent Samadhi and Guest House for pilgrims alongside the Parikrama Marg in Vrindaban, India.
To learn more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 143.
To watch a video of the 71st Vyasa Puja Festival for “His Divine Grace,” go to: Video
Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami (Ronald Nay, formerly Gopinath dasa).
January 24, 2008: On this date in history, in a letter to the author, Tirtha in prison threatens the author that if he publishes his forthcoming history book(s) about New Vrindaban, “You will gain nothing but pain and suffering in your life.”
P. S. from the author: “Hey, godbrother, Tirtha in prison! Guess what! Publishing my ISKCON history books HAS NOT brought me pain and suffering! In fact, I’ve made dozens, if not hundreds, of friends! When are you gonna own up and admit that Radhanath Swami was the Leader of the Pack?”
To learn more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. xv.
“That son of a bitch [Sulochan] is . . . going to have to be killed, and I am the one that is going to do it.”—Tirtha (Thomas A. Drescher), New Vrindaban’s chief “enforcer” and hit man, in court (undated).
January 26, 1976: On this date in history, after the Dallas, Texas, Board of Education threatens to close the ISKCON gurukula, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada tells school administrators to close the school and move the children to Vrindaban, India, where they will be free from oppressive government regulation, and where they can practice austerities and “beg from door to door and collect enough to feed themselves nicely.”
To learn more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 228.
January 26, 1986: On this date in history, Sulochan, who is trying to bring down the mighty ISKCON guru Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada by writing press releases and working on his book The Guru Business, leaves his parents’ home in Royal Oak Michigan and drives 270 miles in a blinding snowstorm to the Ohio Valley with a hand gun “for his own protection.” He rents a room at the Scott Motel in Saint Clairsville, Ohio, and works on press releases and articles for newspapers and television news reporters. He notifies the Marshall County sheriff where he is staying.
To learn more about this topic, see Henry’s Killing For Krishna, p. 232.
On the same day, Bhaktipada decides that the New Vrindaban boys at the Bhaktivedanta Gurukula in Vrindaban, India, should return back home.
For more about this topic, see Henry's books Killing For Krishna and Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 359.
Map showing route from Royal Oak, Michigan, to St. Clairsville, Ohio.
January 26, 2019: On this date in history, a reader writes to the author about Killing For Krishna:
Hare Krishna, Hrishikesh Prabhu,
So I’m once again struggling emotionally with this entire sordid affair, and having been a part of it. I’m still struggling with the fact that I went to New Vrindaban to serve Srila Prabhupada and ended up involved in criminal activity, including murder. I have unplugged from social media to avoid dealing with it. But I stand by what I said in a previous message to you.
I will just tell you that when Sulochan was being stalked much of the communications went through my telecom systems. At some point I was told directly that “they are going to kill him.” I don’t want to go into any more details, you’ve got all the players right as far as I know and you know more details than I at this point. Besides it was so long ago that details are getting harder for me to remember.
I was surprised to hear that you didn’t know beforehand, about the murder conspiracy; to me it seemed common knowledge at that time, but thinking back, this may be blurred memory. But just like the morning after the murder at mangal-aroti there was like this electricity in the air and a buzz of whisper, “The demon was killed!” This was only hours after the murder. Who told whom?
Anyway, the thing is that you have put it all together, and as I have said numerous times, that the accounts in your book are as I remember them. I haven’t started reading it again but I may soon. And as far as why I am saying this now there is no specific reason. Maybe because I need to get this off my chest before death. Mostly I want to defend my fellow devotees who have spoken the truth about this and have been discredited as liars.
Your servant,
Jyotirdhama dasa, ACBSP (Joe Pollock, Jr.)
Richland, Washington, former Telecom Manager at New Vrindaban
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book "Killing for Krishna."
Jyotirdhama dasa (Joseph Pollock, Jr.).
January 27, 1973: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada declares, “Gurukula is our most important project. If the children are given a Krishna conscious education from early childhood then there is great hope for the future of the world.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 219.
Advertisement for the Dallas Gurukula in Back To Godhead magazine.
January 27, 1975: On this date in history, in a letter to one of his leading disciples, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada notes, “It is now evident that some of our top men are very much ambitious and there has been so many fall downs.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 30.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s eleven leading disciples.
January 28, 2013: On this date in history, during a telephone conversation with the author, a New Vrindaban gurukula alumnus (Bhima-Karma Saragrahi) remembers his arch nemesis:
Gopinath [the headmaster of the Nandagram Boys School] gave me the beatings of my life when I was just four years old. He was very violent. In public he came across as a gentle brahmin, but these people are basically weak, their egos are very weak, and so that natural propensity to assert one’s own space gets pressurized and built up and when they come in contact with someone who is definitely weaker than them, when they’re convinced this person is weaker than them, then that pressure gets vented out.
I was a brahmachari at the Brooklyn ISKCON temple in 1996 or 1997, when RVC Swami (Gopinath), who beat me severely many times when I was four years old, showed up at a Sunday feast. He was nonchalant. For him it was just another day, and he saw me and said, “Oh, Bhima Karma! How’s your mother?” like we were old buddies or something. At first I froze. I got into a state of vapidness, lack of presence and emotional reclusiveness. It’s like I want to do something, but I just go into a state of shock, like I’m a little weak boy again.
I went downstairs into a little room, and sat on a bench for a while, and thought about it for awhile, and I decided, “I’m done turning into this weak little boy when some teacher who abused me shows up here. This is my place, my home, and I’m not going to let him come in here into my home and make me feel like this.”
And so I went back upstairs and told him, without anger or aggression (by nature I’m too compassionate and forgiving), “If you want to come in here and talk to me and clear things up, I’m happy to do that, even if you come at two in the morning and wake me up because you need to talk about it. I’m here, because I like to have conversations about the truth. That’s what I’m alive for; that is exciting and interesting.”
I continued, “But if you want to come in here and act like nothing happened, brush it off and play this game, I’m not gonna stand for it.” He kept beating around the bush, saying, “Oh, you don’t have to be like this.” I said, “I’m serious. If you’re gonna keep coming here and acting like nothing happened, play this game with me, I’m going to make you leave.” And RVC Swami kept talking around. He could not reply to what I was saying. And then I said, “Okay. You have to leave right now.” This was the Sunday feast; there were a lot of people everywhere: Indian people. He said, “This is Krishna’s temple, it’s free for anybody.” I said, “You’ve abused your privileges.”
I took him from behind his neck and grabbed his left arm, bent his neck down, and I dragged him out though the temple to the front door, kicked the front door open, whacked his head against the door, and threw him down on the sidewalk and he hit the pavement. By then there was a crowd of congregation members around us, and I think it was Amiya Vilasa Swami who came behind me. He shouted, “What do you think you’re doing?”
I turned around and my lips were shaking—that’s how I know I’m upset—when my lips quiver. My whole body was shaking, my fists were clenched, my eyes were opened. I shouted in a very loud voice, “While you were busy chanting on your beads, this guy was busy beating us and molesting us. What are you gonna do about it?”
He just turned around and left, and so did everybody else. Not once did anyone come to me at that time or at any other time and ask me, “Are you okay? Who was that man?” No one bothered to know. For me, it was about me asserting myself rather than punishing him.
When RVC Swami returned to Bhaktipada’s Interfaith Sanctuary at 25 First Avenue, devotees asked him, “How did you get that nasty black eye?” RVC told them he got mugged.
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 40.
Gopinath (later known as Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami) teaching at Nandagram Boys School.
Bhima Karma.
January 28, 2013: On this date in history, during a telephone conversation with the author, a New Vrindaban gurukula alumnus (Bhima-Karma Saragrahi) remembers the morning when his father was murdered (June 10, 1983):
I was six years old when my dad was murdered. I remember Sri Galim [Gary Gardner], the headmaster [of the New Nandagram School at Wilson Valley], told my teacher Gauranga [Fernando Rodriguez] to make sure I saw my mother [Kusumapida] before mangal aroti. We boys at the gurukula would bus up to the Bahulaban temple for mangal aroti every morning, as we just recently got the [new] school [building] in Wilson Valley [New Nandagram]. When we arrived at Bahulaban, I went to see my mother. I had to knock on the door for a long time, a long time. She wouldn’t answer, but I knew she was in there, so I kept knocking.
I hardly ever got to see my mother when I was little; she was always on the “pick” [fundraising on the road] and even when she was back at New Vrindaban, we were often prohibited from seeing our parents—it was believed we would fall into Maya [illusion] if we experienced parental affection—so when I got to see my mother it was a big deal, very emotional. I could feel my heart. I kept a lot of physical feelings in my chest.
I remember knocking on that door, and knocking on that door, and finally she came out and she looked like a wreck: her hair was unkempt, she was dressed in a simple gown and her face looked tired and ragged and worn. She sat me on the steps outside, and she stood against the railing facing me. After she composed herself, she whispered, “Chakradhari’s gone. Your father is gone.” “He was gone?” I thought, not comprehending that he was dead. Then my mother said gravely, “Tirtha did it.”
She cried a lot. The understanding that my father was murdered didn’t hit me with gravity at the time, but what bothered me was that my mother was so upset. She was crying. This made me feel very sad.
[After seeing my mother] I went back to my ashram at the temple. After mangal aroti, Bhagavatam class and breakfast, we boys had a little time to play, so I started bragging to the kids about my father’s death, because this was something special that happened to me, something that makes me a point of interest. At least that’s how I saw it in my six-year-old mind. So I started telling the other boys in my ashram, “My father’s dead and Tirtha killed him.”
Immediately my teacher Gauranga [Fernando Rodriguez] and another teacher Jiva Goswami [Jacques Meloche from Quebec] who happened to be there, grabbed me and said, “He’s not gone; he’s on a vacation.” I was a strong kid, like my father. He was a big man, bigger than most men, and he usually was happy and friendly and carefree, people didn’t mess with him. As his son I also felt free to be somebody and do what I wanted, and even push my weight around sometimes, so I countered, “No. He’s dead, and Tirtha did it.”
The teachers weren’t about to let my defiance go unpunished and they dragged me into an empty room and behind closed doors started smacking me in my face and trying to make me agree with them that, “No, he’s on vacation.” I fought them for a long, long time, but one restrained me and the other slapped my face repeatedly. They beat me for a long, long time until I finally agreed with them, “Yes, my father’s not dead; he’s on vacation.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 89.
Bhima Karma.
January 28, 2018: On this date in history, a reader writes a review of Killing For Krishna, on Amazon:
5 stars. The missing years of Radhanath Swami in [his autobiography] The Journey Home exposed. Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. Superbly researched and well documented sequel to “Monkey on a Stick: Murder, Madness, and the Hare Krishnas,” by Henry Doktorski (Hrishikesh dasa). The involvement of insidious Radhanath Swami, the author of semi-fictional The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami in Sulochan dasa’s murder laid threadbare.
Turns out that the Swami is well and truly a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and should prepare for his “Journey to the Penitentiary” (preferably in a cell next to killer Thomas Drescher’s) in this lifetime and to purgatory in the next. Count on Radhanath Swami’s brain-dead bots (not unlike Kirtanananda’s) to swamp this page with 1 stars without even procuring or reading this book.
To learn more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
January 29, 1949: On this date in history, Tim Lee is born in Buffalo, New York. He receives diksa and the name Puranjana dasa in July 1971 in Detroit, Michigan. He serves as the manager of the Spanish BBT. In 1976, he meets Sulochan in Los Angeles and the two become best friends. After Puranjana criticizes the zonal acharya Jayatirtha dasa Adhikari in London for illicit activities, he is offered a position as official ISKCON guru for Ireland. He refuses and leaves ISKCON, becomes a vocal critic of the zonal acharyas and establishes the PADA website and Krishna 1008 blog (link below).
For more about this topic, see Henry's book Killing For Krishna, p. 178.
For more about Puranjana, see Krishna1008
Puranjana (Tim Lee), Passport photo, c. 1980.
January 29, 1967: On this date in history, at the Mantra Rock Dance organized by Mukunda (Michael Grant) at the San Francisco Avalon Ballroom with beat poet Allen Ginsberg and music by the Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service, and attended by a capacity crowd of 500 hippies high on marijuana and other drugs, Bhaktivedanta Swami declares, “This is no place for a brahmachari.”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 191.
Mantra Rock Dance Poster by Harvey M. Cohen
January 30, 1956: On this date in history, Henry Doktorski, III is born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to middle-class Polish-American Roman-Catholic parents. He exhibits some talent in music and chess and later becomes a disciple of the Hare Krishna guru Kirtanananda Swami. In his old age, he completes twelve non-fiction books about his spiritual master, New Vrindaban and ISKCON.
The author (1956)
January 31, 1948: On this date in history, Gary L. Gardner (later known as Sri Galim) is born. He joins ISKCON in Austin, Texas, receives diksa initiation in July 1971, and goes on to teach children at the Dallas gurukula. He becomes headmaster of the Nandagram gurukula at New Vrindaban in 1979, and beginning around 1980, sexually abuses some of the boys under his care.
Due to pressure from the gurukula alumni, in c. 1996 he is banned from living on New Vrindaban property and forbidden to visit the Krishna community. On February 1, 2000, the ISKCON Child Protection Office finished their investigation and concluded that Sri Galim had abused or molested at least five boys.
For more about this topic, see Henry's book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 237.
Sri Galim (Gary Gardner), with two gurukula boys.
January 31, 1977: On this date in history, during a room conversation in Bhubanesvar, India, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada describes the two most important qualifications of a woman, “Educate the girls how to become faithful, chaste wife and how to cook nicely. Let them learn varieties of cooking. Is very difficult? These two qualifications, apart from Krishna consciousness, materially they should learn. . . . And by fifteenth, sixteenth year they should be married. And if they are qualified, it will be not difficult to find out a nice husband.”
The householder residents of New Vrindaban accepted Prabhupada's instructions and attempted to get their daughters married at an early age. In 1985, sometime before my thirtieth birthday, Bhaktipada spoke to me in private and said he’s looking for a husband for a nineteen-year-old girl from an Indian family in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of his disciple Vibhishan. He said she would make a good wife for me.
I declined his offer, as I was not interested in getting married. I liked my brahmachari life. I was still doing big on the pick, and I knew a wife and family would reduce my collections. Besides, I had heard Bhaktipada say many times that celibacy is the best way to advance in spiritual life and marriage was a deep, dark well of ignorance.
Later that same year, I was approached by a Brijabasi father who asked me if I would be interested in marrying his thirteen-year-old daughter. I was nearly thirty. He was concerned that she get a good husband and I was, in his opinion, a good candidate. I was a strict brahmachari and a successful collector; I was well-respected in the community and I had a gentle disposition. I’m sure he thought I wouldn’t beat her.
I had seen his daughter on occasion with the gurukula girls at the temple. Although she was very pretty, with fair complexion, slender waist and long straw-colored hair, I refused his kind offer, as I was not interested in marriage at the time.
For more about this topic, see Henry's book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 319.
January 31, 1986: On this date in history, Sulochan, who is writing his book "The Guru Business," telephones the New Vrindaban president, Kuladri, and tells him he is coming to Moundsville to destroy Kirtanananda and the New Vrindaban Community; “to finish the job” that Triyogi (who had nearly killed Bhaktipada three months earlier by smashing him in the head) had started.
Sulochan intends to destroy Kirtanananda using press releases and propaganda. New Vrindaban managers, however, think Sulochan is going to hide out in the woods with a high-powered rifle and shoot Bhaktipada. Kuladri calls Marshall County Sheriff Donald Bordenkircher for professional assistance, who agrees to help protect Bhaktipada and the community.
For more about this topic, see Henry's book, Killing For Krishna, p. 232.
January 31, 1990: On this date in history, during a darshan, Bhaktipada explains, “Obedience to guru is more important than chanting the Holy Name or telling pastimes about Krishna. . . . If the guru asks you to do something that you don’t like to do, you should do it. It means you have no desire of your own.”
Another time, Bhaktipada explained, "the spiritual master is the representative of Krishna. If the spiritual master tells me to stand on my head, I stand on my head. If he tells me to marry this girl, I marry this girl. If he tells me to do this work, I do this work."--Darshan at New Vrindaban (September 26, 1990)
For more about this topic, see Henry's book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 31.
January 31, 2020: On this date in history, the author’s second nonfiction book of Hare Krishna history, “Eleven Naked Emperors: The Crisis of Charismatic Succession in the Hare Krishna Movement (1977-1987)” is published. See https://www.amazon.com/dp/1079561374
January 31, 2021: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1 on Amazon:
Five Stars—A well researched biography about a very unique person
This is Vol. 1 of a ten-volume biography of Swami Bhaktipada, a controversial leader of a controversial movement. For many years, Bhaktipada was one of the top leaders of the ISKCON movement, but he was expelled from that movement and started his own mission, for reasons that will hopefully be elaborated in later volumes of this biography.
For the author’s own reasons, Volumes 3 and 5 were published before Vol. 1, and in the volumes that have been published, we can see that the author, Mr. Doktorski, has done a very good research about his former guru, and he is doing his best to give an honest story about Swami Bhaktipada’s life, both the good and the bad.
This biography is also a very important part of the history of ISKCON, and especially the New Vrindaban community, for which Bhaktipada was the leader for a long time.
This biography also shows what a unique personality Swami Bhaktipada was. I don’t think any other ISKCON guru will have a ten-volume biography written about him.
G. R. S.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1.
February 1, 1968: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada writes to a disciple, “No other language of the world is so perfect as Sanskrit. Any language near to Sanskrit language [like Bengali] is nearer to perfection.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 45.
The Sanskrit letter Omkara.
February 1, 1977: On this date in history, during a morning walk in Bhubanesvar, India, when asked if a child should see the benefit of going to school, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada replies, “Child cannot see. He’s a rascal. He should be beaten with shoes. Then he will see.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 232.
February 1, 1987: On this date in history, the concrete foundation for the proposed Maha Dwaram Gateway at New Vrindaban is completed. 19 days later, Bhaktipada declares, “I’m going to build that temple, or die trying.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 205.
Tying the steel reinforcing rods for the Maha-Dvaram Gateway.
Construction crew at the Maha-Dvaram.
February 1, 2000: On this date in history, the ISKCON Child Protection Office determines that Sri Galim--who had served as the headmaster for the New Vrindaban Nandagram Boys School twenty years earlier--committed physical abuse to at least five boys.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 23.
Sri Galim (Gary Gardner) teaches a Sanskrit class at Nandagram Boys School.
February 2, 1986: On this date in history, Tapahpunja Swami and Tirtha drive to Royal Oak, Michigan, to search for Sulochan, who New Vrindaban administration says, needs to be killed to protect Swami Bhaktipada, the pure devotee and savior of the world. After watching the Bryant residence for a few hours, clever Tapahpunja telephones Mrs. Bryant from a pay phone and pretends to be Sulochan’s best friend, Puranjana.
Mrs. Bryant gives Tapahpunja the phone number of the motel where her son is staying. Tirtha and Tapahpunja drive back to the Ohio Valley, where they meet with Randall Gorby, a non-devotee friend of Tirtha’s, and discover Sulochan at the Scott Motel near Saint Clairsville, Ohio. The surveillance team watches Sulochan for the present, but eventually plan to assassinate him.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 235.
Map showing route from Royal Oak, Michigan, to St. Clairsville, Ohio.
Helga Bryant and her Boy Scout son Steven (c. 1966)
February 2002: On or around this date in history, in order to protect their assets from the “Children of ISKCON vs. ISKCON” lawsuit, ISKCON files for bankruptcy. A few months earlier, several dozen ISKCON gurukula alumni filed a $400 million lawsuit through the Turley law firm against the International Society for Krishna Consciousness for permitting alleged multiple forms of child abuse including sexual, emotional and physical abuse.
ISKCON leaders were greatly concerned, and rightly so, because they knew the accusations were true and would be revealed as such if they contested the charges and went to trial in a court of law. They knew that ISKCON had failed their children, and now ISKCON’s karma was coming back at them.
ISKCON leaders realized that a powerful attack on what they considered to be Lord Chaitanya’s movement needed an equally-powerful defense, so in an effort to save their temples from ruin, they decided to file for bankruptcy—a legal process through which individuals and corporations who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from their debts. Some devotees regarded this act by ISKCON to be cowardly. Perhaps, some thought, the GBC was morally bankrupt.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 446.
The Dallas Gurukula
February 3, 1961: On this date in history, Keith Ham and Howard Wheeler drop out from their studies at the University of North Carolina after the administration begins an investigation regarding a “sex scandal.” Rather than appear before the investigative board, the two resign from their degree programs.
At first they live in a house in West Palm Beach, Florida, for about a month, perhaps with one of Howard’ s friends. Then they move into Keith's parents house in Merrick, Long Island, for a couple weeks. Then they find their own pad in Manhattan.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, pp. 44, 48.
Howard Wheeler and Keith Ham
February 3, 1975: On this date in history, during a lecture in Hawaii, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada teaches his disciples about the anatomy of women, and their inferior position in the ideal Krishna conscious society: “Physiologically, within the brain there are brain substance. It is found that the brain substance in man is found up to 64 ounce. They are very highly intellectual persons. And in woman the brain substance is not found more than 34 ounce. You’ll find, therefore, that there is no very great scientist, mathematician, philosopher, among women. You’ll never find because their brain substance cannot go. Artificially do not try to become equal with men. That is not allowed in the Vedic sastra. . . . You have to understand that woman is never given to be independence. Independence means just like child has to be taken care, similarly, woman has to be taken care.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 28.
A human brain.
February 3, 1986: On this date in history, Sulochan--who is waging a campaign against Bhaktipada and New Vrindaban--drives from the Scott Motel in Ohio to Wheeling (secretly followed by Gorby, Tapahpunja and Tirtha) and meets with investigators at the FBI office in the Federal Building. He attempts to convince them to begin an investigation of New Vrindaban.
While at the FBI office, he also finds out from a phone call from his mother that a day earlier she gave away his location “to an enemy” (Tapahpunja). Sulochan checks out of the Scott Motel, and rents a room at another motel in Saint Clairsville, the Fischer Motel.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 241.
FBI Insignia
February 3, 2019: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
I’ve just finished your book Killing For Krishna. Having been at the scene of many of the events you depicted I found your book fascinating. Excellent job of research and analysis.
I interviewed Sulochan shortly before he was shot in his van at the end of Watseka Avenue. I was also there at the emergency New Vrindaban GBC meetings, not so much for the meetings but to catch as many Prabhupada disciples as I could and get their remembrances of Prabhupada. Apart from my service in doing interviews for the “Lilamrta,” I was also production manager for Gita-Nagari Press a number of years and worked closely with Satsvarupa dasa Goswami. I can’t wait for your next book, Eleven Naked Emperors. I’ve read the timeline you have given, that timeline alone is an eye opener.
I’ve no axe to grind. I’m not in any camp one way of the other. I’m just interested in seeing that whatever went down in our history is open for all to see. I’m looking forward to the next book. You’re on a roll. Keep it up. Hare Krishna.
Vidura dasa (Brendan Greene)
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
February 3, 2024: On this date in history, Bhagavan dasa (William Ehrlichman)—one of the original eleven ISKCON zonal acharyas who fell from sannyasa, married a woman, and abandoned ISKCON—compares the author to a vulture that feeds on dead carcasses (road kill) and those who read his books to meat eaters. In a Facebook post Bhagavan dasa writes, “If anyone falls, the Olympic torch of love of Krishna doesn’t need to fall. Pick it up and keep running. This 40 years of scorning and criticism would never be acceptable to Srila Prabhupada. Vultures have written 12 volumes about road kill that some find hard to put down. Meat eaters at heart.”
A few Facebook friends comment on Bhagavan’s statement:
“How dare you give an honest account of the zonal acharyas’ misdeeds and deviations, instead of just pretending they were all pure devotees with no faults or failures, like they had all of ISKCON doing! Shame! ☺”
“Let bygones be bygones. No need for any more talk of gold toilet seats at the Palace of Versailles.”
“The Sun King was a narcissist when he was a so-called guru. Narcissists don’t change.”
“One only has to remember how they behaved during their reign. Bhagavan was one of the worst! They carried themselves as if they were gods. I will never forget the way they carried on with their out-of-control egos. To write something like this shows he still has no humility. They were scammers of the highest order.”
The author responds:
Our Facebook friend, Bhagavan writes, "If anyone falls, the Olympic torch of love of Krishna doesn’t need to fall. Pick it up and keep running." Of course we are all pleased that Bhagavan still chants Hare Krishna and follows to the best of his abilities the instructions given by his spiritual master. If he has apologized for his behavior during the zonal acharya era of ISKCON and has made amends, for this I think praise is in order.
But his next sentence betrays another side of his personality, "This 40 years of scorning and criticism would never be acceptable to Srila Prabhupada."
Although Bhagavan has had much personal association with Srila Prabhupada, he conveniently forgets that Prabhupada himself scorned and criticized his own godbrothers for 40 years.
Prabhupada's godbrothers disobeyed their spiritual master Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada and voted to appoint an acharya to lead the Gaudiya Math (who fell down), yet nearly the same thing happened after the demise of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada: the eleven naked emperors effectively took over the GBC and ISKCON, and turned it into a mess. Many today still feel the negative repercussions.
I think our friend may benefit if he learns a little humility, in my humble opinion. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
Regarding the last part of Bhagavan’s post, referring to me as a vulture obsessed with road kill, he, and everyone else, is entitled to their opinions. I have never pretended to be a liberated soul, free from the four defects of material life. In fact, in Eleven Naked Emperors, I tell the reader, “. . . as you read this book, I trust that you will not blindly accept as gospel truth my particular version regarding the zonal-acharya era in ISKCON. I invite you to see this effort as an invitation to further explore ISKCON history and ponder Gaudiya-Vaishnava doctrine, in order to more deeply investigate these fascinating topics for yourself.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. xxv.
Bhagavan (William Ehrlichman)
Emblem of Louis XIV (1638-1715), the King of France, known as the Sun King, on the Golden Gate of his castle in Versailles. 270 years after the death of Louis XIV, Bhagavan was also known as "The Sun King," probably for his preference of taking prasadam on gold plates with gold forks and spoons, at The Château d’Oublaise, now known as New Mayapur, which is situated in the serene countryside of Centre-Val de Loire, France.
February 4, 1951: On this date in history, Joseph Pollock, Jr. is born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He serves in the U. S. Navy as an electrician’s apprentice. He joins ISKCON in San Diego, California in 1974, but moves back to Pittsburgh to be closer to his parents. He lives in the Pittsburgh temple and receives diksa at New Vrindaban and the name Jyotirdhama dasa in July 1976.
In 1981, Bhaktipada asks him to work for him at New Vrindaban. Jyotirdhama installs a massive telephone system at New Vrindaban and becomes known as “New Vrindaban’s Telephone Man.” He serves in the conspiracy to murder Sulochan by helping route calls through the main switchboard from the hit men hunting Sulochan to senior New Vrindaban management. He tells of his involvement in the conspiracy to murder Sulochan in a ten-page Addendum in the book Killing For Krishna. He claims, “Radhanath ordered the murder of Sulochan.” Hey! Happy Birthday, Jyotirdhama Prabhu!!!
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 517.
Jyotirdhama dasa (Joseph Pollock, Jr.).
February 4, 1966: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja, who is living as a guest in the high-rise New York City apartment of his "uptown swami" Mayavadi Swami benefactor, Dr. Ramamurti Mishra, writes to a godbrother in India and expresses faith in the holy name, despite the fact that he has made no converts since coming to America five months earlier: “Yesterday evening. I have prepared some tape record[ing] of my personal kirtan. When one of this tape record was played the audience became practically charmed by that, although not a single word of my language was understandable by them. So I am confident of the statement of Srila Haridasa Thakur that the transcendental sound of Lord Chaitanya’s harinama can do good even to the birds and the beasts.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 44.
Bhaktivedanta Swami observes a lecture by his benefactor Dr. Ramamurti Mishra.
February 4, 1986: On this date in history, Randall Gorby watches the Fischer Motel in St. Clairsville, Ohio, where Sulochan—who is waging a letter-writing campaign to discredit Bhaktipada and the other ISKCON gurus—has been hiding out. Sulochan realizes he has been discovered and throws Gorby off the trail by getting on the nearby I-70 freeway and driving west as fast as his used junker can travel.
Gorby claims that Sulochan “headed west on I-70 at a high rate of speed,” probably headed for California. But no, Sulochan doubles back and rents a room at a boarding house in Washington Lands, just south of Moundsville. He notifies the sheriff of his new location.
Tirtha, New Vrindaban's chief enforcer, who is determined to assassinate Sulochan, receives from Tapahpunja Swami—the president of Cleveland ISKCON—his first payment of $2,500 for surveillance expenses, flies to Los Angeles, and hooks up with Janmastami, who is already in California, to search for Sulochan, who they suspect will return to California soon. Janmastami rents a room (room 121) for the two hit men at the Trade Winds Motel at 4200 West Century Boulevard in Inglewood, about three miles east from LAX International Airport, and registers under the name John Paul McPherson, as he has a fake identification card under that name.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 245.
Randall Gorby, a non-devotee "friend" of New Vrindaban and one of the most vocal conspirators who campaigned for the murder of Sulochan.
February 4, 2020: On this date in history, a reader writes a review of "Eleven Naked Emperors" on Amazon:
Five Stars: Long-awaited book
I must admit I’ve had great interest and anticipation regarding Mr. Henry Doktorski’s new book “Eleven Naked Emperors” for several years now. A detailed, accurate and unapologetic history of the zonal acharya era of ISKCON is long, long overdue.
I’m not a stranger to the Hare Krishnas. My family became involved with ISKCON in 1976 and continued until 1988. We were one of the first, if not the first, Life-Members in Dallas, Texas. During that period, we contributed tens of thousands of dollars, in one form or another, to the Dallas temple. We were fervent supporters, but when we heard of child abuse, we discontinued any and all participation.
“Eleven Naked Emperors” describes in detail the events preceding and following the death of the Founder/Acharya of ISKCON and the GBC’s appointment of eleven high-ranking GBC members who Prabhupada had earlier appointed as Ritvik priests. Unfortunately, the eleven pretended to be self-realized, uttama-adhikari successor acharyas, something like the naked emperor in Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” who pretended to wear clothes which were invisible to the stupid. Henry’s writing is well documented and includes dozens and dozens of quotations from the zonal acharyas and those few brave souls who recognized that something was wrong and who tried to stop the zonal acharyas. The battles Henry describes between the zonal acharyas (bad guys) and the reformers (good guys) clearly show how ISKCON had degraded into a political cult, not a spiritual cult based on guru, sadhu and shastra.
I recall at one point towards the end of the book, ISKCON offered a one-liner apology—several decades after the damage done during the zonal-acharya era of ISKCON—to all those hurt by the horribly mismanaged organization. And, that sums up the effort ISKCON has put into apology to the thousands of lives they negatively affected during this horrendous period of ISKCON history.
In conclusion, if you want to better understand what went wrong in ISKCON after the death of the Founder/Acharya, read Henry’s book. That is my humble opinion, from a person who lived through those terrible times.
Most Sincerely,
Mark Middaugh M.L.I.S.
New Mexico
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors.
Mark Middaugh.
February 5, 1986: On this date in history, Randall Gorby (a member of the New Vrindaban "Surveillance Team" spying on Sulochan) “accidentally discovers” Sulochan’s location at the boarding house in Washington Lands. It appears Gorby has a direct line to the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office. Gorby notifies New Vrindaban Temple President Kuladri, and suggests that Kuladri ask the Marshall County sheriff to arrest him. That night, Kuladri follows Gorby’s suggestion and calls the sheriff.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 248.
Randall Gorby, a non-devotee "friend" of New Vrindaban and one of the most vocal conspirators who campaigned for the murder of Sulochan.
February 5, 2024: On this date in history, Puranjana posts a letter on his blog and provides his perspective on why some people think the author appears to attack the Founder/Acharya. I think he overreacts regarding Kailasa Chandra, who I have never had a problem with, but besides that, I think Puranjana is spot on:
RH: There is of course a plan for why Henry is doing that. He is very active on Facebook and posts two to three posts every day. It's all about driving away the Western devotees and suggesting to the Western devotees that Srila Prabhupada is responsible for all the chaos. Henry attacks Prabhupada.
The aim, as you can already see, is to leave the empty Western temples to imported Russian devotees, Indian devotees, South American devotees, and African devotees. The ISKCON elite does not want European and American devotees within the movement. He also says that it was the only right thing to do that Sulocana was killed. Henry definitely was an infiltrator and never a devotee.
PADA: OK the first problem is that Henry -- and actually many thousands and thousands of others -- if not millions of others in the mass public media -- were being told -- by many of the disciples of Srila Prabhupada -- that Kirtanananda is "a pure devotee and Krishna's living guru successor" no less.
So it was not actually Henry himself who started the false propaganda process of misrepresenting Srila Prabhupada, it was (and still is largely) the so-called followers of Srila Prabhupada -- who sold Henry a dangerously flawed used car with a leaking gas tank.
And then they gave Henry a box of matches to light up -- to look under the car for the leak. In other words, Henry -- and thousands of others like him -- are victims of the mass bogus propaganda that Kirtanananda is a pure devotee. That does not fully excuse mistakes he is making now, but the original root cause of his making mistakes currently -- was and still is -- the mass of Srila Prabhupada disciples who all flocked to New Vrndavana to prop up Kirtanananda, and to tell Henry that Kirtanananda is the authorized agent of no less than God Almighty.
Sulochan was also one of the "Prabhupada" people who went there, along with many seniors and big GBC leaders who were all going there, and advertising KS's West Virginia project as "the heart and soul of ISKCON" etc. Satsvarupa for example was writing glorification of Kirtanananda, and this was printed in all of the ISKCON mass medias at the time. And later some of the GBC folks buried Kirtanananda in a samadhi for the same reason, he STILL IS being promoted as a pure devotee in samadhi even today -- by many ISKCON people, yes even today.
Henry was thus sold a bad product, and now he is complaining about the product. And that surprises people? Have any of these Henry critic people talked to some of the ex-gurukula students around here to find out what is their opinion of the religion? Lets just say, while Henry might give ISKCON a one star plus rating, many of these ex-kids here would give ISKCON a minus five star rating. If you would read the "review of ISKCON" of some of these ex-kids, your hands would get blistered from the fire on the pages of their words. So Henry's complaints are very mild compared to many other victims.
OK I agree, that is not a license to speak ill of ISKCON, but I am not sure what the mass of "senior Srila Prabhupada devotees and leaders" expected when they heavily and insistently promoted their Mott Street boyfriend's club's pals, Andy Warhol's disciples, Timothy Leary's disciples etc. as "Krishna's guru successors." You mean they actually expected they could cheat Krishna -- and make fools and debauchees into His successors -- and then they could cheat people like Henry, and there would be no resulting reactions?
We can give thousands and thousands of people a dangerous used car with a leaking gas tank, and give them a box of matches to find the leak, and nothing will explode? And when their dangerous car explodes, it is the fault of Henry, who was given their bad car along with the matches? Sorry, this is called blaming the victim.
So when a Motel has a bunch of drunks and prostitutes staying there, and bed bugs and rats are in the rooms, can they expect a five star review? Why would the motel managers even expect that? And why would they be upset at getting a one star review, when many other customers are giving them a minus five stars?
So at one time there was allegedly 300 devotee families at New Vrndavana, including Sulochan’s. But apart from Sulochan and Henry, who even bothered to write ANY history of what was going on there? Who even bothers to explain what happened there, never mind apologize for being part of the false program?
Therefore I think the writings of Henry are useful -- because he explains a lot of the day to day process that was going on there, as well as -- he fingers "who is who," and especially who is who -- are the literal "shot callers" on Sulochan’s murder and numerous other crimes. That information needs to be known.
Now one thing that has come up after all this is, some of the biggest critics of Henry are still citing Kirtanananda's clan as their authority. For example Sanat, Mukunda, Prahlad, HKC Jaipur, Kailasa Chandra and his minions, yep every day for years on end they cite Kirtanananda's people -- that me and Sulochan had been drunks and sahajiyas. Ditto what Kirtanananda's people said.
Oddly Kailasa's people are saying I am not giving proper credit to Henry, for his exposing that Kailasa is Kirtanananda's puppet clone parrot since 1986, calling us drunks and sahajiyas -- which Sulochan said they are doing to make him a target. No, we give all credit to Henry for exposing that Kailasa and others have always been in bed with Kirtanananda the whole time, citing his slogans and ideas.
Mukunda for example says Henry is a demon, while Mukunda has been saying that Kirtanananda is his authority, Puranjan is a drunken sahajiya.
So Kailasa and Mukunda are still citing as their authority the same people who are posing as gurus while having oral sex with young males, and they are thinking we are the bad guys? They never stopped promoting Kirtanananda's stuff.
Kirtanananda opposed us for suing them over the molesting, so does the Mukunda and Kailasa crew etc. They never left Kirtanananda, and neither has official ISKCON.
OK that means they are still in bed with Kirtanananda's crew even today. For example Prahlad's pals [Pancali etc.] in New Zealand wrote that I am drinking every day, and that means they are still disciples of Kirtanananda even now. Kailasa Chandra and minions are STILL saying me and Sulochan are drunks and sahajiyas every day since 1986, because they are still in the Kirtanananda camp direct or de facto etc.
So they are "for Srila Prabhupada," but still in bed with Kirtanananda's propaganda.
Then they wonder why people like Henry are confused? Because you guys created all this confusion, and Henry, and thousands of others are victims of your propaganda. And when the Sanat / Mukunda / Prahlad / HKC Jaipur / Kailasa Chandra etc. folks were attacking me as a drunk and sahajiya, who has to come to my rescue and defense?
Yep, it is Henry. He said it does not matter if a person is "not strictly following" when he is pointing out defects and crimes. Duh! When thousands of kids are being abused, me drinking a beer while watching TV is not the problem! Of course, I am not taking any intoxicants, drinking a beer would make me throw up, they just say that to make us targets so they can get us assassinated.
In sum! People are being banned, beaten, molested, sued and shot to death, and that is not the problem, the problem is -- I am a drunken sahajiya! Which is, wait for it, what Kirtanananda's people said! Sorry, you guys have to get out of Kirtanananda's bed before you can say one word about anyone else, whether me or Henry or anyone else. In sum, wake TFU! And if you actually want to help people like Henry, and the thousands of others you misguided, then quit being hypocrites and admit you have been in the wrong bed all this time.
ys pd
Puranjana (Tim Lee), Passport photo, c. 1980.
Kailasa Chandra dasa responds:
Puranjan is not only the Master of the Off-Topic Rant, but he conjoins that power to deceive with making utterly false statements that segue into conclusions that are just as mendacious. This cannot be unintentional on his part. I never had any connection to Kirtanananda. When on a traveling book party in the mid-Seventies, it stopped over at the Moundsville compound for two days. Big deal. I never talked to Kirtanananda, and in point of fact, I chose to avoid him. His vibe had always repulsed me, which I first had to experience when he gave the worst lecture I ever had to endure at the Evanston temple in 1973.
Here in this spiel, Puranjan again goes off-topic from the thread being discussed into my supposed affiliation with, and backing of, Kirtanananda, although the topic had nothing to do with me. He is simply attacking a straw man, and here are five facts for your realization about who I was, who I am, and who I wasn't and have never been:
1) I have never cited Kirtanananda's slogans,
2) I do not have minions but I do have followers, all of whom spiritually and materially stand on their own two feet. I help them to do so,
3) Henry Doktorski, to my knowledge, has never "exposed me for being a puppet clone of Kirtanananda. I have never read any evidence of this allegation. If it had existed, it certainly would have been brought to my attention. Henry knows very well my negative view of Kirtanananda. If Henry did make such an allegation, then show the evidence,
4) Puranjan and Sulochan dipped their toes in the sahajiya ocean even while Prabhupada was still with us (the "Gopi-Bhava Club"), and Puranjan was directly chastised for this by His Divine Grace. They lived very loose lifestyles in the mid-Eighties, especially Sulochan. I considered them to be mishra-bhaktas with sahajiya leanings, but I did not make this any kind of propaganda pillar if and/or when I spoke to other devotees about them (which was very infrequently). I understood Sulochan's pain and I worked with him in order to disseminate what eventually became his chief publication, The Guru Business.
I worked with Puranjan at the Berkeley temple in another capacity. I did not make any overt or covert effort to make these men enemies, but where they were wrong about either philosophy or facts connected to the ongoing deviation (and later deviation of Rittvik), I was no shrinking violet in speaking out about that. They particularly began to dislike me when I stated--with plenty of evidence--that a madhyam-adhikari, if he receives the order, can be an initiating spiritual master.
Long story, but their emnity towards me in the months leading up to Sulochan's assassination was developed from within themselves, I did not paint targets on their backs, either, and 5) I was neither for or against (and made no propaganda at all about) any lawsuits cooked up by Puranjan, mostly because I did not know of any such formulative or pending legal action. While managing the Mt. Kailasa rural mountain community in Lake County, CA in the mid-Eighties, Mt. Kailasa sued Kirtanananda for ordering the theft of our books via one of his traveling parties. I was not against lawsuits, so this is an utterly contradictory allegation by Puranjan, which is par for the course for him as most of you know.
Kailasa Chandra (Mark Goodwin)
February 5, 2025: On this date in history, the installation festival for the deities Sri Sri Radha Vrindavan Chandra Bhagwan is held at the Shri Ramdev Pir Mandir in Lyari, Karachi, Pakistan. Notice in the poster advertising this blessed event the three most-recent representatives of the discipular succession: Prabhupada, Bhaktipada and Bapuji, all transmitting the message of the previous acharyas according to their own personal realizations.
Program
February 6, 1837: On this date in history, the United States Senator from South Carolina, John C. Calhoun (1782–1850), delivers a speech about slavery: “But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil:—far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.”
140 years later, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977), a prominent Gaudiya-Vaishnava guru, expresses a similar opinion: “[The] Sudra is to be controlled only. They are never [to be given] . . . freedom. Just like in America. The blacks were slaves. They were under control. And since you have given them equal rights they are disturbing, most disturbing, always creating a fearful situation, [blacks are] uncultured and drunkards. What training they have got? They have got equal [rights]? [It] is best, to keep them under control as slaves but give them sufficient food, sufficient [clothes], not more than that. Then they will be satisfied.” Room conversation, Mayapur (February 14, 1977)
P. S. from the author: I receive no pleasure from sharing these posts. I get only sadness, just as one becomes sad when one realizes a person they put on a pedestal, and served for many years, is not the perfect, divine and infallible being they once upon a time believed. It is the loss of innocence. Like the innocent joy a child experiences when they leave cookies and milk out by the fireplace on Christmas Eve for Santa to snack on when he slides down the chimney and brings toys and presents. Very sad when the child realizes that it is all fake; make believe, lies which adults told them. But that is part of growing up. Better to be sad and real, in my opinion, than blissfully ignorant.
February 6, 1986: On this date in history, shortly after midnight, two sheriff’s deputies knock on the door of Sulochan's rented room at the Washington Lands boarding house (the same deputies had visited him the previous day to chat) with a warrant requested by New Vrindaban president Kuladri and signed by Marshall County Magistrate David Buzzard for making threats against Bhaktipada and New Vrindaban (despite the fact that making verbal threats is not a crime in West Virginia). The deputies arrest him and charge him with carrying a concealed weapon, a pistol which Sulochan claimed he carried for his own protection, as he knew the New Vrindaban ksatriyas meant to kill him.
Sulochan is taken first to the Wetzel County Jail (as the Marshall County jail is under quarantine for a chicken pox outbreak), and later he is taken to the Marshall County Jail, where he meets his godbrother Triyogi, who is serving a 14-month sentence for assaulting Bhaktipada.
Sulochan asks Triyogi to personally bring him his meals from the kitchen, because he is afraid of being poisoned by other inmates who might be in league with New Vrindaban.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 255.
Sulochan (Steven Bryant)
February 6, 2019: On this date in history, Bhakti-Gaurava Narasingha Maharaja (formerly Jagad-Guru dasa), publishes a YouTube video, “The zonal-acharya system: Who Is NOT To Blame.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors. To watch his video, go to YouTube
Bhakti-Gaurava Narasingha Maharaja (formerly Jagad-Guru dasa)
February 6, 2024: On this date in history, a Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada supporter posts a review of “Gold, Guns and God” on Amazon, and compares the author to a "fetid cesspool," although she did not purchase the book:
-
1.0 out of 5 stars
This book and all his others are envious calumny. (Which Bhaktivinoda warned against!) Just like in Christian religion, those who do not follow the Bible, they are called heathens. I do not know what is there in the Bible, but I understand in the Bible there is sankirtana allowed. I have asked our Kirtanananda to write some article, Sankirtana and Bible, because he is..., he knows Bible very well than other members. So we shall see very nice how in Bible there is sankirtana.”—Srila Prabhupada, San Francisco, 1967
Kirtanananda understood Srila Prabhupada’s desire, and brilliantly executed it by writing a book called “Christ & Krishna,” the 5th Chapter of which is specifically about Sankirtana. Unfortunately this book was banned by GBC authorities from the get-go in 1985—disallowing the advertisement of this classic gem in official ISKCON publications. This shows the inability of Prabhupada’s disciples & consequently, succeeding generations, to use our brains to figure out how pick up the gold (all his books) which have been buried in a filthy hole & deliberately topped off with the stool of calumny (which Bhaktivinoda warned against employing against ANY other spiritual leader in the world!)
Because we’re too lazy and try to find gold in a filthy place, It’s easier just to assassinate his character and dump whatever loving contribution he’s added to this movement into the dustbin of history. Because this has become the chosen path of ISKCON, this institution will NEVER be able to charitably distribute that gold for the benefit of others as per Srila Prabhupada’s order.
It’s easier just to jump on the bandwagon of blasphemy born in the fetid cesspools of the hearts & minds of envious disgruntled 3rd class “devotees” (like Doktorski) whose egos revel in the attention and money received from publishing yellow journalistic sensationalistic defamatory books which are subsequently picked up and broadcast worldwide on streaming services by greedy predatory producers of slick media documentary series that appeal to the lowest instincts deep within the reptilian brain of the masses of human casualties of this age of Kali, thus increasing the size of it’s ocean of faults.
This is how we’ve chosen to further Mahaprabhu’s mission? I guess we’ve concluded that it’s more important to polish the turd of our own superficial image for the sake of shallow public relations.
Jennifer
United States
From a review on Amazon
Author’s reply: Jennifer did not purchase the book from Amazon, but wrote a review regardless. Where did she get her information in order to write a review?
Of course she’s entitled to her opinion, but she spreads fiction when she says Bhaktipada’s book, “Christ and Krishna” was banned in ISKCON in 1985. When I visited New York ISKCON during my travels as a sankirtan picker, I used to set up a book table filled with “Christ and Krishnas” at the Sunday feast, alongside the book table set up by Satsvarupa dasa Goswami Gurupada’s disciples. I sold many “Christ and Krishnas” and “Song of Gods.”
Tamal Krishna Goswami liked the book so much he asked Bhaktipada if he could print 100,000 copies for distribution in the Philippines. Bhaktipada’s books were not banned until he was expelled from ISKCON in 1987.
I guess I just can't please all the people all the time, and some of the people, never!
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God.
February 1964: On or around this date in history, 26-year old Wallace Sheffey tries to score some pot at Stanley's Bar on 12th Street and Avenue B in Manhattan, and there he meets Keith Ham and Howard Wheeler.
Wally says, "They invited me to their place on Mott Street and drove me across the Lower East Side from Stanley's Bar to their apartment where they turned me on with peyote, my first psychedelic trip. I liked Keith and Howard; they were intelligent, witty, and a lot of fun. Sometimes I lived with them at Mott Street, sometimes not."
Two years later in July 1966 the trio, known as "The Mott Street Boys," meet Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja, a Gaudiya Vaishnava guru who had arrived in the United States from India less than a year earlier, and become Umapati, Kirtanananda and Hayagriva.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 92.
Umapati (Wallace Sheffey) lectures at the American Center in Paris (1970).
February 7, 1983: On this date in history, New Vrindaban purchases a classified ad in the Wheeling News Register listing nine devotees, including Chakradhari, Dharmatma, and Tirtha, who are “excommunicated” from the community. The expulsions, however, are in name only.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 28.
February 7, 1986: On this date in history, while Sulochan is incarcerated in jail, the Marshall County West Virginia Sheriff Donald Bordenkircher invites New Vrindaban leaders to come to his office and examine Sulochan’s telephone and address book. This is a highly-unprofessional and unethical act which gives New Vrindaban leaders and hit men unprecedented information regarding Sulochan's haunts, his friends and his habits.
At the same time, nearly 2,500 miles west, in California, Tirtha and Janmastami meet with (1) the “Campus Cop,” the head of security for Los Angeles ISKCON, Krsna Katha Dasa, and (2) Ramesvara’s personal secretary, Premadatta (Michael Scheffer), and (3) a New Dwarka security assistant, Mahamantra dasa (David Fuller).
Ramesvara Swami, the zonal acharya for Southern California, knows of the murder plot and tells his disciple Krsna Katha Dasa to cooperate with the two New Vrindaban hit me who intend to murder the "demon" Sulochan.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 259.
Krishna Katha (Jeffrey Breier), disciple of Ramesvara known at Los Angeles ISKCON as "The Campus Cop."
February 7, 2017: On this date in history, the author receives an email regarding his book-in-progress about the conspiracy to murder the Hare Krishna dissident Sulochan, from a former disciple of Ramesvara Maharaja, executive secretary to Mukunda Goswami in the ISKCON Public Affairs Office, associate editor for ISKCON World Review, and author of “Betrayal of the Spirit” (University of Illinois Press):
“Killing for Krishna—The Danger of Deranged Devotion” will go a long way to reconcile ISKCON’s most notorious crime, the murder of Sulochan dasa (Steven Bryant). Henry Doktorski bases his treatise on years of research. In the spirit of the biblical quote, “The truth will set you free,” Killing For Krishna, offers ISKCON followers the truth about their organization’s dark history.
Nori J. Muster (formerly Nandini devi dasi)
Phoenix, Arizona
A year later, when "Killing For Krishna" is published, her words appear as a blurb on the book's back cover.
More recently, Nori served as historical advisor and appeared on camera in the documentary film "Monkey On A Stick" directed by Jason Lapeyre. Factually, the movie could not have been produced without Nori. The author's name humbly also appears in the credits, as I assisted Nori in helping to insure historical accuracy.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
Nori Muster (Nandini devi dasi) (c. 1980s).
February 8, 1949: On this date in history Arthur John Villa, Jr. is born into a wealthy, “affluent and Roman Catholic family” in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1970 moves to New Vrindaban and a year later takes diksa and the name “Kuladri dasa.” In around 1976 he becomes president of New Vrindaban, and in 1985 he becomes a prominent leader in the conspiracy to assassinate Sulochan to protect the “pure devotee” Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada. He resigns from his position at New Vrindaban and leaves the community c. late 1986-early 1987, after the government begins their investigation of the murder of Sulochan.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 145.
Kuladri (Arthur Villa) presides over a New Vrindaban fire sacrifice (1984).
February 8, 1986: On this date in history, the two New Vrindaban hit men—Tirtha and Janmastami—and the two Los Angeles ksatriya security guards—Krishna Katha and Mahamantra, drive four hours from Los Angeles to California's Mojave Desert in KK’s Alfa Romeo sports car. In the desert they examine abandoned mine shafts where Tirtha and Janmastami plan on dumping Sulochan’s body after the assassination.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 271.
Mojave Desert
February 8, 2011: On this date in history, at Raheja Hospital in Mumbai, India, surgeons remove a tumor from Bhaktipada’s neck. Eight months later he dies.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 170.
Bhaktipada with disciples at Ananda Vrindavan Dhama (2011)
February 8, 2015: On this date in history, while conducting research for his proposed Hare Krishna history books, the author receives an email from Bhakta Eric Johanson, a former disciple of Hansadutta Swami previously known as Vrindaban Chandra Swami.
In his email, Eric tells me the story back in December 1985 when Hansadutta (who at the time had been demoted from his sannyasa status by the GBC and removed from his position of authority in California, and was living at New Vrindaban with his disciples and followers) sent fifteen followers from New Vrindaban to Mount Kailasa in California, to convince the remaining California devotees to abandon Mount Kailasa and move to New Vrindaban and take shelter of the “self-realized pure devotee” living there: His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada.
Eric, who at the time in 1985 had recently read excerpts from Sulochan’s book, “The Guru Business,” did not fall for their nonsense propaganda. Eric challenged his godbrothers:
“In reply to their enthusiasm, I brought up Hansadutta dasa’s scandals and the disappointment everyone had suffered. I gave my logic that if Kirtanananda ‘Swami’ was actually the Krishna-realized soul they claimed he was, why in 1978 did he endorse someone as fallen as Hansadutta dasa as another ‘pure devotee?’
If Kirtanananda ‘Swami’ was completely in touch with Lord Krishna, why would he want to be implicated in misleading all those who would accept Hansadutta dasa as a so-called guru? If he really was God-realized he would have been able to see that Hansadutta dasa was not fit to become guru.
Because Kirtanananda ‘Swami’ had mistakenly endorsed Hansadutta dasa, he must still have been subject to the four flaws of the conditioned soul and hardly a ‘pure devotee.’”
Eric’s argument seems reasonable; but it got me thinking; what if a thoughtful soul challenged:
“If Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada was actually the Krishna-realized soul his disciples claimed he was, why did he compare Keith Ham to Haridasa Thakur, the Acharya of the Holy Name?—a statement made when Keith was released from Bellevue Hospital and returned to 26 Second Avenue (September 1966).”
“Why did Prabhupada endorse someone as fallen as Kirtanananda Swami as a ‘fully Krishna conscious person?’—letter to Umapati dasa (September 5, 1967).”
“Why did Prabhupada say, ‘Kirtanananda, he is a pure devotee.’—morning walk in Los Angeles (c. 1972).”
“Why did Prabhupada say, ‘I bless Kirtanananda Swami to go back to Godhead in this life,’ prophecy announced in New Dwarka temple room, Los Angeles, in front of all the devotees (June 9, 1976)”
“If Prabhupada was completely in touch with Lord Krishna, why would he want to be implicated in misleading all those who would accept Kirtanananda as a so-called pure devotee? If Prabhupada really was God-realized he would have been able to see that Kirtanananda was nowhere close to being a pure devotee."
"Because Prabhupada had mistakenly endorsed Kirtanananda, Prabhupada must still have been subject to the four flaws of the conditioned soul and hardly a ‘pure devotee.’”
Facebook friends, I ask: what is the most intelligent reply to such a statement? Why can a person criticize Swami Kirtanananda for endorsing Hansadutta as a pure devotee zonal acharya, and not also criticize the Founder/Acharya for the same "offense"? Eric’s testimony appears in Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 107.
Bhakta Eric Johanson
February 1979: On or around this date in history, Yasodanandan Swami, the headmaster for the Bhaktivedanta Gurukula in Vrindaban, India, challenges the zonal acharyas to a debate at the February 1979 GBC meetings in Vrindaban, India. Guru Kripa serves as GBC representative for Vrindaban, India. Kailasa Chandra writes a position paper for the challengers. Pradyumna—a scholar whose knowledge of logic and shastra is formidable—is chosen to be the spokesman for the reform party.
The chief points of contention by the reformers are:
1) The new gurus are not entitled to accept worship from their godbrothers and/or godsisters;
2) Any worship of the new gurus should be held in some kind of private quarters, not in front of the deities in a temple established by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada;
3) The worship of the new gurus is far too lavish, and they do not deserve to accept such worship whatsoever;
4) To perpetuate the line of ISKCON, the current arrangement for the disciplic succession (by the GBC, which was dominated by the Acharya Board) is a counter-productive concoction, and has to be immediately reversed before it is too late;
5) There are other godbrothers who deserve to be able to initiate new disciples into Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s branch of the disciplic succession, and some kind of accommodation needs to be made as soon as possible for them.
The strategy of the reform group relied, in great measure, on the presentation of Pradyumna, who would represent them in the debate. They also relied upon the confrontation remaining civil and conducted in brahminical fashion but, unfortunately for the reformers, the debate was not conducted this way, except during the first ten minutes.
The new “gurus” regarded the reformers as an upstart group that was both offensive and envious; a threat comparable to a brush fire in the back forty that needed to be immediately extinguished. The new “gurus” did not want to see any of the points made in Kailasa Chandra’s paper as having any relevancy, but simply that they were being used as a ploy to accomplish motivated ends by each member of the reform party. The new “gurus” did not want to actually resolve anything by sastra and logic; instead, they wanted to crush this uprising, send a message, and triumph in such a way as to increase their momentum to turn this adversity to their advantage.
In the end, Guru Kripa, Pradyumna, Yasodanandan, Kailasa Chandra, and a number of others who challenged the zonal acharyas in Vrindaban, India, all left or were forced out of ISKCON.
The end of ISKCON? When Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada passed away, his Society became headless. Unqualified and ambitious men took control of ISKCON (with the express approval of the dysfunctional GBC)—fraudulently claiming that Prabhupada had appointed them as uttama-adhikari diksa gurus and zonal acharyas—and the actual brahmins, such as Pradyumna and others, who were the most fit to be spiritual advisors to the Society after Prabhupada’s departure, were ostracized as enemies.
One can persuasively argue that the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, as Prabhupada envisioned it, actually had ceased to exist. Today some call it “FISKCON” (False ISKCON). Some Neo-Gaudiya Math devotees call it “ISCON” because they say Krishna (K) has gone. Even one of the zonal acharyas remarked in 1986 that ISKCON had become a “shadow society” like the Gaudiya Math.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 156-161.
Yashodanandan dasa Brahmachari, sitting behind microphone with chaddar covering his head, listens to a discourse by Bhaktivendanta Swami Prapbhupada on Nectar of Devotion in the Radha Damodara Mandir, Vrindaban India, courtyard (October 1972)
Pradyumna
Guru Kripa
Kailasa Chandra
Eleven Zonal Acharyas
February 1982: On or around this date in history, my article “Prelude To Perfection” is published by the “Brijabasi Spirit.” In it I explain the circumstances which led me, fresh out of college at the age of 22, to join the Hare Krishnas.
To read the article, go to Prelude To Perfection.
Brijabasi Spirit article "Prelude To Perfection"
February 9, 1986: On this date in history, Tirtha flies back to Ohio and returns to his wife and son at their trailer park home in Ravenna, and Janmastami begins driving his van back to Philadelphia and his business selling flowers. No sense for the two hit men to remain in California while Sulochan is locked up in jail in West Virginia. Tirtha receives from Tapahpunja his second payment for surveillance expenses: only $1,700. He complains to Gorby that New Vrindaban promised him $2,000.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 273.
“That son of a bitch [Sulochan] is . . . going to have to be killed, and I am the one that is going to do it.”—Tirtha (Thomas A. Drescher), New Vrindaban’s chief “enforcer” and hit man, in court (undated).
Janmastami dasa (John Sinkowski) at New Vrindaban (1991)
February 10, 1986: On this date in history, Bhaktipada travels from New Vrindaban to New Orleans during Mardi Gras where he holds a darshan with a dozen of his sankirtan pickers who are working Super Bowl XX and the streets in the French Quarter. Bhaktipada also meets with Vrkodara dasa (Victor Mistretta), the New Orleans ISKCON temple president, and Jayapataka Swami Acharyapada (John Gordan Erdman), the ISKCON zonal acharya for Mayapur, India, and Louisiana and Mississippi. Bhaktipada also visits the ISKCON New Talavan farm near Carriere, Mississippi. Bhaktipada’s personal servant takes notes during Bhaktipada’s meeting with Jayapataka Swami and writes:
Monday, February 10, 1986. . . . Srila Bhaktipada met with Srila Acharyapada and told him his views on the guru issue. “We should discuss what is guru and his qualifications, not wasting time figuring out who is guru,” [said Bhaktipada]. . . . They discussed the Mayapur Festival. Srila Acharyapada said that they have good preparations, but no funds. . . .
Tuesday, February 11, 1986. . . . He [Bhaktipada] said that he offered to do the Mayapur project and get it done if they would give it to him. Someone said that it is hard to raise funds in India. Bhaktipada replied that he could raise the money needed for any project in India in six months. He said that being a Hindu in India is like being a Christian in Mexico.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 24.
His Divine Grace Jayapataka Swami Acharyapada (c. mid-1980s)
February 10, 1986: On this date in history, "New Vrindaban News" publishes an article by Kuladri (actually ghost-written by Garga Rishi) titled, “Demon Discredited: The Inside Story,” which tells of the heroism of the New Vrindaban ksatriyas who fearlessly hunted the "demon" Sulochan and, with the help of the Marshall County sheriff and deputies, succeed in getting Sulochan locked up in jail.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 256.
Demon Discredited, page 1.
Demon Discredited, page 2.
February 10, 2020: On this date in history, a reader writes a review on Amazon:
A Remarkable Book
One reviewer below described “Eleven Naked Emperors” as “a detailed, accurate and unapologetic history of the zonal acharya era of ISKCON” and he was not bluffing. I had always hoped that there would be a book written about this period in ISKCON history, and I was delighted to discover that the gentleman who wrote the gripping and well researched Killing For Krishna, would be stepping up to the plate.
Despite the provocative title, the author, Henry Doktorski, avoids the sensational route. You don’t get long character studies of the various zonal acharyas and you don’t get a litany of their salacious and scandalous past times (though you get some). “Monkey On A Stick,” this is not. What you do get are facts and witness accounts that construct a historical narrative of the period. It’s evident that Doktorski is sincere, as he thoughtfully explores many of the complicated facets of post 1977 ISKCON—the relationship between the institution and the Gaudiya Math, and the development of splinter groups that arose after Srila Prabhupada’s passing. There’s a lot to unpack and Doktorski does a great job of breaking everything down and presenting it in a way that’s both readable and easy to follow.
It would have been interesting to have gotten a deeper dive into the “poisoning conspiracy,” though it was mentioned briefly in a few chapters. I presume Doktorski intentionally avoided subjects that were deemed “too speculative” as there was interest from an Academic Press to publish this book. Perhaps he thought the evidence was not strong enough to warrant a more detailed look. I don’t know. He certainly left no stone unturned in his previous book Killing For Krishna. I would have also liked to have seen the scope of damage the zonal system caused to the greater ISKCON society and to the rank and file explored a bit deeper. (If you’re looking to delve into the human interest side, I recommend you read Nori Muster’s fantastic “Betrayal Of The Spirit”). Of course, it would have been fascinating to hear from more of the zonal acharyas themselves, but I knew securing interviews would be unlikely. Nevertheless, Doktorski should be lauded for his mostly successful attempts at getting perspectives from all sides.
I figured I’d write something because I expect to see some negative reviews, mostly due to the fact that the author dares to question aloud Srila Prabhupada’s responsibility in these matters—his reluctance to discipline his more ambitious and disruptive leaders, and his seeming inability to clearly articulate his instructions for initiation before his passing. To even entertain the notion that Prabhupada was fallible is still a big no-no for a lot of devotees.
A compelling read, I must say, but I don’t see this book garnering much interest outside the world of Hare Krishnas and the scholars who study them. It’s unfortunate because “Eleven Naked Emperors” is brilliant and Henry Doktorski and the others involved in the making of this book deserve recognition for this stunning accomplishment. Well done!
TriangleArmbar
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors.
February 10, 2020: On this date in history, a reader writes an online review of “Eleven Naked Emperors”:
Yet another important book that reveals the history of the ISKCON Gestapo movement. Notice to ISKCON members aka retards: You should never read this book. This book is very “offensive.” And you should stop reading this article right away if you want to keep your stupidity lata-bija.
I was very happy to buy Henry Doktorski’s new book Eleven Naked Emperors. I was thinking that if this book as half as good as Killing For Krishna, it would be worth the money.To be honest, I am at chapter 7, so that means I read 25% of the book, but I already feel the true value of this book.
Rare members of the Hare Krishna movement are able to rise above the ISKCON’s mental jail. The majority of people who join ISKCON are retarded and they never question the society they live in. Some rare people start “seeing things” only after being in the movement of many years. For example, in ISKCON, you can not discuss proper behavior and deviant behavior, you can not discuss what is truth, and what is a fallacy. As soon as you start asking questions and express a desire to discuss things, you will be immediately marked as “offender.” And all discussion stops here.
However, Srila Prabhupada never exhibited such behavior, so if you are wondering how this heinous mentality developed within ISKCON, you will find answers in this book. . . . Cruel, arrogant corporately licensed “gurus” with their blind, retarded followers are always looking for a way to give trouble to intelligent people who are questioning them. Nothing really changed in the last 40 years, except 11 zonal “acharyas” were replaced with a greater number of spineless puppy gurus whose main teaching is that you should not be “offensive.” You should believe in mushroom eating gurus, sannyasis with young, unmarried female secretaries, gurus who play ping pong in shorts, sahajiyas who parade girls throughout cities to make them chaste and shy, all these acts are acts of pure devotional service, and if you don’t believe that, or you desire to discuss these deviations, you are an “offender.” How stupid you have to be to live in such a movement?
Another important feature of this book is that it provides many details on the ISKCON corrupt guru approval process. Right after Srila Prabhupada left, ISKCON started corporate oversight over gurus, who were falling down left and right, and at the same time requiring big worship on the equal level with Srila Prabhupada. In this way, the real truth remains to be forever forgotten, suppressed by ISKCON’s corporate bureaucrats, aka “rubber-stamped gurus.”
And real truth is that every Srila Prabhupada’s disciple has the natural born right to initiate disciples, and he doesn’t need anybody’s “approval.” The relationship between guru and disciple is a private relationship and involved parties are exclusively responsible for entering into this relationship. Any disciple of Srila Prabhupada who initiates disciples naturally falls under public scrutiny, and if he is doing nonsense, Gestapo methods of silencing his opposition are actually against society’s interest. The only way for a society to purge itself of fake gurus in open journalism, honesty, and public discussion. There will be no success as long as ISKCON is doing exactly the opposite, “rubberstamping” corporate gurus who have good connections with corrupt elites, punishing journalists and anybody who says one word against the “chosen ones.” Retarded followers are disciples who are trained to reject any discussion about deviations and mark it as “offensive” and thus their discrimination remains on the level of four-year-old.
And this book reveals the history of the ISKCON Gestapo guru scam in great detail opening the doors for a brighter future.Until ISKCON removes all Gestapo mentality from its teachings and Law books, until it stops persecuting individuals who are exposing deviants, until it stops “approving gurus” and suppressing the discriminatory power of its members by turning them into retards, brighter future will not come.
Hanuman dasa (Hrvoje Marjanovic)
Zagreb, Croatia
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors.
Hanuman dasa ((Hrvoje Marjanovic)
February 11, 1973: On this date in history, Richard Slavin becomes Radhanath dasa Brahmachari at a fire sacrifice at New Vrindaban. I first met him five years later when he served as the fulltime pujari/cook at the Vrindaban Farm Brahmachari Ashram.
He had been serving there at the original rustic farmhouse (no hot running water, fireplace heat, passing stool in the stool field outside the old farmhouse) for three years, after Kirtanananda Swami visited Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in New York City in March 1975. Upon returning to New Vrindaban, Kirtanananda spoke to Radhanath, "I've asked Prabhupada and he wants you to go up to Vrindaban to take care of the deities. You should go up there, stay for the rest of your life, and never come down again! . . . You will die there."
Undated photo of Radhanath at an outdoor kirtan at New Vrindaban's Bahulaban farm, near Romaharshan’s wood shed. Kirtanananda Swami appears in the back with raised cane. Romaharshan is right in front of KS, wearing a baseball cap and playing kartals. Who can name the other people in the photo?
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 136)
Outdoor kirtan at Bahulaban, New Vrindaban (c. mid-1970s). Radhanath dasa Brahmachari appears at the left.
February 11, 2018: On this date in history, a reader writes a review of Killing For Krishna, on Amazon:
5 stars. Fair, balanced and very thorough.
You would think this is a screenplay for a murder mystery or mafia movie, but sadly it is all real-life. There is so much on the Internet describing this time in the Hare Krishna movement that it is nearly impossible to separate fact from fiction. This book does the best job so far. All sides are covered; no one is short-changed. Everyone’s story is heard and the reader is left to make up their own mind. As far as criticisms, some aspects should have more details given, such as the murders prior to the main character, but the author did a very good job nonetheless. Really eye-opening stuff about the people who inherited and almost squandered the legacy of His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada.
KingSonal
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
February 11, 2020: On this date in history, a reader send a message to the author regarding “Eleven Naked Emperors”:
Hi Henry,
The book was delivered several days ago. Please forgive my delayed confirmation email as I’ve been very busy with parish work. I’m digging in just as I did with Killing For Krishna. I can’t put it down. Your copious endnotes combined with writing skills are of great service to posterity and make for easy and informative reading. May our Lord reward your efforts! Thank you for having the courage and fortitude to see this through. I greatly anticipate the final work in your historical trilogy on ISKCON. God Bless.
Fr. Joseph Gingrich
Dayton, Ohio
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors.
February 11, 2020: On this date in history, a reader sends a message to the author:
Thank you Henry for writing the book Eleven Naked Emperors. I began reading it with interest as soon as I picked it up from my post box, and had to pull myself away to drive my car home from the post office.
Christopher Colm (Sri Krsna dasa)
former disciple of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami
Belmont, Vermont
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors.
The author with Christopher Claus Colm (Sri Krishna dasa) at Spring Lake Ranch Therapeutic Community, Cuttingsville, Vermont (August 22, 2025)
February 1969: On or around this date in history, electricity finally arrives at New Vrindaban.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 105.
New Vrindaban Farm House (undated, c. late 1960s)
February 12: February 1970: On or around this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada authorizes his senior disciple Bhagavan dasa (William Ehrlichman) to serve as a ritvik priest at Detroit ISKCON and initiate a new disciple on his behalf. This is the first time, to our knowledge, Prabhupada authorizes a disciple to act as a ritvik representative.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, pp. 47-48.
Bhagavan (William Ehrlichman)
February 12: February 1977: On or around this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami is arrested for cruelty to animals when eleven New Vrindaban cows die following a severe snowstorm. He spends several hours in the Marshall County Jail before New Vrindaban managers post $3,000 bond.
The Marshall County sheriff, his deputy and an officer from the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources investigated the reports. They found eleven dead cattle and five which were still alive. Nine head were missing. The surviving cattle had no food. Hay was within sight of three animals, but they could not reach it on account of a fence. The officers fed the surviving animals themselves.
Kirtanananda Swami’s secretary, Gopinath (Ronald Nay), explained, “Winter 1977: Srila Bhaktipada is arrested for cruelty to animals. Some neighbors complained because five cows died. They said it was neglect, but actually it was so cold their water supply froze. It was such a severe winter that thousands of farm animals perished all over the county, but only [Kirtanananda Swami] was arrested.”
When the case went to court, Kirtanananda was found guilty but the charges were dropped on appeal. Kuladri explained, "He came back from spending a day in jail [the newspaper claimed it was only a few hours], and said he never wanted to spend another day in jail, and that it was the responsibility of his devotees and followers to protect him from such things in the future." From this time forward, Kirtanananda Swami had no legal connection to New Vrindaban; he was not listed as an officer of the community, he owned no property or vehicles, he signed no checks, and his name did not even appear in the attendance roll of the weekly General Management Board meeting reports. For the most part, all his instructions were verbal. He essentially legally disappeared.
The question remains: if the sheriff, and a deputy from the Marshall County Sheriff Department, and an officer from the Department of Natural Resources were able to drive on the snow-covered roads and feed the animals, why weren’t New Vrindaban devotees able to do the same? The answer is most likely that these cows were not profitable to the community. These animals, which were pastured far from the community, were not milk cows, as the milk cows were always pastured near the barn. These animals were undoubtedly old cows who could not produce any more milk. It is probable that they were considered expendable by community leaders, and if they died, the community would save money to use to help build Prabhupada’s Palace.
Sashi Sadhaki, a Facebook friend, comments:
“I grew up in Michigan on a horse farm. 40+ years of my life. Upwards to 30 head plus chickens, ducks, geese, hogs, goats, dogs and cats. All I can say is this: we NEVER lost animals on account of the weather. EVER. Bottom line: these animals in this story died of neglect. PERIOD. No shelter. No feed. No water. Equals death. Disgusting. And thank you, Henry, for your writing of these events concerning New Vrindaban and beyond. I appreciate you. ❤”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 197.
February 12, 2014: On this date in history, during an interview for Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, a New Vrindaban gurukula alumna tells the author that the headmaster for New Vrindaban's Varnashram College raped her when she was nine years old:
I used to live at the New Vrindaban community. I don’t remember how I got there. I don’t remember my natural parents. I heard I was about one or two when I got there. The people told me. I went to school there and lived in the girl’s ashram. Mother Kutila [Kuladri’s wife] wasn’t really a mother, but she was the closest thing I had to a mother.
During 1981-1983, Manihar was headmaster of the school. He told me he would be my father because the parents that I just had [who had] been taking care of me had abandoned me, so he adopted me. He was going to be my father. He would take me to his house on the weekends sometimes. He molested me from 1982 to 1983. He would undress me and put me to sleep, and tell me that he loved me, and that he would never do anything to hurt me. But he would fondle and play with me all night. He touched me all over. I was about nine. He was thirty-eight. [In the interest of accuracy, actually, at the time, Manihar (1953-2009) was about 29 or 30 years old, not 38, as the girl claimed.]
Once he took me to Los Angeles. He took me to Los Angeles with him, and one night we were staying in this apartment, and the whole night he was sticking his fingers in me, and he put me on top of him. And he was rubbing my body against his. And I felt a really sharp pain, and when I woke up in the morning there was blood everywhere. It wasn’t my period. I didn’t get my first period until two years later.
[Years] later [after Manihar had left New Vrindaban] I realized that he wasn’t being my daddy, but was molesting me. We had a substitute teacher, a devotee, come in one time, and she talked about child abuse. And at that time I had never remembered—I completely had put this whole part of my life out of my mind. And when she started to talk about it, I started to remember what happened, and I just started crying. And I ran out of the classroom, and my friends saw me. And she came out and she said to me, “Were you molested?” And I said, “Yes. I was.” And she said, “So was I.”
I personally faced him [Manihar] in England in 2004. It was the most healing venture of my life, besides finding my real family a few years later. What happened was: I hunted his ass because he never admitted his actions and I had a real problem with that. Manihar’s son, MH, was like a brother to me and he often sided with his dad’s “innocence” in our conversations. So one year me and MH were on the phone and I told him I wanted to know where his dad was. He was hesitant and didn’t think his dad would be happy about it, but gave me his grandmother’s phone number in England where Manihar was visiting at the time. I called him and of course he was shocked, but his guilt was undeniably eating him alive and he spoke very openly with me. I didn’t trust his true admission of guilt on the phone only, and asked him to face me and his son in person.
I bought a ticket to England, which Manihar gave me the money for once I was there, and we all sat outside MH’s humble country home and hashed out years of turmoil. Manihar visited us for several hours and then left. I felt hundreds of pounds lifted from my heart and soul after that. All the years I’d spent envisioning his long torturous death fell to the earth, disintegrating into a pile of disgust and even compassion as he was nothing more than an old, fat, sick, sad, pathetic excuse of a man rotting in a wheelchair.
I’m so happy Manihar is dead now. The world is absolutely a better place as a result. (End quote)
Author’s postscript: Manihar left New Vrindaban in 1983 and then went to work as a teacher at the Bhaktivedanta Gurukula in Vrindaban, India. Manihar left the Vrindaban gurukula (apparently within a year), defected from ISKCON, became an Indian citizen and in 1984 established the Street Kids’ Community Villages Children’s Trust (SKCV) in Bombay. In 1994 he wrote a manual on the proper care of street children, called C.H.I.L.D. (Comprehensive Help for India’s Little Destitutes), and in 2008 he received the prestigious Annual Award from the All-India Rotary International for his outstanding services to children. His service to save homeless children won praise from around the world—from Mother Teresa and the Indian Government to former United Kingdom Prime Minister John Major, and international charities such as Water Aid.
Manihar was never prosecuted for his crimes against the New Vrindaban children (yes, he abused more than one), and today most people regard him as a savior of children, except for those very few who knew of his heinous deeds at New Vrindaban. His biography, which praises his glories, is titled “A Different Road: The Remarkable Story of Matthew Norton.” He died from an overdose of morphine. Manihar’s obituary, which also praises his glories, was published in The Messenger, a local newspaper in his hometown of Sale, Trafford, United Kingdom.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, pp. 301-302, 312, 315.
Manihar, at the time the headmaster of New Vrindaban's Varnashram College, chants with some of the students at Prabhupada's Palace of Gold (Autumn 1981)
Obituary for Matthew Norton (2009).
February 13, 1969: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada discourages chanting the names of any god but Krishna, “Regarding your questions about various names of God, we have nothing to do with Jehovah, Allah, Jesus, etc. . . . as far as we are concerned, we should be satisfied with the Hare Krishna mantra and nothing more.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 48.
“Krishna Killing Keshi the Horse Demon,” Terracotta, Gupta period, 5th century, India (Uttar Pradesh)
Dimensions: H. 21 in. (53.3 cm); W.16 in. (40.6 cm); D. 4 1/4 in. (10.8 cm)
February 13-14, 1987: On this date in history, North American temple presidents, at a meeting at Brooklyn ISKCON, recommend to the GBC that Bhaktipada, an ISKCON guru, leader of the New Vrindaban Community and a dozen satellite centers, and Prabhupada's first sannyasa disciple, be expelled from ISKCON. Ravindra Svarupa (William H. Deadwyler, III), an ISKCON GBC member, guru, and president of the Philadelphia ISKCON temple, explained:
Everything really came to a head. The first thing that happened in ’87 in February was the North American Temple Presidents Meeting at which we passed a resolution requesting the GBC to expel Kirtanananda Swami. Kirtanananda had gotten considerably more dangerous to ISKCON, and the GBC didn’t seem to be able to do anything about it because he was now claiming that there was a government plot against Hinduism and that’s why he was being investigated. And because so many Indians in America were going to New Vrindaban, a place of pilgrimage, he had a mailing list all over America, and using that mailing list he was asking Indians to back him and support him against this attack on Hinduism.
When Sulochan was killed, everybody in ISKCON knew that Kirtanananda was behind it. Because we had New Vrindaban devotees come and tell us, “What’s the matter? It was authorized.” Everybody knew it. No devotee would kill another devotee unless it was authorized. (laughter). We knew he had done it. And yet, by going to the Indians like this, Kirtanananda was trying to force ISKCON into a position where we had to support him. We weren’t going to have a choice.
And he started to go on television. He got an agent who booked him in media markets, television markets, getting on television shows all over America. And that was called “The First Amendment Freedom Tour.” The first amendment of the constitution of the United States guarantees freedom of religion. And he was billing this investigation into murder—and also when the government discovered how they were doing sankirtan, there was also a huge criminal fraud operation involving: first of all, they were selling these stickers with Snoopy and Peanuts on it . . . they were pirated stickers. They didn’t pay copyright royalties to the person [copyright owner], so everything they did, every time they shipped stickers out, that was [mail] fraud. They were collecting money, they were all over America collecting money, in horrendous ways. We were all so fried with them.
As bad as everybody else was, they were really bad. They were most outrageous. The government was investigating all of that, and he was on the First Amendment Freedom Tour, and we realized that we were really gonna be in a problem if something isn’t done. So we were having this North American Temple Presidents Meeting and he decided to come to that meeting and send his people for the first time. He claimed to have more Prabhupada disciples in New Vrindaban than anywhere else in ISKCON. And they descended in this meeting. [However, Kirtanananda did not attend.]
Their purpose to me was to out-vote everybody else, and try to get an endorsement from the North American Temple Presidents and Prabhupada disciples. What he didn’t know was that the only people who had a vote were the temple presidents. Prabhupada disciples were not really part of the official thing.
Their leaders [from New Vrindaban] came; what a show-down that was! My life had been threatened by them. It was really heavy. While their leaders were there and all their people were there we passed a resolution requesting the GBC to expel Kirtanananda from ISKCON. He [Kirtanananda] certainly didn’t expect that. He expected the GBC at the most would suspend him from the GBC but what we really needed was him out of ISKCON. We went to ISKCON with that proposal.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 136)
Ravindra Svarupa (William H. Deadwyler, III)
Sign on Brooklyn ISKCON
Brooklyn ISKCON
February 13, 2018: On this date in history, a reader writes a review of Killing For Krishna, on Amazon:
5 stars. Informative, accurate, well written, and powerful book! Beware of false gurus! And false book reviews too!
Informative, accurate, well written, and powerful book! Many accolades to Henry Doktorski for the courage to do this work. Definitely worth reading, especially if you have anything to do with the Hare Krishna movement (ISKCON). Unfortunately one high level Krishna leader will likely spend upwards of $250,000 to slander this book in various ways (on Amazon and Google) as he has thousands of disciples who will leave poor reviews. This same person launched a similar campaign to boost sales of his own book(s) so that they would reach the best sellers lists. That being said, take each single 5 star review to count for about 500, just to level the playing field to some degree.
What’s even more interesting is that I’ve heard this man in question lecture and he states, “I have no money.” This is further dishonesty, to add to what is in the book. He has millions but the rationalization of institution gurus alongside him is that the money is Krishna’s (God’s) money. Therefore they can claim that they have no money. Meanwhile some of them have well over a million in the bank, which is against many scriptural injunctions for sannyasis (renounced monks).
Anyway, this is a wonderful book accounting the details of the famous New Vrindavan murder. I hope it will lead to a further level of institutional integrity and honesty among the leaders of ISKCON. When it comes to ‘preaching’ or education, Srila Prabhupada, the guru of the Hare Krishnas once explained that “preaching is like throwing a brick into a pack of dogs. The one who gets hit yelps the loudest.” What this analogy means is that the person whom truth hurts the most is most likely the one to go on a campaign against it.
Vaishnava Dasa
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
February 13, 2018: On this date in history, a reader writes a review of Killing For Krishna, on Amazon:
5 Stars. Detailed Journey to the Past.
Killing For Krishna, tells the story of the most notorious crime in the history of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON): the murder of Steven Bryant, aka Sulochan, on May 22, 1986. The murder conspiracy grew out of a culture of violence in New Vrindaban, the largest ISKCON center in America, located in the back hills of West Virginia. The guru and king of New Vrindaban was Kirtanananda Swami, also known as Bhaktipada, and whose real name was Keith Ham. Over the twenty-six years of Kirtanananda’s reign, none of the ISKCON leaders anywhere in the world could stand up to him.
ISKCON has had a half-dozen murders and other crimes, but the Sulochan murder stands out because it was a carefully planned crime, for which the gunman, the guru Kirtanananda, and others served time in prison. The gunman is still serving a life sentence.
Doktorski traces every thread of the murder conspiracy, beginning when Sulochan joined ISKCON, to when he is murdered, on to how the conspirators fared in court, and ending with the aftermath up to the present day. Much of the later history, as cited in e-mails and other online exchanges, describes the internal bickering over who was the most to blame for the murder.
Doktorski concludes the book with a warning about deranged devotion, citing tape-recorded conversations and published statements, where the ISKCON founder explained why it was okay to kill for Krishna. He never advocated killing anyone, but in his teachings, he compared it to soldiers killing for a country’s military. If killing is authorized, it’s okay. That leaves the question, who can authorize a murder for Krishna? Fundamentalist religious cults often adopt twisted understandings of their own dogma, and given a deranged leader like Kirtanananda, and blindly devoted followers like he had up to the end of his life, the Sulochan murder makes perfect sense.
Doktorski concludes: “the tragic yet heroic saga of Sulochan serves to enlighten us as to why we should not encourage nor participate in those charismatic cults. Instead, to whatever extent possible, we can work to curtail those cults from ever again gaining the momentum they did in the nineteen-eighties.”
Killing For Krishna, is just a slice of the ISKCON history Doktorski plans to document. He published this story first, since it answers a lot of questions about ISKCON’s controversial past. Unfortunately, the murder, and the culture behind it, remain taboo subjects within the ISKCON organization. By maintaining silence, they risk their reputation because the truth has its way of coming out. For one thing, books like Doktorski’s will not let ISKCON completely forget.
Killing For Krishna, relies on court records, media accounts, interviews, and the author’s own memory, since he lived through that era as a Kirtanananda disciple in New Vrindaban. The book includes a sixteen-page, detailed New Vrindaban timeline that covers the years 1974 to 2018. People who grew up in New Vrindaban or lived there during the seventies and eighties would gain new insights into their own experience from reading this book, and studying the timeline.
Nori J. Muster
Phoenix, Arizona
former associate editor of ISKCON World Review and author of “Betrayal of the Spirit”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
Nori Muster (Nandini devi dasi) (c. late 1980s)
February 13, 2018: On this date in history, a reader writes a review of Killing For Krishna, on Amazon:
5 stars. Primarily “Killing for Krishna—The Danger of Deranged Devotion” is based upon meticulous observation, research, and reporting. Henry Doktorski has kept his eyes on the evildoers for just what they were (and probably still are), and he exposes them by hitting his targets smack dab on the sweet spot. As formerly an insider within that cult, he knew all of those good fellas. He thus makes such deranged practitioners of pseudo-bhakti uncomfortable in his book, a discomfort they all most fully deserve.
The manuscript is cross-referenced and presents different possible explanations for many secondary but related events from different perspectives, but without losing sight of the chief thread, viz., the ruthless assassination of a dissident who was ultimately proven right. This voluminous work is a real page-turner, as there is enough tension created in each sub-header (of each chapter) to keep the reader interested and intrigued. How could it be otherwise? The whole account is loaded with deadly accurate descriptions of a peculiar cult combination of intrigue, treachery, and betrayal—the worse variety of the triad. This great book has multi-episode television series written all over it.
Kailasa Candra dasa, ACBSP (Mark Goodwin)
Jasper, Arkansas
Vaishnava intellectual, thinker, sidereal astrologer, author and co-founder of The Vaishnava Foundation
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
Kailasa Chandra (Mark Goodwin)
February 14, 1977: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada reveals his kinship with two pro-slavery United States senators John C. Calhoun and James Henry Hammond, and asserts his belief in the rightful place of the black race in human society:
In a room conversation in Mayapur, India, Prabhupada tells his disciples: “[The] Sudra is to be controlled only. They are never [to be given] . . . freedom. Just like in America. The blacks were slaves. They were under control. And since you have given them equal rights they are disturbing, most disturbing, always creating a fearful situation, [blacks are] uncultured and drunkards. What training they have got? They have got equal [rights]? [It] is best, to keep them under control as slaves but give them sufficient food, sufficient [clothes], not more than that. Then they will be satisfied.”
In his room conversation, Prabhupada appears to parrot the words of the United States Senator from South Carolina, James Henry Hammond (1807–1864), who delivered a speech 119 years earlier (in 1858) about slavery: “Our slaves are black, of another and inferior race. The status in which we have placed them is an elevation. They are elevated from the condition in which God first created them, by being made our slaves. None of that race on the whole face of the globe can be compared with the slaves of the South. They are happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly incapable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give us any trouble by their aspirations.”
Another United States Senator from South Carolina, John C. Calhoun (1782–1850), also delivered a speech about slavery (in 1837): “But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil:—far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.”
My former spiritual master, Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, used to say, “Things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. In mathematical formulae: if A = B, and B = C, then A = C.” It appears that the three illustrious persons mentioned in this post are saying the same thing. I see no reason to believe that Calhoun or Hammond were joking. Ditto for Prabhupada.
It is unlikely that the Founder/Acharya of the International Society For Krishna Consciousness would have approved of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, nor the Civil Rights Movement nor Rev. Martin Luther King, nor for that matter, the Women’s Liberation Movement or even Women’s Suffrage (allowing women to vote). If Prabhupada had lived in the mid-1800s, based on this conversation (and other conversations), he most certainly would have sided with the Confederate States during the United States’ Civil War.
P. S. from the author: I receive no pleasure from sharing these posts. I get only sadness, just as one becomes sad when one realizes a person they put on a pedestal, and served for many years, is not the perfect, divine and infallible being they once upon a time believed. It is the loss of innocence. Like the innocent joy a child experiences when they leave cookies and milk out by the fireplace on Christmas Eve for Santa to snack on when he slides down the chimney and brings toys and presents. Very sad when the child realizes that it is all fake; make believe, lies which adults told them. But that is part of growing up. Better to be sad and real, in my opinion, than blissfully ignorant.
I also find it interesting that many people regard me as an extremely offensive person for posting these inglorious words of the Founder/Acharya. I guess they believe that one should only post the glorious words of a saintly soul which all will approve, and not post his less-than-glorious words which may cause some to doubt the alleged perfection of the Founder/Acharya. Rather than fault the Founder/Acharya for saying such things, they fault the messenger who quotes the Founder/Acharya’s words. I find this curious and possibly a result of deranged devotion.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 234.
February 14, 2025: On this date in history, a Facebook “friend” criticizes the author regarding a Facebook post which features a quote by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada regarding the size of women’s brains: “Scientifically, a woman's brain is half the size of a man's.”
Facebook friend: “Here we go again with the click bait content of obscure quotes meant to trigger people.”
Author’s reply:
My friend, this is not an obscure quote. If it is obscure, that is only because devotees avoid talking about this issue. But this issue is not obscure. Resentment toward ISKCON was plastered all over northern Illinois when Prabhupada said these words, or similar words, during a television press conference. He also spoke similar to a reporter for Ms. Magazine. A femaile Prabhupada disciple and airport book distributor, Bhaktavasya devi dasi, explains:
There was a fierce competition that year to sell the most books and raise the most Laksmi points. We left the temple just after morning arotik, to catch the 6 a.m. early morning flights and stayed out until 9 or 10 p.m. Prabhupada's interview with a reporter from Ms. magazine the year before didn't help in the public relations department. He was asked if he thought women were inferior and he replied that 'scientifically' a woman's brain is half the size of a man's. It was one thing to say in his books that women are less intelligent, the quote was buried so deep in his thousands of purports that the average person on the street or in the airports wouldn't be likely to read it. But in a televised interview, with a reporter from the most well respected feminist magazine in America (and wherever else Ms. Magazine was read) was mind-boggling.
I, for one, had to push down my resentment after that incident. It was hard enough by this time to force these books and magazines on travelers coming through from all parts of the world, having probably been hit up in a couple of other airports already.
Prabhupad defenders stuck to the 'Prabhupad was teaching puffed up women a lesson' line. As a woman who had to go out to the airport after that and be confronted by taunts ("Look at yourself, you're just a shell of a woman" "How could you stay in a religion that demeans women like your guru does? Don't you have any self-respect?" and worse "Shove that book up your ass and get out of my face") and a blur of angry, disgusted looks. Still I pressed on. There was always an innocent soul from some small town in America or the dependable soldiers coming back from being stationed in Germany, the Navy guys coming off buses who'd just got paid and thought nothing of giving some flirty Hare Krishna girls 20 or even 100 dollars with a little persuasion and a believable line about getting kids off of drugs and back to God.
Book scores were read the next morning after arotik, drum-rolls for the biggest book scores, a tap of the drum and muted "Jaya"s for those at the bottom of the rung. The scores from other competing temples were posted on the bulletin board. Prabhupad was reported as being ecstatic with the results. No-one had the honesty or the heart to tell Prabhupad that the garbage cans throughout the airport were (more and more as the intensity of the ‘cooking the books’ sales culminated) crammed with his books. The janitors dug them out and sold them back to us for a buck each. It’s hard to talk about it now, because I was part of it; the change-up, the shake-down, pressing the palm, paying phony compliments.
And this wasn’t unique to the O’Hare airport; there were reports of seeing the streets of New York literally paved with Back to Godhead magazines after a ‘blitz’ from a traveling sankirtan party out of New Vrindavan. The ajñata-sukriti theory was in full swing; meaning performing unknown pious deeds. Just by touching the book, someone makes spiritual advancement. The seed of devotion is awakened. Better still that someone actually reads it, surrenders to the temple and becomes part of our team. Hmm. Yeah. I thought about that, a lot. Were we really the chosen few thousand? Were we doing this all for them, the ‘fallen conditioned souls’ who may take another thousand births or more before they surrender? And if they did read those books and surrender, join the temple, would they end up in the same position as us, stationed forever in airports and out on the streets?
Sometimes I imagined myself in old age coming out to the airport pushing a walker, same spot at United terminal, beseeching future generations of travelers to ‘please take one of these books’. I knew I could not keep saying the same lines over and over and over again until then.
To read Bhaktavasya devi dasi's book, go to A Different Kind of Life
February 15, 1966: On this date in history, after four months quietly living as a guest of Dr. Ramamurti Mishra, who operated a hatha-yoga studio in a suite on the fifth floor of 100 West Seventy-Second Street, near Central Park in Manhattan, Bhaktivedanta Swami rents his own place, a barren, windowless third-floor room two floors below Dr. Mishra’s yoga studio. The rent is $72 per month. Although the room has water and a toilet, there is no bath or kitchen. He still has to cook at Dr. Mishra’s apartment, but at least he is free to preach as he likes. His first audiences consist mainly of people who had heard about him or met him at Dr. Mishra’s yoga studio.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 154.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (c. mid-1960s).
Bhaktivedanta Swami observes a lecture by his benefactor Dr. Ramamurti Mishra.
February 15-17, 1992: On these dates in history, New Vrindaban hosts an “Earth Changes Conference.” Attendees are expected to pay a “donation” of $75.00. Participants, according to the advertisement in the City of God publication "Spirit of the Times," could look forward to three nights of lodging at the “safe” setting of the City of God, three vegetarian meals per day, plus workshops, lectures, ceremonies and celebrations pertaining to:
• Living in harmony with the earth
• Herbs as 21st-century medicine
• Free energy sources
• Bartering and spiritual economies
• Homeopathy
• Meditation as survival training
• Yoga and Tai Chi
• Purification through the sacred rock lodge
• Earth changes prophecies
• Native American Earthways
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 282.
Paramahansa Krishna Swami served as the primary organizer of interfaith events at New Vrindaban and also as a spokesman for the community during the interfaith City of God era.
February 16, 1987: On this date in history, one of Bhaktipada’s followers compares Bhaktipada to Sri Adwaitacharya (1434–1559), a companion to Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and the spiritual master of Haridasa Thakur.
Vaidyanath dasa (Erlend Pettersson), a German-speaking Prabhupada disciple who teaches at the New Vrindaban gurukula, explains, “During the [September 1985 GBC] meetings [at New Vrindaban], I coincidentally came across some photocopies of Srila Prabhupada’s letters lying around. They were excerpts of certain letters that Srila Prabhupada had written about Kirtanananda Swami between September 1967 and December 1967, a period during which Srila Prabhupada chastised him heavily for not following his order, growing a beard and preaching Mayavada philosophy. Concerning that three-month period, I am reminded of Srila Adwaitacharya preaching Mayavada philosophy in order to receive chastisement from Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 54.
Artist interpretation of Adwaitacharya Prabhu, associate of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
February 17, 1987: On this date in history, a former New Vrindaban gurukula alumni is arrested and charged with two third-degree sexual assault charges. He pleads guilty and serves six months in a youth detention camp. On the other hand, the former school headmaster, Sri Galim (Gary Gardner), also charged with sex crimes, flees the country.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 341.
Sri Galim (Gary Gardner), with two gurukula boys.
February 1972: On or around this date in history, the charismatic singer and sannyasi Vishnujan Swami joins the Road Show (a Krishna-conscious traveling theater/music production featuring singers, musicians, actors, dancers, light shows, tie-died sets and prasadam under the direction of Kirtanananda Maharaja), and the Road Show is transformed into a Rock Opera.
The group (established in August 1971 and disbanded in September 1972) performs in Louisiana, Texas, and back to Georgia, then to Washington D. C., Boston, Brooklyn and Pittsburgh. The troupe is arrested by Houma, Louisiana police while passing out “Back to Godhead” magazines and soliciting donations. They cook an imaginary feast in jail.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 243.
Vishnujan Maharaja (undated).
February 1993: On or around this date in history, while under house arrest, Bhaktipada attempts to fondle the genitalia of one of his young adult male disciples. The disciple (Bhakta Dan) flips out, runs out of the house, hops in the car and quickly drives away. Seven months later, Bhaktipada—who has been unable to control his passions for years—is finally exposed as a sex addict to all during the Winnebago Incident.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 34.
Bhaktipada (August 16, 1993).
February 19, 1977: On this date in history during a conversation with disciples in Mayapur, India, Prabhupada explains that women’s bodies have a disgusting “obnoxious smell.” During this recorded conversation, he speaks the word “vagina” 29 times, and the word “lick” or “licking” 14 times.
Kirtanananda Swami faithfully follows in the footsteps of his spiritual master, and just prior to women's darshans at New Vrindaban, he jokes with his male followers, "Get out the incense boys! Tonight's fish night!"
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 38. Image: Yoni
6th-century Lajja Gauri icon from Madhya Pradesh. In this and other early icons, her head is symbolically substituted with a large lotus-flower, her yoni visible in the depicted splayed position as if she is giving birth.
February 19, 2020: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Hare Krsna, Dear Henry,
I have just finished reading your new book Eleven Naked Emperors, and I feel obliged to write you a few words describing my impressions of the book.
You have presented all the different perspectives held by the different groups of devotees on the continuation of the preaching mission of Srila Prabhupada with an unbiased, non-hateful and neutral manner, which is very valuable. It gives devotees of all camps an opportunity to educate themselves about the various viewpoints and especially about the circumstances and history in which these viewpoints have developed over the years. Your intention to be a mere historian comes handy when the devotees need sober minds to decide how to push forward the wonderful mission Srila Prabhupada started at the time of confusion and mistrust.
I also see you have quite a genuine appreciation for Srila Prabhupada and regard him to be a genuine saint and spiritual master. The non-devotee audience would also benefit from reading your book as it very nicely distinguishes Srila Prabhupada as the real guru who follows the orders of the previous acharya as opposed to unauthorized gurus. You have very humbly stated in your book that you also take blame for being cheated by the false gurus yourself, which is not a weakness but quite the opposite: a great asset.
Unfortunately, many devotees are not so gentlemanly and therefore they rather point their finger at the faults of others to justify their own fault of insincerity. Thus they get stuck in unending cycle of arguments and counterarguments just to prove themselves to be innocent, which is not the case. We always follow some sort of authority. If not a guru, then at least our imperfect senses and imperfect biases we have developed in our conditional existence and naturally making mistakes is part of the process. We should not lament, but admit our mistake and move on. Everything is simply a purification of motive. Therefore humility and submissiveness are always encouraged by great teachers. If one is sincere, one cannot be cheated, or he will not be cheated for a long time. And even if he’s cheated for a long time, if he at one point matures and realizes his delusion, he benefits from such experience, since due to his humility and surrender he is able to carefully study the cheater and gain perspective rarely available to those who are distant. Thus being cheated becomes an asset. I believe your next book is the result of such undertaking.
In regards to the doubt that was expressed in the last portion of the book, namely whether Srila Prabhupada was not to blame for the fiasco of his disciples after his departure, I think every genuine disciple must encounter doubts of such calibre. We must know the knowledge side by side with the nescience. If one is to shy away from such discussion, it does not speak well of his faith in Srila Prabhupada either. It does not help if we ignore such doubts, suppress them, or demonize those who genuinely discover them. Quite the opposite, all doubts should be discussed and if they are ignored, they devour us.
Ultimately this one single doubt, whether Srila Prabhupada is absolutely perfect or not is the core of the problem, the reason why the Hare Krsna movement became stagnant and why devotees, instead of making the world a better place, have become overly engaged in mundane arguments about political and managerial posts within the spiritual master’s institution (as though they had to help the so-called imperfect master). So it is good to raise these doubts and speak honestly rather than hide behind the facade of a ‘guru,’ ‘Prabhupada man,’ ‘ritvik’ or any such meaningless designations.
We must always consider, what is actually the mission of the genuine master in this world? To satisfy our mundane ideas of bodily so-called friendship, love and society or to take us from all these, liberate us and engage in pure devotional service that cannot be checked by any material circumstances (corruption in the guru’s institution is one)? Indeed, if we want to transcend this bodily plane of existence, it is necessary to develop genuine disgust for lording it over propensity (false guru mentality). What better lesson could be found for this than in the post 1977 ISKCON zonal acharya period? So in one sense Srila Prabhupada’s teaching continues and shows who is attached to what. Everyone is being tested. God is not cheap. The guru shows the way, we have to walk it.
I would highly recommend the book to devotees who are genuinely interested in knowing the history of ISKCON. You have done a great research, maintained devotional undertone without degrading to tabloid, exploitative, gossip type of writing style as one would expect from such a publication. Well done.
All the best
Your servant,
Purujit dasa
La Linea, Spain
P. S. The book has lots of valuable historical information. I particularly became interested to read that the originator of the ‘book changes’ controversy was Kirtanananda Swami [who opposed editing Prabhupada’s books posthumously as early as 1983]. I enjoyed little snippets of valuable information like this.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors.
Purujit Prabhu
February 20, 1991: On this date in history, Bhaktipada declares, “I’m going to build that temple, or die trying.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 208.
Artist’s painting of the proposed Great Temple of Understanding at New Vrindaban
February 20, 1994: On this date in history, Tirtha Swami in prison changes his tune and rejects Bhaktipada as his “spiritual master.” He expresses his personal disillusionment in a letter to Kirtanananda Swami.
For 22 years, Tirtha had believed the propaganda that Bhaktipada was a pure devotee of Krishna, and for eight years in prison, refused to implicate his "spiritual master" in the conspiracies to murder Chakradhari and Sulochan. He refused to believe that the September 1993 Winnebago Incident, in which Bhaktipada was observed having illicit sex with a teenage male Malaysian disciple, was factual.
However, after Radhanath Swami and Garga Rsi visited him in prison, they convinced Tirtha that his "spiritual master" was not a pure devotee. He was far from it; he was a fallen conditioned soul addicted to sex.
A few months later in August, Tirtha turned on Bhaktipada and during the Federal Grand Jury in Wheeling, West Virginia, he invented the fiction that Bhaktipada had ordered him to murder Chakradhari and Sulochan, although factually Bhaktipada had not. Tirtha invented this lie only to insure that his "spiritual master" would have to go to prison, like himself.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 166.
Tirtha in prison
February 21, 1991: On this date in history, Rev. George David Exoo, a Unitarian Universalist minister and interfaith member of the City of God, and True Peace (Thomas McGurrin), a former Bhaktipada disciple, stage a protest against the “City of Fraud” on the steps of the Marshall County Courthouse.
Three days earlier, George Exoo had written to the author and his wife, Dear Hrishikesh and Shyama:
A note to let you know that very soon I shall be leading a protest demonstration against the New Vrindaban community of behalf of the interfaith people who have been defrauded by Kirtanananda Swami and the City of God. I very much regret this necessity and want you to know that it in no way reflects upon my friendship or high regard for you or detracts from any advocacy or assistance I may extend to your behalf in the future.
Certainly we who protest will appreciate any advocacy inside the community for justice and restitution of losses and fulfillment of promises made to people who are still with you. However, we urge you to do nothing that would place yourselves in discredit or danger.
Betrayal of the trust I reposed in New Vrindaban has been very painful for me personally and damaging for me professionally. As I read statements from others, I can feel the obvious pain in their words also. Thomas (True Peace) and I hold you in our prayers. (End letter)
A year later, Rev. Exoo’s article, “How the City of God Became a City of Fraud,” is published in the weekly newspaper “In Pittsburgh” (June 4-10, 1992).
For more about how Bhaktipada alienated the City of God interfaith residents, Hindu friends and regular devotees, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 73. Images: Exoo1, Exoo2
City of God Interfaith member and Unitarian Universalist Minister Rev. George David Exoo (February 1991).
February 22, 1985: On this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, a popular ISKCON guru and leader of the New Vrindaban Hare Krishna community, threatens to resign from the GBC if Sulochan, a former New Vrindaban resident who is trying to bring down Bhaktipada by writing his book "The Guru Business," is not discredited. Bhaktipada writes:
My dear GBC Godbrothers. . . .I am writing this letter of resignation to be effective immediately, because I do not believe anyone should sit on this august body about whose character there is even a shadow of a doubt.
As you are well aware, during the past few months, Sulochan dasa has been spreading all manner of rumor and accusations about myself and New Vrindaban. Although I have tried my best to be very strict in my life and to guide the community by example, and, although it is a fact that I have not broken even one of the regulative principles in almost two decades, still there seems to be some question of my qualifications to lead. Nor do I feel any necessity to defend my life prior to coming to Krishna consciousness, as, according to sastra, the former life of a Vaishnava should never be taken into account.
Furthermore, a Vaishnava does not want to defend himself, but sees all as Krishna’s special mercy upon him. Still, as long as this matter is not completely resolved to the satisfaction of all, I think it best for me not to participate in the actions of the GBC. Let there be inquiry and investigation. If I am at fault, I pray to be corrected. If not, the mission of Lord Chaitanya should not suffer needlessly due to gossip and envy. (End letter)
Within seven months, the GBC expels Sulochan from ISKCON. Eight months after his expulsion, Sulochan is murdered.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 63)
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, publicity photo, sitting on his backyard deck at his house across from the Palace (1982).
February 23, 1970: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada shares some of his thoughts about women in a letter to Hayagriva’s wife Shama dasi, “Women are by nature endowed with many artistic tendencies, and from the Vedic age we find high-grade women and girls were highly qualified in sixty-four arts. Srimati Radharani [Lord Krishna’s consort] was fully qualified in those arts, and therefore by her super-excellent transcendental qualities, she could charm Krishna who is the charmer of the three worlds.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 8.
Srimati Radharani, Lord Vrindaban Chandra's consort, at Bahulaban
February 23, 2023: On this date in history, Kaliya Mardana dasa Brahmachary’s book The Journey Home Debunked: Exposing Mayavada Infiltration in Shrila Prabhupada’s Family, is published on Amazon. The Journey Home refers to Radhanath Swami’s autobiography of the same title.
It first appeared as 53 Essays which analyze the Mayavada influences in Radhanath Swami's book, The Journey Home, and was originally published in a series by The Sampradaya Sun. The Journey Home Debunked will be truly a treasure in the library of the discriminating Gaudiya Vaishnava.
For more, see: The Journey Home Debunked
Cover of The Journey Home Debunked
February 24, 1982: On this date in history, while preaching in Pakistan, Bhaktipada explains why the dozen or so New Vrindaban child marriages failed: the girls had not been properly trained to become submissive wives to their older husbands. He suggests two of his young female Pakistani disciples, who grew up in the Pakistani patriarchal society, come to New Vrindaban to train up the young Brijabasi girls how to become proper and obedient wives.
At New Vrindaban, Bhaktipada and the inmates were attempting to revive the ancient Cosmic-ordained sanatan dharma, as revealed by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in his books, letters and conversations. Although child marriage was outlawed in India in 1929. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada none-the-less advocated child marriage, insisting it was the only way to keep marriage holy, and wrote about it as early as 1958:
“. . child marriage is most convenient form of morality and there are many examples in the noble life. . . . The system of child marriage prevents both the man and the woman falling into immoral connection with the opposite sex. Psychologically both a boy or a girl develops the sex-consciousness at the age of thirteen to eighteen years of age according to different climatic conditions. In such stage especially after the attainment of puberty a woman wants a male and if she is not married within that time and allowed to mix up with boys who have developed the sex consciousness, it is quite natural that there is every chance of fall down either by the boy or by the girl. With the change of social conditions, the standard of conjugal life is also changing but the code of avoiding unholy connection with woman is always there.”
In 1985, a New Vrindaban father approached me in private and asked if I’d like to marry his 13-year-old daughter. I was 29. Although she was pretty, with fair complexion, slender waist, and long straight straw-colored hair, I respectfully declined his offer, as at the time I was not interested in marriage.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 329.
February 24, 1992: On this date in history, during a follow up appointment in Morgantown to check up on his recent hernia operation, 54-year-old Bhaktipada tells his surgeon he is impotent; he can’t get an erection. “I don’t get them and what’s more, I don’t WANT them!”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 26.
The vimana of Bhaktipada’s “Samadhi-under-construction” on Bhakti Marg Road, Vrindaban India (July 2023), which some claim resembles a giant phallus.
February 25, 1950: On this date in history, John Edwin Favors (later known as Ghanashyama dasa, and then Bhakti Tirtha Swami Krishnapada) is born in a ghetto in Cleveland, Ohio. Years later, he becomes an ISKCON sannyasi, guru, and Bhaktipada’s chief supporter on the GBC. I was present when he accepted sannyasa from Kirtanananda Swami at a New Vrindaban fire sacrifice on March 13, 1979 (Gaura Purnima).
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 17.
Bhakti Tirtha Swami
February 25, 1989: On this date in history, the author (at the time serving at New Vrindaban as the director of the City of God Children’s Choir) takes the group to an accordion festival at King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where they sing and the director accompanies them on accordion.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 79.
The City of God Children’s Choir, formal portrait behind Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold (1989). Adults include Hrishikesh (director) and assistants: Dhirodatta, unknown Bhaktin, and Bhavisya.
February 26, 1986: On this date in history, in the Marshall County Jail, Sulochan begins a ten-day hunger strike. He is placed on suicide watch and a guard checks on him every fifteen minutes.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 276.
On the same date, despite not yet recovering from his October 1985 head injury and concomitant Anterograde Amnesia, Bhaktipada embarks on a hectic ten-day tour to India, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan.
See Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 25.
February 26, 2019: On this date in history, the Wonderfy Podcast Company releases Part One of their seven-part series titled “The Hare Krishna Murders.” The author serves as the consultant for the series. American Scandal.
February 26, 2020: On this date in history, the author has an email exchange with a reader in India:
Dear Henry Doktorski,
Greetings from India. I recently read your book Killing For Krishna. I purchased the Kindle version on Amazon. First thing, take a bow for bringing out the truth to the whole world. I have no words to thank you for your years of research and writing and hard work for the benefit of all, especially for us in ISKCON.
I and most of us are convinced (almost 100%) now who were involved in plotting/killing Sulochan, but the important question still remains unanswered. Did Radhanath Swami kill Sulochan? I honestly want to know your thoughts. I don’t care whether Judge/Jury let Radhanath Swami scot-free. You were in New Vrindaban for so many years and I want to hear it from you. This has been troubling me for a long time.
Devotee in India (Name deleted by request)
Author’s reply: Hare Krishna prabhu and thanks for your kind appreciation. Yes, I lived at New Vrindaban many years, but I never saw anyone kill anyone. I only interviewed people who were involved in the murder plot and I read classified documents in the secret Swami Bhaktipada Archive. But those people and documents incriminate Radhanath Swami as a principal member of the murder conspiracy. This is, as you know, all explained in Killing For Krishna.
Devotee in India: Thank you for your reply. What is your suggestion for people who are initiated by Radhanath Swami and now come to know about the murder plot?
Henry Doktorski: I suggest they follow their conscience, as I did when I became convinced that my “spiritual master”—Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada—had been engaging in illicit activities. For years I had dismissed these unsavory allegations as “rumors,” but finally I began to have doubts, so I conducted my own investigation and talked to some of the young men who said Bhaktipada had sexually molested them when they were gurukula students. I believed them. Why would they lie?
Then, I had a private darshan with my “spiritual master” during which I asked him directly if it was true. When he denied it, saying “I haven’t broken any regulative principles since I met Srila Prabhupada,” I knew he was lying so I immediately rejected him as spiritual master and stopped serving his mission.
But everyone has to do what they think is right. Not all may be able to reject a lying and cheating spiritual master immediately. For many, especially those who may be financially or emotionally dependent on ISKCON, it may take some time.
Devotee in India: Thank you again for your timely response. You have done many of us a great favour by publishing your books. The Lord will never forget warriors like yourself and Sulochan.
Henry Doktorski: Hare Krishna, my friend. Are you a disciple of Radhanath Swami? I’d like to put your question and my reply on the Killing For Krishna, Facebook page. May I use your name or merely say “anonymous devotee?” Thank you.
Devotee in India: I am a disciple of Radhanath Swami. Please do not use my name. I will be in trouble. If my name is mentioned I will be kicked out of the community. I have a family and I don’t want them to be in any kind of trouble. You have no idea how powerful Radhanath Swami is in India. He has over 10,000 disciples.
I find that most Westerners have a pretty open mind, but Indians are very sentimental. Indians do not have an open mind to read this book. ISKCON is now all about profit adoration and distinction. I feel very hurt and cheated. I can’t even share this with my wife. She is such a faithful follower of Radhanath Swami.
Henry Doktorski: I won’t mention your name.
Devotee in India: Thank you. I want to read next your second book, Eleven Naked Emperors. Hare Krishna.
Henry Doktorski: Hare Krishna, my friend.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
Radhanath Swami, official sannyasa portrait (May 1982).
February 26, 2021: On this date in history, the author’s book Killing For Krishna, is published in an Italian edition, Uccidere Per Krishna, with translation by Lucia Ballerini.
Lucia Ballerini, who translated Killing For Krishna into Italian.
February 27, 2020: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
I just read the Dedication from Eleven Naked Emperors. Excellent! Hard to imagine it being any more perfect. Your humility is palpable. Thank you very much. You are healing my heart.
David Sherk (Gadai dasa, ACBSP)
Angelica, New York
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors.
Gadai dasa, ACBSP (David Sherk).
February 27, 2020: On this date in history, the author has an email exchange with a devotee in Kolkata, India:
Dear Henry Prabhu,
I have a few questions and comments about your book, Killing For Krishna. Request you to please answer if possible.
How can conspirators such as Krishna-Katha and Kuladri get 100% immunity, as they are intimately involved in the plot? The USA justice system is apparently more corrupt than the 3rd world countries!
Regarding the money and fingerprints episode, the police could have just checked whether the money used for bail had fingerprints of Bhaktipada. If there were none, it would have proved that Radhanath Swami was lying and Dharmatma was right.
We see that so many conspirators were there. But Tapahpunja is having special status. Why is he pleading with Bhaktipada for ten hours at the behest of Tirtha? I mean, others such as Kuladri and Dharmatma are also involved. But they don’t seem to care. Tapahpunja could have similarly distanced himself! Why was he trying to escape with Tirtha? He could have escaped separately. Gorby requested Hayagriva to give Tirtha the money to escape.
Why did the 2nd trial take place at all in 1996, if Kirtanananda was acquitted of the charges after his successful appeal against the judgment of the 1st trial in 1991? Why did the government place a plea deal in 1994 before an innocent Kirtanananda (as he won in the appellate court in Richmond)?
Why were Radhanath and Janmastami called to testify before the grand jury? No one had implicated them. Even if Dharmatma had implicated Radhanath, why was Janmastami called to appear before the grand jury? Why did ISKCON suspect that Radhanath could be involved in the conspiracy? I conjecture because they had told that he could be a GBC member, provided he was not implicated or indicted in the investigation.
Regarding the Winnebago Incident, only the driver saw. How is it possible that the half of the community believed the accusations against the spiritual master by one man? Why was the driver’s words taken so seriously? The implications are grave. How Radhanath Swami lost his faith so quickly and left in haste? Who threatened Radhanath and Devamrita Swamis that they had to leave New Vrindaban? If Radhanath Swami came to know that Kirtanananda was corrupt, why did he never appreciate Sulochan’s efforts to expose Bhaktipada as a pretender?
Why would Janmastami threaten all residents of New Vrindaban? What could be his motive? Janmastami is apparently not directly related to any of the New Vrindaban conspirators, barring Radhanath. So if Radhanath is innocent, who else could have brought him into the plot to kill Sulochan?
Devotee in Kolkata, India (Name deleted by request)
Author’s reply: Dear Friend,
Thank you for your inquiries. You have excellent questions. Some I may be able to answer, others not.
Q: “How can conspirators such as Krishna-Katha and Kuladri get 100% immunity, as they are intimately involved in the plot? The justice system is apparently more corrupt than the 3rd world countries!”
A: As I understand it, often the prosecutors need inside information to convict the big crime bosses. So they give immunity to a lesser player and expect him or her to tell the complete truth, in return for freedom and immunity from all charges. This works very well to get the big bosses of organized crime behind bars, even if some lesser players go scot-free.
Q: “Regarding the money and fingerprints episode, the police could have just checked whether the money used for bail had fingerprints of Bhaktipada. If there were none, it would have proved that Radhanath Swami was lying and Dharmatma was right. We see that so many conspirators were there.”
A: I imagine the police might have checked Tapahpunja’s bail money for fingerprints, but if they did, they did not find any fingerprints of Kirtanananda. So the money must have come from somewhere else, maybe the New Vrindaban Accounting Office. But remember, at that time, one week after the murder, the Kent police had no idea who was Radhanath Swami, and why they should have checked the bail money for fingerprints. I never heard that the Kent police checked Tapahpunja’s bail money for fingerprints. Yes, Kent police (or federal investigators) checked Tirtha’s money for fingerprints, but that is because they had a warrant for Tirtha (not Tapahpunja or Radhanath.)
Q: “But Tapahpunja is having special status. Why is he pleading with Bhaktipada for ten hours at the behest of Tirtha? I mean, others such as Kuladri and Dharmatma are also involved. But they don’t seem to care. Tapahpunja could have similarly distanced himself! Why was he trying to escape with tirtha? He could have escaped separately.”
A: I guess that Tapahpunja Swami felt affection for Tirtha. He had some pity for Tirtha. He also knew that if Tirtha was arrested, New Vrindaban would be in trouble. He loved Bhaktipada and New Vrindaban. He understood that Tirtha must leave the country and fast. Dharmatma and Kuladri did not have the same love for Tirtha which Tapahpunja had. Tapahpunja had much more association with Tirtha. He lived with Tirtha in Buffalo, and in Columbus. He knew Tirtha was at heart a sincere devotee, even childlike, in some respects, perhaps due to his unhappy childhood. So Tapahpunja wanted to help him escape.
Q: “Why did the 2nd trial take place at all in 1996, if Kirtanananda was acquitted of the charges after his successful appeal against the judgment of the 1st trial in 1991? Why did the government place a plea deal in 1994 before an innocent Kirtanananda (as he won in the appellate court in Richmond)?”
A: Even when a conviction is overturned on appeal, the prosecutors are allowed to schedule another trial, to try to convict the accused again. The prosecutors made mistakes in the 1991 trial, which they intended to avoid in the 1996 trial.
I imagine the government offered a plea deal in 1994 because they didn’t want to spend all the money to have a second trial. Maybe the prosecutors were mindful that public opinion might have changed, or maybe their budgets were curtailed. Who knows?
Q: “Why were Radhanath and Janmastami called to testify before the grand jury? No one had implicated them. Even if Dharmatma had implicated Radhanath, why was Janmastami called to appear before the grand jury?”
A: Obviously, the prosecutors thought Radhanath and Janmastami had important information regarding the murder plot. Undoubtedly Krishna-Katha in Los Angeles told the prosecutors about Janmastami, who he met in Los Angeles in February 1986, and traveled with Tirtha to the Mojave Desert to look at abandoned mine shafts in which to dispose of the body. So the police HAD to interrogate Janmastami. Regarding Radhanath Swami? Who knows. Obviously they thought RS might have been involved, or might have information to incriminate Bhaktipada, who was the person the prosecutors really wanted to get.
It is likely that it was Jagad-Guru Swami (B. G. Narasimha Swami), who heard Radhanath’s confession about the murder on a beach in San Diego, who reported Radhanath to the investigators. He said so himself, in so many words.
Q: “Why did ISKCON suspect that Radhanath could be involved in the conspiracy? I conjecture because they had told that he could be a GBC member, provided he was not implicated or indicted in the investigation.”
A: It is likely that Radhanath spoke about the murder plot to some of his ISKCON godbrothers. We know he spoke about it, after the murder, to Jagad Guru Swami on a beach in San Diego. Jagad Guru Swami says he spoke to the FBI. I’m sure he was one of the persons who incriminated Radhanath Swami. RS undoubtedly spoke about the murder plot to others.
Q: “Regarding the Winnebago Incident, only the driver saw. How is it possible that the half of the community believed the accusations against the spiritual master by one man? Why was the driver’s words taken so seriously? The implications are grave.”
A: Half the community believed for two reasons: (1) Sarvabhauma dasa was a respected and serious devotee, not a fringie. (2) We had heard rumors for so many years, and many of us had serious doubts about Bhaktipada. The Winnebago Incident was the straw that broke the camel’s back and allowed all those people who in secret harbored doubts to now reveal those doubts to others and we were surprised that so many others also had doubts. Of course, those who remained dedicated disciples considered us blasphemers. P. S. Actually Sarvabhauma's assistant, Devaprastha dasa (Daniel Uncafer), also saw from the passenger seat what was happening in the back of the Winnebago.
Q: “How Radhanath Swami lost his faith so quickly and left in haste? Who threatened Radhanath and Devamrita Swamis that they had to leave New Vrindaban? If Radhanath Swami came to know that Kirtanananda was corrupt, why did he never appreciate Sulochan's efforts to expose Bhaktipada as a pretender?”
A: As early as 1987, Radhanath had heard from reliable sources (the gurukula boys) that Kirtanananda Swami was giving fellatio to the boys in his ashram at his house. At the time, Radhanath thought that this testimony might be rumor, after all, it was only one year earlier he had participated in the murder of Sulochan to protect the “pure devotee” Bhaktipada, so Radhanath had doubts about the boy, and the boy was forced to leave New Vrindaban, out of fear of death threats. Six years later, in 1993 at the Winnebago Incident, Radhanath was finally convinced (like many of us at New Vrindaban) that Bhaktipada was having sex with boys and young men. Or, if he was convinced earlier, finally he did something about it: he rejected Bhaktipada as spiritual master and left his service.
Ramanath dasa, a disciple of Bhaktipada from Malaysia with Mafia connections (now deceased I have heard) who was visiting New Vrindaban for the first time for Bhaktipada’s 1993 vyasa-puja festival, made the threats, as I heard. I’m sure others might have made similar threats. When Radhanath Swami finally understood that his siksa guru, Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, was corrupt, Sulochan had been long dead for seven years. I imagine Radhanath felt terrible that he had participated in the conspiracy to assassinate a godbrother who was eventually proved correct in his criticism of Kirtanananda Swami. I noticed that in the 1990s Radhanath preached incessantly about love and tolerance. I think he was trying to reverse the prevailing opinion at the time: that blasphemy should be corrected with violence.
Q: “Why would Janmastami threaten all residents of New Vrindaban? What could be his motive? Janmastami is apparently not directly related to any of the New Vrindaban conspirators, barring Radhanath. So if Radhanath is innocent, who else could have brought him into the plot to kill Sulochan?”
A: Janmastami did not threaten all residents of New Vrindaban. This was a rumor spread by a sannyasa disciple of Radhanath Swami (out of respect I did not mention his name in Killing For Krishna, although I included a few clues regarding his identity) when he communicated with me by email. Thomas Westfall, the former sergeant at the Marshall County Sheriff Office, know nothing about this. Therefore, it certainly did not happen.
Radhanath is not innocent, as attested by Janmastami dasa, Hari Venu dasa, Kuladri dasa, Jyotirdhama dasa, Jagad-Guru Swami (B. G. Narasimha Swami), and Priyavrata dasa. Please give me permission to post our exchange on the Killing For Krishna, Facebook page, my friend.
Devotee in Kolkata, India: Thank you for answering the questions. It cleared a lot of doubts. Please post, Prabhu, if you want. I have one request. Please don’t write my name. I know the ISKCON temples, but I am not a regular devotee. I am practicing at home.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
February 27, 2023: On this date in history, the author’s book “Gold, Guns and God: Swami Bhaktipada and the West Virginia Hare Krishnas, Vol. 9: Pushed Out Completely,” is published. See: Amazon.
Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9 front and back cover
February 28, 1977: On this date in history, during a lecture, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada suggests that a human being who opposes ISKCON should be destroyed, just like a snake or scorpion should be destroyed, “A sadhu, a saintly person, never likes killing of any living being. They are not happy. . . . But such Vaishnava is happy when a snake and a scorpion is killed. . . . they are very, very dangerous. Without any fault they bite and create havoc. So there are these snake-like persons. They are envious about our movement, and they are opposing. That is the nature.”
Less than a decade later, some of Prabhupada's disciples, including several sannyasis and two ISKCON gurus, participate in a plot to assassinate the snake-like Sulochan (Steven Bryant), who dared spew his venom and advocate killing the self-realized ISKCON-approved pure devotee spiritual master His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, and the other ISKCON gurus.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, pp. 223-224.
February 28, 1982: On this date in history, the ISKCON-approved guru Jayatirtha Swami Tirthapada leaves ISKCON Mayapur with his disciples and takes shelter of B. R. Sridhar Maharaja, Prabhupada's senior godbrother, at his Navadvipa, India, ashram. The GBC expels him from ISKCON.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 171.
His Divine Grace Jayatirtha Tirthapada (James Edward Immel)
February 28, 1987: On this date in history, Bhaktipada claims to have had a series of dreams wherein a spiritual city, the City of God, is revealed to him.
Murti dasa ACBSP/William Walsh, the head of New Vrindaban’s Planning Department, claims that Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada personally spoke to him fifteen years earlier about the future cities of God: “My spiritual teacher, Srila Prabhupada, wanted to have these devotional cities, as he used to call them. When I was with him in 1972 in Calcutta, he said he wanted to have twelve of these devotional cities around the globe. All would have God’s temple, a Temple of Understanding, at the center of the city and everyone in the city would be infused with the love and light of God’s presence. They’d be happy and pure. No more than ten or twelve thousand people would reside in each city. They’d be self-sufficient because of the farming around them and they’d be capable of surviving any holocaust or any aggression that may occur on this planet. He gave us this vision in 1972. . . . Happiness, fulfillment and satisfaction from within are the property of the residents because of their faith and love. For those who have the eyes to see, and the wisdom to understand, now is the time to begin a pilgrimage to the Holy City of Light: the City of God!”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 268.
February 29, 1976: On this date in history, Dr. Kenneth M. Plummer, a history professor at West Virginia Wesleyan College, dies from a virulent strain of hepatitis (originally from India) which he contracted at New Vrindaban two months earlier during a visit with his history students. Hepatitis is a virus which inflames the liver, a crucial organ for metabolism.
Hepatitis enters the body through the mouth, lives in the digestive tract, and is shed in the feces. It is usually transmitted by person-to-person contact or via contaminated food or water. Symptoms usually appear within twenty to forty days after exposure and can include fever, fatigue, chills, loss of appetite, vomiting, abdominal pain, dark urine, diarrhea, clay-colored or light stool, headache, and muscle and joint pains. There is a period of jaundice (yellow skin coloring) and the liver becomes enlarged and tender. In fatal forms of hepatitis, death can occur in less than ten days after onset.
At this time, New Vrindaban was not known for its cleanliness. Dr. Plummer’s students remembered the unsanitary conditions at New Vrindaban. The Wheeling News-Register reported, “The students . . . said that they had been highly critical of the sanitation at the community. Food was prepared outside, one of the students said, and then placed into buckets for serving. Primitive toilet facilities were described by the students: ‘They had a bucket on the floor for the women and a hole cut in the floor for the men.’”
The initial hepatitis carrier was identified as a New Vrindaban resident (Sudhanu dasa/George Wiesner) who traveled to India the previous year to learn woodcarving and who became ill a couple of weeks after his return during early December of 1975. Dr. N. H. Dyer, director of the West Virginia State Health Department, claimed that the strain of hepatitis which killed Dr. Plummer was “very severe, very toxic; it is an Indian strain of which we know little about.”
The journal for the New Vrindaban Community, Brijabasi Spirit, reports, “Regarding the man who reportedly died from hepatitis contracted at our community. . . . He partook of some feast prasada that had been cooked by one of our devotees who had the disease. . . . Such a thing is certainly unfortunately, but in this material word no one can escape the ravages of birth, death, old age and disease, whether in New Vrindaban or anywhere else.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 147.
Dr. Kenneth M. Plummer
The liver's placement in the human body
February 29, 1984: On this date in history, Bhaktipada’s disciple, Sacimata dasi (Stephanie Lane, the wife of Devala/Leon Lane), sells her house to her spiritual master for $95,000, instead of giving it to him as a gift. Bhaktipada curses her, “She will take one birth for every dollar she took from me.”
Several years earlier, Sacimata had purchased the house with money from her family’s trust fund, and graciously permitted Bhaktipada to live in her house, conveniently located right across the street from Prabhupada’s Palace. At that time, Bhaktipada left his apartment on the fourth floor of the Bahulaban ashram/administrative office/marble shop building and moved into Sacimata’s red brick house. Hayagriva, perhaps coincidentally, moved into a wooden shack conveniently located on Bhaktipada's new driveway.
But Sacimata’s relationship with her spiritual master had soured in the meantime. Sacimata and her husband had managed the Palace Gift Shop for several years, and invested money in the successful enterprise. However, Kirtanananda bullied her and her husband out of the Palace Gift Shop business which they had worked so hard to build. From her perspective, there was no way she was going to gift her house to the same person who had so badly mistreated her. She made Bhaktipada pay for her house, or she would have sold it out from underneath him. Kirtanananda was irate that one of his own disciples would make him pay for a house he was already living in. He thought she should just give the house to him. Hence Kirtanananda's "curse."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 64.
"Money is the honey," according to Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Here, Bhaktipada wears a garland made from marigolds and twenty-dollar bills made by a sankirtan disciple for his appearance day celebration.
March 1, 1977: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada asks his elder godbrother B. R. Sridhar Maharaja to take up residence in Mayapur and offer guidance to his disciples in his absence.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, pp. 81-82.
B. R. Sridhar Maharaja and Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada sit together on the same seat during the Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir inauguration ceremonies (March 17, 1973).
March 1, 1978: On this date in history, during a meeting with B. R. Sridhar Maharaja in Navadvipa, India, Jayapataka Swami (John Gordan Erdman), one of the eleven ritvik priests appointed by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada to initiate new disciples on his behalf, tells Sridhar Maharaja that Prabhupada had appointed eleven disciples “to be initiating spiritual masters or to accept disciples.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 84.
Jayapataka Swami (c. late 1960s or early 1970s).
March 1, 1984: On this date in history, New Vrindaban temple president Kuladri declares, “We run the Palace at a deficit. We don’t really make any money.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 150.
Bhaktipada at the entrance of Prabhupada's Palace of Gold (humorous photo, c. early 1980s).
March 2, 1976: On this date in history, the governor of West Virginia orders New Vrindaban quarantined to help contain the “severe hepatitis epidemic which has left one person dead and several others seriously ill.” Dr. Kenneth Plummer, who caught the disease during a December 1975 visit to New Vrindaban, had died two days earlier.
Dr. N. H. Dyer, director of the West Virginia State Health Department, believed a major epidemic would be forthcoming unless drastic and immediate measures were taken to contain the spread of the disease at its source at the Marshall County commune. Dr. Dyer cited six health violations at the New Vrindaban Community:
(1) Unsanitary food preparation, storage and service to the public.
(2) Improperly protected water supplies.
(3) Improper disposal of excreta and sewage.
(4) Improper disposal of dead animals.
(5) Improper storage and disposal of solid wastes.
(6) Distribution of milk products contrary to Grade A pasteurized milk regulations.
State Police set up a roadblock which prohibits traffic from leaving or entering the community. Kirtanananda Swami cries, "Religious persecution!"
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 150.
Marshall County Sheriff car parked below the Bahulaban temple (June 5, 1973).
March 3, 2018: On this date in history, an anonymous reader posts a brief review of Killing For Krishna, on Amazon: “I have a feeling Henry will end up as Sulochan Jr." The reader here refers to Sulochan's youngest son, Nimai, who drowned in a New Vrindaban ghat on November 23, 1986, five months nearly to the day after his father was murdered. The implication is ominous.
For more about this topic, see Henry's book Killing For Krishna, p. 382.
Steven Bryant (Sulochan) and his two sons (c. mid-1980s). The boy on the left accidentally drowned in a New Vrindaban lake.
March 3, 2025: On this date in history, the author writes a review of the book “Leading the Hare Krishna Movement: The Crisis of Succession in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.” Author's Review
Leading the Hare Krishna Movement, cover.
March 3, 2025: On this date in history, an ISKCON devotee writes to the author:
Henry Prabhu, Please accept my humble obeisances, All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Hare Krishna! I have been reading your "Killing for Krishna." It's almost totally read. Just a few pages left. I just loved it. I'll try to reciprocate in the best possible way. Keep on with the good fight. Your service truly is of the highest quality!!! So exact, so precise, and so helpful in warning us against the dangers of deranged devotion!
If I may ask, is it true that Sulochan advocated killing Kirtanananda and the other ISKCON gurus? Thank you and Hare Krishna!
Name deleted by request.
Author: Nanda Kumar ACBSP, who I knew at New Vrindaban, said, "I was serving as full-time security for the New Vrindaban community when . . . [Sulochan] came there to attempt to recruit devotees to not only kill Kirtanananda Swami but all eleven of the devotees who had assumed positions of spiritual leadership after Srila Prabhupad left his body. When I pointed out to him that some of them [the eleven] were guilty of trying to usurp Srila Prabhupada’s power and position—but not all of them—and that even if what they were doing was not right, the concept of killing them was not an acceptable choice, he argued the point vehemently and said he was going to do it anyway, even if he had to do it by himself."
Anonymous ISKCON devotee: Henry Prabhu, if I may, what is your devotional perspective on the fact that the leaders may have murdered Sulochan in self-defense? After all, Sulochan did want to kill them. Please? In other words, are you in favor of devotees killing other devotees in self-defense?
Author: I'm not in favor of killing period! Although in certain rare situations I can see its value. After Sulochan was released from Jail in April 1986 and he returned to California, New Vrindaban leaders heard he had given up his quest to take down Bhaktipada and he found a new wife. There was talk at New Vrindaban about letting him live, as he wasn't a threat anymore. But they killed him anyway.
Anonymous ISKCON devotee: Any value you can see in the killing of Sulochan by them?
Author: No value to New Vrindaban. The day or two following the murder, Bhaktipada asked his servant Devala, "Is it true? The murder?" Devala said "Yes." Devala says Bhaktipada got agitated and replied, "That's the worst thing they (New Vrindaban leaders) could have done!" However, Sulochan's death caused the government to investigate New Vrindaban. In that there was value, in my opinion.
Anonymous ISKCON devotee: Did Sulochan, in your opinion, take down Bhaktipada by his death?
Author: I write about this in the "Killing For Krishna" Introduction:
“Although Sulochan lived intermittently at New Vrindaban for only a few years, he turned out in retrospect to be an extremely important figure in the history of the community. He—by his life and death—affected the community more profoundly than nearly everyone else. After a year and a half (October 1984 to May 1986) of mostly frustrated attempts to educate the devotee community about the vices of Bhaktipada and the other zonal acharyas, Sulochan gave up his “impossible dream” to dethrone his arch nemesis. He was no longer a threat to Bhaktipada and the other ISKCON gurus; he had, more or less, given up his quest and found another woman with whom he wanted to marry and settle down. It was then he was tragically, and ironically, murdered. But in death Sulochan was able to do what he could not do in life: bring down the mighty Bhaktipada. The subsequent prolonged legal battles drained the seemingly all-powerful guru of men and money, the criminal allegations facilitated his speedy expulsion from ISKCON, and then, seven years later, his house of cards was smashed completely when the last straw was added to the already-heaping haystack of alleged sexual molestations of boys and young men: the Winnebago Incident of September 1993, which divided the community, and soon after, effectively ended Bhaktipada’s 26-year reign as the sole uncontested authority and “king” of New Vrindaban. A few years later, at his 1996 trial, he pleaded guilty to charges of mail fraud after his once-devoted disciple Tirtha Swami turned against him and threatened to implicate him in the murders of Sulochan and Chakradhari.”
Anonymous ISKCON devotee: Thank you, Henry Prabhu, for all your most clarifying answers. More, if I may: Sulochan had two sons. One drowned, as noted in your book. What about the other? Still alive?
Author: The older son lives in Japan with his wife. I guess his children are probably nearly grown by now. He’s about 43 years old, I think. It took me a while to track him down. He speaks a couple paragraphs in the last chapter of K4K. I don't think he wants to publicize his past involvement in the Hare Krishnas.
Anonymous ISKCON devotee: Are the two wives of Sulochan still alive?
Author: Jamuna married Raghunath and had three more children. I taught piano to her children. She still lives at New Vrindaban. Sulochan's other wife? I don’t think they were married; they were engaged. She lives in Three Rivers California, last I heard. She declined my request for an interview for K4K.
Anonymous ISKCON devotee: Apart from Sulochan and Chakradhari, who else was murdered in New Vrindaban?
Author: I have no knowledge of any other murders at New Vrindaban.
Anonymous ISKCON devotee: Are you a regular visitor to New Vrindaban?
Author: Yes, when I lived in Pittsburgh for 22 years. But since moving to California, I haven't visited.
Anonymous ISKCON devotee: If you decide to visit New Vrindaban now, how do you think they're going to host you? For example, how do you think Malati Mataji is going to react to your visit? You know that Malati Mataji/ACBSP lives in New Vrindaban, don't you?
Author: Some at New Vrindaban like my books. Others do not. I don't think Malati and I have a problem. She often comments on my posts. Sometimes she criticizes, but that's okay with me. I respect her. I think she might respect me.
Anonymous ISKCON devotee: just tell me if I did offend Your Grace with any of my questions. Did I?
Author: No offense, my friend! P. S. May I share some of our correspondence on FB?
Anonymous ISKCON devotee: Henry Prabhu, the history of ISKCON is a subject I would like to discuss with you in the most scrutinizing way. I do have utmost respect, admiration, and devotional love for your writing, your Facebook posts, and your most indispensable mission. Still, and to be honest to a fault, I do need for you to tell me what you think it may happen to me and to my devotional/congregational life if I join you in your public campaign against Radhanath Swami and his followers. Care to explain, please?
Author: In that case, you might prefer if I simply refer to you as "anonymous ISKCON devotee."
Anonymous ISKCON devotee: Yes! For the present moment, please, refer to me as "anonymous ISKCON devotee." If you do it, you can use all our exchanges since we started our most beautiful friendship.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
March 4, 1858: On this date in history, the United States Senator from South Carolina, James Henry Hammond (1807–1864), delivers a speech about slavery: “Our slaves are black, of another and inferior race. The status in which we have placed them is an elevation. They are elevated from the condition in which God first created them, by being made our slaves. None of that race on the whole face of the globe can be compared with the slaves of the South. They are happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly incapable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give us any trouble by their aspirations.”
119 years later after Senator Hammond's speech, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977), a prominent Gaudiya-Vaishnava guru, expresses a similar opinion: “[The] Sudra is to be controlled only. They are never [to be given] . . . freedom. Just like in America. The blacks were slaves. They were under control. And since you have given them equal rights they are disturbing, most disturbing, always creating a fearful situation, [blacks are] uncultured and drunkards. What training they have got? They have got equal [rights]? [It] is best, to keep them under control as slaves but give them sufficient food, sufficient [clothes], not more than that. Then they will be satisfied.” (February 14, 1977)
March 4, 1975: On this date in history, during a conversation with teachers at the Dallas gurukula, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada tells them not to spank an unruly child on the rear end, but to to slap the child on the face, “Slap here.” (He motions to his own cheek.)
At another time, Prabhupada explained, “Just like when . . . father always gives, always merciful to his son, but if the son is very obstinate, he gives him a slap.” (Lecture, November 30, 1972)
At New Vrindaban, some (but not all) gurukula teachers religiously followed their spiritual master’s instruction. One gurukula alumnus remembered:
"All the boys were lined up outside in military formation. The teacher, Ananta [Andre Deslauriers from Montreal], was going down the line slapping each of us in the face. He was threatening us, 'If you don’t straighten out, you’re not going to get to go to the festival at the Palace tomorrow; you’ll be stuck here at Wilson Valley while everyone else is having fun and eating the feast.' The face slapping and beatings didn’t bother me too much anymore; I was a tough kid; strong body, built solid. But it upset me when I saw some of the skinny, less-hardy boys get paddled or beaten. Sometimes they’d cry."
To learn more about this topic, read Henry Doktorski's book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4 p. 232
March 4, 2008: On this date in history, the author visits his former spiritual master at the Interfaith Sanctuary in Manhattan (now known as the Bhakti Center). Bhaktipada explains why he is moving permanently to India in three days: “There is no sense in staying where I’m not wanted.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 117.
The author, Adi Purusha, and Bhaktipada at the Interfaith Sanctuary (March 4, 2008).
March 4, 2018: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of Killing For Krishna, on Amazon:
5 Stars. Filled in many gaps!
Well researched, written and better than most fictional crime thrillers. Authenticated testimonies leave no doubts. Filled in many gaps and exposes just how many were aware of, or were actually involved with this and other crimes. The irony is that now many of these criminals are controlling the Hare Krishna society.
Bala
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
March 4, 2020: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
I’m about one-third through your book Eleven Naked Emperors. Your expertise in documentation is astounding. Prabhuji, even a professional movie script writer couldn’t generate a story this crazy. Amazing, that you can maintain your sanity sifting through all of it.
Here’s my analogy regarding the GBC: Driving in a rural area without Gps or even a road map, taking alternate left and right turns at each successive intersection. Clueless.
Right now I’m reading in your book about the BBC documentary film on Bhagavan. I haven’t gotten past William Bhagavan. He was so arrogant. My godbrother Puskara dasa (Matthew Goldman) told me personally that he and other brahmins were outside the temple door during Bhagavan’s extravagant guru-pujas and they were cursing him to fall down.
David Sherk (Gadai dasa, ACBSP)
Angelica, New York
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors.
Gadai dasa, ACBSP (David Sherk).
March 4, 2022: On or around this date in history, ISKCON guru Bhakti Vikasa Swami speaks about Eleven Naked Emperors during a lecture posted on YouTube.
For more details, go to: Bhakti Vikasa Swami speaks about Eleven Naked Emperors.
Bhakti Vikasa Swami
March 5, 1973: On this date in history at the Marshall County Courthouse in Moundsville, West Virginia , Kirtanananda legally changes his name from Keith Gordon Ham to Kirtanananda Swami.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 276.
Kirtanananda Swami plays the tamboura at Pittsburgh ISKCON (1972).
March 5, 1976: On this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami claims the quarantine on the New Vrindaban Commune--ordered by the West Virginia government three days earlier after a visitor dies from infectious hepatitis contracted during a visit to the community--is “harassment” from the West Virginia government.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 156.
February 26, 2019: On this date in history, the Wondery Podcast Company releases Part Two of their seven-part series titled “The Hare Krishna Murders.” The author serves as the consultant for the series.
March 5, 2020: On this date in history, a reader (and godbrother) posts a comment on Facebook:
In his latest literary offering, Eleven Naked Emperors, the author, H. Doktorski, has accurately answered a once-frequently-asked question: “Whatever happened to the Hare Krishnas?” Of late, the question has fallen out of use as no one any longer remembers the kirtans that were once commonplace on major city streets.
An individual’s experience with ISKCON, not unlike blind men groping and describing an elephant, may vary widely. In describing those events of ISKCON 1977-1987, HRISHIKESH has invited the wrath of the “Sentimentalist Sahajiyas,” but he willingly takes that risk. HRISHIKESH successfully walks the tightrope between fault-finding and fact-finding without a fall down.
Many legends and lore of ISKCON are examined, and all this is done in CARLOS CASTANEDA style. In describing “a YAQUI way of knowledge,” Castaneda describes his first hand experiences with his spiritual path and his teacher. His analysis is in stark contrast to the enthusiasm novitiate. Similarly, with HRISHIKESH and his in-detail analysis of ISKCON.
Janmastami dasa (John Sinkowski)
Everett, Washington
former disciple of Kirtanananda Swami and New Vrindaban resident
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors.
Janmastami (at far right) with the author, the author's wife Cindy and Janmastami's housemate Madan Mohan (Everett, Washington: August 10, 2023)
March 6, 1967: On this date in history, during a Srimad-bhagavatam lecture in San Francisco, Bhaktivedanta Swami instructs his students how to train children: “You should give all freedom to your child for five years, and then, next ten years, you should be very strict, very strict, so that the child may be very much afraid.” Many, if not most children enrolled at the ISKCON gurukulas, were certainly, for good reason, very much afraid of their teachers.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4.
March 6, 1982: On this date in history, six days after Jayatirtha Swami defects from ISKCON, a GBC delegation confronts B. R. Sridhar Swami and accuses him of trying to destroy ISKCON by giving Jayatirtha shelter at his Navadvipa ashram. Kirtanananda Swami serves as spokesman. At one point during the conversation, after remembering Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja’s affection for him, B. R. Sridhar Maharaja begins crying. He tells them, “Don’t think that you have made a monopoly of the truth, of the Absolute Truth.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 174.
B. R. Sridhar Maharaja
March 6, 2024: On this date in history, Patrick Garrison, who used to visit New Vrindaban during the Interfaith Era, and who wrote the Foreword to Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, creates this AI image titled "Keith Ham."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8.
Keith Ham: His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami Bhakti Pig
March 7, 1982: On this date in history, the GBC sends Yasomatinandan--a Gujurati-born Prabhupada disciple who served as the first temple president of ISKCON Ahmedabad and later served on the GBC--to speak with B. R. Sridhar Maharaja at his Navadvipa ashram.
(The previous day a GBC delegation led by Kirtanananda Swami harasses Sridhar Maharaja and brings him to tears.) During their conversation, Sridhar questions Yasomatinandan on basic Krishna consciousness philosophy and asks, "Who is Krishna?" and "what do you find peculiar to Krishna consciousness that you left your previous religious ideas and joined Swami Maharaja?"
Yasomatinandan, regarded as a leader in ISKCON, displays his ignorance by not being able to provide satisfactory answers to Sridhar Maharaja's questions. Sridhar Maharaja then declares that Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada's disciples, even the so-called "gurus," are all neophytes, like children; no more than "primary students.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 176.
Yasomatinandan dasa
March 7, 2008: On this date in history, 70-year-old Bhaktipada and his 66-year-old confidante, RVC Swami, leave the U. S. permanently and move to India. Bhaktipada makes his headquarters at the Ulhasnagar Anand Vrindavan Dhama Radha Vrindaban Chandra Temple, managed by his disciple Madhusudan dasa Bapuji on the outskirts of Mumbai. His loyal disciples build a suite for him on the roof of the temple, which they call “Bhaktipada’s Palace of Love.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 117.
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada at the New York City Interfaith Sanctuary (March 4, 2008)
Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami (Ronald Nay, formerly Gopinath dasa) in India (undated)
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada at his “Palace of Love” at Anand Vrindavan Dhama, Ulhasnagar, India (c. August/September 2011).
March 8, 2025: On this date in history, a reader posts a comment on Henry’s Facebook page:
One must consider motivation as to why Dr. Burt did not mention Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors, in her more-recently-published book, “Leading the Hare Krishna Movement,” although both books deal with the same topic: the history of the zonal acharya era of ISKCON. Henry Doktorski has said that writing his books was something that he was doing for his godbrothers and godsisters, thusly his books are a offering of love to the members of a community and a movement that he loved.
“If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it.” (Bhagavad-gita 9:26)
“Those who say that they are My devotees are not My devotees, but those who are the devotees of My devotees, they are actually My devotees.” (Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya 11.28)
Henry’s books are great history, but they are also something else, something more: they are offerings of love and devotion to Krishna’s devotees to help them make sense of the trauma which so many of them experienced, and with understanding of the causes of their trama to perhaps provide some help to begin healing from them.
Angela R. Burt’s book is not written with the same audience in mind. It is cold, it is clinical, and it is aimed at people who are not devotees, who in fact may have never even met a devotee. She writes in such a way as to encourage us to assume complete ignorance on the part of the reader as to the insides of this faith. She fills up the first part of her book explaining things that a devotee would already know, so the devotees are not her target audience. Her book isn’t written with them in mind, while in Henry’s books I am thinking that he never lost sight of the devotees he was writing for, even for a minute.
After reading the first 50 pages of Dr. Burt’s book, I feel like I have just been shown around an art museum by a tour guide who doesn’t like art.
George Smith
Overland Park, Kansas
To read Henry's review of Angela Burt's book, go to: Leading the Hare Krishna Movement
George Smith
March 1969: On or around this date in history, the first cow, Kaliya, arrives at New Vrindaban. Temple president Hayagriva explains that an old college friend visits New Vrindaban, and while leaving, gives Hayagriva a check for $200.00. He tells Hayagriva, "Buy that cow."
Hayagriva notes, “After repairing the pasture fence, we buy our first cow, named Kaliya by Prabhupada, a seven-year-old cow that has just lost her calf. Part Jersey and part Holstein, black with a white stripe down her nose, Kaliya is a gentle soul. She is fed by Ranadhir, milked by Paramananda, and garlanded by Satyabhama. Her big, brown, tranquil eyes tell us that she appreciates being protected from slaughter houses. Happily, her milk is rich and plentiful.”
However, Dvarakadhisa dasa (Darwin Borthwick), an early New Vrindaban resident and gurukula student, claims his mother, Labangalatika devi dasi (Rosalie Haswell Borthwick), paid for the cow with her welfare money.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 107.
March 9: March 1976: On or around this date in history, Vishnujan Swami, a beloved and charismatic kirtan leader, disappears while on pilgrimage to India during the Gaura Purnima festival. Devotees believe he committed suicide by drowning himself in the confluence of the sacred Ganges and Yamuna Rivers at Allahabad.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 309.
Vishnujan Maharaja (undated).
March 1976: On or around this date in history, a New Vrindaban enforcer--Vrindapati dasa (Walt Parry), a former Marine in charge of the blacksmith shop--under orders from Kirtanananda Swami, gives a severe beating to a disobedient devotee. The devotee is incapacitated for a week due to internal bleeding. Kirtanananda Swami later chastises the enforcer, “You shouldn’t have beat him that hard. At the point when he bowed down and asked you to stop, you should have stopped.”
What did the devotee do to deserve such a severe beating? This happened during the month-long hepatitis quarantine at New Vrindaban, mentioned earlier. During the quarantine, New Vrindaban administrators somehow got gamma globulin shots for the residents. Probably from a veterinarian, and all the residents had to get the shots. (Horse shots?!)
A few days later, the Marshall County Health Department came to the community and said, "We're gonna inject everyone with gamma globulin shots." Community leaders told everyone to keep their mouths shut and just take the second shots, despite any possible ill effects of getting so much gamma globulin in such a short time. Krishna will protect us!
This was important, because the first shots were acquired illegally, and were not ordered by a doctor. If the health department found out, New Vrindaban could be in deep trouble.
Everyone got lined up, and got their shots, but this one male devotee declined and told the county nurse, "I already got the shot!" She passed him by, but Atmabhu (later Atmabhu Swami) heard about it and talked to Kirtanananda Swami, and Kirtanananda said the disobedient devotee should be punished. Atmabhu asked Vrindapati to give him a good beating, but Vrindapati got too enthusiastic for this service and violently kicked the poor guy even after he fell to the ground and begged and begged Vrindapati to stop.
For the next week, Vrindapati, feeling bad about beating the crap out of the poor fellow, brought him his meals (the guy couldn't even get out of bed) and washed his laundry as a way to say "I'm sorry." Vrindapati told this story at the March 1991 Martinsburg, West Virginia trial. It's in the transcript.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, pp. 154-155.
Vrindapati working in the New Vrindaban blacksmith shop, photo from Brijabasi Spirit (late 1970s).
Vrindapati working in the New Vrindaban blacksmith shop, photo from Brijabasi Spirit (late 1970s).
March 10, 2006: On and around this date in history, Bhaktipada’s disciples lose heart. One disciple writes, “The Interfaith Sanctuary is like a battlefield: Adi Purusha and his bed and breakfast verses the Malaysians who manage the restaurant. Adi causes friction between devotees. Bhaktipada threatened to kick out the Malaysians from the temple. The bottom line is: Bhaktipada treats the devotees disrespectfully. He is constantly mean and nasty.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 96.
Bhaktipada with disciples and followers at the entrance to the Interfaith Sanctuary at 25 First Avenue, New York City.
March 10, 2020: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of Eleven Naked Emperors on Amazon:
5.0 out of 5 stars. A Healing Tool and Valuable Reference Guide
My first wish in reviewing this book is to recognize the tremendous work that the author dedicated to this project—both from an academic as well as a personal perspective. It is evident from the first chapter that there were no shortcuts taken to achieve the massive undertaking that is tackling this sensitive, yet important subject. While it may difficult for anyone outside of ISKCON to understand most of the subject matter and references to its history, I sense this work may contribute immediate and tremendous value to all interested in the subject matter—a reference for the zonal-acharya era of ISKCON and (in a broader sense) the issues surrounding succession upon the physical departure of a religious leader.
I very much appreciate how the author took the time to preface the work with how subjective the content may turn out to be. Even with this disclaimer there was plenty of opportunity for a lot of the sides of the issue to be included (even when some refused, such as Hans Kary—your loss dude!) Ultimately, providing different perspectives served the book well as it portrays the facts and a crucial part of what happened before and after Prabhupada’s passing in 1977.
We may not agree with everything the author presents (it’s healthy to disagree respectfully), but the value here is historical as this book opens so many doors and ideas that have been difficult to discuss in the past. For example, I feel the author is extremely generous in his view of the eleven “naked emperors” and shows a compassion I cannot find within me to portray them as fallible human beings. While I do appreciate the obvious consequences on placing the tremendous pressure and responsibilities that were upon the “emperors,” there was too much writing on the wall. Especially with Keith Ham—his manipulative nature, power hunger, and sexual deviance was known from the days at 26 Second Avenue.
Why he was given sannyasi within a year of knowing Prabhupada in Manhattan is a mystery as baffling as why or how the pyramids were built. It’s like sending a surgeon to the operating table after less than one year of undergraduate studies...there is simply not enough preparation. In any case, this book is a healthy approach to discuss and present what I used to think was the unthinkable—touching on issues that represent a dark period in ISKCON history—and then going (to my favorite chapter—the last one) and addressing the human aspect of being a religious leader.
I cannot praise the author enough for assembling such a complete work that serves as a document that presents the dangers of absolutism. Much like the previous book, Killing For Krishna, there is an important and underlying premise where there is a noble intention to help heal. We have learned from Buddhism (now supported by neuroscience) that the only way to properly heal from pain and trauma is to go through the eye of the storm; to bring a caring attention towards that which hurts the most. I realize that one has to be emotionally ready for this process and clearly not all are.
However, we may ignore this truth at our own risk if there is any hope for true healing. This book is a necessary step in the direction towards a collective healing that is still very much needed and perhaps long overdue. This is perhaps the most relevant contribution.
Pedro Ramos
Atlanta, Georgia
Pedro Ramos
March 10, 2022: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, on Amazon:
Five Stars—Detailed Study of a Cult
Pranams, Jaya Srila Prabhupada! Vol. 2 of Henry Doktorski’s "Gold, Guns and God," follows Kirtanananda “Swami” on his preaching and management journey and further cements his reputation as Hare Krishna movement founder, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s favored disciple (“He is worth 10 of you.”). Doktorski serves up a delicious irony having been granted access to New Vrindaban’s archives and other histories and personally knowing hundreds of its “inmates” from their shared devotion to Kirtanananda. He documents not only Kirtanananda’s head inflation but the extreme pride his acolytes from among his fellow disciples felt in following him and being members of the community. Now that they have all gotten what comes around their statements are found to be deftly turned on them in what amounts to a detailed and illustrative example for all to benefit from. Vol. 2 sets the stage for what comes next in the inflation and coming around.
Another interesting element of Doktorski’s series, and that this volume details, is how Kirtanananda’s cult took shape within the framework of a manifestation of a genuine and strict religious tradition, the Gaudiya Vaishnavism of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Kirtanananda is documented nourishing the reputation that he is the most advanced and learned of Prabhupada’s disciples, and not merely in word. This series is a trip through the brain of a very complex and extremely intelligent individual who was capable of fooling virtually everyone with his charisma, grasp of Vaishnava philosophy and persuasiveness. “There but for fortune, may go you or go I.”
Eric Johanson
Moab, Utah
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2.
Bhakta Eric Johanson
March 11, 1971 (Gaura Purnima): On this date in history, giant Lord Jagannath (51 inches tall), carved by Naranarayana dasa (Nathan Baruch Zakheim) from a huge (and partly rotten) New Vrindaban log is installed in Pittsburgh ISKCON. In an email to the author, Naranarayana explained:
Kirtanananda once came by Pittsburgh ISKCON driving a Volkswagen bus with an enormous, half-rotten log sticking out the back two or three feet. The van was almost driving with the front end in the air, the weight was so huge. Since I was known for carving Jagannath deities for the Detroit and Buffalo temples and for building the San Francisco Ratha-
Yatra cart in 1969, Kirtanananda asked me to carve a deity of Lord Jagannath from the log. We lugged the huge piece of timber upstairs. I do not recall how we dragged the log up at least one flight of stairs into the “Bucket of Blood,” but there were about four or five able-bodied male devotees present at that time. I used a chain saw in the large temple room to cut the log into shape, and then used a hammer and chisel to do the fine tuning on the wood.
Unfortunately, the log was partly decayed, and I had to fill in lots of rotten spaces with hard tooling plaster, as there was not enough wood to make a seamless deity. When I was finished carving, Kuladri painted the deity very excellently. We let the log dry as much as possible prior to painting it, but the wood was very old and the tree (harvested from the New Vrindaban forest floor) had been rotting for years. It had obviously been totally soaked in water as it decayed. It was certainly not a first-class piece of wood from which to carve a worshipable deity.
About a year later, Lord Jagannath was removed from the Pittsburgh temple and taken to New Vrindaban prior to Srila Prabhupada’s August/September 1972 visit to the community. I heard that when the pujari took off Lord Jagannath’s clothes, the pujari discovered to his horror that the entire body of the deity was covered with thick, ugly and stinking mold! No one had noticed this before, because Jagannath’s outfit had never, ever been changed the whole time he resided in Pittsburgh! Apparently the interior heartwood was still wet and damp, and the mold (a type of fungus) had infested his body under the clothes that he wore. Ugh! The wood had unfortunately, as noted earlier, not been dried and cured before carving the deity. (End quote)
Author's note: we're not sure who carved the Lady Subhadra and Balaram deities which appear with Jagannath. Perhaps the New Vrindaban sculptor Bhagavatananda (Joseph Cappelletti).
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 188.
Altar of Balabhadra, Subhadra, and Jagannath, at New Vrindaban (Bahulaban).
Naranarayana dasa (Nathan Baruch Zakheim) (Facebook photo).
March 11, 2022: On this date in history the author receives a message from a reader:
I have only read about 80 pages or so [of “Eleven Naked Emperors”] thus far but: Wow! Extraordinary research, Prabhu! I already knew the basic deplorable history, but the nitty-gritty details as depicted in your book are truly detestable. You should do a book on the GBC, but that would be challenging considering the veil of secrecy they work behind.
SD dasa (ACBSP)
Mayapur, India
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors.
March 1975: On or around this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami orders Radhanath dasa Brahmachari to never leave the Vrindaban Farm and remain there as pujari to serve the Radha Vrindaban Nath deities until the end of his life. Here's the scoop: After the 1975 Mayapur festival, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada came to New York City for a few days early in March, and Kirtanananda Swami and a contingency of high-ranking New Vrindaban managers traveled there to associate with their spiritual master.
During their visit, Kirtanananda Swami heard Prabhupada speak about the pujaris in India and their dedication to their deities. Prabhupada explained that the pujaris take a vow to never leave the temple compound so they will always be available to serve the deity. The Brijabasi Spirit reported:
Upon coming back from New York, Kirtanananda Maharaja had a “heavy one” to lay on Radhanath dasa Brahmachari, who is head pujari at Vrindaban farm temple. [In New York] Prabhupada was talking about how the pujaris in India, they never leave the temple compound for their whole lives. If one is a head pujari and leaves the temple compound, he is then considered highly contaminated. So this is the real Vedic standard for the pujari—that he has dedicated his entire life to serve the deities into whose care has been entrusted with.
So Kirtanananda Maharaja said to Radhanath that he shouldn’t ever leave Vrindaban farm. “Do you think you can do it?” “Do you want me to do it?” asked Radhanath. “Prabhupada says it’s the best thing, so it’s authorized.” Radhanath said that he’d simply try and carry out Maharaja’s instructions and please him. Maharaja said to Radhanath, “I’ll see you in Vrindaban!” This is quite a serious thing, but Radhanath Prabhu is the type of serious devotee and brahmachari who can control his mind and senses and do it. (end quote from Brijabasi Spirit)
Radhanath reminisced, “I remember one time Kirtanananda Maharaja and I had gone to New York to see Srila Prabhupada. . . . When we came back, Maharaja told me, ‘I’ve asked Prabhupada and he wants you to go up to Vrindaban to take care of the deities. You should go up there, stay for the rest of your life, and never come down again! . . . I never want to see you come down. . . . You will die there,” he said. He actually came up once and drew a line with his [walking] cane how far I could go.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, pp. 128-129.
Outdoor kirtan at Bahulaban, New Vrindaban (c. mid-1970s). Radhanath dasa Brahmachari appears at the left.
March 12, 2023: On this date in history, the author receives a Facebook message, “I like your work. Iskconspiracy is a fascinating rabbit hole to go down. I lived under Ravindra Swarupa in the 1990s. I would be happy to share my experience if you ever need anything.”
Dan Davis
Salt Lake City, Utah
Ravindra Svarupa (William H. Deadwyler, III)
March 13-25, 1968: On these dates in history, while AWOL from ISKCON, Kirtanananda “Swami” visits his brother and sister-in-law—Gerald and Elsie Ham—at their home in Madison, Wisconsin. They observe Kirtanananda smoking marijuana. Elsie writes about this in her diary. When the author visits Gerald and Elsie 35 years later at their home in Madison, while interviewing them for his proposed biography of Kirtanananda Swami, Elsie pulls out her 1968 diary and shows it to the author.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 21.
March 13, 1979: On this date in history, the author (along with 12 other candidates) accepts diksa initiation from Kirtanananda Maharaja, Prabhupada's first sannyasa disciple, the leader of the New Vrindaban West Virginia Krishna Commune, the driving force behind the construction of Prabhupada's Palace of Gold, and, according to New Vrindaban residents, the greatest of the eleven ISKCON acharyas.
Kirtanananda Maharaja is highly regarded by nearly all in ISKCON as a self-realized master who has transcended the material modes of goodness, passion and ignorance, and according to many, he is the self-effulgent "bright moon" amidst a sky of lesser "stars." We believe he is a pure devotee; and Prabhupada himself said so. After seven months living in the Brahmachari Ashram and studying Bhakti Yoga under his tutelage, I had no reason to doubt these claims.
At the March 13 fire sacrifice during the New Vrindaban Gaura Purnima festival, Henry Doktorski becomes “Hrishikesh dasa”—“servant of the Master of the senses.” Ghanasyama dasa Brahmachari (John E. Favors) becomes Bhakti Tirtha Swami at the same sacrifice.
The author remembers: "Bhakti Tirtha Swami . . . danced like a madman during the kirtan following the initiation. I had never seen such energetic dancing before. His enthusiasm was contagious and the entire congregation of devotees erupted like a volcano shooting lava bombs into the sky. We were jumping so high into the air you would wonder if we would come down safely.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 227.
The author plays the harmonium at the New Vrindaban Bahulaban temple. Drawing by Krishna Katha (Chris Carlson), published in the February 1982 Brijabasi Spirit.
Bhakti Tirtha Swami
An excerpt from the book titled "His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada Disciples" listing novices initiated by Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada at New Vrindaban on Gaura Purnima (March 13, 1979).
March 13, 2021: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Thank you for putting up a map indicating the Krishna terms for the locations on McCreary’s Ridge. I grew up in Limestone, and am reading your books because no one (not locals, not Krishnas) will discuss what happened, or at least they are only interested in their own version.
I’m in the 2nd chapter of Killing For Krishna, and all the names of my classmates are coming back. Lila St. Denis, Marken Meberg, Abhay Sofsky, and Karl Detamore were all in my class at Limestone Elementary. My dad’s farm in Pleasant Valley was across the creek of what I now know you called Talavan.
When I was flipping through the book before I started reading, I saw mentioned Sky View Inn and Jerry Williams, so I read that page. I got on ancestry to see who Jerry was because I’m a very curious person, turns out he’s my Great Uncle!
I’m sorry if I’m rambling a bit, but it’s nice for the story to finally be told. Thank you.
Amanda
Limestone, West Virginia
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
U. S. Geological Survey topographic map of McCreary Ridge showing location of principle sites of New Vrindaban.
March 13, 2025: On this date in history, our godbrother Janmastami tells about the time at New Vrindaban when he boiled dead peacocks in a pot to pluck their tail feathers for the deities. See Peacocks, Feathers and Fans
Janmastami (at far right) with the author, the author's wife Cindy and Janmastami's housemate Madan Mohan (Everett, Washington: August 10, 2023)
March 14, 1917: On this date in history, Richard Stephen Vincent Rose, Jr. is born in Benwood, West Virginia. In the spring of 1947 he experiences a mystical revelation. In 1967 he attempts to form a nonsectarian ashram on his wooded Marshall County land, and in March 1968 Kirtanananda Swami and Hayagriva first visit his back farm, which later becomes known as New Vrindaban.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 16.
Richard Stephen Vincent Rose, Jr. (1917-2005)
March 14, 1967: On this date in history, in a letter to a disciple, Bhaktivedanta Swami explains why women are never awarded the title of sannyasa, “A female is never awarded the order of sannyasa. Because a female is never considered independent and sannyasa was never awarded to any female in the past by the great acharyas like Sankara, Ramanuja, etc. The female sannyasins are to be immediately understood as pretenders or prostitutes.”
20 years later, Bhaktipada initiates two (and eventually a dozen) women into the order of sannyasa. None of the 12 women, to my knowledge, became pretenders or prostitutes. All were exemplary examples of renunciation in Krishna consciousness. One glorious biography was written about the sannyasini Hrishikesh Mahararaja (Hladini dasi).
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 51.
March 14, 1991: On this date in history, Dharmatma (Dennis Gorrick), the former New Vrindaban sankirtan leader, speaks to the court about the treatment of women at the community, “The mood at the community . . . was that women could be struck. On many occasions, Bhaktipada told husbands to beat their wives. He personally told me to beat my wives, to keep them in order. . . . I was encouraged by Bhaktipada to hit the sankirtan women if they did not surrender. . . . Prior to that time, I had never struck a woman in my life, but the mood was to get them to surrender, to do the things that the husband or leader wanted, that it was okay to do that.”
Bhaktipada used to tell his male followers, “Three things improve with a good beating: your dog, your drum, and your wife!” On national television Bhaktipada said that sometimes it was okay for a husband to give his wife a slap on the face.
Bhaktipada, and the other ISKCON devotees, got this from their own spiritual master, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who early on in 1969, taught his followers a verse by the Medieval Vaishnava poet Tulsi dasa Goswami (1532-1623), who wrote, “A drum, an idiot, a sudra, a dog and a woman are all eligible for a beating.”
Dharmatma also admits, “Regarding sex with the sankirtan women, Bhaktipada gave me facility and encouraged me to do whatever necessary to look after these girls. The fifteen-year-old girl was very mature, like an eighteen-year-old. It was voluntary [not coerced, on her part].” Dharmatma claims he never had intercourse with the teenage girls. “Some inappropriate touching. That’s all! So many rumors by vicious women.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, pp. 22, 133.
Many women at New Vrindaban, and throughout ISKCON, received beatings from their husbands, due to Prabhupada's teachings.
March 15, 1974: On this date in history, during a morning walk in Vrindaban, India, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada expresses his military spirit and his ideas for the future “Golden Age” when the entire world becomes Krishna conscious:
“[We] will teach military art. With tilak, soldiers will [march and chant], ‘Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna.’ (laughter) We want that: marching with military band, ‘Hare Krishna.’ You maintain this idea. Is it not good? When there will be military march of Krishna conscious soldiers: anyone who does not believe in Krishna, ‘Blam!’ [gunshot sound] (laughter) Yes. The same process as the Mohammedans did, with sword and Koran, we’ll have to do that. ‘Do you believe in Krishna or not?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘Blam!’ Finished. (Prabhupada laughs)”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 507.
Many women at New Vrindaban, and throughout ISKCON, received beatings from their husbands, due to Prabhupada's teachings.
March 15, 1986: On this date in history, Malini, a four-year-old two-ton female Indian ceremonial elephant, arrives at New Vrindaban. After two years of paperwork, Malini, a four-year-old, two-ton, female Indian elephant from Mayapur, India, arrived in the United States during the autumn of 1985, and spent the winter at a farm in Myakka City, Florida. Bhaktipada said she was to be “the first of thirty elephants for New Vrindaban.”
Tattva dasa (Thomas Reidman), Malini’s trainer (mahout), explained, “Malini is a very happy elephant, but when kirtan starts, a huge smile comes across her face and she flaps her ears back and forth and sways with the music. Sometimes when the kirtan really gets going, she rapidly flaps her ears individually in time with the kartals. . . . She’s practicing very hard to be able to offer a flower garland to His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktipada, her Lord and Master and the Savior of all fallen souls.” On March 15, 1986, Malini arrived at New Vrindaban with much fanfare. New Vrindaban News reported:
About 5:15 p.m. on Saturday, March 15, the huge elephant trailer bearing Kasyapa, Tattva, other devotees, and the star of the show, Malini, Bhaktipada’s baby elephant, rolled into the temple parking lot. Members of the gurukula spotted the trailer, which looks more like a giant semi-truck, as it lumbered down the road. The word spread like wildfire among the teachers and children. In seconds, ashram after ashram poured out of the ground floor of the lodge, spontaneous kirtans broke out in every direction and key. Onlookers thought at first that Srila Bhaktipada had arrived [from India] ahead of schedule.Malini’s chauffeur sounded a few loud blasts on his horn to announce her arrival. The crowd, now including many adults, cheered and ran towards the parking spot to welcome our new celebrity. Malini was greeted by Kuladri, to whom she offered a garland, obeisances, and fanned him with a chamara. Kasyapa, bright-faced and misty-eyed, fed her laddus. She seemed to be all smiles at her long awaited arrival in her new home. (end quote)
Tattva, who studied advanced elephant care during a five-week training course at the San Diego Wildlife Animal Park, explained the purpose of New Vrindaban’s elephant program, “Most Americans think of elephants as some kind of animal-machine, carrying logs, hauling bricks, and so on. Our elephant program is being designed to educate people in general about the cultural role elephants have played throughout the centuries. In India, elephants are employed in huge processions and gala religious festivals. They’re decorated with beautiful jewels and golden ornaments, stylized quilts, and body paints. It’s an impressive and very beautiful sight. Malini can already offer her obeisances, dance in the temple, offer flower garlands, and wave a chamara—a yak tail whisk used in religious rituals.”
Years later, when the community falls on hard times, Malini the elephant is sold to a circus.
For more, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 134.
Malini and her mahout, Tattva (Thomas Reidman).
March 15, 2019: On this date in history, a reader shares her thoughts about “Eleven Naked Emperors” with the author:
Hello! Just wanted to send word to you about how much I enjoy your book and how much it has helped me on my path to true Krsna Consciousness. I came upon Krsna Consciousness back in 1994, when I’d talked with a devotee on Venice Beach, California. He gave me the Krsna Book and advised me to follow my family’s religion (which was Christianity) until I found I needed more, then seek outside that realm. Little did I realize at the time how important that advice was. I put the book he gave me on the shelf and forgot it was even there. I did exactly as he suggested. My husband and I converted to Catholicism. I got deeply involved with the church until 2002 when I hit the wall in my faith with the revelation of the priest scandal. (Yes, rascals are everywhere!) I floated around for 13 years looking for the true path of faith and explored many paths with nothing really catching my interest. Judaism, New Age, other Christian faiths did nothing for me. I was ready to throw in the towel and declare that God was dead. For me, anyways...
Finally in 2015, while sitting in our home library, gazing at the books there on the shelf, my eyes landed on the Krsna Book. I took it down and opened it. And the rest, as they say, is history. After my experience with other faiths, and closing in on 60 at that time, I was very much aware that there are phonies and pretenders in every faith. Upon discovering what had happened to Srila Prabhupada, you can imagine how heartbroken I was to find out that his own devotees had killed him. But I was not deterred. I believe in Srila Prabhupada and I believe in God, Lord Krsna. I realized that in order to follow Prabhupada's true path, I would have to figure out who were the rascals and who I could trust in the movement as it stands today. It would be an over simplification to say combing though all of the information out there has been as tedious and harrowing as searching for a needle in a haystack! Your book has been invaluable to me and a great boon in helping me to find my way through the labyrinth of information.
I just wanted to let you know how much I value your book, your writing and what you are doing to aid in the healing of not only yourself, but all true followers of Krsna as well as Prabhupada in this modern age. Even though I was not formally initiated by Srila Prabhupada, I have accepted him as my spiritual master and follow only him, not some show bottle person who claims he’s this and that. By sharing your research, your experiences and the truth, I feel you have done a great service for Prabhupada, for Krsna and for all true followers of the movement that Prabhupada has envisioned. For that I wish to thank you and let you know that at least one person appreciates everything you have done. I will continue to sing the praises of your book far and wide! Thank you for writing it! Thank you! God bless you! Hare Krishna!
Sincerely,
Leslie Kiang
Daytona Beach, Florida
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors.
March 15, 2019: On this date in history, a reader reviews Killing For Krishna, :
I just finished reading the book Killing For Krishna, by Henry Doktorski. This in depth book exposes the intricate, yet haphazardly executed assassination of Steve Bryant, a member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, in 1986. . . . I managed to read this 662 page book in just four days, it was quite honestly that intriguing.
Doktorski himself is a former member of ISKCON, and indeed a former disciple of Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada (Keith Ham), the rebellious and perhaps quite insane ruler over New Vrindaban, an ISKCON farming community/ashram Kirtanananda helped to found.
Doktorski is able to tell this story in a way that no other author possibly could. Why? Well Doktorski has first hand knowledge of the goings on at the community during the period, and he possessed thousands upon thousands of pages of personal letters, official documents, and even secret materials that were taken from New Vrindaban after its collapse, and subsequently given to the author. These unique conditions put him in a position to give invaluable insight into the group think that prevailed during those years in ISKCON, and may continue even to today.
Kirtanananda Swami was anything but the advanced spiritual master his disciples believed him to be. In fact, as Doktorski proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, he was a child molester and active homosexual who craved cocaine and indulged in gay orgies in his private quarters at the ashram. Steve Bryant, who had a grudge against Kirtanananda regarding his having initiated Bryant’s wife without his permission, as was the custom, and for then marrying off his wife to another man and helping to obstruct his access to his children, began to expose the various rumors he collected regarding Kirtanananda’s very un-guru-like behavior. As Doktorski explains, ISKCON’s theology renders any criticism of a guru as a major offense, as it is viewed as insulting a person who is considered to be “as good as God.” As one might imagine, to those living in such a fanatical cult of personality atmosphere, Bryant’s actions were taken as the gravest of grave offenses. In fact, they launched what became a systematic surveillance of his movements which finally resulted in his murder by Kirtanananda’s “enforcer” at New Vrindaban, Tirtha dasa (Thomas Drescher), who is today serving a life sentence for the murder of Bryant and one other follower of Kirtanananda who crossed the line.
In reading this book I found several things of interest. First, the cult dynamic that grew around Kirtanananda Swami to such an extent that he could literally do nothing wrong in the eyes of most of his disciples. Doktorski accurately calls this “deranged devotion.” It would be very easy for me, as a Christian, to sit back and point the finger at such groups as ISKCON for being infected with such deranged devotion, but we’ve seen it in Christian circles as well. There are many popular evangelists, etc. who have significant followings which will defend their chosen one with all the fervor of any Hare Krishna devotee. I myself was personally the target of one such charismatic “apologist” who posted lies about my education, my personal life, and even at one point claimed my name was fake. He personally engaged in harassing me online, sending me multiple threatening messages on a daily basis, sometimes four and five times a day. His faithful followers, who obviously believed anything he said to be absolute truth, also harassed me and re-posted his calumny on other websites at his request. I had to literally threaten litigation to get him to stop sending me threatening emails. All of this anger and hate directed at me simply because I dared to disagree with him on a theological topic in a forum. It was revealed upon his death that he had been arrested numerous times for public intoxication and domestic violence. Some of his followers, still loyal to him no matter what, actually claimed he was “taken out” by some secret nefarious forces due to his prophetic insight. No, deranged devotion isn't limited to groups on the fringes of western culture like ISKCON.
Another thing that struck me about the details of the plot to murder Bryant was the lack of clear, definitive connections to Kirtanananda Swami himself. While it is abundantly clear that Kirtanananda was anything but what he professed to be, the murderer, who at first implicated the Swami directly in the plot, later said he really had no firsthand confirmation of any such directive coming from Kirtanananda. One is left with a tiny hint of doubt as to whether Kirtanananda was actually directing it or not, as he is reported by multiple sources as having made statements defiantly against the crime. Whatever the case, the Swami’s closest confidant, and lifetime homosexual lover, made it clear to the members of the murder plot that Kirtanananda wanted Bryant dead. Add to this confusing mix of finger pointing what appears to be an underlying plot-within-a-plot, possibly engineered by local law enforcement officials to take the Swami and the entire community out, and you have a truly intriguing web of lies and conspiracy. Let me be clear though, Doktorski leaves very little doubt that Kirtanananda Swami was aware of the plot and did nothing to stop it, even if he didn’t openly encourage it. He was reportedly a very tricky, manipulative personality who would have been careful to make it seem he wasn’t at all supporting it just to save his own skin if things went wrong.
And they did.
In 1996, though indicted on conspiracy to murder, six counts of mail fraud, and five counts of racketeering, the Swami went to prison with a sentence of only 20 years, but not for conspiracy to murder. You'll have to read the book to find out what sent him there. Almost all of his disciples had by that time finally realized he was not what he seemed and had abandoned him (again, read the book to find out what finally broke the spell. Hint: It wasn't his conviction). A small enclave of the most ardent supporters relocated to New York, starting a tiny center known as the Sanctuary/Interfaith League of Devotees. He was paroled on June 16, 2004, and joined his disciples in New York. Not long after arriving there he was accused of fondling a boy’s genitals and was evicted by his own disciples who had believed in him all this time, but now had finally seen the light. He then flew to India, where he still had a significant following comprised of people far removed and ignorant of his criminal activities in the U.S., where he died several years later.
All in all, this book is a fantastic glimpse into the world of ISKCON, the theology of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, and the dangers of deranged devotion. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in comparative religion, psychology, theology, world religion, or just true crime. This book is, in my opinion, a must have in any apologists library.
J. Davila Ashcraft, from a review at Paleo-Orthodoxy
Rev. Jack Davila-Ashcraft, host of Expedition Truth Radio
March 15, 2021: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a former follower of Swami Bhaktipada:
Dear Hrishikesh,
I am listening and watching the Interview with Mahatma das (Mario Pineda), Part 1. Very impressive! And you come across as very sincere and want to help expose the truth. It’s very good. You reveal in the interview that you had no animosity towards anyone, and that you enjoyed the spiritual time of 15 years you spent in New Vrindavan. Why I think your book, Killing For Krishna, is important for devotees to know about, is that there is still seemingly immovable corruption of different sorts, in the highest ranks of ISKCON leadership. That I have personal and unfortunate experience of. To be true to the phrase that Srila Prabhupada said, “Purity is the force,” that corruption has to be revealed to the devotees, who in turn have to act to help rid ISKCON of this serious darkness. There has to be checks and balances over the GBC and the guru system, by persons who are not GBC members. So let’s start....by telling the truth! face it, accept it, and help return ISKCON to the pure force that was there in the original ISKCON Prabhupada started.
Dasarath das
Disciple of Srila Prabhupada since 1971
Founder of two ISKCON temples in Arizona
Sedona, Arizona
YouTube
Dasarath dasa, ACBSP, with the author in Sedona, Arizona (January 26, 2023)
March 16, 1987: On this date in history, His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, the ISKCON-approved spiritual master and Prabhupada's first sannyasi, who was regarded as a self-realized soul for years, is expelled from ISKCON for “moral and theological deviations.”
The GBC distributed a list of complaints against Bhaktipada, some of which were presented to him during a March 1987 istagosthi at New Vrindaban. Following is the “list of grounds for expulsion from ISKCON”:
(1) He tried seizing the Berkeley temple without GBC approval,
(2) He has registered an independent trust in India and called it “ISKCON New Vrindaban East,”
(3) He has nullified the GBC by calling its members “dogs,”
(4) He teaches that the GBC has no authority over the guru,
(5) He opens temples in other zones without consulting,
(7) He doesn’t even accept the principle of the GBC authority,
(8) He has collecting parties working in other zones without permission,
(10) He compares himself to Srila Prabhupada and compares his godbrothers to the Gaudiya Math,
(13) There is sufficient reason to believe that he condones illegal activities such as drug dealing, murder, shielding criminals, theft, child molestation.
Following is a list of “other misbehavior.”
(1) He lives with dogs, he takes them into the temple,
(2) He refused to take appropriate action about sexual abuse and violence in the New Vrindaban gurukula,
(3) He doesn’t lecture from Srimad-bhagavatam during Srimad-bhagavatam class. Reading neither verse nor purport, he reads his own books like Radha in Blissland and Going Back Home, Back To Godhead,
(4) They say Prabhupada is very specific, instructing us how the class should be conducted in response.
(5) He doesn’t chant his rounds regularly,
(6) He solicits other gurus’ disciples for initiation,
(21) He calls [his] disciples from [other] temples [to New Vrindaban] without the permission of local authorities,
(22) He misrepresents the relationship of disciple to the spiritual master in ISKCON by claiming exclusive proprietorship over his disciples,
(24) He is extremely duplicitous in his dealings,
(25) He claims that Krishna has left Vrindaban, and Srila Prabhupada is not in his Vrindaban samadhi,
(26) He violates the international GBC resolutions that no literature can be published in large quantities without the sanction of the BBT trustees,
(27) He says that those who follow Satsvarupa Maharaja’s Guru Reform Notebook will go to hell,
(28) He made sannyasi candidates in defiance of GBC laws,
(29) He made simultaneous guru pujas in direct violation of GBC resolution, ISKCON law 13-2A: “by unanimous decision, there shall be separate special daily guru puja for Srila Prabhupada in the temple,” in other words, he accepts guru puja in front of his godbrothers,
(30) He refuses to have three GBC trustees on the properties,
(31) Without authority he has mortgaged different properties,
(32) He preaches Mayavadi philosophy,
(33) He diverts funds from ISKCON to his own personal projects,
(34) He instigates dissension within ISKCON by criticizing the revised edition of the Bhagavad-gita As It Is,
(33) He has directly undermined the authority of the local GBC member, temple president and other temple authorities in Bombay, Gujarat, Delhi and other temples in India. He has changed his disciples into bitter critics of ISKCON, the GBC and all of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples who are not with him. He claims to be the only pure devotee, all others being impure,
(34) He criticizes and ridicules the GBC body in public, in public assemblies of outside visitors and disciples,
(35) He has several times threatened the local GBC man in Bombay that he will go to the news media, police and government with information detrimental to ISKCON, thereby exhibiting that he has no concern for the welfare of ISKCON,
(36) He has removed from their service some of Western India’s best trained sankirtan men, who were all trained with great pains by the local leaders to raise funds for [their own] projects. He has sent them to New Vrindaban and to head up unauthorized projects in North India,
(37) Under his instructions, his disciples have registered a separate trust in India called “ISKCON New Vrindaban East,” without permission whatsoever from the GBC body, which directly competes with existing ISKCON projects,
(38) In contrast to the standard behavior of a saintly person, he lives with an unclean dog, feeds the dog unclean dog food containing meat. He lets the dog eat directly from his own plate and allows the food touched by the dog to be distributed to his followers,
(39) Against the standard spiritual practice in ISKCON he reinitiates the disciples of different gurus in ISKCON who are devotees with good standing,
(40) He permits his disciples to publish newsletters directly blaspheming ISKCON authorities, and misrepresenting the philosophy of Krishna consciousness,
(41) When he visited Malaysia, he didn’t visit the ISKCON temple, and he openly criticized ISKCON, then initiated some disciples and reinitiated others without permission from the local authorities. Under his instruction, his disciples opened another center in Malaysia without permission of the local GBC.
After hearing the items on the list, Bhaktipada announced: “These are lies. I get tired of hearing it.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 146.
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada uses a walker to ambulate in the temple room of his house at New Vrindaban (December 4, 1985)
March 1994: On or around this date in history, the author travels (for the first time) to Vrindaban, India—where Krishna displayed his childhood pastimes some thousands of years earlier—and experiences a revelation. He finally understands why Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada insisted that his disciples wear dhotis and saris, with shaved head and sikha flags, and accompany kirtan with mrdanga and kartals: because it reminds one of Krishna—the cowherd boy of Vrindaban. He writes an essay about his realizations published in both the "Brijabasi Spirit" and the Indian publication "Sri Vrindaban-Dhama Newsletter."
Around the same time, Radhanath Swami, back at the Chowpatty temple in Mumbai which he helped establish eight years earlier, is welcomed back into ISKCON as an assistant GBC and initiating guru, with one important condition: “provided the United States Government does not indict him in its case now pending against Kirtanananda Swami.” The Chowpatty temple joins ISKCON.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, pp. 188-189.
A temple and ghat in Vrindaban, India
March 16, 2024: On this date in history, a former resident of New Vrindaban shares his memories of Kirtanananda Swami, Hayagriva and Swami Prabhupada from the late 1960s. See: Ranadhir's Memories
Ranadhir dasa ACBSP (Randolph Nieburgs)
March 17, 1954: On this date in history, Kerry Roth is born in Rock Island, Illinois. His family moves to Springfield, Ohio in 1960. He attends Kenwood Elementary, Franklin Junior High for two years, and one year at Roosevelt Junior High. He graduates in 1972 from North High School in Springfield, Ohio. He receives a scholarship to study at DeVry University in Columbus, and graduates with an Associate Degree in Electronics.
Soon Kerry’s life takes a turn when he joins ISKCON at New Vrindaban in West Virginia, and begins working in the Marble Shop. He explained, “We were all neophytes. The only training I had in marble before I came here was looking at marble in banks. One day in the spring of 1975, Kirtanananda Swami asked me, ‘Would you like to help me build a Palace for Prabhupada?’ I said, ‘I’d be honored.’”
Kerry works in the Marble Shop but almost dies when, while unloading a truck, thousands of pounds of marble slabs fall on him and almost crush out his life. A New Vrindaban historian explained, “The third member of the marble shop triumvirate was Karusha dasa. His account is especially interesting, because during the building of the Palace he was the victim of an unfortunate marble accident. While unloading marble from the truck used to bring marble slabs from New York, a shift in the marble caused thousands of pounds of marble to come crashing down on Karusha, pinning him underneath. Almost given up for dead, he was rushed to the intensive care room of the hospital where he remained in critical condition for weeks. The accident in no way dampened his enthusiasm for working with marble, and several months afterward he was back in the shop polishing [marble] for Prabhupada’s Palace.”
Kerry accepts diksa and receives the name “Karusha dasa” at a June 1976 fire sacrifice presided over by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
Karusha remembered his spiritual master’s visit to the New Vrindaban Marble Shop: “Prabhupada came in the summer of 1976. He came into the marble shop and benedicted it with his presence. Kirtanananda Swami took him for a tour and showed him the saw and polisher. Prabhupada looked all around the marble shop and said, ‘Very [pronounced] (V-E-D-I) nice.’ I offered Prabhupada a bouquet of flowers. All the devotees were looking in the windows. Prabhupada was very casual, but you knew he saw every detail of the shop. He had an air of innocence about him. Kirtanananda Swami was also like a child, like Prabhupada’s little boy, showing Daddy everything.”
Years later, Karusha served as the president of Columbus ISKCON. Around 1984 or so, I moved from New Vrindaban to Columbus where he took me out on the “painting pick” for two weeks, in an attempt to teach me how to get big bucks. We pretended to be artists and showed our customers “our” artistic work: cheap mass-produced Korean paintings. During those two weeks I didn’t sell even one painting, and so I returned to the traveling sankirtan bumper-sticker pick, which I excelled at.
Karusha left Bhaktipada’s service I think around the time of the September 1993 Winnebago Incident. He did not, however, return to ISKCON like most of the New Vrindaban residents, because he thought the ISKCON gurus were pretenders. At a New Vrindaban festival in the mid-2000s, he spoke to me and recommended that I take shelter directly from Prabhupada by reading his books and listening to his lectures.
Karusha passed away December 13, 2019 at Licking Memorial Hospital in Newark, Ohio. His family deeply regrets his involvement with the Hare Krishnas and think that his involvement contributed to his decline of health.
Karusha (Kerry Roth) in the marble shop (mid- to late-1970s).
March 17, 1968: On this date in history, in a letter to Hayagriva, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada suggests that he and Kirtanananda abandon their idea to create a nonsectarian non-ISKCON ashram in West Virginia, and instead create an ashram under the auspices of ISKCON.
In the same letter, Prabhupada also suggests he might permanently make New Vrindaban his world headquarters, “If Kirtanananda endeavors to utilize the 320 acres for turning it into New Vrindaban, I may permanently stay there and try to serve you in constructing a New Vrindaban city in West Virginia.”
Kirtanananda and Hayagriva are currently operating outside of and in competition with ISKCON, but Hayagriva stays in touch with his spiritual master by post. Although they have not yet seen Richard Rose's Marshall County rural property, they plan to visit during Easter weekend, at the end of March, when Hayagriva is free from his duties of teaching English classes at Lucerne County Community College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s books, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 20, and Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, pp. 5-6.
Kirtanananda “Swami”, during a visit with his family in Merrick, Long Island, during the Christmas holidays (December 1967). Shirley, Keith, Gerald, Joan, Roberta, and Mrs. and Rev. Ham.
Professor Howard Wheeler (Hayagriva) at his Ohio University office, Columbus, Ohio (c. late 1968 or early 1969). The January 1967 San Francisco Mantra Rock Dance poster hangs on the wall, along with pictures of Krishna and Vishnu.
March 17, 1973: On this date in history, during a visit to B. R. Sridhar Swami’s ashram in Navadvipa, India, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada praises his senior godbrother, “He is, by age and experience, in both ways he is senior to me. [Sridhar Maharaja lived] in my house, some may say, for few years, so naturally we had very intimate talks, and he was my good adviser. I took his advice, his instruction, very seriously, because from the very beginning I know he’s a pure Vaishnava and devotee, and I wanted to associate with him, and try to help him also in so many ways. He also tried to help me. So our relationship is very intimate.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 81.
B. R. Sridhar Maharaja and Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada sit together on the same seat during the Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir inauguration ceremonies (March 17, 1973).
March 17, 2020: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a godbrother:
Hrishi,
I have now finished reading your book, Eleven Naked Emperors. Another amazing effort to uncover the truth, just like your first book, Killing For Krishna. l feel you remained balanced and tried to give as comprehensive a look as possible, honoring all perspectives.
It is an opportunity for your readers to carefully analyze past mistakes and then learn from. For those who were not thrust into such a demanding role as guru, it is an opportunity for them to appreciate the good work these eleven gentlemen did despite the pressure of having to always appear perfect. The last chapter is thought provoking. There is surely much more l could say as l am very impressed by your colossal effort to document so much information and compile it in such a readable manner.
If you approve of my comment you may certainly use it as you see fit, such as on your “Eleven Naked Emperors” Facebook page. And yes, as l fade quietly into the twilight of my career l would prefer to remain anonymous.
By the way, you may have noticed that l left the word “them” off the first sentence of the 2nd paragraph. I am surely looking forward to your next publication.
Anonymous godbrother, former disciple of Kirtanananda Swami and New Vrindaban resident
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors.
March 18, 1987: On this date in history (two days after getting expelled from ISKCON), Bhaktipada meets a White House aide in Washington D. C. to discuss harassment of New Vrindaban by federal, state and local authorities. This is one of the reasons Bhaktipada did not attend the 1987 GBC meetings in Mayapur (where he was expelled) because he had instead chosen to attend a meeting in Washington D. C.—arranged by Achamma Chandersekaran [Chandler], the president of the Indian-American Forum for Political Education, a nonprofit lobby concerned with Indian-American relations.
The meeting was held at the Old Executive Office Building with Rudy Beserra, a White House aide and assistant director of the Office of Public Liaison, to discuss harassment of the New Vrindaban community by law-enforcement agencies at the federal, state and local levels and to request intervention by the Reagan Administration. Bhaktipada boasted to ISKCON leaders that he was invited to attend a meeting at the White House, despite the fact that his meeting was not at the White House; it was in a government building (today known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building) just west of the White House.
Unfortunately, Bhaktipada’s meeting with Rudy Beserra came to naught because New Vrindaban destroyed their credibility with the Indian-American Forum for Political Education by attempting to use their name to further the community’s agenda. A New Vrindaban spokesman sent a press release about Bhaktipada’s meeting in Washington D. C. to The New York Times. A reporter from The Times (Lindsey Gruson) contacted Ms. Chandersekaran to confirm the report, who then accused Bhaktipada of leaking the story to the press. She claimed her organization had been “abused” to serve Bhaktipada’s “ulterior motives.”
Ms. Chandersekaran personally wrote to Vedavyasapriya Swami (Bhagirath Vyas), the Gujarati-born director of Bharatiya Community Services (New Vrindaban’s Life Membership department), and Tulsi dasa (Richard Allen “Dick” Dezio), the director of New Vrindaban Public Affairs who formerly served as an Instructor of Economics at West Virginia University at Parkersburg, “I am indeed incensed at the way you have abused my organization for your ulterior motives. You have misrepresented yourselves and your Hare Krishna organization to me and have caused me to impose upon my friends and contacts, especially at the White House, who gave you time just because of my request. I know now that your cause is unworthy of any sympathy. Please do not expect any help, or any sort, from my organization or my friends, now or in the future. I am sorry I ever got involved in this at all.”
This was not new; New Vrindaban had attempted to capitalize on friendships with important people for a long time. A year earlier, a Benedictine monk had visited New Vrindaban. A few months later, an article about him with photograph appeared in the Brijabasi Spirit: Plain Living-High Thinking magazine. He was shocked at the breach of trust and lack of consideration of his New Vrindaban “friends,” and wrote, “I am by no means ashamed of my involvement in ISKCON, but, because of the lack of understanding or open-mindedness or enlightenment of others, have to be prudent in making known my involvement. I was greatly distressed to see our photos in Plain Living. I was really hurt and felt my confidence had been betrayed by the devotees. I took it as an insensitive and unethical act. . . . Where does this leave me now? I truly love New Vrindaban. My visits there have been so spiritual, and I have gained so much from being there, But, I fear now to visit, because my picture may end up in a publication and made public.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 158.
The Eisenhower Office Building, Washington D.C.
The Eisenhower Office Building, Washington D.C.
Veda Vyasa Priya Maharaja
March 18, 1992: On this date in history, six computer-controlled bronze bells weighing a total of 16,800 pounds and purchased for $70,000 are installed in the Maha Dwaram gateway. They are supposed to play the Hare Krishna mahamantra tune every hour. The bells malfunction.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 216.
Steel frame of the Maha-Dvaram Gatewy with six bells on top.
Six bells in the Maha-Dvaram Gateway.
Somadasa dasa (Thomas Graves) and Gaura-Shakti (Gregory Carlson) install the bells.
March 18, 2022: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Hey! Just read Eleven Naked Emperors. Great book! Thank you for writing it. Mind blowing stuff.
I’m a product of the post-zonal-acharya days, having gotten into Krishna consciousness in the mid-late 80s and moving into the temples in the early 90s. I saw firsthand the damage that had been done before I got there and that perpetuated after I arrived. My own diksha guru also “fell down” and, even though I took reinitiation (which I thought was the necessary move back then), I ended up leaving the movement for 10 years, only “coming back,” so to speak, last year. I now run an unaffiliated bhakti center with emphasis solely on kirtan and prasadam, no guru talk.
After all this time, I’m still blown away by all the bullshit I see with the movement and its “leaders.” I am way too liberal to practice bhakti “by the book,” and am well aware of how Gaudiya Vaishnavism degraded into what we see today.
Anyway, just wanted to reach out and let you know you’ve got a supporter in me.
Govardhana dasa (Justin King)
Portland, Oregon
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors.
March 19, 1976: On this date in history, during a morning walk in Mayapur, India, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains, “The woman must become a slave. . . . One American woman was speaking that, ‘In India, the women are treated as slave. We don’t want.’ So I told her, it is better to become slave of one person than slave of hundreds (laughter). The woman must become a slave.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 14.
March 19, 1983: On this date in history, the GBC expresses concern about Bhaktipada using the title “Founder-Acharya of New Vrindaban” and worshiping Prabhupada at the Palace with a crown. Out of respect, however, the GBC permits Bhaktipada to continue worshiping Prabhupada at the Palace with a crown.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 328.
Crowned Prabhupada at his Palace (c. December 1981).
March 20: March 2010: On or around this date in history, New Vrindaban signs a contract with Ohio-based AB Resources for Marcellus shale fracking on community property, with a lease rate of $2,500 per acre for about 4,000 acres—and 18.75 percent production royalties when the company begins pumping natural gas. The community expects to receive $10 million in royalties.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 29.
March 2023: On or around this date in history, twelve years after his death, Bhaktipada’s “samadhi”-under-construction in Vrindaban, India, can be seen rising behind the wall next to the Parikrama Marg. The concrete Vimana is (appropriately) shaped something like a giant phallus.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 180)
The vimana of Bhaktipada’s “Samadhi-under-construction” on Bhakti Marg Road, Vrindaban India (July 2023), which some claim resembles a giant phallus.
March 21, 1989: On this date in history, Bhaktipada’s “Rule,” a set of rules for monastic life similar to the Rule of Saint Benedict, is introduced on Gaura Purnima. Bhaktipada wanted the residents of the City of God to live a regulated and disciplined life, free from the distractions of sense gratificatory pursuits. He was especially enamored by the Holy Rule of Saint Benedict (c. 480-543), the founder of Western monasticism. Benedict’s Rule, a comprehensive document written around 530 in Italy, defined the cenobitic (regulated community life) monastic tradition and is regarded as the first and best among monastic legislative codes. Benedict’s Rule was by far the most important factor in the organization and spread of monasticism in the West.
Of the seventy-three chapters comprising Benedict’s Rule, nine deal with the duties of the abbot, thirteen regulate the worship of God, twenty-nine are concerned with discipline and the penal code, ten refer to the internal administration of the monastery, and the remaining twelve consist of miscellaneous regulations. Such issues as humility, patience, simplicity, solitude, caring for others, and living in community are addressed.
The Rule, titled “A Rule for Krishna Conscious Conduct, in the Cities of God World Wide,” was composed in two parts: (1) Concept and (2) The Devotee’s Daily Schedule. Part One consisted of seven pages organized into sixteen sections:
Introduction and Definition of the Rule
Authority of the Rule
Remembering Krishna
Submissive Hearing Leads to All Virtues
The Original Sin is Envy
Obedience is the Manifestation of Surrender
Perfect Surrender Produces Spiritual Silence
And the Consciousness that Nothing is Mine
A Test for Detachment, Freedom from Sin
Spiritual Pilgrims
Chanting, Praying and Serving: The Way
Pleasing Guru and Krishna
Real Preaching
Conclusion
Part Two of the Rule, titled “The Devotee’s Daily Schedule,” consisted of seven pages organized into fourteen sections.
3:00 a.m. Rising
4:00 a.m. Morning Chanting in the Temple Room
5:00 a.m. Sunrise Worship Service
6:00 a.m. Continued Chanting/Deity Service/Choir Practice
7:00 a.m. Greeting of the Deities
7:30 a.m. Breakfast Prasadam
8:30-11:45 a.m. Occupational Devotional Service
12:00 Noontime Worship at the Temple
1:00 p.m. Mid-Day Prasadam
2:00 p.m. Occupational Devotional Service
5:30 p.m. Cleanup
7:00 p.m. Evening Worship in the Temple
7:20 p.m. Devotee Social Hour
9:00 p.m.—3:00 a.m. Rest
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 323.
March 21, 2019: On this date in history, Jyotirdhama dasa (Joseph Pollock, Jr.), who served as “New Vrindaban’s Telephone Man,” completes an essay (after reading "Killing For Krishna") in which he publicly confesses to participating in the Sulochan murder conspiracy 33 years earlier.
He confirms that Gaura Shakti, Kuladri, Tapahpunja Swami and Radhanath Swami were involved in the plot. He says, “Radhanath ordered the murder of Sulochan.” Jyotirdhama's essay is published as the Addendum in a revised edition of "Killing For Krishna."
To read Jyotirdhama's essay, see Killing For Krishna, Addendum p. 517.
Jyotirdhama dasa (Joseph Pollock, Jr.).
March 21, 2019: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of “Eleven Naked Emperors” on Amazon:
5.0 out of 5 stars. An Unmatched Insider View
Doktorski has provided perhaps the best insider view of the internal power struggles of ISKCON from the late 70s up to the present. His honest “warts and all” approach to ISKCON history, coupled with the clear respect he has for its members both past and present, as well as its founder, clearly indicate a desire to tell the truth with a heart for healing. As an Anglican priest I highly recommend this and all of Doktorski’s works to my fellow theologians, apologists, clergy, and students of world religion.
Father Joseph “Jack” Gingrich
Dayton, Ohio
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors.
March 1977: On or around this date in history, at the Mayapur meetings, the GBC makes a resolution prohibiting male sankirtan leaders from acting as “husbands” to the single women on their sankirtan parties. However the practice continues.
Rochan dasa (Van Charnell) claims that when he was temple president of Seattle ISKCON, his GBC representative told him to act as "husband" to the unmarried sankirtan women, to keep them satisfied and collecting big. Dharmatma dasa, the New Vrindaban sankirtan leader, claimed, "Regarding sex with the sankirtan women, Bhaktipada gave me facility and encouraged me to do whatever necessary to look after these girls. The fifteen-year-old girl was very mature, like an eighteen-year-old. It was voluntary [not coerced, on her part]." Jiva dasa, the Berkeley ISKCON sankirtan leader, also had a harem of young and attractive sankirtan women. These three harems are documented, but there were also others in ISKCON temples.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 149.
Painting of Indian man with harem (undated).
March 23, 1973: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada recommends that the children of his disciples attend the Dallas gurukula beginning at the age of four years.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 294.
Image from Back To Godhead magazine.
March 23, 1974: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada says it is not important to have many disciples; only one pure disciple can work wonders. “If I create one moon, that is sufficient. I don’t want many stars. . . . What is the use of having [great] number[s] of [disciples who want to be guru, but are] fools and rascals? If one man understands rightly, he can deliver the whole world.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 25.
March 23, 1976: On this date in history, in a letter to Kirtanananda Swami, Bhaktivedanta Swami makes light of the West Virginia government’s demand that New Vrindaban install a septic system and an approved toilet system, “Concerning the outhouses, if they are not approved then you can . . . pass stool in the open field. I was doing that. I never liked to go to the nonsense toilet, so I was going in the field.”
When I lived at New Vrindaban’s Brahmachari Ashram at the Old Vrindaban Farm from 1978-1979, there was no toilet paper. In fact, there were no toilets. We used the “Stool Field” a short walk from the house. First we went to the basement bath house, stripped to our kaupins, put on a pair of special rubber boots called the "Stool Boots," filled a special plastic gallon jug (called the “Stool Jug”) with water, put on the “Stool Coat” hanging in a special place (if it was winter), grabbed the “Stool Shovel,” then walked a short distance to the "Stool Field."
We dug a small hole in the earth, squatted over the hole, did our duty, rinsed our backside, covered the hole with earth, then returned to the bath house where we bathed (you dipped a plastic milk jug into a barrel of well water and pour it over our head) and put on our regular clothes. This was not a big deal for me, as I was an experienced Eagle Scout and had done lots of camping in the forest.
In the winter, however, the ground was frozen and too hard to dig a hole, so we just did our duty on top of the snow. However, when the warm spring weather arrived, all the snow melted, and the entire field was littered with hundreds of stools deposited by 20 young men during the last 3 months. We had to be extremely careful not to step in any while looking for a place to do our duty.
On another note: During my children’s first trip to India in the mid-1990s, they used to entertain themselves during long car drives by counting how many people they saw passing stool or urine on the side of the road, or in a field. We should note that Indian people are generally modest. When they squat in the field, they cover their heads with a cloth for privacy. When my Indian wife first visited the USA, when she saw a “Do Not Pass” sign along the highway, she thought that meant “Do not pass stool or urine on the side of the road.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 153. Also, see BBC Newscast.
Cartoon from Indian newspaper regarding improving toilet facilities in rural areas.
Poster to help promote awareness of improving sanitation in India.
March 24, 1994: On this date in history, during a telephone Istagosthi from Bombay, India, Radhanath Swami tells the New Vrindaban residents, “What Prabhupada gave us is perfect. Prabhupada said that the problem with the Western mind is that they always want to change. Indeed, Prabhupada said this many times in a chastising spirit. We are following what Lord Chaitanya brought down from the spiritual world. As far as Gaudiya Vaishnavas are concerned, that tradition is what we will eternally be following, not only in this world, but in the spiritual world as well.”
See Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, pp. 190-191. Later that same day, sixty-seven New Vrindaban devotees sign a “Statement of Resolution” renouncing their connection to Bhaktipada and proclaiming their devotion to His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. They resolve to abandon Bhaktipada’s changes and follow the directions of Prabhupada.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 196.
Radhanath Swami
March 24, 2020: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of “Eleven Naked Emperors” on YouTube: Today I would like to give a brief review of the book “Eleven Naked Emperors” by my friend Henry Doktorski. First, I want to say that I really like Henry. Henry has made a very positive life for himself [after leaving the Hare Krishna movement]. He’s a great writer, he’s an organist, he is a chess master, a master accordionist. He’s a real nice guy. He has made a lot of research to do this book. . . .
“Eleven Naked Emperors” deals with the period from 1977 and on, the period after Swami Bhaktivedanta, [the founder of the Hare Krishna movement], died. Those eleven decided that they were now “spiritual masters,” they were now “gurus,” and they were now worthy of praise, worthy of worship, worthy of taking hundreds, some thousands of disciples, to love them and serve them. Many built themselves little thrones so that people could worship them.
One thing that they did, all the eleven of them, is what is called “Washing of the Feet” [pada-puja] once a year [on the birthday of the spiritual master], with milk, yogurt, honey. Then they would let their disciples drink this mixture because it was “holy,” it had touched their feet. And every day, they [the eleven] would let people eat from their plate [after they had finished eating]. That would be called “Maha-Prasadam.” It was “holy” because the spit of these eleven people had suddenly, in 1977, become “holy.” Anyone who would eat something that had touched their spit would benefit spiritually.
Henry’s “Eleven Naked Emperors” is a very interesting book, [especially] if you want to learn the history of the Hare Krishna movement and how it is functioning now. It’s not about self realization, it’s about being elected by a board: “Okay, now you’re a guru.” It’s very far away from the ideal of the Bhagavad-gita, which says that the self-realized soul can show you the truth because he has seen, he has experienced the truth. . . . There’s a lot to learn in the book by Henry Doktorski, a lot to learn about the sinister brainwashing that can happen when a guru is not real. You can learn about money scams, manipulation of women for sexual pleasure, manipulation of men [and boys] by some of those gurus who were homosexual pedophiles. Like Kirtanananda and Bhavananda, who were complete perverts. But for a little while many people believed that they were enlightened saints, when in reality they were scabs.
Henri Jolicoeur, M. A. (formerly Hanuman Swami, ACBSP)
Hypnotherapist
Montreal, Quebec
See Henri on YouTube
Henri Jolicoeur
March 25, 1978: On this date in history, Yasodanandan Swami (Yoland Joseph Langevin), the headmaster for the Bhaktivedanta Gurukula, suggests to Tamal Krishna Goswami that all of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s tape-recorded conversations should be transcribed and published, but his idea falls on deaf ears.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 135.
Yasodanandan (Yoland Joseph Langevin), on left, bathes his spiritual master's feet.
March 26, 1986: On this date in history, the author attends—as a representative of New Vrindaban and as a vendor—the quincentennial celebration of the birth of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu at the ISKCON Mayapur, India festival. Mayapur is a pilgrimage town in the Nabadwip CD block in the Krishnanagar Sadar subdivision of the Nadia district, West Bengal, India. It is situated at the confluence of the Jalangi River, a branch of the Ganges River, which flows into the Bhagirathi River (also known as the Hooghly River), which is also a branch of the Ganges River.
At the Mayapur Festival, the author—who at that time served as co-director of Palace Publishing—sets up a New Vrindaban exhibit booth in the vendor area and sells: 450 Palace of Gold Souvenir magazines, 300 “Christ and Krishnas,” 280 “Hare Krishna Explosions,” 125 “Dialectical Spiritualisms,” 100 “Plain Living, High Thinking” magazines, and 60 “Song of Gods.”
While visiting the New Vrindaban booth at the Chaitanya Expo 500, with an enormous crowd of young disciples following him, Harikesh Swami Vishnupada (Robert Campagnola), the ISKCON zonal acharya for Eastern Europe, admires a large print of a painting of New Vrindaban’s proposed Temple of Understanding and declares, “Someday, this will be the greatest temple on the planet!”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s books, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 14, and Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 202.
The author playing the Indian harmonium, illustration by Krishna Katha ACBSP (Chris Carlson) from Brijabasi Spirit (February 1982).
Artist’s painting of the proposed Great Temple of Understanding at New Vrindaban
March 26, 2019: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
I just wanted to thank to you for writing this book, Killing For Krishna. I read it all. I also think that the topic of deranged devotion has to be addressed in a very urgent way. You did this as a service to Prabhupada’s Movement. Thank you. Your sincerity for Truth touched my heart. Nothing should be hidden.
I also joined more than and served as Bhakta Leader and also as Temple President in ISKCON for many years. After a time, I started to address these kind of dysfunctional dynamics, and then they asked me to leave. (They did not kill anymore).
I spent two years alone in the forest only reflecting and chanting, and then opened a contemplative Vaishnava community in the Swiss mountains. One has to walk 3 hours to get there and there is no street at all to go there. We live very simple there and produce our food ourselves.
I just wanted to give you an echo on your book. Thank you.
Your Krishna Chandra
Ananda-Dham
Golino, Switzerland.
March 27, 1974: On this date in history, during a morning walk conversation in Bombay, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada expresses appreciation for his female disciples, “These women are not ordinary women. They are preachers. They are preachers. They are Vaishnava. By their association, one becomes a Vaishnava.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 9.
March 27, 1995: On this date in history, the antiquated West Virginia State Penitentiary (built in 1866) closes its doors. Tirtha (Thomas Drescher), the Bhaktipada disciple serving two life sentences in prison for the murders of Chakradhari and Sulochan and who today still denies Radhanath Swami's well-documented involvement in the murder conspiracy, is moved to the Mount Olive Correctional Complex in Fayette County in Southern West Virginia.
For more about this topic, see Killing For Krishna, p. 449.
West Virginia Penitentiery, Moundsville
West Virginia Penitentiery, Moundsville
West Virginia Penitentiery, Moundsville
West Virginia Penitentiery, Moundsville
Tirtha in prison
March 27, 2013: On this date in history, Patita Pavana dasa, ACBSP (Miles Davis), after hearing that the author is writing a biography of his former spiritual master Kirtanananda Swami, emails an essay to the author about his own memories of Kirtanananda Swami. Eight years later, the author publishes Patita Pavana’s essay as the Foreword to Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2.
Patita-Uddharana dasa with a statue of the famous Bulgarian artist Vladimir Dimitrov (1882-1960), Frolosh, Bulgaria (Spring 2021)
March 28, 1975: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains how a disciple can “go to hell,” “We are servant of [the] servant. That is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s instruction. The more you become servant of the servant, the more you are perfect. And if you all of a sudden want to become master, then you go to hell. That’s all.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 24.
March 28, 1986 (Gaura Purnima): On this date in history, the two giant 40-foot-tall statues of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Nityananda on the bank of Chaitanya Ghat at New Vrindaban are dedicated. It took two years to complete the statues. The New Vrindaban publication, “Land of Krishna,” reported on the project: (begin quote)
Under the direction of Gurudeva Gopal Goswami, a well-known Bengali sculptor, New Vrindaban’s first heroic-sized environmental sculpture, the graceful transcendental form of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, is being constructed in a lush green forest setting on the edge of one of our temple ponds. Lord Chaitanya will stand forty feet tall on a twelve foot base.
“Everywhere you see statues and figures of Buddha, Christ, even Krishna, but there are no figures of Lord Chaitanya,” explains Gurudeva. “But it is Lord Chaitanya who gave us this chanting of Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.”
Mr. Gurudeva, a professor of environmental sculpture at Arkansas State University, spent a month in New Vrindaban this summer, and plans to return soon to finish the project. Mr. Gurudeva and New Vrindaban devotee, Soma dasa, worked on the beginning phases of the huge form.
First, they spent several weeks constructing pieces for the armature, bending steel rods into different shapes. Then, standing on a scaffold, they welded the pieces together to make a skeleton form, which is now being covered with wire mesh cloth. Two coats of glass-reinforced concrete will be applied on top of the wire mesh, then sealed with a colored coat. (End quote)
The duo statues were dedicated on Lord Chaitanya’s 500th appearance day, March 28, 1986. Tulsi dasa (Richard “Dick” Dezio), a spokesman for New Vrindaban, explained, “The statues are brightly painted and decorated with 40-foot flower garlands made of 90 hand-made roses, lilies, and wildflowers, all at least one foot in diameter.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 130.
March 28, 2023: On this date in history, due to public outcry on Facebook, New Vrindaban administration officially prohibits pujaris from placing a picture of the former ISKCON spiritual master Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada (who was expelled from ISKCON in 1987, and died in 2011) on the altar when they offer aroti to the deities.
One of Bhaktipada’s loyal disciples, my godsister and New Vrindaban resident Salagram (formerly Steady Swami/Sharon Splane), had been placing a picture of her guru on the New Vrindaban altar (apparently for years) when she offers aroti. Now, when she offers aroti, she must offer aroti to a picture of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
This, however, appears to have been an isolated incident. Very few loyal Bhaktipada disciples remain at New Vrindaban. I heard Salagram moved to New York City after this incident to associate with the loyal Bhaktipada disciples there. No sense staying where your guru is not respected.
Bhaktin Sharon accepts her beads from His Divine Grace Srila Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada and becomes Salagram dasi at a 1984 initiation ceremony at New Vrindaban. Notice the photos of two other ISKCON zonal acharyas on the step near Bhaktipada's feet.
Salagram and godsister Rukmini dasi enjoy watching their spiritual master distribute maha prasadam from his vyasasana in the New Vrindaban temple after eating lunch prasadam, probably during his September 1986 birthday celebration. It appears Salagram is holding a water pot, to wash the fingers of her spiritual master when he is finished.
A more recent photo of Shalagram with a godsister visiting the site of Bhaktipada's proposed-samadhi in Vrindafban, India.
March 28, 1924: On this date in history, a reader comments on Facebook:
Killing For Krishna, is a classic, or at least should be, most likely will become.
Daryl Mark Johnson
Winnipeg
Manitoba, Canada
For more about this topic, see Killing For Krishna.
Daryl Mark Johnson
March 29, 1991 (Good Friday): On this date in history, Bhaktipada is convicted on the RICO and mail fraud counts (the jury fails to reach a verdict on the murder counts). He is incarcerated at the Eastern Regional Jail in Martinsburg, West Virginia and files an appeal.
Paramahansa Krishna Swami (Phillip Jones), an important spokesman for New Vrindaban, compared Bhaktipada to Jesus Christ, “There are no accidents in Krishna consciousness. Everything is done by the will of Krishna. The fact is that what happened on Good Friday two thousand years ago was repeated in 1991 with our spiritual master. Bhaktipada was falsely accused, tried, found guilty, and crucified in a courtroom by false witnesses. Through it all, Bhaktipada remained totally fixed at the lotus feet of Prabhupada and Krishna. Our faith in Srila Bhaktipada is now stronger than ever.”
The City of God Examiner, a New Vrindaban publication written by former School Headmaster Sri Galim (Gary Gardner), also compared Bhaktipada to Christ, “If Krishna wanted to save Bhaktipada from the hands of the demons, he could have. That is no problem for him. However there is a greater plan in mind. What that plan is we cannot tell at this point. The jaws of Aghasura [a demon of the ancient world mentioned in Srimad-bhagavatam who appeared as a giant serpent during Krishna’s boyhood pastimes] have closed, but one thing for sure is that Lord Krishna has entered with his devotee, and therefore, there is no need to worry. . . . No one would have thought that the crucifixion of Christ would have worked such great wonders. . . . Something very wonderful will surface from this religious persecution.”
The prosecuting attorneys also noted the coincidence that Bhaktipada was convicted on Good Friday, and allegedly celebrated with a party. Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami (Ronald Nay, formerly Gopinath dasa), the head pujari, wrote in his diary, “Easter Sunday: Srila Bhaktipada is still in jail. We heard from a friend in the media that after the trial the prosecutor threw a party at the courthouse, was drinking champagne and chanting, ‘Good Friday, Good Friday: a great day for a crucifixion.’”
The City of God Examiner also reported on the alleged champagne party, “After the trial was over the prosecution held a champagne party and toasted each other to a great crucifixion.”
Paramahansa Krishna Swami reported on Bhaktipada’s composure and fearlessness as he was escorted to jail by the U. S. Marshals: “When Bhaktipada was declared guilty on all these charges, he was totally undisturbed. When the Marshals took him to the car, he looked at the devotees and just smiled with a look of complete peacefulness and love. Then they took him to jail.”
Radhanath Swami, New Vrindaban's most beloved sannyasi, also observed the U. S. Marshals escorting Bhaktipada from the courthouse into a waiting car and custody. Radhanath said, “Bhaktipada willingly, lovingly accepted Krishna taking him away. As the U. S. Marshals were taking him from the courthouse to the car, we were standing there. He looked over at us and simply smiled. He was in no anxiety. And when he smiled, I think we all got the message. He smiled and looked at us like, ‘All right, boys, grow up. Now it’s time. Grow up.’”
New Vrindaban’s publicity director, Gadadhar (Joel Carlson), later known as Devotion Swami, emphasized the philosophical viewpoint of Bhaktipada’s imprisonment, “The trial was God’s way of forcing us to grow up. It’s a little like a mama bird kicking a baby bird out of the nest spiritually. Life goes on. The inspiration of Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada is in everyone’s hearts even though he isn’t here. People have been calling from India, all over the world really, reaffirming their faith in Bhaktipada. Maybe we lost the battle but we’re not going to lose the war. We’re going to keep on fighting.”
Radhanath Swami characteristically emphasized the emotional viewpoint, “We miss Bhaktipada’s love, inspiration and fatherly presence. There may have been some tears, but they are the tears that come from seeing a friend, a father, suffer from injustice.”
The Washington Post reported that Bhaktipada faced a maximum of 90 years in prison and more than $76 million in fines. One Brijabasi considered the day of Bhaktipada’s conviction as the “darkest day” in New Vrindaban’s history. Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami wrote in his diary, “Yesterday was the darkest day in the history of New Vrindaban. Srila Bhaktipada was committed to jail by Judge Mehridge. Today I am praying to Krishna to comfort Srila Bhaktipada in his distress. They have not yet taken our land but I expect that soon. . . . Mukunda Goswami and Ravindra [Svarupa] were compared by Bhaktipada to vultures.”
Bhaktipada claimed that the trial and conviction was a “witch hunt” by the “evil U. S. Attorney.” He said, “This whole witch hunt is the evil of U. S. Attorney William Kolibash. Why? It’s his lust for power and fame. He wants to drive the Hare Krishnas from West Virginia. I think Kolibash sees this as his ticket to the governorship.”
Marshall County Sheriff Robert Lightner, who had been elected after Bordenkircher’s term ended, celebrated, “This is a great day for myself and the citizens of Marshall County. I feel it’s been an ongoing battle since 1977 when I first became involved with the Krishnas. They have been a total thorn in our sides, whether it be from a local violation of automobile laws, whether it be child abuse, whether it be harassing individuals in our community, from murder to you name it.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 7.
Bhaktipada in court (March 1991).
March 30-31, 1968: On these dates in history, Kirtanananda and Hayagriva (who had rejected Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and defected from ISKCON some five months earlier) visit Richard Rose’s ashram in West Virginia. Rose is 49 years of age, the owner of 300 acres of land and a self-styled guru himself. Rose wants to start a "non-profit, non-interfering, non-denominational, retreat or refuge, where philosophers might come to work communally together, or independently—where a library and other facilities might be developed."
Keith and Howard wear Western-style clothes and honestly introduce themselves as former Hare Krishna devotees who had left the movement because the Krishnas were too “closed-minded.”
They tell Rose they are looking for a “non-dogmatic” spiritual community where people of different beliefs could come together and study and meditate and exchange ideas. They like Rose's conception of a non-denominational, non-interfering ashram.
After a couple days, Hayagriva returns to Wilkes-Barre to teach his English classes at Lucerne County Community College, but Kirtanananda stays in West Virginia. He lives in Rose's house on the main road (a dirt road) for a while, but after discovering that he and Rose do not get along, he moves to the dilapidated run down and almost inaccessible farmhouse about a mile south. The second farm is connected to Rose’s “goat farm” and ashram by a strenuous mile-long trail through the woods which steeply descends 300 feet into the Big Run Creek hollow. It is inaccessible to motor vehicles and traversable only by horse riders or hikers on foot. A one-lane dirt road on the south side of the property connects the farm with the paved county road, McCreary Ridge Road, near an abandoned schoolhouse, but the dirt road is impassable to ordinary vehicles due to deep ruts and thick clay mud. The creek (Big Run) alongside the road sometimes floods over the road after heavy rains.
The house where Kirtanananda stays appears to be over one hundred years old, with beams hewn out of the great trees which once grew throughout the Ohio River Valley. The chimney and basement are built from rocks hauled out of the creek. Kirtanananda said, “It was almost falling down. I remember you could see through the walls.” Kirtanananda claimed, “There were ghosts here when I first came. But the chanting drove them away.”
Many people claim that New Vrindaban is situated near the Appalachian Mountain Range, but that is wildly incorrect. Richard Rose’s land, situated in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia, is part of the Allegheny Plateau, a rough-and-tumble conglomeration of small valleys and broken, ragged ridge lines, extending more than five hundred miles southwestward from the Mohawk River valley in central New York through western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and West Virginia, to the Cumberland Plateau in southern West Virginia.
Much of the Allegheny Plateau is strongly dissected by stream erosion and the topography is rugged. Small, narrow valleys (hollows) twist through the resulting hills. The older plateau surface is evident in the pattern of hilltops all tending to reach the same elevation (about 1,300 to 1,400 feet above sea level).
On the map, you can see Rose's Ashram (the goat farm on the main road) and the backwoods Vrindaban farm where Kirtanananda Swami stayed alone.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 21.
New Vrindaban Farm House (undated, c. late 1960s)
U. S. Geological Survey topographic map of McCreary Ridge showing location of principle sites of New Vrindaban.
March 30, 2020: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of “Eleven Naked Emperors” on Amazon:
5.0 out of 5 stars. Devastation Row
The author, a former ISKCON devotee during at least part of the time involved, proves to be an excellent historian. Don’t expect a story written in “pulp fiction” style, filled with suppositions, concocted conversations and dramatizations—as was told in “Monkey on a Stick.”
While this book is filled with an overwhelming amount of facts—nearly all of which are documented in the plethora of easily accessed notes—it is written in a personable style, so that it isn’t a “dry” read. The research is a success of documentation, most of which are had by-way of interviews conducted by the author over a number of years.
For all the devotees and friends affected—this isn’t just a little thing. It became a terrible experience over ten horrible years, that devastated the spiritual and mundane lives of thousands of people totally dedicated to changing the world. Reading this book has cleared up my own questions and lingering confusion over the false guru scam, as a former follower of ISKCON.
Wade Ryan (Damodar dasa, ACBSP)
Initiated in San Francisco, 1967
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors.
March 31, 1991: On this date in history, Devamrita Swami, Murti Swami and Adi Purusha Swami visit Bhaktipada who is incarcerated at the Eastern Regional Jail in Martinsburg, West Virginia since his conviction two days earlier on March 29th.
Adi Purusha Swami (Alfred Tarantino, formerly Ajeya dasa) noted, “Bhaktipada looked effulgent and very powerful. His eyes were twinkling, and he gave a big smile to the devotees.”
The City of God Examiner reported, “Upon seeing Srila Bhaktipada through the bullet-proof glass, Adi Purusha Swami immediately blurted out, ‘Bhaktipada, you look wonderful!’ He [Bhaktipada] was still smiling, but then became more serious. ‘So, we have got to figure out how to fire up the devotees to build this temple.’ He wasn’t concerned about bail or anything personal that he wanted. He was concerned [only] for Krishna’s service. . . . [Then] Bhaktipada’s mood changed and softly he said, ‘I miss you all.’”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9.
Bhaktipada in prison.
March 31, 2020: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Hi Henry,
I want to thank you for your time, talent and hard work in authoring this book, Eleven Naked Emperors. You have cleared up so many of my own personal questions and confusions over the ten+ terrible years that has ruined so many lives of sincere devotees. And—though you’ve examined excellently documented so many details, you've been able to tell the story with a “calm voice” that has helped me come to terms with it all in a less soul-rocking manner.
I also purchased Killing For Krishna, which led me to the “Eleven Naked Emperors” book. You may even have the rather vicious letter I sent to Keith Ham when I sent his book to him, after reading “Monkey On A Stick.” I happened to visit New Dwarka the day after Sulochan Prabhu was murdered, and the place was suffused with horror and fear. It was heartbreaking. As for that book, “Monkey On A Stick,” the authors really set themselves up especially for the “conjecture” rebuttals that followed. But having even just a short, little with Keith Ham early on in San Francisco in 1967, I had no doubt about his pathological egoism.
When the poisoning issue first came out—hearing the “Whispers Recording”—I wasn’t just angry, I wept for three days straight. So I suspect your book will also have a healing effect.
The story about my 1967 initiation in San Francisco was incorrectly portrayed in Satsvarupa dasa Goswami’s “Srila Prabhupada Lilamrita.” Either the devotees in the Haight-Ashbury Temple neglected to document Srila Prabhupada’s spontaneous Nama initiation (I boldly insisted on it one night), or my name was either not included or removed from the Devotee listing website. It doesn’t matter—I remember when it happened, and someone else must have because a somewhat inaccurate version was included in the “Lilamrta.” I was the “hippy” kid who, in my youth was probably a little too bold in demanding Swamiji initiate me. Thankfully, Swamiji had a very good sense of humor!
I’ve posted a 5-Star review on Amazon in appreciation for your good efforts. . . . Again, Henry, I am so grateful for this book, that has well-informed me, and “settled the unsettled” in my own heart and mind.
Wade Ryan (Damodar dasa, ACBSP)
Initiated in San Francisco, 1967
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors.
April 1, 1976: On this date in history, after 30 days under quarantine due to the death of a college professor who visited New Vrindaban, contracted hepatitis and died from the deadly disease, the governor of West Virginia is satisfied that the public health danger is over, and the quarantine on New Vrindaban is lifted.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 161.
April 1, 1991: On this date in history, Bhaktipada, convicted of racketeering three days earlier, receives three more visitors at the Eastern Regional Jail in Martinsburg, West Virginia: Peaceful Swami, Krishna Chaitanya (a disciple of Varshan Swami who serves as a picker in the Far East) and Strong Faith (Steve Padway, who manages Bhaktipada’s Tallahassee, Florida preaching center).
Within a week, Bhaktipada begins calling the New Vrindaban front office every day at 12:25 p.m. during the noon service. The telephone operator broadcasts the calls over the temple’s sound system. Bhaktipada usually recites a meditation and devotees then ask questions at a microphone.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 12.
Bhaktipada in prison.
April 1, 2023: On this date in history, Bhima Karma Saragrahi's interview with Narada on The Hare Krishna Project Podcast is broadcast. A good portion of this podcast tells about Bhima Karma's life as a child at New Vrindaban in the 1980s, including a few stories about the gurukula, and his father Chakradhari and mother Kusumapida, which I had not heard before. Hey, thanks, Bhima Karma, for mentioning my name (twice!) during the podcast and suggesting to listeners to read my books for more information about New Vrindaban history.
To hear the podcast, go to: YouTube.
Bhima Karma Saragrahi
April 2, 2005: On this date in history, a 30-year-old New Vrindaban gurukula alumnus, Nrsimha dasa (Elijah B. Long), dies from a suspicious fall down a series of outdoor, concrete steps. He suffered abuse in the gurukula from age four to twelve, and in high school rebelled against authority, committing juvenile infractions, alcohol and drug use, risk taking, etc. His mother writes an eight-page article in his memory, originally published on Chakra.org. Nrsimha’s photograph appears on the back cover of GGG4.
To read Mrs. Long's essay, see Gold, Guns and God: A Mother's Lament Vol. 4, p. 459.
Three young boys request Bhaktipada to give them the sacred flower following mangal aroti at the New Vrindaban Bahulaban temple. Only one boy will receive the flower (c. January 1980). Nrsimha is the boy on the far left.
April 2, 2020: On this date in history, Henry discusses his books Killing For Krishna, and Eleven Naked Emperors with Rev. Jack Davila-Ashcraft on Expedition Truth, a weekly Internet radio show broadcast by KCOR Digital Radio Network dedicated to answering the questions of sincere spiritual seekers, as well as the promotion of deeper thought in the areas of Christian apologetics, theology, and philosophy. Topics discussed during Henry’s interview included: the origin of the Hare Krishna movement, the counterculture and Prabhupada’s first disciples, the concept of “guruship,” the problem of disciples worshiping, serving and giving their lives to pretender gurus, and the resistance of one guru who didn’t want to sit on the elevated throne and accept opulent worship, but was forced by the other ten gurus.
Other topics included the conspiracy to assassinate the dissident devotee and New Vrindaban resident Steven Bryant (Sulochan dasa) by high-ranking leaders from the New Vrindaban West Virginia Hare Krishna community and the Los Angeles ISKCON guru and his disciples. Radhanath Swami’s involvement in the murder plot was discussed. Henry also spoke about “Scam-Kirtan,” the fraudlent fundraising tactics used by members of the New Vrindaban community, the specific events which led him to join the Hare Krishna movement in 1978, and some of the homosexual pedophilia he discovered years later which led him to reject his “spiritual master” and leave the Hare Krishna movement. Henry also spoke about his departure from New Vrindaban, his acquisition of the Swami Bhaktipada Archive, discovering the immoral and criminal activities which occured at New Vrindaban, his regret in supporting for fifteen years what he later found out was a criminal enterprise, and the reason he thinks he might have spent those years at New Vrindaban: to later have the insight to research and write books which help other devotees and former devotees to heal the trauma in their hearts which they experienced in ISKCON.
During the two-hour broadcast, several listeners called in to ask questions and make comments (by telephone or chat), including Wade Ryan (Damodar dasa), Tim Lee (Puranjan), who specifically spoke about the poisoning of Srila Prabhupada, Joseph Pollock, Jr. (Jyotirdhama dasa) and Mark Goodwin (Kailasa-Chandra), who spoke about his association with Sulochan, his editing of Sulochan’s book, “The Guru Business,” and the danger of the api-sampradaya cult called “ISKCON.”
Comments from radio listeners who called in by phone or by chat:
“Henry’s books have been real agents of healing for me. He’s taken the mystery, the confusion, he’s taken the truth and laid it out on the table. It’s much more palatable when you know the real truth that went on. I thank him for that and I recommend to every devotee and former devotee: read these books. We were told a lot of things [by our ISKCON authorities] (laughter). Some of them were not the same story; we were told a lot of things, and we had no way of really knowing [what was fact and what was fiction]. There was a book [“Monkey on a Stick”] that came out [in 1988] after Sulochan [Steven Bryant] was murdered in Los Angeles, but it was really a pulp fiction book, so it wasn’t helpful. Henry, [on the other hand], has written books that provide solid information with an overwhelming number of notes and quotations to back up what he’s saying. I believe he is definitely working on the right side.”—Wade Ryan (Damodar dasa), initiated 1967 in San Francisco, by phone call
“I lived through what is in these books, and they are truthful.”—Joseph Pollock, Jr. (Jyotirdhama dasa), by chat room.
“I know Henry well, I really admire what he’s doing, and I agree he has really helped a lot of people straighten out the history. There’s an acharya, he’s a guru in our line, his name is Madhva, and he says, ‘Anyone who understands history correctly is eligible for liberation.’ We needed to sort out the history.”—Tim Lee (Puranjana dasa), by phone call
“I’m very appreciative of the therapeutic element that he [Henry] wants to connect with others and help them understand the history [of ISKCON].”—Mark Goodwin (Kailasa-Chandra dasa), by phone call
Here is the Interview
Rev. Jack Davila-Ashcraft, host of Expedition Truth Radio
April 3, 1974: On this date in history, a 19-month-old New Vrindaban boy dies after receiving fatal trauma to his abdomen. Although police are informed, no investigation is ordered. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, “A hospital pathologist called for an investigation of the death at the time but none was undertaken and the Marshall County coroner could not determine whether the death was accidental.”
Infants at New Vrindaban were considered “unclean,” and their mothers were not permitted to serve on the altar or in the kitchen, unless they took a bath and put on fresh garments after touching their infant. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada said, “Infant means dirtiness.”
Beginning sometimes at the tender age of three months, children were kept at the nursery so that their mothers could do a full day of service for the community. (At the age of four or five years, they began attending gurukula.) For many years the nursery was located on the second floor of the barn at Bahulaban.
In 1983 the nursery was moved to the Utility Building right above the mold shop. Around 1985, a new building was constructed for the young toddlers located behind the new temple near McCreary Cemetery, where the famous West Virginia frontiersman, scout and Indian murderer, Lewis Wetzel (1752-1808), is buried.
Predictably, the lives of young children at New Vrindaban were not always blissful. In 1976, a child at the nursery began coughing up blood. The reactions of the nursery caretakers and the child’s mother clearly indicate where their allegiances lay: in their cult leader and not in their own children. The mother, SP, proudly wrote about this incident in an article published in New Vrindaban News:
In the spring of 1976, after a typical day doing my service at New Vrindaban, I went to the nursery to pick up my eight-month-old son. As I approached, I could see both the teacher and the nursery manager (Advaita) had very worried looks on their faces. In a very serious tone, Advaita told me, “We have some bad news. [Your son] KP swallowed one of Ishani’s crystals, and spit up some blood. I went to Bhaktipada and he said you should check his stool every day for three days. If after three days he hasn’t passed the crystal”—he stopped, looked at me very soberly, took a deep breath, and delivered Bhaktipada’s instruction—“you’ll have to pay for it.”
In April 1983, two four-year-old boys were playing behind the nursery at Bahulaban when they disappeared. Hours after they were reported missing, a search party found their lifeless bodies inside an abandoned refrigerator. One source dated January 1987, which I believe is reasonably accurate, claimed that the children at New Vrindaban were subjected to “abuse and/or neglect,” they were “infested with parasites,” “subject to sexual abuse,” and “at least six children have died unnatural deaths.”
Jack and Helga Bryant from Royal Oak, Michigan were devastated when their son, Sulochan dasa (Steven Bryant), who used to live at New Vrindaban, was murdered in Los Angeles by a Bhaktipada disciple in May 1986. They were again devastated when their grandson Nimai drowned in a New Vrindaban lake only a few months after their son was murdered.
However, they were also greatly concerned about their other grandson, SV, who still lived at New Vrindaban with his mother and stepfather (Jamuna and Raghunath). Jack and Helga feared for their grandson’s safety and tried to get a court order to remove him from his mother at New Vrindaban. In their petition to the court they claimed:
At least six children have died unnatural deaths at the said New Vrindaban Community, all as a result of abuse and/or neglect by the parents or commune members responsible for the supervision of those children. As of November 1985, over 54% of the children at said community were infested with parasites and/or other communicable diseases. In 1986, at least twenty-five cases of hepatitis were reported at New Vrindaban Community, involving both adults and children, and since 1976, outbreaks of hepatitis have led to a quarantine of said community by the West Virginia Department of Health, and at least one person has died as a result of hepatitis contracted at New Vrindaban Community. Since 1973, at least 59 violations have been reported and/or investigated by state and/or local health officials at said community, resulting in numerous requests, threats, and ultimatums issued by and on behalf of local and state representatives of the West Virginia Department of Health towards and against New Vrindaban Community. . . . Children at said school have been subject to sexual abuse by the very teachers entrusted with the safety and well-being of school children, said sexual abuse being the subject matter of a pending criminal investigation in Marshall County, West Virginia.
One mother at New Vrindaban who lived a year at the community (1982-1983) was so disturbed at the unhealthy condition of the nursery that she refused to permit her one-year-old daughter to go there even when the temple president ordered her to surrender her child. Gail Conger explained:
While millions of dollars were being spent on more land, buildings, houses, rich cloth and jewels to adorn the Radha Krishna deities, and preparations for a multi-million-dollar temple were begun, the nursery-age children were still confined to a few small rooms over a dirty cow barn while their parents worked for the community. The children often had parasites, and quickly contaminated each other with various infectious diseases. When I took my child in to Ambudhara [Deborah Gere], the community nurse, for an ear infection, she commented on how healthy my daughter was in comparison to the children attending nursery. She said that many of the nursery children were fairly constantly sick with one thing or another. A number of mothers I spoke with weren’t satisfied with the nursery conditions, and frustrated that they couldn’t change the situation. . . . Working at the nursery was, understandably, one of the women’s most dreaded assignments. . . .
Several months after arriving at New Vrindaban, Kuladri, the community president, summoned me to his office and demanded I place my one-year-old daughter in the nursery. I had been managing quite well performing services for the community while yet taking care of my child. . . .
I demurred, explaining that my conscience wouldn’t allow me to place my daughter in the nursery in its present state, but maybe we could work out something agreeable to us both.I have never seen anyone with such uncontrolled rage and spiteful hatred as Kuladri displayed in response to the simple suggestion that conditions at the nursery might be lacking. His venom was palpable. He flung taunts and curses. He abrasively challenged me to work at the nursery, and improve it myself if I could.
But I was aware of one woman who had recently been challenged similarly, who had come up with a lengthy, detailed list of possible improvements that hadn’t been acted upon, and I was still unwilling to place my daughter there. I declined.
Kuladri then threatened to kick me out of the community, and ordered another man present to throw me out of the room. I stood to leave, aware that any kind of dialogue was impossible. Kuladri ordered me to sit back down until he was through. “Woman!” he screamed, as though it were a curse, “Sit down, woman!”
The conditions at the nursery were unhealthy for the children. One source noted, “Almost all these babies had parasites, diarrhea, or a multitude of other communicable diseases constantly. There was no hot water and cloth diapers were washed out by hand. The filthy conditions of this barn and nursery were reported to local health authorities several times but no action was taken for many years.”
Narendra dasa (Don McAdams), who ran the New Vrindaban stained glass studio, explained, “My own daughter almost died. She was put in that nursery and came back with a real nasty flu that became infected in her lungs. Her fever went so high that she suffered febrile convulsions. I had to administer CPR to save her life.”
In 1986, five boys between seven and eight years of age at New Vrindaban were treated for hepatitis. As a precautionary measure, the Marshall County Health Department administered gamma globulin shots to about 27 youths and three adults. In addition, a youth and his mother contracted typhoid.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 232.
April 3, 1983 (Easter Sunday): On this date in history, New Vrindaban’s food relief program, Palace Charities (managed by Tapahpunja dasa Brahmachari), hosts an Easter Sunday dinner sponsored in cooperation with the Wheeling Housing Authority.
Author’s comment: Tapahpunja took sannyasa in 1983, and Bhaktipada sent him to Cleveland, reportedly as "punishment" for his offenses. At New Vrindaban, however, the Palace Charities program was disbanded after Tapahpunja left for Cleveland. Apparently Bhaktipada didn’t think it was important enough to warrant appointing another person to run the program. A couple years later, however, I happened to be present in my spiritual master’s house when a news reporter asked Bhaktipada why were we building elaborate temples for Krishna when some people in the local community were going hungry. Bhaktipada responded by telling the reporter that New Vrindaban’s Palace Charities food relief program was feeding 50,000 people a year in the Ohio Valley. I knew this was a blatant lie. The program had been disbanded two years earlier when Tapahpunja left for Cleveland.
At that moment, I decided that I must protect my “spiritual master” by resurrecting the program, so he couldn’t be called a liar. I acquired a used step van, convinced one of my artistically inclined godbrothers (Japa Ananda) to paint it white, with the words “Palace Charities Vegetarian Meals on Wheels” and a logo of the Palace dome painted on the side, and I got some of my godsisters (Mother Siri) and others to cook simple meals thrice a week at the Palace Restaurant for the program. Then I recruited some helpers, notably my godbrother Radha Govinda (Robert Seguin, now living in Montreal) to canvas for recipients (mostly in Wheeling), and then to drive the truck with meals cooked by Mother Siri and others to Wheeling to distribute the meals.
I managed the program for about two years, then went on to manage other projects. I heard Palace Charities disbanded a few years later. I wasn’t surprised. It seemed to me that it was never meant to help needy people; it was only meant to influence the general public’s opinion of New Vrindaban.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 354.
Kumar (Scott Hebel) and Tapahpunja dasa Brahmachari (Terry Sheldon) (c. February 1983).
April 3, 1986: On this date in history, after two months in jail, Sulochan--who had tried (unsuccessfully) to destroy Bhaktipada and New Vrindaban by exposing their criminal and immoral activities to the press--goes to trial and is found guilty by a Marshall County Magistrate Court on a charge of carrying a deadly weapon. At this point, Sulochan gives up, more or less, on his quest to discredit Bhaktipada.
Sulochan's attorney wrote: “I went to see Bryant in jail. He was crushed, truly defeated. The sheriff had betrayed him, and everything had gone terribly wrong. He thought he was on a holy crusade, but now he’d been arrested and painted as a killer, not a savior. He said he didn’t want to live if this sort of thing could happen.”
Kirtanananda Swami said: “I remember that while Sulochan was in jail, he was trying to contact reporters and media people, and they wouldn’t come and talk to him. In other words, whatever credibility he had before being arrested he lost. Whatever threat he was—whatever motives there were to get rid of him before, didn’t exist anymore. No one was listening to him.”
When Sulochan was released on April 11th, after posting bail of $5,000, he made a motion to appeal the case, and left West Virginia for Royal Oak, Michigan, where he stayed with his parents until April 30th. To add insult to injury, he received a bill for $2,086.00 for his incarceration in the Wetzel County Jail (14 days) and the Marshall County Jail (43 days).
After Sulochan’s release from jail, Hayagriva spoke to Tirtha on several occasions reminding him that Sulochan must be killed. Tirtha said, “I really felt that it was unnecessary, that he wasn’t a threat anymore. It seemed to me that he had gone to the FBI and done all this sort of muck-raking and [page missing from transcript].” Little did anyone know at the time that Sulochan would eventually succeed in his life's mission to destroy Bhaktipada; by his death.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 283.
Sulochan/Steven Bryant (undated).
April 4, 1971: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada authorizes a female disciple to serve as a ritvik priest and give brahmin initiation to her husband. Prabhupada wrote to Vaikunthanath, “I am enclosing herewith your sacred thread, duly chanted on by me. Gayatri mantra is as follows. . . . Ask your wife to chant this mantra and you hear it and if possible hold a fire ceremony as you have seen during your marriage and get this sacred thread on your body. Saradiya, or any twice-initiated devotee, may perform the ceremony.”
Saradiya recalled, “Vaikunthanath and I pioneered the Krishna consciousness movement in the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago, near the coast of Venezuela and Guyana. . . . From Georgetown, Guyana, we wrote Srila Prabhupada asking him to give Vaikunthanath brahmin initiation so we could worship deities as I had been given Gayatri initiation previous to marriage. In his return letter, Srila Prabhupada said that any brahmin could perform the ceremony and give Vaikunthanath Gayatri. He said Saradiya, or any brahmin could do it. So I performed the sacred fire sacrifice before a few dozen guests and visitors.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 48.
Comment: Saradiya devi dasi/Loetitia S. Lilot and her husband Vaikunthanath lived in New Vrindaban for a short time around 1984 or 85. She and I corresponded by email in 2015. I visited her once at her art studio/apartment near downtown San Diego in November 2016 and bought her lunch at a vegan restaurant. She lived in a low-income housing complex, as she didn’t make much money selling her paintings. She shared with me her memories of Sulochan, which I included in Killing For Krishna, when it was published two years later. She is also quoted in Eleven Naked Emperors. Saradiya passed away from cancer on October 5, 2017.
For more about Saradiya devi dasi, see ISKCON Desire Tree.
Saradiya devi dasi (Loetitia S. Lilot)
Saradiya devi dasi (Loetitia S. Lilot) at her art 3:07 PM 8/14/2025studio/apartment near downtown San Diego, California.
April 4, 1985: On this date in history, three men, one from West Virginia and two from Pennsylvania, throw a Molotov cocktail firebomb at Prabhupada’s Palace. Law enforcement authorities are called and the three men are arrested in Moundsville. There is no damage or injuries.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 146.
The Palace main dome, framed by roses in the Garden of Time (undated).
April 4, 2020: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Dear Hrishikesh Prabhu,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All Glories to Srila Prabhupada!
I received your latest book, Eleven Naked Emperors, a while ago, and I am very slowing digesting it. Almost done now. Riveting. The manner in which you examine issues and controversies is engaging and refreshing, unlike the typical throwing of selected quotes and the absolute interpretations thereof. I am inspired to research further and write myself. Even myself, as one of the Radical Reformers, did not know so much that was covered in the book. So I assume these historical books will be of great help to many devotees.
Nityananda dasa (Nico Kuyt)
Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand
Former New Orleans ISKCON Temple President
Former member of the ISKCON Guru Reform Movement
Author of “Kill Guru, Become Guru: The Poison Is Personal Ambition”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors.
Nityananda dasa, ACBSP (Nico Kuyt)
April 5, 1988: On this date in history, a body thought to belong to Tapomurti dasa (Todd Schenker), at one time the head of security at New Vrindaban, was found dead in a secluded part of his backyard—near Turkey Dam Park in Viola along Wheeling Creek—with a bullet hole in his head. His body was partially charred by fire and half-eaten by his own pit bulls. He had been missing for four days. Tapomurti’s wife, Subhadra devi dasi (Judith Shenker), found the remains, drove her jeep up the hill to the community offices, and asked for help. Garga Rishi (David Waterman), a New Vrindaban spokesman and editor for the Brijabasi Spirit, said she was “very distraught.”
Garga Rishi claimed Tapomurti’s death was a suicide. Garga Rishi explained, “Before he was missing, Todd had spoken to her [his wife] and one of his friends about committing suicide. He had been frustrated and depressed for some time, but that he had been missing for a few days was not unusual. He did go on trips, and it was not unusual for him to be gone.”
The Los Angeles Times reported, “Donald Bordenkircher, the Marshall County Sheriff, won’t say that Todd Schenker was murdered. He said: ‘What we have is a male adult who apparently shot himself in the head, set himself on fire and then threw the gun away. Like everything at New Vrindaban, this case is very suspicious and bizarre.’” Garga Rishi said, “I think the sheriff is just trying to make an issue of it. Our condolences go out to Todd’s family, but I don’t think anyone here in New Vrindaban was involved.”
Sheriff Bordenkircher noted, “The real basis of our investigation is that it’s impossible for the victim to shoot himself, burn himself, and then throw the gun away. It wasn’t spontaneous combustion. A .22-caliber slug was extracted from the brain. A search through fire debris produced gun parts that were not relative to the case. It appears someone took measures to plant evidence at the scene.”
The charred and dog-eaten body was never positively identified, although Subhadra convinced a judge to pronounce her husband dead.
Investigators discovered that Todd owned property in Florida; he thought he was going to be arrested on a federal firearms charge, and he had recently visited a Central American country that does not honor U. S. extradition. Did Schenker stage his own death? If he did, whose body was discovered on his property?
I remember Tapomurti and Subhadra and sometimes had dealings with them at New Vrindaban. As I recall, Tapomurti did not appear to be happily married to his wife; I heard him occasionally make disparaging comments about his marriage. I remember going to see Subhadra at her home, a very lovely home, by the way, I think in the summer of 1987, to ask her for $500 so I could purchase a used baby grand piano for the temple music program. I had heard she was wealthy and a lover of classical music. Bhaktipada had suggested I approach her for a donation for the music fund.
She cordially invited me into her living room and I presented my proposal. I don’t remember if she gave the money or not, but I do remember that she came on to me in a strong and flirtatious manner and boldly invited me upstairs to her bedroom. I did not accept her invitation, however, as I was recently married and really didn’t want to jeopardize my reputation in the community as a faithful disciple and an upstanding Brijabasi. Perhaps, as investigators suspected, Tapomurti staged his own suicide a year later, abandoned his wife and left the United States for Central America. We may never know for sure.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 195.
Tapomurti and Kuladri assist Bhaktipada in the temple (c. December 1985). Photo from Brijabasi Spirit, Vol. 14, No. 4 (January 1986)
Tapomurti (far left) enjoys a humorous exchange with Bhaktipada and other New Vrindaban residents (undated).
April 5, 1990: On this date in history, members of the Krishna Chorale--the New Vrindaban Choir--perform Mozart’s Requiem with the Wheeling Symphony and Wheeling Symphony Chorus at Capitol Music Hall.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 90. See also YouTube
Capitol Music Hall, Wheeling, West Virginia
April 5, 2018: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of Killing For Krishna, on Amazon:
5 Stars. An insider’s view into a strange place and time.
Extremely well researched and well paced, this book offers an insider’s view of one of the more bizarre chapters in the story of the Hare Krishnas. The author maintains a “professional distance,” so this is no lurid hit piece nor common true crime thriller. Rather, it’s a focused, yet engaging history of the Hare Krishna’s New Vrindaban community that tells the full story of what was covered in the more sensational “Monkey on a Stick” of the late-1980s. Even if your only recollection of the Krishnas is their omnipresence in airports decades back, this book is worth diving into as the story is representative of the fallout of the social and religious commune experimentation that began in the 1960s, flourished in the 1970s, and largely came to an end in the 1980s.
HonestJoe
April 5, 2020: On this date in history a reader posts a video review of Eleven Naked Emperors online:
One Great Book!
Hare Krishna, devotees! I am [recording this video in my car] at Los Angeles International Airport. I’m [an Über driver] waiting to take a customer to their destination. While I take breaks, or when I wait between people, I read. I read Prabhupada’s books, and I read books in relationship to Prabhupada and the [Hare Krishna] Movement. “Eleven Naked Emperors” is an excellent book by Hrishikesh Prabhu, or Henry Doktorski. I’ve been reading it. . . .
Excellent book! Very nicely done. This is a professional endeavor. It says here [in the Preface that] it’s a controversial book. But devotees delight in addressing controversial topics. It enlightens their minds and it brings their hearts closer to Krishna. We’re not afraid of controversy.
The Foreword is very, very good, by a professor: Edwin Bryant, Professor of Hindu Philosophy and Religion at Rutgers University. I don’t agree with everything he said. [However], most everything [he said] I [do] agree with. [Only] a few things I don’t agree with. In the same way, I don’t agree with some of the things that Hrishikesh writes, but the important thing is that this is giving an opportunity for dialogue, an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to share ideas on controversial topics. It has a strong foundational basis, so that is very, very good. Very, very good service.
Here we have Chapter One: “Gaudiya Vaishnavism Comes West.” [In this chapter] we have the foundational basis on how all this [the Zonal-Acharya Era of ISKCON and the formation of the two splinter groups: the Neo-Gaudiya Math and the Ritvik-In-Absentia Advocates] started. Very, very nice book. I highly recommend it. Any devotee who doesn’t read a book like this will not have a strong foundational basis in philosophy, in history, and who is who in this movement. I highly recommend it, even though I’m sure all of us will not agree with some parts of it.
Hare Krishna! [Now], let me continue reading [more of “Eleven Naked Emperors”] myself! All glories to Srila Prabhupada! Haribol!
Mario Pineda (Mahatma dasa)
Los Angeles, California
Henry Doktorski and Mario Pineda at the Temecula California Public Library, recording a video interview which was later published by ISKCONspiracy: "Interview with Henry Doktorski (Hrishikesh Dasa)—Killing For Krishna, Parts One and Two. Photo: May 8, 2018.
April 5, 2024: On this date in history, Muchukunda Das Menheere comments on Facebook, "I like the posts of Henry Doktorski, but it seems he believes Prabhupada is responsible for the damage done at New Vrindavan."
The author responds: This is a serious accusation, but it is an inaccurate or at least incomplete accusation. Where have I written in any of my books that Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is responsible for the damage done at New Vrindaban? Nowhere have I said or written this, although I can understand why some people might think this.
What HAVE I WRITTEN? Let’s examine one case of damage at New Vrindaban: the mistreatment of women (and this mistreatment was certainly NOT limited to New Vrindaban; it was—and some say still is—widespread throughout ISKCON). In the 1970s and early 1980s, Kirtanananda Swami sometimes said at men’s darshans, “Three things improve with a good beating: your drum, your dog, and your wife.” I heard him speak these words with my own ears. Some, but not all, of the married men indeed beat their wives when they were unsubmissive. Some women came to mangal aroti with black eyes.
It came as quite a shock to me while researching New Vrindaban history and writing the chapter about women at New Vrindaban (Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4) when I discovered that Kirtanananda Swami learned this saying about beating women from his spiritual master, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada! Prabhupada said husbands should beat (and therefore tame) their unsubmissive wives. I could hardly believe it.
But Prabhupada said it! See the April 12, 1969 conversation: Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada teaches his disciples the verses written by the Vaishnava poet-saint Tulsi dasa, “A drum, an idiot, a sudra, a dog, and a woman are all eligible for a beating.” Prabhupada compares a woman to a dog. “If you become lenient, then she will be troublesome. . . . The husband beats, and she is tamed (laughter).”
Prabhupada continues by saying that wife beating should be legalized in civilized countries. He wasn’t joking. He really believed this. I wonder how many times Abhay Charan De, during his marriage years earlier, beat his wife? She was certainly not submissive, as he described her in unfavorable terms several times.
Prabhupada COULD HAVE taught his disciples the verse by Tulsi dasa, but cautioned them, “Perhaps this might have been proper behavior between husband and wife hundreds of years ago, but today NO HUSBAND SHOULD BEAT HIS WIFE!” But Prabhupada DID NOT SAY THIS. He laughed heartily when comparing women to dogs. His disciples knew what he meant. Wife beating, after a few years, became widespread not just at New Vrindaban, but in other ISKCON centers also. As is clear in this case of wife beating (and if you study the history, many other cases), Prabhupada himself was the origin of the mistreatment of women in New Vrindaban and in ISKCON. Doesn’t the evidence speak for itself?
In conclusion, your original statement, Muchukunda Das, should read, “I like the posts of Henry Doktorski III but it seems he believes Prabhupada is partly responsible, or in some cases perhaps ultimately responsible, for some of the damage done at New Vrindavan.” That is an accurate statement.
April 7, 1984: On this date in history, one of the teachers (Gopinath, formerly the headmaster) at New Vrindaban's Nandagram School for Boys discovers a new method to help control unruly boys: pinching them under the arms or on the fingernail.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 292.
Former Nandagram headmaster Gopinath dasa (Ronald Nay), who is himself learning Sanskrit, attempts to teach the language to the older boys at the Nandagram school. (c. January 1980). Photo by Ethan Hoffman from Life magazine.
April 1975: On or around this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami’s followers worship him, chant his name, and offer him pada puja (a ritual foot-washing ceremony which is customarily reserved only for advanced spiritual masters) at the Pittsburgh ISKCON temple. Kirtanananda ignores Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s severe chastisement given only three months earlier in Hawaii about not accepting worship.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 127.
The author offers the ritual foot-bathing ceremony, pada puja, to his "guru" Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, while Gudakesh, Bhaktipada's German shepherd guard dog, enjoys affectionate petting from the gurukula children during the spiritual masters's extravagant 50th birthday celebration at New Vrindaban (September 7, 1987).
April 1975: On or around this date in history, New Vrindaban purchases a gasoline-powered cement mixer, despite Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s earlier declaration that machines are demoniac.
One of the Palace construction workers notes, “This machine is helping us out a lot. It pours a lot of cement. It’s Krishna’s mercy. When we did Prabhupada’s Palace, we mixed by hand. This machine can do in one day what a couple of men could do in a week. It takes five minutes to make a mix. By hand it took a half hour.” Our friend, Jyotirdhama dasa, ACBSP (Joseph Pollock, Jr.), remembered the cement mixer, “During the summer of 1975, I visited New Vrindaban for the first time. As Bhakta Joe, I stayed in the third floor brahmachari ashram in the Bahulaban temple.
Devotees took me to Prabhupada's Palace to do some service. I met Tejomaya and Nityodita for the first time. They gave me a hammer and a chisel and instructed me to climb inside the cement mixer and chip away dried cement. As soon as I got inside, they started pounding on the outside of the mixer. The noise was deafening and hurt my ears. When I climbed out of the mixer, the boys were rolling on the ground laughing. I climbed out of the mixer with my ears ringing and gave them their tools back. I laughed with them and went and found somewhere else to work. They thought that was funny? I was a Bhakta and was shocked that two initiated disciples would do the same kind of BS that sailors do to each other on a Navy ship.” (Facebook post, April 6, 2025)
For its first seven years, New Vrindaban attempted to emulate the ancient Indian rural village economy that Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada advocated: plain living and high thinking, close to the earth. Residents should grow their own food and not purchase food from outside, they should train and use oxen for heavy work like plowing fields and pulling wagons. They would not be dependent on the outside world, as Prabhupada envisioned. But now they were buying machines.
Prabhupada believed that the invention of the tractor caused massive unemployment among farm workers in India and other countries. He said, "The tractor, this is the cause of all the trouble. It took all the work from the young men and they went to the city and became entangled in the sense gratification in the cities."
Machines, by nature, were demoniac, and caused unemployment and degradation of human society. "And the machine, it works hundreds of men's labor and hundreds of men become unemployed. So unemployed means devil's workshop."
Prabhupada also claimed that the tractor was the "killer of the bull." "Formerly, transport was bullock carets. The cows and the bulls, the bulls were employed for agricultural purposes, for drawing the carts. So there was no necessity of motorcar. Now you have got motor, motor-tractor. You don't want the bullocks. Therefore, kill them. . . . Therefore you must have slaughterhouse to kill them. And as soon as you kill them, then you have to eat them."
Our friend, Henri Jolicoeur (formerly Hanuman Swami, ACBSP) recalled, “I remember a talk I had with Bhaktivedanta Swami in England in the garden of John Lennon in 1969. He was talking about how we should use bulls in agriculture. I told him that my uncles had farms in Canada and many tractors, and that tractors could do agriculture so much faster than bulls did in the old days. He finally admitted, “THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN DO TO SAVE THE BULLS!” (Facebook post, April 6, 2025)
Nobody could foresee at the time in 1974 that in a few years the ox training program at New Vrindaban would be abandoned, the community would purchase millions of dollars of heavy earth-moving equipment, including gigantic bulldozers and enormous dump trucks with tires seven feet tall, from money collected by hundreds of New Vrindaban inmates out on the road.
A few years later, after the community went bankrupt, the giant tractors and heavy equipment were abandoned, and left rusting in a field. Fortunately (?) some years later, the natural gas fracking industry saved New Vrindaban and provided them with millions of dollars for drilling petroleum products under their land.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 161.
April 7, 2007: On this date in history, a New Vrindaban sankirtan maharathi, Muktakesh dasa (Ronald Burstein) passes away. The author writes an article about his death which is picked up by half-a-dozen online Vaishnava news services, such as Sampradaya Sun and ISKCON News.
Muktakesh dasa, ACBSP (Ronald Burstein) (1947-2007)
April 7, 2025: On this date in history, Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, made a cameo appearance in a video by Dr. Steven Hassan, the noted mental health professional who specializes in harmful cults and mind control, who is the author of anti-cult books, including the book "The Cult of Trump." During the interview, Steven picks up his copy of Killing For Krishna, (at 43:40 in the video) and asks his interviewee, “It just dawns on me, I interviewed this fellow [Henry Doktorski] who was involved with the group [we’re talking about: New Vrindaban]. Do you know him? You’re smiling!”
This was during an interview with Nori Muster, a former ISKCON devotee who served as executive secretary to the director of the Los-Angeles-based ISKCON Office of Public Relations and associate editor of the “ISKCON World Review.” Since leaving ISKCON in 1988, she has authored several books, including "Betrayal of the Spirit" and "The Cult Survivor’s Handbook." When questioned by Steven, Nori laughs and responds:
“Oh yeah! I met him. Yeah, he’s a close friend, I’d say. Henry was a disciple of Kirtanananda and he had an okay time [at New Vrindaban]. He wasn’t involved [in the abuse]. He was like a music person. He [also] did sankirtan, traveling sankirtan, so he was always out of town, fundraising. So he would be out on the road with a crew, raising money. And then when he retired from that [fundraising], they [Kirtanananda] made him the head of a choir [and orchestra]. He’s a musician. He’s a really, really good musician. So he didn’t suffer in ISKCON at all. He had a good time there. And I’ve noticed his development over the years that I’ve known him, that he’s become more aware of what the problems were in New Vrindaban [and the abuse and suffering others experienced].”
In this 63-minute video, titled “FINDING FREEDOM: How to Regain Control After Leaving a Coercive CULT” (as noted in the video notes), Dr. Steven Hassan sits down with author, researcher, and cult survivor Nori Muster. Drawing on her experience as a former member and publicist for the ISKCON Hare Krishna movement, Nori offers a firsthand look at the inner workings of high-control groups and how psychological manipulation impacts identity, faith, and freedom. Together, Steven and Nori explore:
🔹 Life inside the Hare Krishna movement
🔹 The challenges of leaving a controlling group
🔹 The role of informed consent in spiritual communities
🔹 Healing after spiritual abuse
🔹 The psychological journey from indoctrination to empowerment
Nori shares personal stories, insights from her book "Betrayal of the Spirit," and her work helping others recover from cultic environments. This episode is a must-watch for anyone interested in cult recovery, coercive control, and the power of reclaiming one’s voice.
Watch the video at YouTube
Screenshot at 43:49.
April 8: April 1966: On or around this date in history, when Bhaktivedanta Swami’s rented room--a barren, windowless third-floor room two floors below Dr. Mishra’s yoga studio at 100 West Seventy-Second Street, near Central Park--is ransacked by a thief (he loses his typewriter and tape recorder), he moves into a loft at 94 Bowery Street which he shares with a young artist who attends his programs. Unfortunately, his seventeen-year-old roommate becomes deranged from LSD and Swami abandons the loft and moves in with another follower. “He was taking LSD. . . . Then one day that boy . . . he showed some crazy features. So I thought it is dangerous to live with him.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 156)
Bhaktivedanta Swami
April 8, 1987: On this date in history, during a news conference about three weeks after the GBC expelled him from ISKCON, Bhaktipada threatens ISKCON with a $100,000,000 lawsuit. He says, “I am the real ISKCON.”
Bhaktipada lost no time after the GBC expelled him from ISKCON on March 16, 1987, and he launched a media counter-attack on ISKCON within weeks. He announced that he was going to take over ISKCON, in fact, ISKCON, he said, “forced him into the takeover of the entire organization.” He said, “They’ve separated me. I will prove I am the real successor to our founder.” Bhaktipada held a news conference at his home on April 8th about his expulsion from ISKCON and announced that his disciples intended to sue the GBC for expelling him. “I’m not taking any legal action myself,” he said. “My disciples are taking the action. They are instituting a $50 million suit in India and a $100 million suit in the United States.”
Bhaktipada added that the GBC operated illegally because they have violated the bylaws of ISKCON. “The GBC members do not have carte blanche to do anything they please. . . . Legally speaking, the GBC is an Indian organization. It is organized under Indian law, and has no legal status in the United States. The members of the GBC have no authority to expel me, but my disciples are going to sue them for defamation and resultant damages to our Society. . . . I am the real ISKCON because ISKCON belongs to those who follow the rules, not to those who cheat and play politics. Some of the people who spoke against me in India have now been exposed for immoral behavior. How can they claim to represent ISKCON?”
Bhaktipada also said he planned to call a meeting of all ISKCON life members at New Vrindaban to elect a new GBC according to the ISKCON charter. He claimed, “They’ve separated me. I will prove I am the real successor to our founder.” When asked if he intended to take over ISKCON, Bhaktipada said, “They’ve forced me to do it. It is not my intention and not my desire, but I’m doing it in order to protect my devotees.”
Bhaktipada wrote, “There is no split in the real ISKCON. There are only sincere followers and insincere ones. The sincere ones chant sixteen rounds a day, follow the four regulative principles, and always preach Krishna consciousness. Those who don’t aren’t sincere.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7 p. 161.
On the same day, April 8th, a news reporter asks Bhaktipada about polygamy at New Vrindaban, and Bhaktipada replies, “We don’t condone polygamy, but according to our scripture, polygamy is allowable.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 144.
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada uses a walker to ambulate in the temple room of his house at New Vrindaban (December 4, 1985)
April 8, 1991: On this date in history, Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami (Ronald Nay) visits his siksa guru at the Martinsburg Regional Jail, and asks, “Is this [you're locked up in jail] happening because we did something wrong?” Bhaktipada replies, “Was Jesus crucified because he did something wrong? Was Haridasa Thakur beaten because he did something wrong? If you are of the world, the world loves you, and if you are not of the world, the world hates you.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 13.
Behind bars: Head pujari Gopinath dasa (Ronald Nay), after 1986 known as Radha-Vrindaban Chandra Swami.
April 8, 2018: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Hare Krishna Hrishikesh prabhu, I downloaded Killing For Krishna, for my Kindle Fire and started reading it. I heard some negative speech about you and the book while I was visiting New Vrindaban recently, but so far I do not share the opinion.
I’m about halfway through the book. So far I find it brutally honest and accurate (as far as I can tell). I can see why some don’t like it and some are calling it an exposé. To me, if nothing inappropriate happened then there would be nothing to expose. Personally I think it is a wonderful service to tell the entire story. It is sometimes painful and embarrassing to remember that I was there. As I read, scores of forgotten memories and feelings gush from my being. I would like to share some of my feelings with you because I as everybody else, had my own experiences with events.
If you are inclined hear them, do you have an email address that I can send some written memories to? I can understand how difficult it was for you to push on with this project. I never really did understand it all, when I first left I was obsessed with finding out what happened but as the years went on, I gave up and put it away in my archival memories. Glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Jyotirdhama dasa, ACBSP (Joe Pollock, Jr.)
Former New Vrindaban resident
Richland, Washington
Author’s comment: A year later, Jyotirdhama went on to write a 15-page essay about his involvement in the Sulochan murder conspiracy which I included as an Addendum to Killing For Krishna.
Jyotirdhama dasa (Joseph Pollock, Jr.).
April 9, 1987: On this date in history, Rolling Stone magazine publishes a detailed article by John Hubner and Lindsey Gruson titled “Dial Om for Murder” which relates stories of drugs, sexual abuse and bodies buried helter-skelter at New Vrindaban. The article also claims (incorrectly) that Bhaktipada authorized the murders of Chakradhari in 1983 and Sulochan in 1986. In the article, Sulochan is portrayed as a manic martyr; a passionate reformer who threatened to expose Bhaktipada’s sins and therefore was assassinated to silence him. The authors gathered most of the information for the article from testimony by former New Vrindaban residents, Marshall County Deputy Sheriff Sergeant Thomas Westfall, as well as ISKCON director of public affairs Mukunda Goswami and GBC chairman Ravindra Svarupa.
In an attempt to counter the negative publicity generated by the Rolling Stones article, a meeting is held in the men’s prasadam room (mess hall) at the RVC Temple during which Kuladri speaks about the defamation of the community by Rolling Stone and urges residents to write letters of protest to the periodical. Kuladri also coaches us on what to say in our letters. I attended this meeting.
Although I did not read the Rolling Stones article (most of us did not read newspapers and magazines, or watch television because we were told it would “pollute” our minds), I dutifully write and mail a letter to Rolling Stone. The magazine publishes a handful of letters about “Dial Om for Murder” in the May 1987 issue, including my letter which appeares in the section which the editors titled “Krishna Killers.”
“Dial Om for Murder” was a masterpiece of sensational fiction. The truth: Swami Bhaktipada is the martyr, a Christ-like holy man, and not Steve Bryant. Printing a story about New Vrindaban based on testimony from envious former residents is like portraying the Marine Corps from the viewpoint of deserters.—Hrishikesh Das, Moundsville, West Virginia
Bhaktipada says he is not worried about bad publicity. He claims that even bad publicity is good publicity. Bhaktipada explains, “There’s no difference between famous and infamous. As P. T. Barnum said, ‘The only bad publicity is no publicity.’”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 405. See also Surrealist.Org
Rolling Stone magazine
April 1977: On or around this date in history, Hayagriva’s estranged wife, Shama dasi (Cheryl Ann Morris Wheeler) returns to New Vrindaban to visit her six-year-old son, Samba. When she and the boy disappear, Bhaktipada orders a ksatriya follower to find her and kill her. Vrindapati (Walt Parry), who served at New Vrindaban as the blacksmith and as an enforcer, recalled:
She [Cheryl] was visiting the boy. . . . He was at what they called the [Nandagram] school, the boys’ school, which was in an area probably just a little less than two miles from the main farm on another, practically another farm. That is where the school was located. She was visiting him there.
Mr. [Kirtanananda] Swami and I rode over there. We were going to give them a ride back to the main farm, and they weren’t there. And he became agitated and upset—Mr. Swami—and said that he believed she was trying to take the boy. And we went back to the main farm.
He—there is two fellows there that he sent down to what they call Talavan, and he, myself, and two other fellows went up the other ridge, and the other fellows and us, who were trying to find her. He assumed (and actually said) that he thought she was going out the back ridge to leave with the kid, and going out the back ridge so that she wouldn’t be seen walking on the road. I was the last person he dropped off furthest into the ridge. I said, “What do you want me to do if I find her?” He said, “Kill her.”
I would have killed her [if I had found her]. . . . At that time, that was the only thing I had to live for. . . . I was what I would consider a hundred percent sold to the idea of pushing on the ISKCON movement, and would have, and was particularly willing to do anything to meet those aims and goals. . . .
I wandered around back there [in the woods] in an honest effort to find her. Moved for a little bit, sit and listen if there was any other movement in the bushes or leaves. After about two hours, I came down off the hill to the main farm, the common area. Mr. Swami was sitting there with Mrs. Wheeler and her son having some lunch, or dinner, whatever they were eating, and acting like the best of friends, talking and just socializing.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 181.
Polaroid photo of Hayagriva’s wife, Cheryl Ann Morris Wheeler (Shama dasi) at New Vrindaban (July 1969).
Kirtanananda Swami samples his Sunday feast plate at Bahulaban, while his seven-year-old protégé, the first-born son of Hayagriva and Shama dasi, patiently waits for remnants (c. 1977). The shirtless devotee behind Kirtanananda is rendering devotional service by fanning the “pure devotee” with a peacock feather fan.
Vrindapati dasa (Walt Parry)
April 11, 1972: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada writes, “What will happen when I am not here, shall everything be spoiled by GBC?”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 215.
Eleven Zonal Acharyas
April 11, 1973: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada writes to Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, “Now I am concerned that the gurukula experiment should come out nicely. These children are the future hope of our Society, so it is a very important matter how we are training them in Krishna consciousness from the very childhood.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 220.
Photo from Bach To Godhead magazine
April 11, 1983: On this date in history, Bhaktipada orders that Prabhupada’s crown on his murti at his Palace of Gold be removed, because he claims Prabhupada appeared to him in a dream and asked him to do it. In reality, he was forced to remove Prabhupada's crown due to pressure from the Palace Manager Mahabuddhi dasa (Randy Stein). The "dream" was merely a fiction he invented to show his disciples that only His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, not the GBC or any other conditioned soul, could order him around.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 330.
Crowned Prabhupada at his Palace (c. December 1981).
April 11, 1986: On this date in history, Sulochan is released from two months in the Marshall County Jail after posting $5,000 bail. (He was found guilty of carrying an unlicensed firearm.) To add insult to injury, he receives a bill for $2,086.00 for his incarceration in the Wetzel County Jail (14 days) and the Marshall County Jail (43 days). He files an appeal and returns to his parents’ home in Royal Oak, Michigan.
After Sulochan’s release from jail, Hayagriva speaks to Tirtha (New Vrindaban's Chief Enforcer) on several occasions reminding him that Sulochan must be killed. Tirtha says, “I really felt that it was unnecessary, that he wasn’t a threat anymore. It seemed to me that he had gone to the FBI and done all this sort of muck-raking and [page missing from transcript].”
The head of the New Vrindaban telephone system, Jyotirdhama Dasa (Joseph Pollock, Jr.), who helped coordinate the murder conspirators, says that he heard talk about giving up the plot to assassinate Sulochan and let him live.
Unfortunately, six weeks later, Sulochan is shot twice in the head while sitting in the driver's seat of his motor home parked near the Los Angeles ISKCON temple.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 283.
Photo of Sulochan (Steven Bryant) from Government Exhibit 92
April 11, 2023: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
I have just finished reading two of your books: Eleven Naked Emperors and Killing For Krishna, and very much appreciate them both. I joined ISKCON in 1981 in the United Kingdom and have lived through much of what you wrote about while being in the dark about the behind scenes activity. I have strong faith in Krishna and Prabhupada because I experience the benefit of sadhana. But for many years I have no faith in the GBC, sannyasis and gurus.
Still, I have never read your books before because of the sensational titles and covers. I thought they would be written like a racy novel full of half truths. But they are not. Your writing is well researched and balanced.
I think many ISKCON devotees would benefit from reading them, but it is highly unlikely with the current titles and covers. I am writing to make a humble request. Please publish your books under two different titles and covers. I am sure the current titles help your sales among the non devotees, but they are not good for the devotee market. Much more boring names would make them more marketable to ISKCON rank and file who need to read them.
Boring covers and names like: “The History of New Vrindaban from 1977 to 1990” and “The Evolution of GBC Policy Regarding the Propagation of the Parampara from 1977 to 2020.” Such titles with plain covers would make them much easier to promote among devotees.
Yours
Anonymous ISKCON devotee
London, United Kingdom
April 12, 1969: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada teaches his disciples the verses written by the Vaishnava poet-saint Tulsi dasa (1532-1623), “A drum, an idiot, a sudra, a dog, and a woman are all eligible for a beating.” Prabhupada compares a woman to a dog. “If you become lenient, then she will be troublesome. . . . The husband beats, and she is tamed (laughter).”
Tulsi dasa Goswami was a great poet, known as an incarnation of Valmiki. He wrote thousands of verses. A thoughtful reader might wonder, "Why did Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada choose this one particular verse to teach his disciples, and not something less misogynistic from the great writings of Tulsi dasa Goswami?"
During his April 12th darshan with disciples, Prabhupada continues by saying that wife beating should be legalized in civilized countries. Prabhupada COULD HAVE taught his disciples the verse by Tulsi dasa, but cautioned them, “Perhaps this might have been proper behavior between husband and wife hundreds of years ago, but today NO HUSBAND SHOULD BEAT HIS WIFE!” But Prabhupada DID NOT SAY THIS. He laughed heartily when comparing women to dogs. His disciples knew what he meant.
Many, many of Prabhupada’s male disciples heartily imbibed their master’s teachings about women. Years later, at the rural New Vrindaban Krishna commune in Marshall County, West Virginia, Kirtanananda Swami, the leader of the commune, liked to tell his householder disciples, “Three things improve with a good beating: your dog, your drum, and your wife.” I heard Kirtanananda Swami say this with my own ears.
Some women came to mangal-aroti in the temple with black eyes and bruises on their faces. They told their friends, “I got the mercy last night.” The New Vrindaban sankirtan leader was violent, especially to one of his wives in particular, and when she talked back at him in an unsubmissive tone, he beat her with a rubber hose, until she passed urine on the cold basement concrete floor. One of his wives recalled:
“I witnessed one such beating with my own eyes. It took place in the basement of the Sankirtan House. I walked down the steps and froze. Pradhana Gopika was on the floor in her underwear while Dharmatma severely beat her with a rubber hose. When he saw me, he screamed at me to mind my own business. Pradhana was black and blue and covered in welts. I remember she was passing urine on the floor. After these beatings—and it happened this time as well—Dharmatma forced her to put on a sari, cover her head, and then scrub the floor on her hands and knees until he said enough. Before he discovered the value of using a rubber hose, Pradhana had been beaten with a cane, a wood file, and a wooden hanger—each of which had broken. After that, Dharmatma always used a piece of black rubber hose.”
No where has it been said that Keith Ham was cruel to women until after he joined ISKCON. Where did Kirtanananda Swami hear this teaching about how to make women submissive? He got it straight from his spiritual master. If you know the history, you can understand what was the source of the widespread mistreatment of women in ISKCON. It came from the top.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 25.
April 12, 1974: On this date in history, during a morning walk in Bombay, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada describes his marriage, “Formerly, when I was married, my wife was eleven years old. So (laughing) an eleven years old girl and I was at the same time twenty-one, twenty-two. One day I captured her hand. She began to cry. A little girl, you see? So gradually, gradually.”
Three years earlier, during a room conversation in London, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada describes his marriage, “I was married, my wife was eleven years. I was twenty-two years. She did not know what is sex, eleven years girl. Because Indian girls, they have no such opportunity of mixing with others. But after the first menstruation, the husband is ready. This is the system, Indian system.”
Prabhupada also explains the rationale for child marriage, “And the psychology is the girl, after first menstruation, she enjoys sex life with a boy, she will never forget that boy. Her love for that boy is fixed up for good. This is woman’s psychology. And [if] she is allowed to have many [boyfriends], oh, she will never be chaste woman. These are the psychology.” (August 15, 1971)
Prabhupada’s disciples did their level best to follow the instructions of their spiritual master, and when Prabhupada’s disciples’ daughters had their first menstrual period, the fathers attempted to get the young girls married to responsible brahmacharis. At New Vrindaban, where I served in ISKCON, we were simply trying to revive the ancient Vedic ways of Sanatan-Dharma (eternal Cosmic Law).
Child marriages were not unique to New Vrindaban, ISKCON as a whole approved of the practice. One ISKCON guru, Hridayananda Goswami wrote, "These early marriages show our concern for not letting women become polluted" and he promoted and defended the practice in GBC meetings.
When I was 29, a New Vrindaban father offered me his 13-year-old daughter in marriage. Although the girl was pretty, with fair complexion, long straw-colored hair and a slender waist, I declined his kind offer because at the time I was happy with my brahmachari (celibate student) life.
None of the ISKCON child marriages lasted more than a few years, although several girls became pregnant. My spiritual master, the ISKCON-approved guru Srila Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, said the child marriages failed because the girls were not sufficiently submissive. He suggested importing a few of his teenage female Pakistani disciples (who had lived their entire lives in a male dominated world) to come to New Vrindaban and teach the New Vrindaban girls how to become submissive to their husbands.
Images: (1) Abhay Charan De as a young man. (2) Child marriage was the norm in India for thousands of years, until the Child Marriage Act of 1929 propelled India into the 20th century and made the practice illegal. (3) and (4) Two New Vrindaban girls, one married, the other not yet.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 319.
Abhay Charan Day (undated)
Child marriage was common in India for thousands of years (undated photo).
The 14-year-old [above] caught in a reflective moment, was married recently. “She was developing a lot of crushes,” a devotee explained. Her sister, 16, is married and pregnant. “Some children produced here are very special,” the swami says. “The parents’ souls are pure and they attract a pure soul into the womb.” Text by Hillary Johnson; photo by Ethan Hoffman, from Life magazine (April 1980).
What is this pensive girl thinking? Could she be wondering, “I heard the temple authorities have picked a husband for me. Oh crap! Not me! I don't want to marry some gross old coot twice my age. This is horrid!”?
April 12, 1994: On this date in history, New Vrindaban management distances themselves from Tirtha Swami (serving two life sentences in prison for the murders of Chakradhari and Sulochan) and announces, “Tirtha’s publication, the Brijabasi Spirit, is not an authorized publication of the community and has no connection with the former publication of that name.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 170.
Tirtha in prison.
April 12, 2023: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
I was astonished by the seriousness and balance of the information inside your books; not a cheap attractive novel but a source of historic information. I at the half of the the Second Volume of your last opus, “Gold, Guns and God,” and it is quite valuable. You do not hide any fact. You were one of the “inmates” or supporters of Kirtanananda.
[If some Krishna devotees complain about your titles, such as Killing For Krishna], keep the titles as they are. If they attract more outsiders than people having been through it all, let it be that way, as they are more outsiders anyway. People who were in it will understand what the title means. Plus it is explained: “The Danger of Deranged Devotion.”
Jean-Jacques Péroo
Cergy, France
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2
April 12, 2023: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
“Gold, Guns and God” was a necessary work, and it is ISKCON’s good fortune that Henry put in years and years of diligent research to put this together. Worthy of a Truman Capote. A great American tradition. Jai Radhe. As to whether it is “necessary” for ISKCON devotees to read it: As a prophylactic for anyone ascending to higher positions, I would say, it should be required reading. It is a kind of Mahabharata for ISKCON.
Jan Brzezinski (Jagadananda Das)
Montreal, Quebec
For more on this topic, see Gold, Guns and God.
Jan Brzezinski (Jagadananda Das)
April 13, 1980: On this date in history, Chakradhari (Charles Saint-Denis), a former New Vrindaban resident who served in 1975 in the landscaping department, returns to New Vrindaban from California. He wants to start a nursery business. Bhaktipada dubs him “The King of the Fringies,” due to his prodigious appetite for women and recreational drugs.
Three years and two months later, almost to the day, Chakradhari is murdered by two New Vrindaban fringies: Tirtha (Thomas Drescher) and Daruka (Dan Reid).
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 23.
Chakradhari (Charles Saint-Denis)
April 14, 2024: On this date in history, the Moundsville Marshall County West Virginia Library purchases a complete set of 12 books by Hare Krishna historian Henry Doktorski. Patrons can now read the books in the library, or check them out to take home. Next step: get the books into ISKCON temple libraries throughout the world!
For more, see Hare Krishna Historian
Moundsville Public Library
April 15: April 1972: On or around this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada receives a disturbing report from one of the single New Vrindaban women, that the deities Radha Vrindaban Chandra are being neglected. Hayagriva, the New Vrindaban temple president, disturbed at her unsubmissive behavior unbecoming a woman, orders a brahmachari to tie her up in the barn. One month later, Prabhupada asks Hayagriva to leave New Vrindaban and join him in Los Angeles.
In an email to the author, Labangalatika dd (Rosalie Haswell Borthwick) explained:
Srila Prabhupada was in India. Hayagriva never liked me nor any single women with kids, either. My son [Dvarakadhisa] was there; he was five years old. I don’t remember what I had done [wrong], but [as a punishment] I was tied up in the barn and a brahmachari stepped hard on my hand. At night a woman devotee, named Rohini, came running and untied me and told me to get out fast. They—namely Hayagriva—were going to kill me. I think that this time I was lucky to escape with my life.
I sat by the road and walked and hiked all night to Pittsburgh. I somehow got to the Pittsburgh ISKCON temple and Ranadhir put me on a bus to New Orleans where I met up with the Road Show. On the Road Show in New Orleans, I learned to distribute books on the streets. Silavati and Prishni were very mean to me, but I distributed books okay all day in downtown New Orleans. Big Krishna Books to black men, no less. Not many, of course, but that was a good beginning.
When the Road Show arrived in Atlanta, they wanted me to stay in the Atlanta temple, but I had this crazy attachment for New Vrindaban and wanted to take my son back there as Srila Prabhupada had earlier told me I could stay there. So I hitchhiked in April back to New Vrindaban and stayed at Madhuban without permission. I cooked on a wood fire.
Every day I went to Moundsville and sold Back to Godhead magazines door to door, emboldened by my training on Road Show streets. I was successful—surprisingly—and took my collection over to the deities donation box. The pujari warned me I should keep it as I might need it.
After a few days I got the foolhardy desire to do deity worship as I used to when Srila Prabhupada was there at New Vrindaban, and now new devotees who didn’t have second initiation were doing it. So I went on the altar and woke up the deities. I was really pushing it a bit and it caused pandemonium. You can imagine the fuss that was made.
Later in the day, Hayagriva came with a van with Paramananda and Bhagavatananda and asked me if I would like to go on sankirtan in Moundsville. I was very happy to go on sankirtan. Instead he took me to a magistrate—to whom incidentally I had sold a BTG a few days before, a nice lady. They said I had been beating up people and setting fires. Not true of course, but I was so shocked I couldn’t speak. I was so shocked.
So I was jailed in my muddy orange sheet sari and I wouldn’t stop chanting loudly all day and night. So the sheriff got fed up and took me in a car to Western Psychiatric Institute in Pittsburgh and dropped me at the mental hospital after stopping at a doctor’s house who signed papers without even looking at me. I got out of the mental hospital after two or three weeks. That is a whole episode.
I promised Lord Chaitanya if he let me out I would go on sankirtan forever, and so I went to Los Angeles and did book distribution for years. I needed that correction as I was way out there in New Vrindaban. They did tell me at the hospital never to go back to New Vrindaban, as the people were evil and I agree. It’s very traumatic to remember and I shudder whenever I think of New Vrindaban.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, pp. 259-261.
Labangalatika devi dasi, ACBSP (Rosalie Haswell Borthwick)
April 15, 2025: On this date in history, a reader comments on Henry’s Facebook page:
Henry’s books tell some of the saddest stories I’ve ever read, and of a delusion so deep that people under its spell killed and died for it, some to maintain the status quo, some in hopes to change it. Henry’s books are about teaching those who read them how to think for themselves in such a way as to extract themselves out of the ignorance which leads to deranged devotion, so they need never repeat their mistakes.
George Smith
Overland Park, Kansas
George Smith
April 16, 1978: On this date in history, at a fire sacrifice in Columbus, Ohio, Thomas Drescher accepts diksa from Kirtanananda Swami and receives the name Tirtha dasa.
A year and a half later, he establishes a methaqualone laboratory in Athens, Ohio to help generate funds for New Vrindaban. His lab is busted by law enforcement, and he goes to prison. However, he proves his loyalty to his spiritual master and New Vrindaban by not snitching and implicating his accomplices.
Now “The Swami” entrusts him with more responsibility. Tirtha returns to the Marshall County commune and becomes Kirtanananda Swami’s most trusted “enforcer.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 155.
Tirtha (Thomas Drescher)
April 16, 1978: On this date in history, Yours Truly performs his Senior Piano Recital at Park College (now Park University) in Parkville, Missouri. A month later, I graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major: Piano Performance and Music Education. Henry recalled:
“My Senior Piano Recital was a major event in my life up to that time. The music was quite difficult. For several months before my recital, I practiced at least five hours daily on the baby grand piano in one of the practice rooms in the basement of the campus music building, which happened to be the chapel. One day I worked on my music for eleven hours. My rear end was visibly bruised from sitting on the hard, wooden piano bench for hours a day, as was told to me by a girl friend. After that, I found a foam cushion to sit on.
Regarding the recital, I recall it went quite well, with the exception of the Bach Prelude and Fugue, cuz I got lost somewhere in the middle of the fugue. The entire recital was played from memory; no sheet music in front of me. At 115 measures in length, and in five voices, this is one of Bach's longest and most densely-crafted fugues. It’s a five-voice fugue in C# Minor with Three Themes!
I kept playing, making up stuff, and I doodled around for a bit until I remembered a spot where I could jump back in, at the next cadence. I had to make sure I modulated to the correct key, while improvising something that I tried to make sound like Bach. I was successful in getting back on track, and the rest of the piece went well. After the recital, no one, not even my piano professor, mentioned my memory slip, although I know perfectly well that he knew where I had gotten off the track. I don’t think many, if anyone, in the audience noted my goof up. I never would have guessed that four months later, I’d put off going to graduate school for 16 years to instead study Bhakti Yoga at the New Vrindaban West Virginia Hare Krishna Commune.”
Senior Piano Recital (Park College, Parkville Missouri: 1978).
April 16, 1986: On this date in history, during a darshan with the “spiritual master,” New Vrindaban parents complain to Bhaktipada about their children’s lack of discipline and lack of care, especially at the ashram, where the children live when their daily classes at the school are finished. Bhaktipada responds by blaming the parents; it is the parents’ fault if children are disobedient.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 263.
Ten boys relax after school in their ashram on the first floor of the New Vrindaban Guest Lodge.
April 16, 1994: On this date in history, Bhaktipada’s wealthy disciple in India, Hridayananda dasa (Hrishikesh Mafatlal), the son of Arvind Mafatlal and currently Chairman of the Arvind Mafatlal Group, a 120-year-old conglomerate with businesses spanning a broad spectrum of industries including textiles, information technology, speciality rubber chemicals, health & hygiene and education, writes to his spiritual master about the intense chaos and conflict at the Chowpatty Temple in Bombay due to Bhaktipada’s refusal to admit he has broken the regulative principle regarding illicit sex during the Winnebago Incident of seven months earlier. Hridayananda writes about the Bhaktipada sycophants who attempt to convince devotees to leave Chowpatty and start their own pro-Bhaktipada temple:
“All their blasphemies and lies are spoken in your name, and anyone who hears them will lose all respect towards you, Srila Bhaktipada. People who are hearing these utter lies are even becoming hateful towards you for your perceived support. . . . Their words are destroying any shred of sympathy left for you. As far as we know, you have never admitted the truth about your difficulties to these men. They have taped phone conversations where you’ve denied everything.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 128.
Hrishikesh Mafatlal and his wife
Hrishikesh Mafatlal with Radhanath Swami and an unidentified woman.
April 16, 1996: On this date in history, Bhaktipada’s retrial begins. His attorney, however, throws in the towel after discovering that Tirtha Swami, who is serving life in prison for the murders of Chakradhari and Sulochan, has lost his faith in Bhaktipada after hearing about his molestation of teenage boys in the community and tells others that from now on he will not withhold incriminating information anymore in order to protect his former guru. Tirtha now claims that he carried out the assassinations of Sulochan and Chakradhari under Bhaktipada’s order.
Few, except those who were involved in the plot to assassinate Sulochan, know however, that Tirtha is lying, making up demining stories just to put his former "spiritual master" in prison.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 452.
Bhaktipada leaves the Martinsburg West Virginia Court House (April 1996).
Newspaper article (April 1996).
Wheeling News Register article (December 19, 1996). It appears someone has defaced the image of Swami Bhaktipada.
April 16, 2020: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Hi Henry,
I’ve read Killing For Krishna, twice now. Once, including every End Note, and once just the story itself.
Oh my! Your attention to detail, your myriad End Notes, and your personal memories have made this a book far beyond the usual range of such literary documentaries! Reading Killing For Krishna, has been a very difficult, and also healing experience.
All I had to go by for years was [the pulp-fiction book] “Monkey On A Stick,” and conversations with a few of the New Dwarka [Los Angeles] devotees. Interestingly, you’ve somehow presented each person as an actual person, not just a cardboard cutout.
My Amazon Review is going to be carefully written, so as to follow in your compassionate footsteps, while telling of the care and talent you’ve given in this book.
I’ve also just started Tirtha’s [book] “100 Monkeyz.” Tell me—did he actually write this? It’s too well structured, and so nearly poetic, that it’s difficult to reconcile him in his role in Sulochan’s murder with him as a talented author. Not that all sociopaths are without such talents, but showing such emotionality doesn’t seem to “fit”—or am I wrong? The one consistent thought is that the entire story is all about him. Him the victim, him the strong survivor of countless strange difficulties.
Actually, sociopaths have a particular knack at presenting [themselves] as good, well-meaning, emotional (crocodile tears abound) fellows.
Fortunately, my training and experience in psychology—including forensic psychology—made such “theatrical acts” pretty transparent.
This honestly was a painful healing. The work you put into this book, just like [your more recent book] Eleven Naked Emperors, is nearly tangible. Your thoughts, experiences really made it more like a conversation with a friend. It was hard to put the book aside for ordinary daily living activities.
Every “player” really becomes a person. Even Kirtanananda, who I met only once or twice, and found him rather scary. I had the uncomfortable experience of Hayagriva, in the Haight-Ashbury temple [during the spring/summer of 1967]. Uncomfortable because I was a young (overly sheltered) 17 year old, and he was constantly touching and hugging me ... he smelled ...
I think most revealing was Rabid-Nut [Radhanath Swami]—his manipulating ways. Never met him, but have seen videos of him—and he’s oily. As I said before, you treated him with compassion and respect. You’re a bigger man than me.
I am now eagerly awaiting your third book [“Gold, Guns and God”]—I know it will be another keeper!
Wade Ryan (Damodar dasa, ACBSP)
Initiated in San Francisco, 1967
Author’s comment: Yes, Tirtha wrote his own books, eight in total that I know of, on his laptop computer in prison. I served as his editor for five books which were published by the New Vrindaban Prison Ministry in 2005-2006. He is a talented writer. Tirtha’s books:
Meditations on the American Gulag (c. 1989)
Desperation of the Angeles (c. 1992)
The Definitive Guide to Practicing Krishna Consciousness in Prison, with an Introduction by Chandramauli Swami (2005)
Prisoner Me (2006)
The Process of Perfect Atonement (2006)
Losing the Mind (2006)
Freedom from Fear (2006)
100 Monkeyz (2013)
In a letter dated October 1, 1989, from Radhanath Swami in Pune, India, to the incarcerated murderer/author in prison, Radhanath glorified Tirtha’s book "Meditations on the American Gulag," “Your beautiful book is THE MOST POPULAR BOOK amongst your godbrothers and godsisters in India. It is even more sought after than any other book.”
Cover of 100 Monkeyz.
April 16, 2024: On this date in history, the author receives an email from a former ISKCON devotee in Sweden--who lived at New Vrindaban for a couple years: "Reading your books has been a good part in my healing process, and now I'm focusing more on the holy name, and less on controversial gurus."
April 17, 1968: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada flies from San Francisco to New York City, after returning from India where he recuperated from his May 1967 stroke. Along with others, Hayagriva greets Prabhupada at the New York City airport, and speaks with him about New Vrindaban at the New York ISKCON temple. Although Hayagriva and Kirtanananda Swami have both left ISKCON, Hayagriva still keeps in touch with his spiritual master, while Kirtanananda avoids contact and stays hidden away at Richard Rose’s backwoods house in Marshall County, West Virginia, which Prabhupada named New Vrindaban.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 40.
Vrindaban farmhouse (undated).
April 17, 1975: On this date in history, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975), an Indian academician, philosopher and statesman who served as the President of India from 1962 to 1967, dies at the age of 86 in Madras, Tamil Nadu, India. In April 1909, Radhakrishnan was appointed to the Department of Philosophy at the Madras Presidency College. Thereafter, in 1918, he was selected as Professor of Philosophy by the University of Mysore, where he taught at its Maharaja's College, Mysore. In 1921 he was appointed as a professor in philosophy to occupy the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta. Between 1918 and 1968 he wrote eighteen scholarly books about Hinduism, including Indian Philosophy, published by Oxford University Press in 1923. In 1948, his 388-page English translation of Bhagavad-gita with introductory essay and notes was published by Harper Torch Books of India.
When Bhaktivedanta Swami came to the United States and delivered Bhagavad-gita lectures at his Matchless Gifts 26 Second Avenue storefront in 1966, he recited verses from Dr. Radhakrishnan's Gita. But Swamiji was not happy with Dr. Radhakrishnan's commentary, which he considered contaminated by impersonalist or Mayavadi ideas. Bhaktivedanta Swami wanted to write his own version of Bhagavad-gita, from the perspective of the Gaudiya Vaishnavas, who regard the personal manifestation of Sri Krishna to be higher than the impersonal conception of the absolute truth. Bhaktivedanta Swami was fortunate in that one of his first disciples was a fine English editor: Hayagriva dasa (Howard M. Wheeler), who previously had taught English at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Hayagriva was a skilled editor, and began working on Swamiji's manuscripts only a week after first meeting his spiritual master in July 1966. Swamiji affectionately called his editor disciple “Professor Wheeler.”
However, Bhaktivedanta Swami (he was not yet known as "Prabhupada") wanted to publish his Gita as quickly as possible, and therefore he cut a few corners which can hardly be considered "scholarly." For instance, Bhaktivedanta Swami instructed his editor to steal the English translation of the Bhagavad-gita by Dr. Radhakrishnan which had been published 20 years earlier. Hayagriva explained in his 1985 book, The Hare Krishna Explosion:
Swamiji finally tires of my consulting him about Bhagavad-gita verses. “Just copy the verses from some other translation,” he tells me, discarding the whole matter with a wave of his hand. “The verses aren’t important. There are so many translations, more or less accurate, and the Sanskrit is always there. It’s my purports that are important. Concentrate on the purports. There are so many nonsense purports like Radhakrishnan’s and Gandhi’s, and Nikhilananda’s. What is lacking is these Vaishnava purports in the preaching line of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. That is what is lacking in English. That is what is lacking in the world.”
“I can’t just copy others,” I say.
“There is no harm.”
“But that’s plagiarism.̵”
“How’s that? They are Krishna’s words. Krishna’s words are clear, like the sun. Just these rascal commentators have diverted the meaning by saying ‘Not to Krishna.’ So my purports are saying ‘To Krishna.’ That is the only difference.”
The translations of many stanzas of Bhaktivedanta Swami’s first edition of his Bhagavad-gita appear to have been lifted, or adapted from Radhakrishnan’s translation. When Bhaktivedanta Swami, in his translating work, came across passages in Radhakrishnan’s book that didn’t fit his own views, he produced vigorous attacks on “certain Mayavadins,” who always remained unnamed.
Yes, of course, Bhaktivedanta Swami would not dare to mention Dr. Radhakrishnan by name in his book, because if he did, the publisher of Dr. Radhakrishnan’s Bhagavad-gita might have more closely inspected Bhaktivedanta Swami’s edition, and upon seeing the plagiarism, sued Bhaktivedanta Swami for stealing from Dr. Radhakrishnan’s work without giving the actual author due credit.
For more about this topic, see The Guru, Mayavadins and Women.
Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan's Bhagavad-gita
April 17, 1986: On this date in history, Bhaktipada telephones the author, who is presently out on the pick, stationed at the New Vrindaban satellite center in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York, and speaks to him about starting a choir and orchestra at New Vrindaban.
Within six months, Bhaktipada asks the author to move back to New Vrindaban where he starts a choir to sing the works of the great Baroque and Classical masters with lyrics Krishna-ized to conform to the sentiments of the Gaudiya Vaishnavas. Who recognizes the singers? From left to right, I recognize:
Dhirodatta (David Soliday), Visvatomukha Dasa (William Byars), Ramachandra (Richard Cousineau), Dhruva (Dwayne Shaw), Mahabuddhi (Donald Ferry), ?, Sanatha dd the architect (Susan Parmelee), ?, Shyama from India (Sandhya Maheshwari, the choir director's wife), Rohini (Rita Gordon), Kalangana, tall woman wearing white (Kiystyna Dunsford), Syama (Susan Marietta), Sikhi Mahiti (Esther Johnson Nixon), unknown.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 47.
Choir concert in the temple. Professor Alfred R. DeJagger directs; Hrishikesh accompanies on the piano (c. 1987).
April 18, 1969: On this date in history, Back to Godhead magazine (on page 24) officially announces that Bhaktivedanta Swami will henceforward be properly addressed as “Prabhupada,” meaning (1): One at whose feet there are many Prabhus (Masters), and (2): One who is always found at the Lotus Feet of the Supreme Master (Lord Sri Krishna).
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 110.
Cover of the April 1969 issue of Back To Godhead
Article from the April 1969 issue of Back To Godhead
April 18, 1972: On this date in history, during a room conversation with disciples and guests in Hong Kong, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains how a devoted disciple submissively obeys the spiritual master, “You know our Jagattarini, wife of Bhurijana? She was a theatrical girl and earning millions of dollars, * but she has given up everything. . . . I asked her to go and marry Bhurijana. He never saw her. She never saw him. What kind of husband she is going to accept? But simply on my word, she came, and she came from Los Angeles to Hong Kong and got married. . . . They [my disciples] are so obedient that without any consideration [they follow my order]. . . . The only consideration is how to please Krishna and his representative.”
* Millions of dollars? This was a great exaggeration. Perhaps Prabhupada said this hoping to impress the Indian guests in the audience. Yes, Jagattarini was an actress before she joined ISKCON, but she only played minor roles and NEVER made “millions of dollars.” Before becoming Jagattarini in 1971, Janne Wesley was an Australian actress who played a bit part in the 1970 film “Ned Kelly” which starred Mick Jagger. The film was poorly received at its opening. This passage reveals Prabhupada's tendency to puff up his accomplishments to impress the gullible.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, pp. 84-85.
Poster for the 1970 film Ned Kelly
April 18, 1996: On this date in history, Bhaktipada pleads guilty to one count of mail fraud from the federal racketeering charge but accepts no responsibility for the slayings of Chakradhari and Sulochan. He is imprisoned for eight years, at first in the Eastern Regional Jail in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and later in federal penitentiaries in Springfield, Missouri; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Butner, North Carolina.
Some today, even when interviewed for documentary films, believe Bhaktipada was convicted of murder or conspiracy to commit murder, but that is not correct. He went to jail for mail fraud.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 246.
Bhaktipada in prison.
April 18, 2020: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of Killing For Krishna, on Amazon:
Five Stars: A Most Painful Healing
First, I'm going to warn you: this [Killing For Krishna]isn’t a pulp-exposé, filled with tempting drama, to feed one’s literary bloodlust. It is the brilliantly written, incredibly well-researched literary investigation of the terrible events that unfolded in a spiritual community, associated with the Hare Krishna movement: New Vrindaban, in West Virginia. Copious Notes (easily accessed throughout the E-book by links) offer a precious wealth of documentation that add depth and breadth to the story of love and faith that developed into a kind of transcendental madness; indeed, a deranged devotion.
Amazingly, the author—who resided in New Vrindaban for some years—has a real talent for presenting the various people (and there are many) as real, actual human beings, unlike a former book on the subject [Monkey On A Stick], that was hastily written by a couple of hacks many years ago. No one in this book gets off the hook, yet everyone is treated with compassionate respect; yes, even the conspirators and even the murderer himself.
Reading this book has been a most painful, incredibly healing event for me. My gratitude to Henry Doktorski, for composing the entire, admittedly convoluted story in such a well organized manner. My own decades of confusion and unanswered questions about how it all unfolded have been painfully, finally healed.
—Wade Ryan (Damodar dasa, ACBSP—pseudonym: Seth Roberts), from a review at Amazon.
April 18, 2024: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
I find your being respectful in referring to Prabhupada not disingenuous and shows maturity. My sense is that you are attempting to surgically remove the mistaken approach to religion rather than bring a bad light on Prabhupada, and therefore I feel you are doing a good service. The dangers of elevating a man to a God, and Literalist Fundamentalism are what I see as your actual targets, and not Srila Prabhupada. And in my unqualified assessment it seems like a good thing to snip those misconceptions in the bud and by doing so it would seem true spirituality and not blind sentimental fanaticism can prevail. One other point is that if someone had thought Prabhupada must be the guru of everyone.
It’s understandable that someone will be turned off by Prabhupada’s sometimes “based” style. It may make someone more open to cooperate for the good of doing anything related to Vedic Lifestyle with people who follow other gurus understanding that not everyone is going to vibe with a certain teacher, and it is okay.
I do wonder if you don’t see the overall impact of the spreading of Vedic thought in the west, and Bhakti as an overwhelming step in the right direction, even if there were some mistakes.
And I wonder if you feel you have a score to settle with Prabhupada over some unsatisfactory outcome in your own life—fallout with friends, family, loves, money—or if you just want to improve things all around by strategically bringing attention to things in order to resuscitate critical thinking in those who’s minds have been turned off.
C. J. Welnick (Surya Caitanya Das)
Honomu, Hawaii
The author’s response: Thank you for sharing your thoughts, my friend. Yes, in my books I endeavor to be as respectful as possible to the Founder/Acharya of ISKCON. Many times I have said I regard him as a great preacher of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, and I have no problem with people who follow him and love him. Many of my friends do just that. When I was a young man in my twenties, didn’t mind following a spiritual leader who liked to say about those who espoused different beliefs, "I kick on face with boot," but in my late 60s, I am turned off by such talk. And yes, Prabhupada is just one example of disciples and followers raising a human being to the platform of the divine.
C. J. Welnick (Surya Caitanya Das)
April 19, 1968: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains to a disciple, “There is no clash between the Bible and the Vedas, simply some people formulate their personal ideas and cause quarrels.” Prabhupada continued, "Christos is the Greek version of the word Krishna. . . . Actually it doesn’t matter—Krishna or Christ—the name is the same."—conversation with Father Emmanuel Jungclaussen (June 22, 1974)
On Christmas Day 1988, Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, the leader of the New Vrindaban Hare Krishna (City of God) Community, follows Prabhupada’s lead by installing a life-size murti of Jesus Christ in the New Vrindaban temple next to the life-size murti of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 81.
Gaura Shakti and Mahaprasad carry the murti of Jesus Christ to his vyasasana in the New Vrindaban temple (Christmas Day, 1988).
The advent of the murti of Jesus Christ in the New Vrindaban temple (Christmas Day, 1988).
April 19, 1973: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains how a devotee is pleased when a demon is killed:
“A sadhu, a saintly person never approves that one should be killed. Never. Even an animal. . . . But . . . a sadhu, a saintly person, is also pleased ... When? When a scorpion or a snake is killed. . . . A sadhu is never satisfied seeing another living entity being killed, but Prahlada Maharaja says, ‘Even a sadhu is pleased when a snake is killed or a scorpion is killed. So my father [the great demon Hiranyakasipu] is just like snake and scorpion. So he’s killed. Therefore everyone is happy.’ . . . Such demon, who simply troubles the devotees, such demon, a very dangerous demon. So when such demon is killed, even saintly persons are satisfied. Although saintly persons, they do not want anyone should be killed.”
Thirteen years later, administrators, spiritual guides and enforcers of the New Vrindaban Hare Krishna Community form a conspiracy to assassinate a dissident devotee (Sulochan/Steven Bryant), who they compare to a snake and scorpion, because he threatens to kill the “pure devotee” Srila Bhaktipada and the other ten ISKCON zonal acharyas.
After all, they claim, Prabhupada said a demon who troubles the devotees, a dangerous demon, must be killed, like a snake or scorpion. The murder conspirators think they are performing an important religious duty.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 223.
Steve Bryant's body in the Los Angeles morgue.
April 19, 1973: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada insists that his disciples send their children to the Dallas gurukula so their parents can go out on sankirtan fulltime, free from the demanding responsibilities of child rearing:
“Regarding gurukula, it is not required that parents live there with their children. We can take care of the children, but not the parents. Any parents there must be engaged preaching and selling books, and going on the sankirtan party.”
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada insisted that children should not have contact with their parents; he said such family affection was “simply sentimental.” He said parents “must be engaged preaching and selling books, and going on the sankirtan party.” And when the ISKCON gurukula was established in Vrindaban, India, he said, regarding vacations, “Once in a year . . . the child may return to the parents.”
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, one of Prabhupada’s successor acharyas, demands the same austerities from his householder disciples and followers. When a big sankirtan collector is pregnant with Dharmatma’s child, she is forced to go out on the pick every day until she goes into labor, and even then, New Vrindaban authorities think she was faking it so she can come back home and get some rest. Two months after her child is born, she is told to put her child in the community nursery, get back out on the road and collect money. Pradhana Gopika recalled:
“When I was pregnant with her I was out every single day [on the pick]. I didn’t miss one day my whole pregnancy. I went into labor in West Virginia University [Medical Center] and they [New Vrindaban authorities] thought I was faking, and they didn’t want me to come home. . . . After my daughter was about two months old, I spent most of the time on the road. I never even saw her very much for the first three years of her life.”
Although children were separated from their parents at an early age, when New Vrindaban spokesmen were interviewed by the media, they routinely denied such charges as “rumor.” Gail Conger recalled:
“The unpalatable truth is that children are often separated from their parents at New Vrindaban. . . . During [a television] interview, Kuladri stood up to passionately deny the “rumor” that children are separated from their parents at New Vrindaban. He challengingly invited anyone to come and see the place where he, his wife, and three children lived blissfully together. No one came to check the veracity of Kuladri’s passionate statement.” Conger continued, “If they had come, they might have learned what everyone in the community already knew. Kuladri slept in the large room which doubled as his office. (I saw his bedroll myself on at least one occasion, upon going to his office in the morning.) His wife was in charge of the older girls’ ashram and lived in a trailer next to that house, usually with a number of ashram or sankirtan children, which she took care of. At least one of his two daughters lived at the younger girls’ ashram. His infant son was passed from one to another much of the day, as I observed.”
One New Vrindaban resident spoke about one particularly sad four-year-old boy. James Clay Vaughn explained:
“I really feel sorry for J, [who was] four years old at this time. During one festival I saw him wandering around the temple area in the gravel. His clothes were covered in urine, ripped up, and muddy. He was alone, bruised, freaked out and his arm was in a cast. I asked what was wrong and put my arms around him. We were friends since he lived in the glass shop with Narendra while I worked there. So he always looked at me like his brother.
He was really messed up. He didn’t know who anybody really was. I liked him and we were close. . . . Anyway, I asked him what was wrong. As soon as he saw me he started wailing since I was like home to him. I was practically his only friend.
So J came walking up with this broken arm and he’s crying in pain. I asked how it happened and he says, “The boys, the boys.” He was ranting and raving. I asked if he’d eaten anything and he hadn’t, so I bought him some French fries. He said something about how some woman had forgotten about him or gone off to the festivities. So then he told me what happened: he was down in the ashram with some of the older boys who started to push him around and he finally told me that these other boys—since there was no supervision—put his arm in a door and slammed it. They intentionally broke his arm.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 294.
Dallas Gurukula
April 19, 1983: On this date in history, two four-year-old boys suffocate in an abandoned refrigerator at Bahulaban.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 247.
April 19, 1986: On this date in history, Triyogi (Michael Shockman), the Prabhupada disciple who tried (and almost succeeded) to kill Bhaktipada six months earlier, attempts to escape from the Marshall County Jail. He is apprehended by Correctional Officers.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 98.
Michael Shockman (Triyogi dasa, ACBSP)
April 19, 2005: On this date in history, a former New Vrindaban resident writes a eulogy for her first child, who attended the New Vrindaban gurukula and died mysteriously at the age of 30.
To read her eulogy, go to A Mother's Lament. Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, pp. 459-467.
Three young boys request Bhaktipada to give them the sacred flower following mangal aroti at the New Vrindaban Bahulaban temple. Only one boy will receive the flower (c. January 1980). Nrsimha is the boy on the far left, who died mysteriously at the age of 30.
April 19, 2020: On this date in history, Jyotirdhama dasa (Joseph Pollock, Jr.), the New Vrindaban Telephone Man who was a member of the conspiracy to murder Sulochan, meets a man at a rally in Richland, Washington, who claims to be a government agent who had infiltrated New Vrindaban in the 1980s. The man tells Jyotirdhama that Radhanath Swami is, and has been for decades, a government informant.
Jyotirdhama recently elaborated, “I question why a federal agent would out an asset. The problem I have is that the person I talked to knew information about those days back in New Vrindaban during the 1980s that made him appear credible to me. The other problem I have is that Radhanatha somehow completely avoided prosecution for his role in the plot. Anyway, the man said that the Feds 'had you all wired' and suggested I stop writing on the internet of Radhanath's complicity in the murder of Steven Bryant.” (Facebook comment, April 19, 2025)
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 6, p. 254.
Jyotirdhama dasa (Joseph Pollock, Jr.).
April 1979: On or around this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami announces plans to build “Land of Krishna,” a spiritual theme park. “Land of Krishna” will be a “Spiritual Disneyland.”
But instead of seeing the pirates of the Caribbean, visitors will see heroic sculptures of Krishna fighting the giant Aghasura serpent demon, the giant bird demon Bakasura, the demon Dhenakasura and his wild herd, and other childhood pastimes of Lord Krishna.
Mukunda Goswami (Michael Grant), head of the ISKCON Public Relations Department based in Los Angeles, visits New Vrindaban with his secretary Nandini dasi (Nori J. Muster) to discuss the plans.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 177.
Artist’s painting of the proposed Great Temple of Understanding at New Vrindaban
Artist’s rendition of Land of Krishna (Part 1).
Artist’s rendition of Land of Krishna (Part 2).
April 20: April 1980: On or around this date in history, at an emergency GBC meeting in Los Angeles, Jayatirtha dasa Tirthapada (James Edward Immel), the ISKCON zonal acharya for the United Kingdom and South Africa who had been secretly ingesting LSD and leading “ecstatic” kirtans from his vyasasana sometimes lasting nine hours, is forced to abandon his wife and take sannyasa, and is prohibited from initiating new disciples for one year.
A few days later, Jadurani (Judy Koslovsky) is evicted from Los Angeles ISKCON after she “blasphemes” her former husband, ISKCON guru Satsvarupa dasa Goswami. She says he is not equal to Prabhupada.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 6, p 46.
Jayatirtha dasa Adhikari
Jadurani devi dasi (Judy Koslovsky)
April 20: April 2019: On or around this date in history, Wondery, a company based in Los Angeles noted for writing and producing top nonfiction podcasts, releases a seven-part podcast series titled “The Hare Krishna Murders.” The author serves as consultant for the production and is featured as guest interviewee in the seventh episode. See American Scandal.
April 20, 2020: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Dear Henry Prabhuji.
I purchased “Eleven Naked Emperors” through Amazon. I plan on getting a print copy of Killing For Krishna, before the May 2020 Sulochan Memorial in Los Angeles as well, but I especially love that both your eBooks are free for Amazon Prime members. I have recommended, and got many people to read Killing For Krishna, on their Kindle app because it’s free if you have Amazon Prime. A LOT of people who wouldn’t have purchased a copy, quite a few younger devotees who don’t have much money, read Killing For Krishna, through their Kindle readers.
I recommended “Eleven Naked Emperors” and Killing For Krishna, to all my friends on the Facebook group I manage, which has about 30 people on there, and I read at the end of “Eleven Naked Emperors” in the “Aftermath” chapter where you talk about where each of the eleven zonal acharyas are now, so they could get more info on that. Your book had stuff in it that even I didn’t know! Amazing work! I’ll do a short recommendation video soon.
I can’t wait to meet you and Yashodanandan Prabhu at the Sulochan Memorial. Hare Krsna. Please accept my humble obeisances as well Prabhuji. Thank you for giving such great work! All Glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Balanarasimhadeva dasa
San Francisco, California
April 21, 1974: On this date in history, the first issue of "Brijabasi Spirit: the Weekly Journal of the New Vrindaban Community," an unpretentious and barely-legible newsletter run off on an A. B. Dick 350 photo-offset press, is published. It is distributed free to New Vrindaban residents; nonresidents are expected to pay twenty-five cents per issue, or $12.50 for an annual subscription of fifty-two issues.
The editor explained the origin of the publication, which became the official New Vrindaban magazine, “His Holiness Paramhansa Maharaja . . . originated the idea for the Brijabasi Spirit, from letters sent by Srila Prabhupada to New Vrindaban, and he set up its format, and enthused us to make a nice transcendental paper for Srila Prabhupada and the Brijabasis.”
The Vol. 1, No. 2, April 29, 1974 issue (I was unable to find a copy of issue No. 1) contained articles titled “Dear Swami” (a devotional advice column by Kirtanananda Swami), “New Vrindaban Perspective,” “Devotee Interview with Devananda dasa,” “Devotional Thoughts,” “Bahulaban Diary,” “Tales from the Garden,” “Plea for Contributions,” “Swamiji’s Departure” (a reprint of a Back to Godhead article), “Showdown at Raivataka Mountain” by Yudhisthira dasa, “New Vrindaban Board of Directors Meeting,” and recipes for “Mother Gokula’s Old Fashioned Lockjaw Chewing Chaw (Organic!)” and “Rose Hips Syrup.”
The cover featured a lovely illustration (probably penned by Kuladri) of Krishna playing his flute while walking with his brother Balarama (carrying a plow and horn) along with two calves and about a dozen cows.
Regular columns soon appeared, such as “Dear Swami,” “In the Woods,” “Tales from the Garden,” “Fields and Crops,” “Bahulaban Diary,” “Madhuban Diary,” and “Cows.” Often the Brijabasi Spirit published “Hot Off The Press” commentaries written by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, such as verses and translations from Sri Upadesamrta (The Nectar of Devotion), and news about Prabhupada’s travels. Istaghostis (conversations) with Kirtanananda Swami were also published. The publication was printed at Bahulaban (during January 1975 the press moved to Madhuban).
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, pp. 339-340.
The cover of issue No. 9 of the Brijabasi Spirit
April 22, 1977: On this date in history, during a room conversation in India, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada agrees that none of his disciples are presently qualified to become genuine gurus, but he hopes that as soon as someone becomes qualified—when his training is complete—he will appoint him. If a disciple begins initiating without being fully trained, he becomes a “rascal guru.”
During the same conversation, Tamal Krishna Goswami (Thomas G. Herzig)—an influential ISKCON sannyasi and long-time GBC member who served as Prabhupada’s secretary during the summer and autumn of 1977—frankly admits that Prabhupada’s disciples (including himself) are all spiritual neophytes in that they are still influenced by material desires.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 26.
Tamal Krishna and Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
April 22, 2023: On this date in history, the author receives an inquiry about Radhanath Swami's alleged involvement in the 1985-1986 conspiracy to murder Sulochan:
Radhe Shyam! You claim to say the Radhanath was included in Sulochan murder and he ordered Janmastami to do the murder, etc. If some one comes with a point that you are making up the story, how to answer it then? Is there any proof to this because Radhanath will not accept it that he was involved in a murder, etc. Can you share some valid suspects or anything else which prove it? I read “Kill Guru, Become Guru” and “Monkey on a Stick,” too. Please reply. Radhe Radhe.
Name deleted by request
Reply by the author:
April 22, 2023
Hare Krishna, Prabhu. Thank you for your inquiry. I think you will find the answers to your questions in my book, “Killing For Krishna: The Danger of Deranged Devotion.”
In the meantime, I will say that I was bewildered myself some years ago, because of conflicting testimonies of those people, including Radhanath Swami, who were involved in the murder plot. Many conspiracy members claim that Radhanath Swami was a key member of the plot to murder Sulochan Prabhu.
Janmastami (John Sinkowski), as you know, claims Radhanath recruited him into the conspiracy. I have met Janmastami many times, he is my godbrother. We talk on the phone every couple months. I believe his is telling the truth.
Kuladri (Arthur Villa), although today he keeps his mouth shut, told an investigative reporter in 1989 that Radhanath Swami was involved in the plot, and Kuladri thinks Radhanath even told Bhaktipada about the plot. Kuladri, who himself was a leader in the conspiracy, escaped from prison due to a sweet plea bargain with the prosecutors.
Jyotirdhama (Joseph Pollock, Jr), who was in charge of New Vrindaban’s telephone system, helped coordinate the murder and conspirators by routing special calls in the switchboard room at New Vrindaban. He says that Radhanath ORDERED the execution of Sulochan. I am friends with Jyotirdhama. We speak on the phone periodically. He wrote a 15 page summary of his involvement in the murder plot, which appears in Killing For Krishna.
One of my godbrother friends, Harivenu, who was a teenager at the New Vrindaban gurukula in the mid-1980s, says he was present when Radhanath Swami ordered Janmastami to “Destroy the Demon.” I keep in touch with him today. He lives in California.
It is a fact that Radhanath approved of the murder. Another friend of mine, a traveling sankirtan partner, Ramachandra (Richard Cousineau), told me, on the day of the murder he asked Radhanath Swami in the New Vrindaban temple, “Do you know who killed Sulochan?”
Ramachandra says Radhanath replied, “No. But whoever it was, he was doing devotional service to Krishna.” I believe Ramachandra. He lives in Wheeling and we talk on the phone periodically.
Dharmatma (Dennis Gorrick), the New Vrindaban sankirtan leader, says he gave a bag of $6,000 in small bills to Radhanath and Bhaktipada when they came to his house shortly after the murder. Dharmatma asked, “This is so Tirtha can fly to India?” Both Bhaktipada and Radhanath nodded “Yes.”
Even Tirtha in prison (Thomas Drescher), who exchanged 200 letters with me by snail mail from 2002 to 2017, told me that “Radhanath delivered a big bag of money to me, after the murder.” This was so Tirtha and his family could purchase air tickets and fly to India and hide from U. S. law enforcement.
Jagad Guru Swami (who later became known as Bhakti Gaurava Narasingha Maharaja), a Prabhupada disciple, who founded an ashram in India, told me personally, that a few weeks after the murder, Radhanath confessed to him his involvement in the murder plot while the two godbrothers were sitting on a beach in San Diego, USA. Jagad Guru Swami says he spoke to the FBI about it. This is all in Killing For Krishna.
So it comes down to: Who do we believe? Radhanath, or all these other people? The choice is ours. Proof may not exist, as sometimes people lie. But in this case, I believe Radhanath is the liar.
I knew Radhanath personally, and we always had a cordial relationship. But after I started talking about my research about the history of New Vrindaban, and the conspiracy to murder Sulochan, he avoids me like the plague, even when I approach him and try to have a friendly conversation. I hope this helps answers your questions.
Sincerely,
Henry (Hrishikesh dasa)
Radhanath Swami, official Sannyasa portrait (May 1982)
April 23, 1999: On this date in history, the ISKCON Child Protection Office begins an investigation of Kirtanananda Swami regarding sexual child abuse charges. 17 months later, they conclude that Kirtanananda dasa sexually abused two boys. The actual number of victims (confirmed decades later) was nearly 20 boys. None of them ever filed charges. Kirtanananda Swami never went to court nor was convicted of child sexual abuse charges.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 384.
Swami Bhaktipada affectionately pets his German shepherd guard dog while devoted gurukula boys massage him in the RVC temple room (c. 1986).
April 23, 2020: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Henry Doktorski, Hare Krishna!
Thanks for your hard work to make THE TRUTH visible for all those who haven’t chanced to see her (THE TRUTH) without taking ANY side: ISKCON—GBC vs. ISKCON—IRM. Thanks for your objective pointing THE TRUTH in both of your books, Killing For Krishna, and Eleven Naked Emperors. Looking forward on your third book, “Gold, Guns and God,” because you are bee and you are blessed by HDG Srila Prabhupada and Lord Krishna to open eyes of many aspirating devotees who are confused by rumor (prajalpa) and contaminated with hearing/reading offences (Vaisnava aparadha) even to the devotees who don’t deserve to be offended.
Dinanatha dasa (Dragan Buskoski)
Kičevo, Republic of Macedonia
April 23, 2024: On this date in history, the author receives a letter from a reader:
Henry, I enjoy reading your books of Hare Krishna history. It seems to me that you attempt to coax people up to the point that they can take the bold step of questioning their blind faith and stepping off the precipice, where they can fly and soar like an eagle, and think for themselves. However, it's a long way down into the abyss, so many, fearing to trust their wings and their intellect, continue to cling to the ledge, instead of flying. Perhaps that is real liberation. Henry, you are like a guru driving the darkness away from those who are in illusion.
Name deleted by request
The author replies: Perhaps there is value in my books, but I am merely the postman, delivering the facts as I have discovered them. My books contain inaccuracies, but overall, I think they are as accurate as can be made, at this time, with the resources I had to consult. But I am joyous that some people appreciate my work.
April 23, 2025: On this date in history, one of the conspirators in the 1986 plot to assassinate the dissident Hare Krishna devotee Sulochan dasa (Steven Bryant), provides very important information which was not known until now.
We all know, from newspaper articles, trial transcripts, and even the New Vrindaban publication "Brijabasi Spirit," that law enforcement found Bhaktipada's fingerprints on the $4000 in cash Tirtha (Thomas Drescher) carried on him when he was arrested by Kent Ohio police on March 27, 1986.
This cash was given to Bhaktipada a few days earlier in a brown paper bag by Dharmatma (Dennis Gorrick), the director of New Vrindaban sankirtan fundraising, who often had large amounts of cash in his safe. Dharmatma claims that Radhanath Swami sat in the passenger seat of Bhaktipada's vehicle when Bhaktipada came to Dharmatma's Sankirtan House to pick up money.
What we did not know was that Radhanath's fingerprints were also found on the cash. So that means both Bhaktipada AND Radhanath Swami counted the currency. This implicates Radhanath Swami without question in the murder of Sulochan.
Why was this information about Radhanath's fingerprints on the bills not mentioned by the prosecutors? Because they were focused only on putting Bhaktipada in prison. They were out to get The Swami (the head swami). They didn't care about the others involved in the plot.
What the prosecutors may not have known, was that Bhaktipada DID NOT order the murder of Sulochan. Radhanath Swami ordered the murder. Radhanath was very, very lucky. He got away scot free, and it was Tirtha and Tapahpunja who had to go to prison for the murder. Bhaktipada was never convicted of participating in the murder. There was no evidence. (Except for Tirtha's made-up story which he invented for the August 1994 Grand Jury, 8 years after the murder.)
Krishna Katha, a disciple of Ramesvara Swami, who assisted Tirtha in tracking and hunting Sulochan in Los Angeles prior to Sulochan's murder, in a comment on my Facebook page, claimed: "[When I was questioned regarding the murder of Sulochan] The detectives in Los Angeles told me that Radhanath's fingerprints were found on the money carried by Tirtha when they arrested Tirtha . . . [when he was] about . . . to flee the country. jus sayin'."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
April 24, 1985: On this date in history, "New Vrindaban News" publishes Bhaktipada’s request to Murti dasa, head of the New Vrindaban Planning Department, that he draw “money trees” (in the Vedas known as Kalpavriksha, the divine wish-fulfilling tree) into the Krishna Land master plan.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 64.
April 25, 1969: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada admits it is not possible for all his disciples to become Krishna conscious. However, he explains, “But if there is one moon in the sky, that is sufficient to eradicate the darkness. You don’t require many stars.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 25.
April 25, 1974: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada visits the famous Venkatesvara Temple in the Eastern Ghats mountain range of Andhra Pradesh. The temple is designed in the South Indian architectural style and is believed to have been constructed over a period of time starting from 300 CE. The temple is dedicated to Venkateswara, a form of Vishnu, who is believed to have appeared on the earth to save mankind from trials and troubles of Kali Yuga. Venkateswara is known by many other names such as: Balaji, Govinda, and Srinivasa. During his visit, Prabhupada asks his disciple Vishakha devi dasi (Jean Papert Greisser)—a professional photographer and wife of cinematographer Yadubara dasa (John Greisser)—to take photographs of the Tirupati guest houses and send them to Kirtanananda Swami, to help him make New Vrindaban into a world pilgrimage site. Kirtanananda Swami claims Prabhupada personally writes to him and requests him to make New Vrindaban like Tirupati.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 74.
Venkatesvara Temple of Tirumala (Tirupati)
Venkatesvara Temple of Tirumala (Tirupati)
Balaji, the presiding deity of the Venkatesvara Temple of Tirumala (Tirupati)
Balaji, the presiding deity of the Venkatesvara Temple of Tirumala (Tirupati)
April 25, 2023: On this date in history, the author has a conversation with a disciple of Radhanath Swami. As an introduction, the author notes, "Pilate asked Jesus of Nazareth 'What is truth?' If anyone is interested, here is a conversation I had with a Radhanath Swami follower/disciple. I think she and I have different definitions of 'truth.' In addition, she believes religious leaders like Radhanath are exempt from the codes of morality/criminality which the rest of us are subject to."
KD: Hare Krsna, I wanted to ask you why you wrote this book Killing for Krsna? I don’t know whether about Radhanath Swami you are telling the truth or not, even if what you write is true what is the purpose? He is helping so many people to change their habits (eating meat, taking intoxicants, etc.), he is bringing them closer to Prabhupada and Krsna, but by reading your book they would go away forever—is that your purpose?
HD: Thank you for your inquiry, KD. Perhaps I might ask you a similar question. I was a disciple for 15 years of Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada. He helped so many people to change their habits (eating meat, taking intoxicants, etc.), he brought them closer to Prabhupada and Krishna, but should I not have rejected him as my spiritual master when I discovered he had been, for many many years, secretly abusing boys and teenagers sexually to satisfy his lust? Should I have continued to serve him, to chant, “Jaya Bhaktipada!” and worship him?
KD: Yes, you did very well to leave such a person, but Radhanath Swami seems to me very different from Kirtanananda. Radhanath, in those days, was very young and inexperienced and lived in a place surrounded by very fanatical people. Everybody was convinced that Kirtanananda was a pure devotee (Prabhupada’s successor), and this Sulocana das wanted to kill the pure devotee, his life was in danger and he had to be defended... And in his fanaticism as a young devotee he was convinced that he was acting right.... They would have done that [assassinate a demon] for [to protect] Prabhupada as well. If it had been necessary... I don’t agree with this violence, it could have been done differently. But what I want to say is I have known Radhanath Swami for 25 years and he is a good, sensitive selfless person, he would not hurt a fly, he is not a vice murderer or he is perverted like Kirtanananda, but due to bad association he was involved in murder When he later found out who Kirtanananda really was he left the movement and went away
HD: So please convince Radhanath Swami to admit his participation and apologize. You know as well as I, by the story of Amburish Maharaja and Durvasa Muni, that one can NEVER find peace or atonement if one does not apologize to the victim. Radhanath has lied and blasphemed those devotees who spoke the truth and told about Radhanath’s involvement in the murder. How can anyone trust a liar? Do you think Radhanath can hide forever? Do you think Krishna will not eventually reveal the naked truth for all to see? Better that Radhanath admit rather than deny. In this way, HE IS NO BETTER THAN KIRTANANANDA!
KD: I have never heard that he speaks ill of the devotees who accuse him, give me the evidence. To admit now would be a disaster, many would leave the spiritual life, too much time has passed, to tell the truth now would only do damage to the sermon, to Srila Prabhupada’s movement
HD: Radhanath has stated, “As far as what Janmastami dasa has written on the Internet, every single allegation against me is totally false. I was not involved in any criminal activity. On a personal note, I have nothing against Janmastami Prabhu and only wish the best for him.” This is a lie. Janmastami’s allegations are not totally false. My question is: Is ISKCON today REALLY Srila Prabhupada’s movement? Radhanath should have thought about this BEFORE he had tens of thousands of disciples. “The truth should be spoken in a straightforward way, so that others will understand actually what the facts are. If a man is a thief and if people are warned that he is a thief, that is truth. Although sometimes the truth is unpalatable, one should not refrain from speaking it. Truthfulness demands that the facts be presented as they are for the benefit of others. That is the definition of truth.”—Srila Prabhupada. But of course, you and I have different opinions. I believe a religious movement should be based on truth, not lies, but apparently you believe otherwise. That is okay. Everyone is entitled to their beliefs.
KD: I also that truth should be constructive, not destructive
HD: As you like. I prefer honesty. Sometimes one must destroy the perverted reflection before one can establish the true path.
KD: But I see that you struggle to understand this. This “truth” would destroy the faith of so many new people—what good does it do?
HD: In my opinion, faith should be based on truth, not on lies. No? All these other people, if they are sincere, they can still follow their spiritual master, IF HE ADMITS HIS FAULTS AND BEGS FORGIVENESS! If he continues to hide his faults and criminal past, he is no better than a thief, in my opinion. I knew Radhanath when he was Radhanath dasa Brahmachari living in the Vrindaban Farm at New Vrindaban. We always had a cordial relationship. In Killing For Krishna, I beg him to tell the truth and become an honest disciple of Srila Prabhupada.
KD: Their lives are being based on Srila Prabhupada's teachings and not on lies
HD: Then why do they worship a liar? Do they chant Radhanath Swami’s name?
KD: We lose ourselves caring for them every day
HD: Thanks for sharing your thoughts, my friend! I have enjoyed our correspondence. It is late here in California, and it is past my bedtime. Thank you again, Hare Krishna, and take care.
KD: Thanks! Hare Krsna! Jay Srila Prabhupada! We are in the hands of Krsna.
Radhanath Swami
April 25, 1976: On this date in history, during an istagosthi at the Vrindaban brahmachari ashram, Kirtanananda Swami explains the Gaudiya-Vaishnava conception of guru worship, “The spiritual master is offered worship, just like God, but if he starts to think, ‘Yes, I deserve this worship; they are finally recognizing me for what I am,’ immediately he’s dog. It is dangerous. The spiritual master has to accept the worship of his disciple, but he is always thinking, ‘What a fool I am.’”
Regarding dogs, three months later, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explained, “Misunderstanding. The whole civilization, the modern civilization, is going on misunderstanding. Dehatma-buddhi—just like cats and dogs. Suppose if you become very proud, ‘I am Englishman. Why you have come here?’ As the dogs bark, ‘Row! Row! Why you have come?’ So where is the difference? What is the difference? He's thinking ‘I am dog,’ you are thinking ‘Englishman,’ I am thinking ‘Indian.’ There is no difference. So if we keep people in darkness of dog’s mentality, and declare we are advanced in civilization, most misguiding.”—Radio interview (July 27, 1976)
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 296.
Late April 1986: On or around this date in history, Sulochan (Steven Bryant, who has been in the Marshall County West Virginia Jail on an illegal firearms charge for a two months), drives to his parents' house in Royal Oak, Michigan. Tirtha (Thomas Drescher, New Vrindaban's chief enforcer) and his non-devotee friend Randall Gorby drive to Michigan and spy on the Bryant residence. Gorby pastes a Snoopy bumper sticker (standard picking paraphernalia) on Sulochan’s van, to let Sulochan know that he is being watched.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 284.
Snoopy bumper stickers printed at Palace Press.
April 26, 1992: On this date in history, two interfaith members of the City of God, Aravinda and Ariel Fawley, sue New Vrindaban for $25,000. They claim Bhaktipada reneged on his promise to sell them the house on Palace Road (formerly Dharmatma’s sankirtan house) after they had already invested $25,000 in renovations to create a Marian retreat center. During a 2003 telephone conversation with the author, Ariel said, "I came to a clear understanding that he could not be trusted. He lied to me, and he never apologized to this day. Even PK Swami called me up last year (in 2002) and apologized for betraying us, but not Bhaktipada."
Bhaktipada's "City of God," was actually a "City of Fraud," as noted by interfaith member Rev. George David Exoo, a Unitarian Minister who became charmed by Bhaktipada's vision for an interfaith community, but who left after rocks had been thrown onto his roof, his windows broken, and his life threatened. He had dared to suggest that the spiritual leader of the community was not leading spiritually.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, pp. 73-74.
City of God Interfaith members Aravinda and Ariel Fawley.
City of God Interfaith member and Unitarian Universalist Minister Rev. George David Exoo (February 1991).
April 27, 1991: On this date in history, during the heyday of the New Vrindaban English lyrics-Western Classical Music-Interfaith era with pipe organ and orchestra accompanying the morning service with celestial meditative music, the traditionalists at New Vrindaban begin agitating to perform more Sanskrit/Bengali kirtan with kartals and mrdanga in the temple. Bhaktipada (under house arrest in Warwood, West Virginia) chastises the rebels during a noon lecture by speaker phone to the temple:
“Why not think of me and what I like? Isn’t that what Krishna consciousness is really about? Isn’t that what love is about? . . . Once we have determined to love Krishna, or his representative, the spiritual master with our whole heart, with all we’ve got; the pleasure of the beloved is the only reward we want, not this or that. There is no interest in anything material; not Bengali kirtans, not American bhajans, nothing but the pleasure of the beloved.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 56.
To hear one of the songs from the English/Western morning program, go to YouTube
Some devotees begin rebelling against Bhaktipada’s Western Music Program. Kirtan at the RVC temple: Unkown black devotee, Kevala Bhakti, Radhanath Swami, Rupanuga, Nityodita Swami, Sri Galim.
Bhaktipada relaxes and gives darshan to his disciples and followers in the temple room at his house following the evening service.
The City of God Temple Orchestra (c. 1990).
shocked April 1984: On or around this date in history, Sulochan sets up a little workshop on the third floor of the Bahulaban Utility Building to manufacture pendants for his jewelry business. He writes a flowery homage for his siksa guru, His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, which is published in Bhaktipada's 1984 Vyasa Puja book. During his time at New Vrindaban he purchases two firearms from a New Vrindaban resident.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, pp. 22 and 38.
Sulochan and his two sons (c. mid-1980s).
April 1986: On or around this date in history, Bhaktipada’s third book, "Eternal Love: Conversations with the Lord in the Heart," is published. Between 1984 and 2009 two dozen books by Bhaktipada are published.
One year earlier, in 1985, Bhaktipada coined the word “Krishna-ize”—to take a classic work of Western literature, poetry or vocal music and rewrite it to express the Vaishnava perspective. His first attempt in this genre was rewriting the Christian devotional classic Imitations of Christ by Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471). Kempis was a German priest whose Imitation (c. 1427) is perhaps the most widely read devotional work next to the Bible. In this book Kempis focused on the interior life of the devotee and withdrawal from the world. He place a high level of emphasis on devotion to the Eucharist as a key element of spiritual life.
Bhaktipada titled his book “Eternal Love: Conversations with the Lord in the Heart.” To Krishna-ize a literary masterpiece was not simply a matter of changing a few words here and there, for instance, by changing all the occurrences of the word “Christ” into “Krishna,” or “Eucharist” into “the Holy Name.” A great deal of thought was involved. To better appreciate Bhaktipada’s creative adaptation during his Krishna-ization process, let us examine a brief comparison of one chapter from Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ and one chapter from Bhaktipada’s Eternal Love. Kempis’ fourth book is titled “Concerning the Sacrament: A Devout Exhortation to the Holy Communion.” Bhaktipada compared the Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist to the Krishna devotees’ practice of chanting the holy names.
Imitation of Christ—The Fourth Book, Chapter One:
“With How Great Reverence Christ Ought to Be Received”:
The voice of the disciple: These are thy words, O Christ, the everlasting truth, though not spoken all at one time, nor written in one and the self-same place. Because therefore they are thine and true, they are all thankfully and faithfully to be received by me. They are thine, and thou hast spoken them; and they are mine also, because thou hast spoken them for my salvation.
I cheerfully receive them from thy mouth, that they may be the more deeply implanted in my heart. Those so gracious words, so full of sweetness and love, do encourage me; but mine own conscience driveth me back from the receiving of so great mysteries. The sweetness of thy words doth encourage me, but the multitude of my sins doth weigh me down.
Thou commandest me to come confidently unto thee, if I would have part with thee; and to receive the food of immortality, if I desire to obtain everlasting life and glory. “Come unto me,” sayest thou, “all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.”
O sweet and loving word in the ear of a sinner, that thou, my Lord God, shouldest invite the poor and needy to the participation of thy most holy body! But who am I, Lord, that I should presume to approach unto thee? Behold, the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, and thou sayest, “Come ye all unto me.”
Eternal Love—Meditation 98: “Chant the Holy Name”:
The Soul: Your words are very sweet and wonderful, O Krishna, and I totally accept whatever you say. Since they are your words, they are identical in all respects with you. They are also mine, for I desire to keep them always in the core of my heart. Your compassionate call enlivens my soul and makes me eager to approach you, but the remembrance of my sins and callous rebellion frightens and oppresses me and makes me hesitate to approach your holy name.
You invite me to come confidently and chant your name feelingly. If I do so, the whole Spiritual Sky will open before me. “Do not fear,” you say. “I will give you protection.” O how mercifully such words fall on the ears of a sinner! Freedom, existence eternal, blissful life with you! But who am I, O Govinda, that I should dare approach your holy name? Approaching your name is no different from approaching you. Even the controllers of time and space, the creators and destroyers of cosmic phenomena, are afraid to approach you. Yet you say, “Do not fear, my child, chant and be happy.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 15.
Cover of Bhaktipada’s book, Eternal Love (1986), a Krishna-ization of Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471).
April 28: April 1984: On or around this date in history, the award-winning Indian architect Padmasri Muthu Muthiah Sthapathi comes a second time to visit New Vrindaban; during this visit he designs the Maha Dwaram Gate, the 75-foot-tall gateway to the proposed great Temple of Understanding. (Seen to the left of the temple in the image below.)
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 205.
Padmasri Muthu Muthiah Sthapathi receives the “Padmashri Award” from Sri Ramaswamy Venkataraman (1910-2009), the 8th president of India (1987 to 1992).
Artist’s painting of the proposed Great Temple of Understanding at New Vrindaban
Artist’s rendition of the proposed Great Temple of Understanding, showing the main tower (Vimana) and at top right, the Great Gate (Maha-Dvaram) by the reflecting pool.
April 1986: On or around this date in history, Devamrita Swami (originally Lee Reynolds, later changed to Jay Matsya)—an ISKCON preacher who had previously served ISKCON in Eastern Europe under his sannyasa guru Harikesh Maharaja—comes to live at New Vrindaban and serve Swami Bhaktipada. He serves for seven years, as temple president and sankirtan leader. The sankirtan devotees lauded him as “The General.” A few collected Devamrita’s lectures and published them.
However, the grhasta devotees dubbed him “The Great Manipulator.” Fortunately for me, I did not have much association with him. Once, on the weekend pick, I rode in the back seat of a vehicle to a New Vrindaban SKP outpost in Ohio. Cincinnati, I think. We left New Vrindaban around sunset. It was a 3-4 hour drive. My godbrother Siksastaka drove the car. Devamrita sat in the passenger seat. After a while I tried to lay down and sleep in the back seat, but Devamrita was playing jazz cassettes on the auto’s cassette player, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, etc. at FULL BLAST VOLUME! I found the volume painful in the back seat, as I needed to sleep, I got a splitting headache from lack of sleep and the intense volume of the music, but I didn’t say anything, as I understood that he was probably playing the music full blast to keep our driver from falling asleep at the wheel.
Another time, around September 1987, Devamrita called me into his office and started asking questions about my intimate relationship with my recently-married 21-year-old Indian wife. I didn’t think it was any of his business, he being a sannyasi, after all. After questioning, I told him we had not had any intimate relations, although we had been married about 15 months. (She lived with a godsister in a room in the temple, and I lived in the music room in the lodge.)
He threatened me, “If you don’t start fulfilling your duties as a husband, you will undoubtedly start molesting young boys.” I was quite shocked. I had heard that our former school headmaster, Sri Galim, had been accused of sexually abusing boys at the Nandagram School. But I couldn’t imagine myself being sexually attracted to boys. I liked attractive women.
Anyway, while talking to Devamrita Swami in his office, he frightened me with his prophecy about young boys, and as I was at the time still rather submissive to temple authorities, my wife & I began having relations. Our daughter was born in June 1988. My marriage was certainly not the greatest; it was an arranged marriage, and I refused to marry this Indian girl at first, but later thought, “My spiritual master knows Krishna, and Krishna must be speaking through him when he told me to marry this girl, so I guess it is best for my spiritual life if I marry her, although she’s really not my type.”
Sometimes I felt regret marrying her, and due to my immaturity, I sometimes said mean things to her. I even wrote a series of mean-spirited articles which were published in the “Brijabasi Spirit” titled “Deep In the Well,” which expressed my deep frustrations regarding our marriage. I showed the first installment to Bhaktipada. He read it, laughed out loud, and said, “Tell Garga Rsi to print it!” Garga Rsi was the editor of the “Brijabasi Spirit.”
Although I mentioned no names in my articles, everyone knew that the story was about my wife and I. After a few articles were published, Garga Rsi told me they would not publish any more articles from my “Deep In the Well” series, as the New Vrindaban women put pressure on him to stop publishing my series, which was denigrating to my wife.
About a year after we got married, I fell in love with our star soprano in the New Vrindaban choir. We never did anything, not even hold hands, but it seemed everyone at the community saw that we were crazy for each other, and it caused a scandal. In the summer of 1988 I finally told Bhaktipada, “I can’t live in the same community with R. devi dasi. She’s gorgeous, she’s sweet and submissive, she says she loves me, and I love her. I think of her day and night, even when I'm in bed with my wife. Please ask her to leave, so my mind can be peaceful again. Out of sight, out of mind."
Bhaktipada ordered her to leave. I think she was devastated as she loved New Vrindaban.
Devamrita served at New Vrindaban about seven years, until Bhaktipada kicked him out in October 1993. Even though he was kicked out, he still led New Vrindaban’s Far East sankirtan pickers for possibly another year, as those devotees serving thousands of miles from New Vrindaban, did not know that Bhaktipada had kicked him out. Where did those hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of dollars go? Into Devamrita’s private bank account?
P. S. After the Winnebago Incident I rejected Bhaktipada as my spiritual master, and my marriage lost its foundation. After many months, I finally decided, “If I’m going to be married, I want to be married to a person whom I want to be married to.” My Indian wife & I were divorced in 1995.
I went to visit R. who was now living in California, but she was seriously romantically involved with the president of the company she worked for, so I was out of luck.
When I began dating women again, I discovered something interesting and unsettling: it appeared to me that all the women I dated were emotionally more mature than me. I then realized that my emotional development had been stunted for 16 years while serving as a disciple of Swami Bhaktipada. We were taught to repose all our affections on the spiritual master. Affection for friends, wife, children, and society were impediments on the path of Bhakti Yoga, as taught by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and repeated by Swami Bhaktipada. I truly imbibed this mentality; my spiritual master was my life and soul. No one or nothing else was important. Only the spiritual master. We were not allowed to develop normal emotional relationships.
Today, thirty years after leaving New Vrindaban and the Hare Krishna cult, I believe my emotional age has caught up with my physical age, and now I have a wonderful relationship with a wonderful woman. We seem to be very compatible. I suppose all is well that ends well.
Images: Two photos of Devamrita Swami, including one where he's wearing his far out Far East outfit, and one photo of the author with R. devi dasi.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 6, p. 322.
Devamrita Swami
Devamrita Swami
R. devi dasi and the author (Encinitas, California, February 1994)
April 30: April 1986: On or around this date in history, Bhaktipada moves into his recently-constructed new home located between McCreary’s Ridge and the Vrindaban farm. The teenage boys move into the ashram in his house. No adult supervises them; they are under Bhaktipada’s personal supervision. The Brijabasis think that the boys are incredibly lucky to have such close proximity to the “pure devotee spiritual master.” The house was abandoned around 1993 when Bhaktipada moved to his Silent Mountain retreat in an abandoned limestone quarry near Littleton, West Virginia. The house was destroyed, I heard, in 2025.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 359. Image: BhaktipadasHouse
April 30, 2024: On this date in history, Yours Truly meets with the author and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Southern California Riverside, Amanda Lucia, and sells her a set of his Hare Krishna history books. Henry explains, "Back in the day at New Vrindaban (1980s), I was known as the 'Prince of the Pick,' due to my expertise at getting people to part with their money. I guess I haven't lost my touch!"
Henry continued, "All joking aside, actually Amanda (who is a charming and fascinating person) says she's writing a book which includes a chapter on my former spiritual master Kirtanananda Swami, and she wants a set of my books for reference purposes. Thanks, Amanda! I hope these books find a prominent place in your personal library. Happy reading!"
Amanda Lucia and the author.
Amanda Lucia
May 1, 1991: On this date in history, Bhaktipada hires the law firm of high-profile attorney Alan Dershowitz—a well-known criminal law professor at Harvard University who successfully defended celebrated and wealthy clients such as Claus von Bülow, Mike Tyson, and O. J. Simpson—with a $100,000 retainer and $495/hour rate. On the same day, Bhaktipada calls Nityodita Swami, one of the leaders of the New Vrindaban Bengali kirtan faction, “a pain in the ass.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 58.
Attorney Alan Dershowitz
Nityodita Swami
May 1, 2025: On this date in history, The Swami Bhaktipada Archives at the West Virginia University West Virginia & Regional History Center in Morgantown, West Virginia are completely cataloged. It’s been a project several years in the making. Catherine Melillo, an Archives Processing Assistant for the West Virginia University Libraries, reports:
Hi Henry,
Great news! Your collection’s finding aid is officially available on our website. Here’s a link to check it out: Henry Doktorski, Compiler, Records regarding Kirtanananda Bhaktipada Swami and the New Vrindaban Commune.
Please feel free to share this with any researchers who may be interested, and of course, if you notice any factual inaccuracies, please let me know, and I will make sure they are corrected.
Again, thank you so much for all of your help over the phone. It is much appreciated!
The history of this archive is interesting. Henry explains the origin and acquisition of the archives in the Acknowledgments section of his Gold, Guns and God dodecalogy:
MANY KIND SOULS HELPED ME to research, write, edit and publish this book. But instead of writing a long list of names, I single out six very important people—Francis Gerald Ham, Chaitanya Mangala (Christopher Walker), Tapahpunja (Terry Sheldon), Madhava Ghosh (Mark Meberg), Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami (Ronald Nay) and Mathura (Matthew Brian Berresford)’who made this book possible. Without the foresight and wisdom of these people, Gold, Guns and God could never have seen the light of day.
First, I thank Bhaktipada’s elder brother, Francis Gerald Ham (1930-2021), for allowing me to visit him at his home in Madison, Wisconsin, examine the Ham Family Archive, and interview him and his wife Elsie. They were extremely helpful and I am grateful for their support. A few years after my visit, Gerald donated the Ham Family Archives to the West Virginia and Regional History Center at West Virginia University in Morgantown where it will be preserved and protected for posterity.
Regarding the next five people: an explanation is in order. Bhaktipada had a secret archive locked behind bars in his basement at his house, which was meticulously cataloged and cared for by his secretary Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami. I lived in the brahmachari ashram in the basement of Bhaktipada’s house for about a year (1986-87), and I never knew this room existed. The archive contained a nearly-complete collection of Brijabasi Spirit and other New Vrindaban publications. Other items included books, magazines, newsletters, hundreds of newspaper clippings, transcripts of devotee interviews with private investigators, transcripts of several court trials, photographs, negatives and slides, and hundreds of letters from Bhaktipada’s personal correspondence.
However, after Bhaktipada was confined to house arrest in Warwood in 1991, and again later in 1993 after the Winnebago Incident—when he went to live at his Silent Mountain cabin by the stone quarry near Littleton, West Virginia—his house was abandoned. Around this time, RVC Swami was evicted from New Vrindaban for physical and sexual molestation of gurukula boys, which occurred in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Then in 1996, Bhaktipada was incarcerated in prison for eight years. The house was locked up, and I don’t think anyone ever went there.
During this time, probably around 1996, a few young men who grew up at New Vrindaban broke into Bhaktipada’s former residence, vandalized the house, and entered into the secret fortified archive room in the basement. They ransacked the room and strew its contents about in large piles on the floor in the room and adjacent hallway. Items the vandals thought valuable, like large paintings, photographic prints, televisions, furniture, etc., were taken.
Another former New Vrindaban gurukuli, my godbrother Chaitanya Mangala, heard about the break in, went into Bhaktipada’s house, saw the papers and artifacts lying helter skelter and realized that, some day, somebody might want to write a history of the New Vrindaban community. He retrieved the artifacts and brought them to his cabin. Chaitanya Mangala remembered:
You may recall that this period was a free-for-all in New Vrindaban. Like many, including many of the “leaders” at the time, these Gurukulis were grabbing what they could before someone else did the same. In an effort to save the archive, I purchased large cardboard boxes, methodically went through the contents of the room, and picked up as much of the materials I thought salvageable. I also carted away a few filing cabinets as well.
After a few years, Chaitanya Mangala left New Vrindaban in the spring/summer of 2000 and gave the archive to Tapahpunja for safekeeping. About three years later, I think it was during the 2003 Festival of Inspiration, I visited New Vrindaban and spoke to Tapahpunja, who was in charge of the organic garden. I showed him the 300-page manuscript of my New Vrindaban history book-in-progress. Tapahpunja got excited and said he had something that I should see, and he took me up the hill just west of Prabhupada’s Palace, to the big gravel parking lot behind Sankirtan and Ruci’s house (formerly Vahna and Hladini’s house), where Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada stayed during his 1976 visit.
In the parking lot was a semi-truck trailer. Tapahpunja unlocked and swung open the double doors, and we climbed up inside. There, inside the trailer, were dozens of cardboard boxes and metal filing cabinets filled with books, magazines, newspaper clippings, photographs, negatives and slides, and Bhaktipada’s personal correspondence. I felt like I had discovered Captain Kidd’s buried treasure. The artifacts in the trailer were priceless, and some files (as I discovered later) contained confidential (and undoubtedly classified) information which may have been known only to Bhaktipada and his secretary/librarian. Tapahpunja gifted me the entire collection.
Five years later, on March 4, 2008, I visited Bhaktipada at the New York Interfaith Sanctuary a few days before he moved permanently to India. At that time, I asked Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami to let me photocopy his personal collection of New Vrindaban Newsletters (1992-1996) and Srila Bhaktipada Newsletters (1996-1997), publications which he had written, edited and mailed out to Bhaktipada’s disciples.
A month later, on April 10, 2008, I visited Madhava Ghosh (1949-2016) at his home at New Vrindaban. We talked about New Vrindaban history. As I was preparing to leave, he opened a closet, pulled out a large cardboard box, and gave me a complete bound set of the court transcripts from Bhaktipada’s 1991 trial (ten volumes and thousands of pages).
Another devotee who shared with me hundreds of important New Vrindaban publications and documents was my godbrother Mathura dasa (Matthew Brian Berresford), who lived in East Berlin, Pennsylvania and worked as a kindergarten teacher at North Frederick Elementary School in Frederick, Maryland. How did he acquire such a huge archive?
This archive, I believe, came from the basement of Bhaktipada’s house, a couple years before the gurukula boys broke in and ransacked the archive. In 1994, RVC Swami realized that his days of living at New Vrindaban were numbered; the boys he had physically abused and sexually molested at Nandagram in the 1970s, and at the RVC temple complex in the 1980s and 1990s, were now aggressively campaigning to have him evicted from New Vrindaban. But before he was expelled, he managed to retrieve for safekeeping a considerable portion of his master’s personal archive. RVC Swami apparently arranged to bring this substantial collection to New York City where he kept it secret and safe at the Interfaith Sanctuary.
About fourteen years later, when Bhaktipada and RVC Swami left New York City in March 2008 and moved permanently to India, RVC Swami, it seems, entrusted these precious archives to Mathura Prabhu, because he was, at that time, one of Bhaktipada’s last disciples in America who remained faithful to his guru. The collection consisted of hundreds of items: original letters from Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, early issues of Brijabasi Spirit, dozens of cases of books written by Bhaktipada, such as The Illustrated Ramayana, two original type-written autobiographical manuscripts written early in 1966 by Howard Wheeler, and a voluminous collection of Bhaktipada’s personal correspondence.
While browsing through the materials one day, Mathura happened to find a letter Bhaktipada had written to one of the teenage boys he had molested in 1986. In the letter, Bhaktipada explained that actually he never broke any of the regulative principles because he never had an orgasm, and therefore what he did, giving fellatio to the boys, was not really “sex.” Mathura was bewildered by this letter. He had, of course, heard rumors that Bhaktipada had sexually molested boys at New Vrindaban, but RVC Swami had always reassured him that the rumors were rumors; not facts. Mathura, in great distress and confusion, contacted RVC Swami in India by email, who assured him that the letter was “a fake.”
Although Mathura loved Bhaktipada and RVC Swami, how could he believe that this damning letter was “planted” in the archive as “a fake?” It was an original letter with Bhaktipada’s handwritten signature. He began to doubt the alleged holiness of his “spiritual master” and his confidant, and soon lost his faith in his “guru.– Around that time, Mathura contacted me, as he had heard I was writing a biography of Kirtanananda Swami, and he asked me if I would like to come over and see his archives. He told me, “Needless to say, I lost all faith in Bhaktipada after seeing that [letter]. I tossed my beads in the river.”
I drove from Pittsburgh to Mathura’s home in East Berlin, Pennsylvania, on October 6, 2008, and brought my camera and laptop computer. I arrived in the morning; I had never met him before. (He was initiated in 1998, about five years after I left New Vrindaban, probably by a letter from Bhaktipada in prison.) Mathura showed me his extensive collection of New Vrindaban publications and documents, including two unpublished, typewritten autobiographical manuscripts written by Howard Wheeler around 1965-1966. Then he left to run some errands. I was there in his house about six or seven hours, and took hundreds of photos and downloaded them from my camera to my laptop, before he returned home.
Some time after my visit, a loyal Bhaktipada disciple, Prahlambari dasa, came to Mathura’s house and confiscated the entire archive and transported it to an undisclosed location. In a Gmail chat with me, Mathura explained, “And when Prahlambari came, that [damning] letter [by Bhaktipada] quickly vanished. Sadly I’m certain it has [been] burned or otherwise destroyed. He took it all, aside from what I had out of the boxes and was sorting. They moved it all to some secret location, I think offshore: Puerto Rico, I feel. All the boxes they took. All the books.”
Obviously, there were sensitive and confidential materials in the archives and Mathura could no longer be trusted to keep them secret. I am grateful that he allowed me to photograph this archive before it was taken away and possibly destroyed by RVC Swami’s henchmen.
I thank these six people for their generosity and for their vision. I sincerely hope that I have not disappointed them, as I have tried to utilize these resources to present an accurate (as accurate as possible, at least) history of what really happened at New Vrindaban. After my research was completed, I donated the archive I had received to Bhaktipada’s next of kin, his brother Francis Gerald Ham. In turn, Gerald donated the magnificent Keith Gordon Ham/Swami Bhaktipada Archive to the West Virginia and Regional History Center at West Virginia University in Morgantown, where it was added to the Ham Family Archive, and where both archives will be protected for posterity.
To access the Swami Bhaktipada Archives, go to: West Virginia University Archives
May 1, 1989: On this date in history, three days before his trial is scheduled to begin, the sexual child abuse charges against New Vrindaban school headmaster Sri Galim are suddenly and unexpectedly dropped. District Attorney Tom White explains the charges were dismissed due to “technical flaws.”
The abused boy's mother retorted, “There was plenty of evidence; we even had other gurukula boys lined up to testify. We were furious when the district attorney had the charges dropped. He had been paid off, probably by . . . Sri Galim’s father.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 340.
Sri Galim with two unidentified gurukula boys
May 2007: On or around this date in history, Radhanath Swami—and ISKCON devotee Yajña Purusha—visit the Interfaith Sanctuary in Manhattan’s Lower East Side—located only one city block from Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s first ISKCON temple at 26 Second Avenue—and are confronted by Bhaktipada's Malaysian disciple, Krishna dasa (Nark Kumaravelan), who accuses “Radhanath Jack Ass” of trying to take away the building from Bhaktipada and giving it to ISKCON. A video of the confrontation was recorded and uploaded on YouTube, and later deleted.
The six-story building at 25 First Avenue had been purchased by the League of Devotees for $500,000 on September 19, 1994. Bhaktipada named the building at 25 First Avenue the Interfaith Sanctuary and had it renovated with a kitchen and restaurant on the first floor, a temple room on the second floor and guest rooms, offices and ashrams on the upper four floors. Preaching programs included book distribution, prasadam distribution (the Sanctuary Restaurant and Feed America First outreach program), yoga and meditation classes, massage and holistic therapies, and interfaith dialogue.
Radha Muralidhara deities—originally from the Cleveland ISKCON temple, and in 1990 moved to Bhaktipada’s preaching center at 1025 Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint—were formally installed and the Sanctuary was dedicated on August 31, 1997 during the Labor Day weekend Janmastami festival.
In June 2007, select residents, including Bhaktipada and Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami, were given a court order of eviction. News of the legal battle between the rival Hare Krishna groups for control of the six-story 25 First Avenue building was published in the Manhattan newspaper, "The Villager."
Bhaktipada’s followers sued Yajña Purusha and his group and claimed his usurpation of the Interfaith Sanctuary Board of Directors was illegal. One by one, Bhaktipada’s disciples and followers at the New York City Sanctuary lost faith and abandoned their spiritual master.
Around 2010, the property became known as The Bhakti Center (apparently not legally affiliated with ISKCON, as the property is still owned by the so-called League of Devotees). Today the Bhakti Center hosts workshops such as:
Community Japa—Meditative Chanting,
Foundations of Yoga—a Beginner’s Workshop,
Relax and Rejuvenate—a Restorative Yoga Workshop,
Breathe Stretch Release,
Ayurvedic Guide to Spring
Ayurvedic Spring Cleanse—8-Day Guided Kitchen Detox.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 107.
Radhanath Swami
Bhaktipada with disciples and followers at the entrance to the Interfaith Sanctuary at 25 First Avenue, New York City.
Advertisement for The Bhakti Center
Advertisement for The Bhakti Center
May 2, 2021: On this date in history, the author’s book, “Gold, Guns and God, Swami Bhaktipada and the West Virginia Hare Krishnas, Vol. 2: A Pioneer Community,” is published. Patita Pavana, ACBSP (Miles Davis), who wrote the Foreword to Vol. 2, explained:
Henry Doktorski, aka Hrishikesh dasa Prabhu, has established a new territory of scholarly research with his books on “Hare Krishna History.” His writings are meticulously researched, and his style is engaging and intelligent. He is a musician and artist, and that artistry shows in his literary pace. In the future, genuine scholars will consult these books with confidence to see what actually went on during the rise of the first and second generations of the Hare Krishna Movement. These books will sit on the shelves under the Bhagavatams along with "Chasing Rhinos," "Miracle on 2nd Ave," and other genuine records of Hare Krishna History. People will want to know what happened, and here it is in well written black and white.
To read the Foreword to Vol. 2, go to Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2 Foreword.
Patita-Pavana on Hari-Nam in Manhattan (1969)
May 3, 1984: On this date in history, a belligerent confrontation between the Palace manager, Mahabuddhi (Randy Stein), and Kirtanananda Swami occurs. During a New Vrindaban managers meeting, Mahabuddhi dares to voice his opinion and disagree with Bhaktipada, the ISKCON-approved spiritual master who rules New Vrindaban. Mahabuddhi boldly explains that his allegiance is not to Bhaktipada per se, but to Prabhupada.
Mahabuddhi explains, “We are here [at New Vrindaban] as this is Srila Prabhupada’s place, and we are trying to serve him here. We see you, Kirtanananda, as our GBC representative, not as our guru.”
Bhaktipada vehemently counters, “This is my place, not Prabhupada’s. I am the leader here!”
Mahabuddhi answers, just as boldly, “If this is your place and Srila Prabhupada is not here, then I have no business being here. You [Kirtanananda] are not our guru, but our godbrother!”
At this Bhaktipada explodes in a tirade of indignation. The next morning, according to Mahabuddhi, ten Prabhupada disciples—friends and associates of Mahabuddhi—pack their bags, rent some trucks and leave for the Dallas ISKCON temple.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 6, p. 68.
The Palace became a success partly due to the marketing efforts of Palace Manager Mahabuddhi dasa (Randy Stein) (undated).
May 1937: On or around this date in history, Wallace Edward Sheffey (later known as Umapati Swami) is born. In the early 1960s he becomes a close associate of Keith Ham and Howard Wheeler and lives at their Mott Street apartment in the Lower East Side of New York City. He becomes one of Swamiji's first disciples (September 1966). He marries Ilavati dasi, a French devotee, takes sannyasa (May 1987) at New Vrindaban from Kirtanananda Swami, and later becomes a GBC-approved ISKCON guru.
The author interviewed Umapati Swami by email, especially for "Gold, Guns and God," Vol. 1 "A Crazy Man," but I haven't heard from him since 2016, when he sent me a complimentary copy of his recently-published book, "My Days with Prabhupada: A Young Man’s Path to God in the Hare Krishna Movement."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 108.
Umapati (Wallace Sheffey) lectures at the American Center in Paris (1970).
May 4, 1984: On this date in history, at the 110th running of the Louisville Kentucky Derby, the author (known at the time as the “Prince of the Pick” by his New Vrindaban associates), convinces the famed American ABC television sports journalist, broadcaster and author, Howard Cosell, to give him a $5.00 donation. Actually, it was Cosell’s wife who convinced her husband. My godbrother and sankirtan picking partner, Jagat Pate dasa (James Fleming), told the story in the publication called “New Vrindaban As It Is.” Jagat Pate explained:
Once upon a time, not very long ago, it was my pleasure to pick the Kentucky Derby with Hrishikesh Prabhu. The day preceding the Run for the Roses is traditionally one of festivity and a parade in Louisville. That evening, Hrishikesh and myself were working in large hotels. We were chipping away at the upper crust in lobbies and restaurants when, in the plushly-furnished lobby of one such establishment, I beheld an unusual sight.
Across the room sat a gentleman in a lovely high-backed chair, surrounded by his adorning retinue, and his good wife. All of the accompanying gentlemen wore sky blue sports blazers, beautified by their TV network’s sports insignia, as did their lord, and they paid reverential heed to his every word. Upon scrutinizing that worthy assembly, I realized that before me was none other than the illustrious HOWARD COSELL, famed sportscaster, along with his TV sports crew. Turning to my dear brother and the hero of our tale, I informed him of the great personality’s presence. “Naw,” Hrishikesh objected. “But, I’m not joking, just see,” I insisted. Upon my persistence, he was convinced.
Hrishikesh approached the famed sportsman, flanked by his standing protégés, and fell down upon one knee before him, as if in respectful homage. He placed the Derby sticker on Howie’s knee and recited his divine mantra. [“I’m sorry sir, but I have to give you a citation for being with a pretty girl! Rather than go to jail, won't you pay a small $5.00 fine for charity and you can go free?”]
Mr. Cosell attempted to appear as if above the whole experience, although his face betrayed his astonishment. A tense moment followed with the Prince of the Pick and the Sultan of Sports-Speak eye-to-eye in the sacrificial arena. Then Mrs. Cosell encouraged her husband, “Let’s give a little,” [Actually, Mrs. Cosell said in no uncertain terms, "Howie, give the man five dollars! He said I was pretty!”] to which Howie nodded his consent. All the other sportsmen matched his five dollars. Hrishikesh thanked them, [pocketing about $50 for one or two minute's work] and stood.
Finally Mr. Cosell raised his hands, stood, and in a stately gesture, spoke, “You have a good scam going here kid, but there’s one thing you’ve got to learn: You’ve got to take the money and run with it!” to which replied Hrishikesh, while executing a classic “Exit Stage Left,” complete with flailing elbows and shake of the leg, “I’m running!”
Author's note: P. S. That year out on the pick, I got 30,000 people to give me a $5.00 donation! You can do the math!
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, pp. 71-72.
Howard Cosell
Howard Cosell and his wife Mary Edith Abrams Cosell (known as "Emmy")
The Kentucky Derby
The cartoon character Snagglepuss, who helped popularize the phrase, “Exit, stage left!”
May 5, 1976: On this date in history, during a room conversation in Honolulu, Hawaii, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada instructs his disciples that at least in the matter of book selling, the end justifies the means. “Book selling, there is no question of moral and immoral. We must sell. Just like in fighting. Where there is fight, the soldiers, to gain victory, there is no question of moral and immoral. He must gain victory. . . . We want that book selling must be increased as much as possible. This we want. The same principle: let the child take medicine, never mind the father is speaking lies. That is... Because as soon as he takes the medicine he’ll be benefited. End justifies the means. End is that everyone should have a Krishna literature. Doesn’t matter what is the means. Because he has taken one Krishna literature, that justifies everything. This is the principle.”
One of Prabhupada’s disciples who worked the grind at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Bhaktavasya devi dasi, remembered distributing Prabhupada’s books:
There was a fierce competition that year to sell the most books and raise the most Laksmi points. We left the temple just after morning arotik, to catch the 6 a.m. early morning flights and stayed out until 9 or 10 p.m. . . . Book scores were read the next morning after arotik, drum-rolls for the biggest book scores, a tap of the drum and muted "Jaya"s for those at the bottom of the rung. The scores from other competing temples were posted on the bulletin board. Prabhupada was reported as being ecstatic with the results.
No one had the honesty or the heart to tell Prabhupad that the garbage cans throughout the airport were (more and more as the intensity of the ‘cooking the books’ sales culminated) crammed with his books. The janitors dug them out and sold them back to us for a buck each. It’s hard to talk about it now, because I was part of it; the change-up, the shake-down, pressing the palm, paying phony compliments. . . .
Sometimes I imagined myself in old age coming out to the airport pushing a walker, same spot at United terminal, beseeching future generations of travelers to ‘please take one of these books’. I knew I could not keep saying the same lines over and over and over again until then.
The eleven zonal acharyas imbibed their spiritual master’s instructions, perhaps none more so than the ISKCON acharya Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, who explained during a January 1979 darshan, “Ordinarily we don’t break the law, we should not do anything that is illegal. [But] Sankirtan cannot be illegal, no matter what any policeman or government says. Sankirtan cannot be illegal. That is higher law. . . . They may say it is illegal, but it is not illegal.”
What was the result? At 7 a.m. on January 5, 1987, fifty Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service, state and local police agents raided New Vrindaban’s administrative offices, sankirtan house, and printing press building and filled three semi trailer trucks with computers, financial records, filing cabinets, cash, and bumper stickers and baseball caps bearing the names and logos of professional and college sports teams used by the traveling “pickers” to collect donations.
On June 24, 1987, attorneys for 26 major league baseball teams and United Features Syndicate, which represents “Peanuts” cartoon creator Charles Schulz, filed a suit against the New Vrindaban community for illegally using their trademarks in a multi-million-dollar nationwide panhandling operation. United Features requested $50,000 in damages for each violation. The 26 baseball teams requested a total of $27 million in damages. The two suits charged that the community infringed upon their copyrights by distributing caps, buttons and other souvenirs emblazoned with their logos in return for donations.
Two devotees involved in the scam went to prison: Sundarakar (Steven Fitzpatrick), the manager of Palace Press, and Dharmatma (Dennis Gorrick), the director of the New Vrindaban sankirtan pickers. New Vrindaban Community also paid a hefty fine.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 91.
To read Bhaktavasya devi dasi’s book, go to Amazon
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Money is the honey.
May 6: May 1987: On or around this date in history, New Vrindaban hosts a grand parade and chanting party in Moundsville, West Virginia. The parade begins downtown, goes past the West Virginia Penitentiary and ends at the Delf Norona Museum, the site of the ancient Native-American Indian Grave Creek Burial Mound, from which Moundsville is named. The parade is meant to bring attention to what the devotees regard as unfair treatment towards Tirtha and the other new bhaktas in prison by the prison authorities. In the photos we see Bhaktipada, Tirtha's wife, the author, Jyotirdhama and others. Photos by Nelson Hooker.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, “Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7,” p. 175.
Krishna parade in Moundsville, West Virginia (May 1987). Photo by Nelson Hooker.
Krishna parade in Moundsville, West Virginia (May 1987). Photo by Nelson Hooker.
Cultured marble replicas of Radha-Vrindaban Chandra ride in their Rath Cart. Photo by Nelson Hooker.
Malini the elephant and her keeper Tattva dasa (Thomas Reidman). Photo by Nelson Hooker.
Malini the elephant with Varshan Swami and gurukula boy. Photo by Nelson Hooker.
Bhaktipada keeps a low profile in his Cadillac limousine. Photo by Nelson Hooker.
Tirtha's wife: Suksmarupini devi dasi (Suzanne Bludeau). Photo by Nelson Hooker.
Maitreya-Muni, Hrishikesh (Henry Doktorski), Dayasara (Damian Herrod), Devanananda-Pandit (Dennis Moreau), Pavana, Rupanuga (Ramesh Patel), Jyotirdhama (Joe Pollock, Jr) and Premarnava (Charles Clayton, with megaphone) outside the Delf Norona Museum in Moundsville. Photo by Nelson Hooker.
Outside the West Virginia Penitentiary. Photo by Nelson Hooker.
Gurukula children outside the Pen. Photo by Nelson Hooker.
May 6, 2021: On this date in history, the author receives a message:
"I’m so happy! I’m relaxing on my garden hammock starting to read ‘Gold, Guns, and God,’ Volume 2. Looking forward to another great read by Henry Doktorski!"
Barbara Michaels
Bath, Pennsylvania
P. S. Barbara Michaels, a second cousin of Keith Ham once removed, wrote the Foreword to "Gold, Guns and God," Vol. 1.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2.
Barbara Michaels holds her copy of Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2.
Barbara Michaels and her model of Prabhupada's Palace of Gold made from Legos.
May 6, 2021: On this date in history, the author receives a message:
The books of Henry Doktorski are very popular among devotees who “were there.” That is because not only are the books well written, and subject to meticulous research, but Doktorski was also “there.” But, most of all, these testimonies to a period of history are a message to any future egoistical and self-appointed “leaders,” who think that their crimes against Vaishnavas can be swept under the rug and that sins at the lotus feet of Krishna’s devotees carry no repercussions. Let the future generations of bhaktas read these accounts, and let them take note that the eyes of the all-pervasive Supreme Lord are everywhere. As Prabhupada used to say, “Be very careful, you are dealing with Krishna.”
Patita Pavana (AKA Patita Uddharana dasa Adhikari), ACBSP (Miles Davis)
(Initiated September 1968, Santa Fe, New Mexico)
Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
P. S. Patita Pavana also wrote the Foreword to Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, and the Addendum to Eleven Naked Emperors.
Patita-Uddharana dasa with a statue of the famous Bulgarian artist Vladimir Dimitrov (1882-1960), Frolosh, Bulgaria (Spring 2021)
May 7, 1986: On this date in history, Rev. Demetrios Serfes, pastor of Saint Xenia’s Russian Orthodox Church in Moundsville, writes an unfavorable review of Bhaktipada’s book, "Eternal Love," which is published in the Moundsville Daily Echo. Rev. Serfes writes:
Eternal Love has been published to convey that it is a classic of its own time, however to compare its contents to St. John of the Cross and its author gives the reader who is Christian the impression that it is all right to read this book, however at the same time one discovers that the spirituality of this book is quite different. Much of the book Eternal Love consists of anecdotes illustrating the virtues of prominent ascetics that do not believe in the one true Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Where there are general statements by the author, they are giving simply as “sayings,” almost like proverbs, without much attempt at development. If this book was printed to be a “dialogue” with Christians then it has failed to attempt to develop a syncretism of Christianity with Eastern religions, particularly in the realm of “spiritual” practics. After reading this book, I would prefer to read The Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus, and to contemplate of its great spiritual wealth and growth in the Love of the One True Lord God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 87.
Cover of Bhaktipada’s book, Eternal Love (1986), a Krishna-ization of Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471).
May 7, 1987: On this date in history, “Rolling Stone” magazine publishes the author’s letter in response to the April 9, 1987 issue’s feature article by John Hubner and Lindsey Gruson titled “Dial Om for Murder.” The article related stories of drugs, sexual abuse and bodies buried helter-skelter at New Vrindaban. The article also claimed that Bhaktipada authorized the murders of Chakradhari in 1983 and Sulochan in 1986. In the article, Sulochan was portrayed as a manic martyr; a passionate reformer who threatened to expose Bhaktipada’s sins and therefore was assassinated to silence him. In his letter to “Rolling Stone,” the author writes:
“Dial Om for Murder” was a masterpiece of sensational fiction. The truth: Swami Bhaktipada is the martyr, a Christ-like holy man, and not Steve Bryant. Printing a story about New Vrindaban based on testimony from envious former residents is like portraying the Marine Corps from the viewpoint of deserters.—Hrishikesh Das, Moundsville, West Virginia.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 170.
The cover of the issue of Rolling Stone which includes the article “Dial Om For Murder”. Vol. 2.
May 8, 2008: On this date in history, Pittsburgh’s City Paper reports, “The Palace’s exterior, sadly, is succumbing to the elements; the bright paint is flaking and plaster falls away to reveal wire mesh—creating the effect of a slowly rotting amusement park.” This is not surprising, as two years earlier Malati Dasi, the GBC representative for New Vrindaban, stated that the community could only survive by "a miracle."
Update: In 2024 I heard that the buildings and grounds, due to the influx of millions of dollars from fracking royalties, have been repaired and look beautiful.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 28.
Makeshift sign warning visitors to Prabhupada's Palace of Gold to avoid this area due to unsafe conditions.
May 9, 1969: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada arrives at the Columbus, Ohio airport, where residents of New Vrindaban, along with devotees from Washington D. C. and Buffalo and about 200 Ohio University students, greet him. After a short press conference he is chauffeured to the Columbus ISKCON center, which is established and managed by Hayagriva.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 111.
Professor Howard Wheeler (Hayagriva) at his Ohio University office, Columbus, Ohio (c. late 1968 or early 1969). The January 1967 San Francisco Mantra Rock Dance poster hangs on the wall, along with pictures of Krishna and Vishnu.
May 9, 2024: On this date in history, our friend, Evelyne Sheffey (Ilavati dasi) passes away. I knew her when she lived at New Vrindaban in the mid-1980s with her husband Umapati dasa, and late-1980s and early 1990s when she became Bhaktipada's first female sannyasi and known as Ishvara Swami. She moved to Paris to help take care of her elderly mother around 1993. We kept in touch and she contributed much important information which appears in my "Gold, Guns and God," decalogy. During a trip to Paris, France, in 2015, I visited Evelyne at a café on Île de la Cité, an island in the river Seine in the center of Paris.
Evelyne Sheffey (Paris, 2005)
The author with Evelyne Sheffey (Paris, 2005)
New Vrindaban’s first female sannyasi, Ishvara Swami (Ilavati devi dasi/Evelyne Sheffey), accepts her danda, while Gudakesh looks on (November 16, 1987).
May 10, 1973: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada writes to Hridayananda Goswami, “It is a fact that gurukula must be always carefully supervised, it is one of our most important projects.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 220.
Photo from an article in Back To Godhead magazine.
May 10, 1974: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada praises Kirtanananda Swami’s efforts to protect the cows and build a palace for him. He also appoints Kirtanananda Swami to the Governing Body Commission, four years after establishing it.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 77.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada—with his servant Hari-Sari and Kirtanananda Swami, and other disciples—visits his Palace-under-construction (June 1976).
May 10, 1988: On this date in history, New Vrindaban holds a “Day of Prayer for the Earth” in an effort to avert a predicted earthquake disaster. Nothing happens; no enormous earthquake. Some believe that the disaster was averted by the sincere prayers of the devotees.
I happened to be in India with Bhaktipada during this time, and after the predicted date for the disaster had passed, I asked if all the hub-bub was worth the endeavor. Bhaktipada replied something to the effect, "We should just continue to chant Hare Krishna. The Lord will do what he wants to do, regardless of our efforts."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 277.
May 10, 1991: On this date in history, at Bhaktipada’s bail hearing, ISKCON guru and prominent GBC member Ravindra Svarupa warns the judge that if Bhaktipada is allowed to return to New Vrindaban, his presence might incite violence in the community.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 19.
Ravindra Svarupa (William H. Deadwyler, III)
Bhaktipada and the judge at the Martinsburg West Virginia Court House (May 1991).
May 10, 2020: On this date in history, a reader writes to the author:
Hello, Henry-ji.
I had a question as I was reading the last chapter of “Killing for Krishna. “Please tell whether there is any proof that Radhanath, Janmastami, and other members were subpoenaed in 1993. Because Kirtanananda, if I am right, had successfully appealed against the judgment of the first trial that concluded in 1991. Why were they subpoenaed? Please tell in some detail about how Radhanath Swami’s father was able to protect him from the government? He was not a big man! There was no evidence that Radhanath was involved in the plot at that time. There was no witness who would testify against him. So why would he take the help of his father in the first place.
Devotee in Kolkata (Name deleted by request)
Author’s reply: Thank you for your inquiry, Sir. Very soon after Bhaktipada was convicted on Good Friday, 1991, he made a motion to appeal his case. If the motion was approved by the judge, the prosecutors knew if he won his appeal that they would have to try him again in court. As it was, Alan Dershowitz, whom Bhaktipada hired in May 1991, won Bhaktipada’s appeal two years later, on July 1, 1993, as explained in Killing For Krishna.
Janmastami claims that he and Radhanath and Paramahansa-Krishna Swami and Bhakti-Rasa Swami were subpoenaed in Spring of 1993, Janmastami claims that he and Radhanath were asked to talk about the Sulochan murder charges, and PK Swami and Bhakti-Rasa on copyright issues. PK was director of Palace Publishing. At this time Bhaktipada had not yet won his appeal, but even if he had, there is no reason why the prosecutors would not continue their investigation, as they thought if Bhaktipada won his appeal, they would charge him again and try him again in court, which they did in April 1996.
Regarding Radhanath Swami and his father, we do not know what influence Gerald Slavin had/has on Federal Law Enforcement or Investigative agencies. We know, as stated in Radhanath Swami’s autobiography, that Gerald Slavin had become quite wealthy since the 1970s. Wealthy people often contribute generously to political campaigns, such as elections for judges, police chiefs, district attorneys, governors, Congressmen, etc. Wealthy people often have strong connections with political leaders.
Some claim that the father of Sri-Galim (Gary Gardner), a wealthy Texas cattle rancher, sold 100 head of cattle to pay off the West Virginia District Attorney who was in charge of the child sexual molestation case of Sri-Galim to convince him to drop the charges. Mother Kanka, whose son was molested by Sri-Galim, had several boys, including her son, ready to testify at trial that Sri-Galim had sexually abused the boys. However, suddenly and without warning, the charges were dropped. Very strange, in my opinion. Wealth certainly has a great influence on justice in the United States.
Lately it has come to my attention that Radhanath Swami may still be involved with a government agency, perhaps the CIA, as an informant within ISKCON. It is certainly possible, that the United States government in 1993 wanted a spy with a very high position at New Vrindaban, and they may have promised Radhanath Swami that any information incriminating him in the murder of Sulochan, or other crimes at New Vrindaban, would not be used against him, if he became a government informant, as Randall Gorby earlier had been.
Undoubtedly, as he was implicated up to his neck in the plot, as revealed in Killing For Krishna, Radhanath Swami would have jumped at the opportunity to save his neck. A year later, when he rejoined ISKCON as an initiating guru and GBC member, he undoubtedly became much more valuable as a government informant highly planted in ISKCON.
We do not know any of this, but recent events, including a government agent familiar with the New Vrindaban case, has recently approached one of the devotees who participated in the murder plot, and strongly suggested that he keep his nose out of business which the United States government does not want anyone to know about. This devotee has decided to “retire” from his efforts to convince Radhanath Swami to confess his involvement in the murder as he knows he has absolutely no power against the vast wealth of the United States government. He does not want to end up as Randall Gorby, another government informant, ended up: dead. It was officially ruled a suicide, but under extremely suspicious circumstances.
Perhaps Radhanath Swami also fears the United States government. If he is and has been an informant for the last 27 years, he has undoubtedly contributed much information about criminal activities which may be still going on in ISKCON. Maybe he is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If he confesses that he helped in the conspiracy to murder Sulochan, he would certainly lose his favored informant status, and might expect an assassination attempt, similar perhaps to what happened to Gorby.
We can only pray for Radhanath Swami’s deliverance. When I last saw him, he appeared to be in great anxiety, and I expect he is still in anxiety today. Certainly the actual facts regarding the story of the murder of Sulochan are difficult to discern, and it is likely, in my opinion, that Radhanath, Kuladri, and others in ISKCON and the government will take these secrets with them to their graves.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, pp. 22 and 38.
Radhanath Swami
May 10, 2024: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of “Eleven Naked Emperors” on Amazon:
5.0 out of 5 stars Very helpful for an ex devotee like myself. Verified Purchase
I joined ISKCON just after Srila Prabhupada died. I saw several of the zonal acharyas and was convinced to try for initiation by Tamal Krishna Goswami, but left the movement through deprogramming before that could happen. I had never seen Srila Prabhupada so I had nothing to compare the gurus I did see to, but everyone else seemed to find them impressive so I assumed that I was the problem.
My experiences with ISKCON were an important chapter in my life and I’ve spent much time trying to better understand what happened. I even wrote a book about my experiences.
I have so far only read the first half of this book [“Eleven Naked Emperors”] but I’ve found it very helpful. It is not a straight forward narrative, more like an organized list of testimony from people who were involved.
Bhakta Jim
United States
From a review on Amazon
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors.
May 11, 1975: On this date in history, during a morning walk in Perth, Australia, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada instructs his students what is rape and what is not rape. YouTube
May 11, 1986: On this date in history, Sulochan telephones his mother to wish her a happy Mother’s Day. This is the last time Mrs. Bryant hears her son’s voice.
Years later, Helga Bryant recalled, “The last time I talked to him he said he got something for me for Mother’s Day. That was the last time I talked to him. He was a good son.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 285.
Helga Bryant and her Boy Scout son Steven (c. 1966)
May 11, 2020: On this date in history, Monsieur Henri Jolicoeur publishes a video partly based on the author's book "Eleven Naked Emperors." Henri says:
"Today I would like to give some comment on the book by my friend Henry Doktorski called Eleven Naked Emperors. If you would like to know about the conspiracies that did happen at the time that Swami Bhaktivedanta left his body in 1977, you have to read this book."
Henri Jolicoeur (formerly Hanuman Swami, ACBSP)
For hear Henri's video, go to YouTube
Henri Jolicoeur
May 12, 1969: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada shares a program with Allen Ginsberg, beat poet and friend of ISKCON, organized by Hayagriva’s Ohio State Yoga Society at Hitchcock Auditorium on the University campus.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 112.
Allen Ginsberg meets Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Poster by Ohio University Yoga Society promoting "ecstatic illuminations" by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Allen Ginsberg
May 12, 2019: On this date in history, the author receives a letter from a reader:
Subject: Iron Law of Oligarchy
Dear Hrishikesh dasa,
Thank you for all of your thorough research. Your book titled, "Killing for Krishna: The Danger of Deranged Devotion" is a valuable reference. Also, I like how well-rounded and balanced you are!
ISKCON is basically a case study of the Iron Law of Oligarchy, articulated by Robert Michels. Organizations must create bureaucracy in order to maintain efficiency as it expands. Every group contains individuals that are more committed, motivated, and skilled, both technically and/or politically. This “inner circle” functions as paid administrators, executives, spokespersons or political strategists for the organization. Centralization inevitably occurs. A relatively small number of individuals become highly influential.
The objective of this ruling class is to preserve and increase their power by controlling bureaucratic procedures and decision-making processes. It is unlikely that the rank and file members of the organization would have the ability to hold their leaders accountable—the ruling class controls access to information while creating an incentive structure aimed at rewarding loyalty. In fact to obtain accountability, members would be obligated to appeal to a judicial and prosecutorial system that is external to the organization.
Moreover, it is unlikely that members would even be aware that the inner circle is abusive of its power. Charismatic leaders are often skilled at uprooting their followers’ sense of right and wrong to create a compliant set of disciples, while creating a group mind within their organization. Groups are capable of rationalizing far more heinous crimes than any single individual, were he in a state of isolation.
The behavior of the crowd is emotionally determined, not logically or philosophically determined, allowing a leader such as Bhaktipada to convince his followers that even the most improbable statements are true, or that the most egregious deviations from Srila Prabhupada’s principles are bona fide.
Although ISKCON was not organized as a democratic entity, it is my understanding that ISKCON was intended to be decentralized with local temples wielding considerable autonomy. And strictly speaking, the words “decentralized” and “democratic” are not interchangeable. Nevertheless, the factors that drive an initially democratic organization towards oligarchy are the same factors that transform an initially decentralized organization into a concentrated power structure dominated by a ruling class that becomes increasingly corrupt.
I look forward to hearing from you, and I hope this letter finds you well.
Yours in the Service of Krishna,
Suresh Persaud (Chand Prasad)
Maryland, United States
Chand Prasad (Suresh Persaud).
May 12, 2021: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of "Killing For Krishna" on Amazon:
5.0 out of 5 stars. Non-devotee loved this book.
Prior to reading this book I knew virtually nothing about the Krishna community but despite this, I really enjoyed "Killing For Krishna." Factual events are presented in such way that it reads like a mystery as it describes disturbing information concerning this “cultish” religion as well as our legal system. And I have so much empathy for the man who is still in jail for this crime. In the beginning of Killing For Krishna, I thought Tirtha was the “bad” guy, but after finishing the book, I regard him as the hero. Tirtha had integrity, he did what he said he was going to do, what the others manipulated him into doing and it’s apparent that he believed in his spiritual master and thus in his mind he was doing good. The others cheated him in the end. I will be reading the author’s next book, "Eleven Naked Emperors." I’m very impressed with the work and extensive info the author put into the first book.
Cindy Fuchser
Ramona, California
Cindy Fuchser
Jyotirdhama dasa (Joseph Pollock, Jr.), one of the members of the Sulochan murder conspiracy, replied to Cindy Fuchser’s statement in a May 12, 2024 Facebook comment: Tirtha was a patsy for ISKCON leaders who wanted Sulochan murdered. He stays silent to this day and we can only guess why. I personally do not consider him a hero. My opinion is that all who were involved in the murder conspiracy were working for the cabal, knowingly or unknowingly. I do, however, consider the author [of Killing For Krishna, —Henry Doktorski] a hero for having the sheer strength of purpose to pursue the truth among all the lies. This no one else has done. There is a voluminous amount of information to dig through and try to determine what is true.
Jyotirdhama dasa (Joseph Pollock), ACBSP
Richland, Washington
Jyotirdhama dasa (Joseph Pollock, Jr.).
May 13, 1968: On this date in history, Kirtanananda "Swami," after two months without attracting followers to his primitive and rural West Virginia ashram, writes to Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, apologizes for his offenses, and begs forgiveness for leaving ISKCON eight months earlier.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 42.
Kirtanananda "Swami" (Keith Ham) (December 1967)
Vrindaban farmhouse (undated).
May 13, 1974: On this date in history, during a lecture in Los Angeles, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada declares, “Polygamy is allowed.”
During the same lecture, Prabhupada also talks about the traditional Indian system of marriage, “My eldest sister was married when she was nine years old, before my birth. She is the eldest. And my second sister was married at the age of twelve, twelve years. And my third sister was married at the age of eleven years. So by the (indistinct) twelve years, the marriage must be finished. That was the duty of the father.”
At New Vrindaban, Prabhupada’s ISKCON farm community, we attempted to spread the teachings and practices of “sanatana dharma,” the eternal spiritual and material truths from the ancient Vedas, and recreate the traditional Indian system of varna and ashram. In pursuance of this goal, young teenage girls (one as young as eleven) were married to older boys, and sometimes men twice (or in one case, thrice) their age. Prabhupada wrote, “Child marriage is most convenient form of morality.”
When I was 29 years of age, a New Vrindaban father approached me and offered me his 13-year-old daughter’s hand in marriage. I had seen her from time to time at the temple. She was pretty, with long straw-colored hair, and she had a slender waist. At the time (1985), I declined as I was happy as a brahmachari (celibate male student) and I didn’t want to change my ashram, although some of my godbrothers accepted teenage brides.
One eleven-year-old New Vrindaban child bride was married to a man twenty years her senior. She spoke about her arranged marriage, “Then my life changed. I hit puberty and everything at the farm changed for me. I was assigned to a thirty-year old man as his wife, someone whom I had never met. I was eleven years old.”
Another girl remembered her marriage, which she claims was arranged by Radhanath Swami, “My husband was horny, to put it mildly, and he raped me on a regular basis. He wouldn’t stop even when I was laying there crying.”
Finally, after weeks of abuse, this 15-year-old gathered the courage to approach the respected and beloved sannyasi who had asked her to marry this man and tell him about the intolerable situation. She claimed they talked a couple hours and Radhanath promised to fix the problem, but she ultimately concluded, “Nothing changed. He didn’t do a damn thing to fix the situation.” None of the child marriages at New Vrindaban survived, although a few children were produced from these marriages.
Years later, Bhaktipada admitted that he “had many regrets and had made a lot of bad decisions and mistakes,” especially regarding the children of New Vrindaban. It is unlikely that Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada ever apologized for advocating child marriage.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 146.
Old photograph of the wedding of an Indian man and a young girl.
The 14-year-old [above] caught in a reflective moment, was married recently. “She was developing a lot of crushes,” a devotee explained. Her sister, 16, is married and pregnant. “Some children produced here are very special,” the swami says. “The parents’ souls are pure and they attract a pure soul into the womb.” Text by Hillary Johnson; photo by Ethan Hoffman, from Life magazine (April 1980).
What is this pensive girl thinking? Could she be wondering, “I heard the temple authorities have picked a husband for me. Oh crap! Not me! I don't want to marry some gross old coot twice my age. This is horrid!”?
May 13, 1990: On this date in history, the first season of Music at the Palace begins with a concert by the West Liberty State College Chamber Choir directed by Professor Alfred R. DeJaager.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 108.
Music At The Palace advertisement.
May 14, 1976: On this date in history, Hayagriva, after a year or two in Maya enjoying sense gratification, returns to ISKCON. Prabhupada's servant, Hari Sauri Prabhu, remembered the meeting at Los Angeles ISKCON:
Hayagriva walked slowly into Prabhupada’s room, his face flushed and his deep voice trembling. “It’s your old Hayagriva, Prabhupada,” he choked out, and fell sobbing to the floor in full length dandavats. Prabhupada sat behind his desk, silent, but clearly moved by the sight of his sometimes-wayward son.
When Hayagriva got up Prabhupada gave him a garland, and remarked to Radha Ballabha dasa and me how Hayagriva had been sent by Krishna to help him spread Krishna consciousness all over the world. In reply, Hayagriva said that he had never forgotten Prabhupada, not even for a day. Prabhupada was deeply affected by this and said that he also had never forgotten Hayagriva. “I was thinking, has Hayagriva gone away? I was still thinking like that.”
Prabhupada’s voice broke and he was unable to speak for a few seconds. Although he tried to check his tears, still some trickled from the corners of his eyes. Then he tipped his head from side to side, “All right,” he said, and we all left.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 272.
Bhaktivedanta Swami, Hayagriva and other disciples chant Hare Krishna at the Pacific Ocean beach at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.
May 14, 1994: On this date in history, the pro-Bhaktipada publication “New Vrindaban News,” edited and published by Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami, prints a notice that Bhaktipada—currently under house arrest in Wheeling, West Virginia—requests all his disciples retake their vows, including following four regulative principles, chanting sixteen rounds daily (or equivalent), and giving at least ten percent of their income to the spiritual master. He says he will formally renounce those who do not retake their vows.
The author, at the time still living at New Vrindaban although not performing service for the community, had already rejected his “spiritual master” seven months earlier. I had no intention of renewing my initiation vows with a cheater spiritual master.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 203.
Bhaktipada returns to New Vrindaban and speaks to the assembled devotees after two years under house arrest (August 1993).
May 14, 2022: On this date in history, the author receives an email from a reader:
I just finished reading ELEVEN NAKED EMPERORS. Your efforts in writing and researching are extraordinary. Your work is a tour de force. Implicit in it is your coming to terms with troubling aspects of ISKCON and your praiseworthy spiritual growth. Forgive me if my comment is too direct or presumptuous. I admire your accomplishments.
Though I must confess when I watched your videos playing the accordion, I got PTSD from my memory as a child taking forced accordion lessons from Mr. Osmond. I had zero musical talent and the lessons were as painful to Mr. Osmond as they were to me.
Miles Wayne Raucher
Miami, Florida
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors.
May 15, 2022: On this date in history, the author receives a letter from a friend (who incidentally is also an author) who wrote the Foreword to "Gold, Guns and God," Vol. 2.
THE HARE KRISHNA HISTORIAN
Henry Doktorski, aka Hrishikesh dasa Prabhu, has established a new territory of scholarly research with his books on “Hare Krishna History.” Hrishikesh Prabhu was very kind to print my essay on Kirtanananda Swami as a Foreword in Volume 2 of his series, "Gold, Guns and God."
At one point, Hrishikesh was a faithful follower of K. Swami, which explains why he is going to so much trouble to see that the truth gets out there. Although this book is technically gramya-sastra or “town news of everyday affairs,” it is still Krishna conscious. It is not a sensational “tell-all.” From what I have seen in his books, the content still leads to worship of Krishna and to the chanting of His Holy Names. He does not denigrate the teachings of Srila Prabhupada. Rather he holds to them-—which is something that the “leaders” of Guru Maharaja’s movement should have done. Had they done so, then such books could not have been written about them.
His writings are meticulously researched, and his style is engaging and intelligent. He is a musician and artist, and that artistry shows in his literary pace.
In the future, genuine scholars will consult these books with confidence to see what actually went on during the rise of the first and second generations of the Hare Krishna Movement. Unlike the BBT(I) in their trademark haphazard disregard for the rules of scholarship and editing, the books of Doktorski are precisely indexed with exact references to anything written in them.
The Supreme Lord Himself, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has created a vast movement that has covered the world. The Lord’s movement has expanded worldwide, but with great difficulties that have directly been created by inept followers who tried to visualize themselves as spiritual leaders. Therefore, with a growing global movement at hand, the need for accurate descriptions of the past and present progress of the Hare Krishna Movement is important. Hrishikesh Prabhu has answered that need and those who seek spiritual shelter without any fear of being cheated owe him a vote of thanks.
As I said earlier, in the future, scholars will refer to his books with confidence. And, it goes without saying that any devious ISKCON leaders still living can now learn a lesson by seeing what the public actually thinks of their sociopathic blunders. Thus, Doktorski’s contributions are also a stern lesson to anyone who wants to mix personal ambition with a show of spiritual elevation.
These books will sit on the shelves under the Bhagavatams along with "Chasing Rhinos," "Miracle on 2nd Ave," and other genuine records of Hare Krishna History. People will want to know what happened, and here it is in well written black and white.
Patita-Uddharana dasa (Miles Davis)
AKA Patita-Pavana dasa
To read the Patita Pavana's Foreword to Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, go to Foreword
Patita-Pavana on Hari-Nam in Manhattan (1969)
May 15, 2023: On this date in history, a Prabhupada disciple discovers the author’s web page for the book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, and brands the author as a “demon” and an “enemy.” The author explains:
It’s not every day someone calls me a “demon!” One former New Vrindaban resident shared a post of mine about ISKCON history on his Facebook page, “Interplanetary Istagosthi.” At the bottom of my post was a link to Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1. This one fellow read the post, clicked on the link, saw the material on my page, and was horrified. He made the following comment on the post in an effort to warn others not to visit my pages. It just goes to show that you can please all the people some of the time, some of the people all the time, but never all the people all of the time.
Locana dasa, ACBSP, who is well known in ISKCON for sculpting superb murtis wrote:
DEVOTEES BEWARE! Opening up this link to Henry Doktorski’s book will expose you to opinions about Srila Prabhupada and ISKCON that could be construed as outright blasphemy. I innocently clicked on his link and it opened up the dirty details about two of our former prominent ISKCON members; details of which are very contaminating to read about. So, Kirtanananda and Hayagriva had serious addictions. Is that worth writing about—to such an extent? Would Srila Prabhupada ever approve of a TEN volume book on the sordid secret lives of two of his disciples who rendered him valuable service? Not for a second!
Why is Doktorski writing this, really? Money must be the only objective, and tearing down the legacy of ISKCON. IMO this posting should immediately be taken down. Doktorski slyly tempts one to open up his post with the innocent history of Srila Prabhupada’s founding of the League of Devotees, then announces his book at the bottom which is only food for the crows and jackals. And he uses the Holy Name to con you in: “Hare Krishna” historian. He is an enemy of ISKCON, Srila Prabhupada, Lord Chaitanya and all the acharyas. While the sincere devotees are out on the streets blissfully chanting the Holy Names, he is publishing books for the masses entitled, Killing for Krishna, and Gold, Guns, God.
Innocent people are attracted when they see the blissful devotees chanting and dancing on the street, but if they once see the covers of any of Doktorski’s books, would they ever THINK of allowing their children to associate with this movement? He is an enemy, undoing the devoted efforts of Lord Chaitanya’s sincere followers to spread the Prime Benediction for humanity at large. If this group [Interplanetary Istagosthi] was founded for spreading the pure messages of our acharyas, then the presence of such an enemy on here should be stricken from this group without delay.
Henry: He continued with a personal message to my friend who shared my link:
Locana dasa: Hello, you requested that I join your group [Interplanetary Istagosthi] recently, so I accepted your kind invitation. But now I am finding that you are presenting a demon on here who is an enemy of our sacred movement. Please read my response to your posting of Doktorski’s book ads. He is not writing to help our movement become purified, or he would write articles only for the devotional community. No. He is writing to attract the public with salacious graphics, and his extensive detailed descriptions of the sins of these two men only serve to scare people away from our movement. If this is the purpose of your group, I’m leaving it. He is an enemy.
Comment by former ISKCON devotee Steven Gelberg: Henry, there is no mystery in why some devotees will react like that to your books. You are exposing truths that are painful to them and which they’re unable to process within their ISKCON-conditioned minds. They feel their most cherished beliefs and dogmas are under attack. Naturally they will attack back.
Demon
May 16, 1953: On this date in history, 56-year-old Abhay Charan De holds a grand-opening celebration for the League of Devotees at the Bharati Bhavan in Jhansi, India, with continuous readings, kirtan and prasadam (food offered to Krishna) distribution. In the evening, when attendance is greatest, Abhay lectures from Bhagavad-gita. His student and first initiated disciple, Prabhakar Mishra—a university principal, Sanskrit scholar and medical doctor—conducts a fire sacrifice, and brahmins chant mantras from Brahma-samhita. Hundreds of visitors attend and the event is chronicled by articles in local newspapers.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 149.
The League of Devotees in Jansi, India
May 16, 2021: On this date in history, a Facebook friend posts a comment on one of the author's posts:
Regarding "Eleven Naked Emperors," this response is for those who assert, “I am offended by what Doktorski has written.” Actually, I am likewise offended, and I am sure that whatever you and I feel, Doktorski feels thousands of times worse—or why would he have written a dozen volumes of books about cheating gurus? The fact is, the author has worked overtime to compile a series of well-documented historical events—the good, the bad, and all the ugly right there in plain sight.
Indeed, "Eleven Naked Emperors" is actually a form of scripture known as gramya-sastra, or “village news.” People like us who are offended—not by the book but by the arrogance of the players in high places described in "Eleven Naked Emperors"—should know that there is no scriptural instruction that advises anyone to read gramya-sastra. Likewise, there is no injunction anywhere in the sastras that opposes reading gramya-sastra.
In other words, there is no violation of dharma when it comes to understanding the facts of the past, and neither is anyone forcing us to read it, either. However, the fact that each of Doktorski’s books rapidly goes into one printing after another, proves that there is substantial interest by some very intelligent persons in what actually transpired in ISKCON and New Vrindaban while the leaders slept.
As Prabhupada once stated to this effect, “Let them read—it is history.”
In other words, Doktorski’s books are not fiction but fact. They are not “historical novels” or any sort of wishful thinking. Neither is this “mental speculation.” They are not what could have happened or “based on some true story.” Since the facts of the matter are engraved in stone, there is no point in being offended by unchangeable history. The message is “learn the lessons from what happened, and then move on.”
No intelligent person should ignore the stories behind the events of ISKCON’s growth, either. The examples of eleven power-crazed individuals—who foolishly thought that they could do no wrong yet who have wound up on the cover of a book about gurus in the raw—should be a wake-up call for future generations. At the very least, the case of threadbare monarchs in their birthday suits should be a lesson for the more thoughtful and controlled among us. The wise are never afraid to learn from history.
Henry Doktorski, who gave the best years of his life and his vast musical talents to New Vrindaban, has therefore rendered each of us a great service. It is better to learn about the sad destinies of the “fools who rushed in where wise men feared to tread” than to experience the results of arrogance.
In other words, the wisdom of historical vision dictates that it is better to read "Eleven Naked Emperors" than to find one’s self on the cover!
Patita-Uddharana dasa (Miles Davis), ACBSP
Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
Patita-Uddharana dasa with a statue of the famous Bulgarian artist Vladimir Dimitrov (1882-1960), Frolosh, Bulgaria (Spring 2021)
May 16, 2023: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of "Gold, Guns and God," Vol. 1:
Different individuals will draw different conclusions after examining Volume 1 of "Gold, Guns, and God" (GGG1) by Henry Doktorski. GGG1 reveals the filthy lifestyle of Kirtanananda with disturbing clarity. A key inference I drew from GGG1 is that depravity and perversion were deeply ingrained in the psyche of Kirtanananda to such an extreme degree as to make it impossible for him to suddenly renounce his twisted sexuality. In my view, the man described in GGG1 is the same man presented in Volume 2 (GGG2) and all of the remaining volumes. Deeply embedded wickedness, such as the kind chronicled in GGG1, does not suddenly vanish.
Since Bhaktipada Kirtanananda’s basic character did not improve even after meeting Srila Prabhupada, it stands to reason that Kirtanananda founded New Vrindaban with dark intentions. However, the historical evidence Doktorski uncovered is more powerful than mere a priori reasoning. Therein lies an important contribution of GGG2, specifically Doktorski’s insights into the inauspicious founding of New Vrindaban.
When I was a graduate student at The Ohio State University, I attended a class at the Columbus Temple in which Radhanath falsely told us, “New Vrindaban started out as a nice place. Then it became a different place. Now it is a nice place again.” Although Bhaktipada Kirtanananda advertised New Vrindaban as a divine sanctuary, it was a place of perversion from the start.
His is not a story of a benevolent visionary who later became corrupt when he subsequently acquired power. Kirtanananda created an image of absolute dedication to Srila Prabhupada, while also deceiving and disobeying Prabhupada. Kirtanananda’s goal was to move Srila Prabhupada aside.
Suresh Persaud (Chand Prasad)
Maryland, USA
Chand Prasad (Suresh Persaud).
May 16, 2024: On this date in history, the Bhaktivedanta Memorial Library orders a set of 12 books of Hare Krishna history: Killing For Krishna, “Eleven Naked Emperors” and 10 volumes of “Gold, Guns and God.”
For more info, see Bhaktivedanta Memorial Library
May 17, 1977: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada becomes seriously ill and decides to spend his last days in Vrindaban, India. “I cannot speak. I am feeling very weak. . . . The condition of my health is very [much] deteriorating. So I preferred to come to Vrindaban. If death takes place, let it take [me] here.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 196.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
May 17, 2019: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader, a former ISKCON member:
I have completed reading your book "Killing For Krishna." Exceeded any expectations. . . . Overall, I found the [ISKCON] group practices the very things it preaches against. But, in the end, I’ve suffered years of that group nagging me internally, in my mind. Your book helps me get over that hump.
Mark Middaugh
Mesilla, New Mexico
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
Mark Middaugh.
May 17, 2023: On this date in history, a reader posts a comment on the author’s Facebook page:
Chand Prasad—[regarding your review of Henry's Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1 posted on May 16, 2023]—brilliant analysis and spot on. To understand Keith Ham starts with learning about his persona and behaviors prior to meeting Prabhupada. As you point out, meeting ACBSP does not mean a switch turns off and his old habits, impulses, and nature suddenly disappear.
This is one of Henry Doktorski’s great contributions with the GGG Decalogue. We are afforded a thorough exploration of this complex character who disobeyed Prabhupada multiple times since Day One and was even kicked out of the movement more than once. I’ve always noticed—the writing was in the walls of 26 Second Ave.
This may be an invitation to reflect on when we should forgive someone and welcome them back vs. understanding their potential for causing harm and irreparable damage so we stay/keep them away at all cost. It is a difficult predicament and also unfortunate when we explore the history of ISKCON.
The key question is: when to forgive. I have been wrestling with this for a long long time. When is someone bad enough that we should bypass our compassion, understanding, and humanity and completely discard them vs. finding it in our hearts to forgive them, accept that like all of us we are not entirely good or bad, and welcome them back in our lives? Definitely not an easy dilemma.
However, the Keith Ham story proves that there are some clear signs that show past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, regardless of what he said; hence, actions speak louder than words. We may ignore this lesson at our personal and collective risk.
Pedro Ramos
Atlanta, Georgia
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1.
Pedro Ramos
May 18, 1980: On this date in history, Mt. St. Helens in Washington State erupts and darkens the sky over much of the earth with ash. One of New Vrindaban's traveling pickers, Ajeya dasa (Alfred Tarantino, later known as Adi Purusha Swami), later told me he was driving from Seattle back to New Vrindaban on the day of the blast. That night, he parked his vehicle in a rest area along Interstate 90 near Lolo National Forest in Montana, about 400 miles from the volcano.
When he awoke in the morning, he was a bit disoriented. He felt he had gotten a good night's sleep, and he thought the sun should be up, but the sky was still pitch dark. He lay around in his sleeping bag, which he had placed on top of a picnic table in the rest area, and eventually looked at his watch. It was 8 am. He was shocked, as the sun was supposed to rise an hour ago!
He got out of his sleeping back, and he noticed a layer of ash covering his bag (and face). What was going on? He walked to the parking area and talked to a truck driver sitting in the cab of his truck. "Why is is so dark?"
The truck driver responded, "Haven't you heard? Mt. Saint Helens in Washington State blew up yesterday!" The sky remained dark for days.
For more, see Mt. St. Helens
Mt. St. Helens
May 18, 1986: On this date in history, during a meeting at Hayagriva’s New Vrindaban home, Bhaktipada refuses to authorize payment of $4,000 for Tirtha to fly to Los Angeles to “do the deed” (assassinate Sulochan). Hayagriva, Kuladri, Tirtha and Gorby have a second meeting to try to figure out how to get the funds. Bhaktipada leaves for Europe. Kuladri claims that, just before Bhaktipada leaves New Vrindaban, while sitting in the back seat of his Cadillac limousine, Bhaktipada tells Kuladri that Hayagriva can have $2,500.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 288.
Bhaktipada keeps a low profile in his Cadillac limousine. Photo by Nelson Hooker.
Kuladri (Arthur Villa) presides over a New Vrindaban fire sacrifice (1984).
May 19, 1986: On this date in history, Tirtha, goes to the New Vrindaban sankirtan leader, Dharmatma (Dennis Gorrick), and receives $2,500 to continue his hunt for Sulochan.
The previous day, as noted in yesterday's post, at a meeting at Hayagriva's house, Bhaktipada refuses to authorize any money for Tirtha's "surveillance expenses."
So Kuladri, it seems, makes up the story that just before Bhaktipada leaves New Vrindaban for Germany, Bhaktipada authorizes $2,500 for Hayagriva. Undoubtedly Kuladri thought, "Better get this job done while Bhaktipada is overseas." At the morning program, Kuladri tells Dharmatma the sankirtan leader, that Bhaktipada authorizes him to give Hayagriva $2,500.
But Hayagriva does not come to Dharmatma's house to get the money. Instead, Tirtha calls Dharmatma on the phone and says, "I understand you have 2,500 stickers for me." He is referring to the bumper stickers the traveling pickers sold on the pick.
Dharmatma puts two and two together, and figures that Tirtha is coming to get the $2,500 Kuladri told Dharmatma to give to Hayagriva. Of course, Hayagriva was one of the principal instigators who advocated for the murder of Sulochan. Tirtha comes to Dharmatma's house and Dharmatma gives him $2,500. Dharmatma knows the money is for Tirtha to continue his hunt for Sulochan.
Sulochan is presently in California, as related to Tirtha by New Vrindaban intelligence. Tirtha understands his orders perfectly: the demon must die. And Tirtha wants to please his spiritual master and go back to Godhead at the end of this life, as Bhaktipada promised earlier. There would be no loss for Tirtha, and much to gain, whether he succeeds in his mission, or fails.
Tirtha takes inspiration from Bhaktipada's promise, Radhanath Swami's preaching to "destroy the demon," and also from Bhagavad-gita, “O son of Kunti, either you will be killed on the battlefield and attain the heavenly planets, or you will conquer and enjoy the earthly kingdom. Therefore get up and fight with determination.”
Tirtha is ready to "do the deed." Tirtha flies to Los Angeles, and Radhanath Swami also flies to Los Angeles around the same time. Sulochan has only three more days to live.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 290.
Tirtha (Thomas Drescher)
May 19, 1993: On this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, the spiritual leader of the New Vrindaban Community, compares cows’ milk to the Catholic sacrament of Holy Eucharist: the body and blood of Christ, “Milk is our equivalent to wine and bread for the Christians.” Yet six months earlier, thirty cows and calves die at New Vrindaban because he refuses to provide emergency funds to purchase feed.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 153.
May 19, 2018: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
As a former devotee I found "Killing For Krishna" to be a well researched and well written page turner. I can't wait for Doktorski’s next book to come out.
Waldwinthir Elphias Hiedelphuns Gilliwater
May 19, 2019: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Dear Hrishikesh Prabhu,
Hare Krishna!
Please accept my respectful obeisances. Jaya Srila Prabhupada!
Thanks for sharing the message that Prabhupada was warning us of the dangers of bureaucracy, bureaucratic procedures and decision-making processes. Yes, ISKCON was intended to be decentralized with local temples wielding considerable autonomy, but the GBCs misinterpreted the mandate to be the “ultimate managing authority” to become the collective acarya, as Hridayananda Goswami pointed out in his long GBC essay. In at least one country in Europe I hear we are still under the rule of 2 authoritarian GBCs. One of them recently admitted “having done some mistakes” but the meeting when this was spoken was coming to an end, and there was no time for anyone to ask him what were these mistakes, and how he planned to rectify them.
One of the merits of your book, Killing For Krishna, is to warn disciples and followers, especially those of a charismatic leader, to be observant and careful, not blind followers, in other words to think for themselves, a thing which is not encouraged too much in ISKCON. One problem is the guru seen as absolute in all areas and the other, as Chand Prasada, noted, the fact that the behavior of the crowd is emotionally determined, not logically or philosophically determined.
I was also reading again the 420-page book, "The Guru and the Disciple," by Kripamoya dasa. In a very open, honest and tactful way, he discusses many important issues, many of which still largely unresolved in the circles of the Krishna Consciousness movement: the mistakes made by ISKCON leaders and gurus, guru and disciple in therapy, testing the guru, when to leave a guru, etc. I attended the seminar he gave in Mayapur a couple of years ago, and was happily surprised that he was allowed to openly speak on such “sensitive” topics.
I see your book as a healing agent for ISKCON, forcing it to look at its dark side, both collectively and individually. Painful, but necessary. Your hard work did not go in vain, even if it will take much time for its contents to filter through layers of fears, misconceptions, untruths, lies, conditionings and deranged devotion.
Anonymous ISKCON devotee in India
Name deleted by request.
May 19, 2024: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
I read both Killing For Krishna, and one volume of “Gold, Guns, and God.” I’m notorious for buying books and not getting them read, but those were both exceptions! Since I still live near the ashram that I got kicked out of, I put the two books in a plastic bag and hung them from a fencepost at the ashram. I wish I could have been a bird in the tree when they were discovered!
Lynda Sarkisian
Long Beach, California
Lynda Sarkisian
May 19, 2024: On this date in history, thanks to Italian translator Lucia Ballerini, Oro, Pistole e Dio, Vol. 1, an Italian edition of Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, is published.
Lucia Ballerini, who translated Killing For Krishna and Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, into Italian.
May 20, 1959: On this date in history, Keith Gordon Ham graduates magna cum laude as a history major from Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee. Keith subsequently receives a $2,000 Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to study American history in a graduate degree program at North Carolina University.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 21.
Peekskill High School graduation photo.
May 20, 1986: On this date in history, New Vrindaban's Chief Enforcer Tirtha (after securing $2,500 in cash authorized by Kuladri and given by Dharmatma) flies to Los Angeles and rents a car at Ugly-Duckling Rent-A-Car agency at 8:00 a.m. Pacific time.
Tirtha telephones Ramesvara disciple Krishna Katha, who carries a gun and is known as the Los Angeles ISKCON Campus Cop. KK tells Tirtha that Sulochan was last seen heading north on I-5. Tirtha drives north on the freeway in speedy pursuit. Meanwhile, Sulochan visits friends in San Francisco and Berkeley, including his best buddy, Puranjana. When they part, Sulochan prophesies, “I have the sudden feeling that I am not going to ever see you again, Puranjana.”
Sulochan returns to Los Angeles to visit with other friends and say “goodbye,” as he knows he will be killed soon. Sulochan is spotted by Los Angeles ksatriyas. Krishna Katha admitted, “My guru, Ramesvara, said: ‘K. K., if you ever see Sulochan, call New Vrindaban.’ And because I heard that Sulochan may frequent the area, I kept an eye out for his vehicle.”
Tirtha is notified by telephone and begins driving back to Los Angeles. In two days, Tirtha puts 1,082 miles on his rented car.
According to Jyotirdhama and Janmastami, two New Vrindaban devotees also involved in the murder conspiracy, Radhanath Swami, New Vrindaban's most beloved sannyasi, also flies to Los Angeles at this time.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 293.
Tirtha (Thomas Drescher)
Krishna Katha (Jeffrey Breier )
May 20, 2020: On this date in history, a reader comments:
Thanks to Henry for writing his second book about the Hare Krishnas, “Eleven Naked Emperors!” This book helps fill in some chapters not only in the history of ISKCON, but the rise of “Hinduism” in America and and larger cultural trends that resonate with many contemporary issues.
The process of Bhakti-Yoga is the hidden theme all throughout the book, though Henry takes a scientific “just-the-facts” approach, allowing the reader to interpret the facts for themselves. The narrative of the people involved clearly shows the Bhakti-Yoga process of how these men who surrendered to Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada changed their lives based on the teachings of Bhagavad-gita, despite various bad decisions or even criminal activity committed and documented.
Henry’s approach also allows the lesson learned from this “social experiment” to be useful not only for ISKCON or people affiliated with the Hare Krishna movement, but also for students of psychology, Hinduism, spirituality, law, sociology, music, religion, interfaith, American culture, even fields like management and many others can gain insights from a objective history of Kirtanananda Swami, ISKCON and New Vrindaban, and appreciate Henry’s efforts to bring this historical narrative to fruition.
I look forward to reading Henry’s forthcoming grand project of a detailed biography of Kirtanananda Swami and the history of New Vrindaban. And hopefully the third book will allow people under the full scope of the evidence to see how deeply flawed people were still able to come together and accomplish great things that are a chapter in American history.
Continued blessings & success, and hopes that Henry can complete his third book soon!
David A. Calton
Host of the Doooovid Internet Streaming Show
Detroit, Michigan
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors.
May 20, 2021: On this date in history, a reader comments:
I just finished reading “Eleven Naked Emperors” by Henry Doktorski (2020 Edition). I found it so well and interestingly written that I could hardly put it down until I had finished reading it. The book seems to be very well researched—plus, the author brings more than 15 years of personal experience in the Hare Krishna Movement to the table. I was quite amazed how unbiased it is—which is not an easy task. Throughout the book the author offers different accounts allowing the reader to come to his own conclusions. Representatives from any camp get a chance to voice their experiences and opinions, often on the same incident or subject.
Would I recommend reading it? Yes, absolutely. To anyone? Yes, sure.
Apart from some minor nonessential errors that I detected, there is this one thing I have reservations about—but I do not blame the author for it: In his concluding chapter with his suggestions and food for thought it becomes obvious to me that the author (who joined after the departure of Srila Prabhupada) never met His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in person.
There is something about Srila Prabhupada that I find impossible to “explain” or “describe” to the devotees of the younger generation—no matter how many recordings they watched or listened to, or how much they studied his literature. It is something like this:
Being in Srila Prabhupada’s personal presence took you out of this material world, at least for the duration of being with him. Fatigue, hunger, sensual desires, impersonal concepts, attraction to women (and vice versa), fear of death—all that faded almost completely into some far distant background. The self-realized, transcendentally situated pure devotee radiated that energy of the spiritual world to those around him.
Apart from morning walks, room conversations I distinctly remember how it was for me when he picked up the kartals before giving class. When his deep, grave, and nectarean voice filled the room with “Jaya Radha-Madhava” most of us were practically free of any desire for anything else for the time being. What could be more desirable and higher than being in the presence of Srila Prabhupada? It was a feeling almost like “Vaikuntha Can Wait.” I can only guess that was because for those moments we actually were in Vaikuntha.
Experiencing that transcendental reality was only possible in the personal presence of His Divine Grace. That is not to say that a sincere follower cannot attain perfection by just studying his divine literature. It is possible, but certainly not by the aberration and concoctions of the Ritvik-Walas.
Atmavidya dasa (Axel Stoecker)
Zeitz, Germany
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors.
May 21, 1969: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada visits the New Vrindaban Community for the first time. He stays more than a month. He especially enjoys the fresh milk from their cow, Kaliya.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 113.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada at New Vrindaban (May 1969). Photo by Chintamani dasi.
May 21, 1973: On this date in history, during a lecture in Dallas, Texas, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada declares, “Polygamy is allowed.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 146.
The Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII (1886-1967), had 7 wives, countless concubines and mistresses, 34 legitimate children and countless illegitimate children. The Nizam was so wealthy that he was portrayed on the cover of Time magazine on 22 February 1937, being described as the world's richest man.
May 21, 1986: On this date in history, Tirtha—with intention to dispatch Sulochan to his next body—arrives in Los Angeles late in the morning after an all-night drive from the San Francisco environs. Krishna Katha, the Los Angeles ISKCON Campus Cop, shows Tirtha where Sulochan’s van is parked.
Tirtha and Krishna Katha spend most of the afternoon, evening and night silently observing Sulochan’s van. They wait for the opportune moment to "do the deed." Late that night, K. K. leaves Tirtha and returns to Los Angeles ISKCON, but his curiosity gets the best of him, and he secretly returns to the street where Tirtha watches Sulochan’s vehicle. K. K. hides in the shadows, unseen by both Sulochan and Tirtha.
Sulochan doesn’t know it, but he has only an hour or two before he departs from the earth. He parks his van on a quiet street, near the intersection of Flint and Cardiff Avenues, a half mile from the ISKCON Los Angeles temple, opens up his sleeping bag and lays it out in the back of his van, sits in the driver's seat and lights a joint. A cassette tape of the Moody Blues plays on the vehicle's stereo. He undoubtedly thinks, "It's been a wild day, visiting friends and saying goodbye. Perhaps a little weed will help me relax."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 297.
May 21, 2020: On this date in history, the author receives a letter from a reader:
Hi. I’m watching your book reviews on YouTube, and reading your books too. Very nice, your writings. What you say is not against Hare Krishna, but supporting the True. It is a world-wide true, beyond Hare Krishna Movement. But for the faith character, to understand the human behavior: about the lies, perversion. I am a former devotee. I had very nice experiences, but learned to me the worst of the human, too. And reading your book is a kind of therapeutic way. Thank you so much for your efforts.
Francisco Tupy
São Paulo, Brazil
Francisco writes an update:
When leaving the movement, there are a series of doubts and fears about starting a new life, making up for lost time and not making mistakes again. In fact, nothing was as complex or scary as it could have been. But one thing that was cool was getting to know the solidarity of people with the same reality. In this process, Henry Doktorski is more than an author, he is someone I consider a friend, someone I respect and who inspires me through his books, but also through the education and common sense with which he conducted the process and always paid attention to me. Thank you, my friend. (March 21, 2025)
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors.
Francisco Tupy
May 21, 2021: On this date in history, Chand Prasad writes a Review of "Eleven Naked Emperors."
Chand Prasad (Suresh Persaud).
May 22, 1986: On this date in history, at approximately 1 a.m. Pacific time, while Sulochan sits in his van rolling a joint, parked near the Los Angeles ISKCON temple, Tirtha sneaks up to Sulochan’s rolled-up driver’s side window, and says "Chant Hare Krishna, because you're about to die."
Tirtha fires his Star Model P .45 caliber hand gun through the rolled-up driver's side window, shatters the glass, and hits Sulochan twice in the head at point blank range. Tirtha runs to his rental car parked nearby, speeds off, drives to LAX International Airport, ditches his rental car, calls New Vrindaban, and flies from Los Angeles to Dallas, then to Cleveland. He then heads to his apartment near the Cleveland ISKCON temple, or to his home in a trailer park near Ravenna, Ohio (about 50 miles south of Cleveland) to sleep.
For more about this, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 305.
Police photograph of Sulochan’s lifeless body at the Los Angeles morgue (May 22, 1986).
May 22, 1991: On this date in history, while incarcerated at the Eastern Regional Jail in Martinsburg, Bhaktipada criticizes the New Vrindaban devotees for poor attendance at the worship services.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 59.
Bhaktipada in prison.
May 22, 2018: On this date in history, a Memorial Service for Sulochan is held at Cheviot Hills Park in Los Angeles on the 32nd anniversary of his death. The service, held under a huge banyan tree in the picnic area of the park (a few miles from the ISKCON temple), began at 3 pm and ended around 5:30 pm. Godbrothers in attendance sang the “Song for a Departed Vaishnava,” offered flower petals to the pictures of Srila Prabhupada and Sulochan dasa, recited oral tributes and honored prasadam. The memorial service was repeated five days later on Sunday, May 27.
Speakers at the memorial service included Mahatma dasa (Mario Pineda, the organizer of this event), who joined ISKCON in September 1977 and was initiated on May 22, 1986 (coincidentally on the same day Sulochan was murdered) as a ritvik disciple of Srila Prabhupada by Bhaktisvarupa-Damodara Goswami; Dharmabhavana dasa (ACBSP), who flew in from Dallas to attend the service; Bhakta Marcos, a devotee who lived at the Frederick Street temple in San Francisco for six weeks during the summer of 1967, and Henry Doktorski, the author of Killing For Krishna, a book about the conspiracy to murder Sulochan.
A souvenir booklet was produced for the memorial service which included tributes by Nori Muster, formerly Nandini devi dasi, a disciple of Ramesvara, secretary to Mukunda Goswami in the ISKCON Public Relations Office, Assistant Editor for ISKCON World Review, author of the book “Betrayal of the Spirit,” and friend of Sulochan; Kailasa-Chandra (ACBSP), initiated in 1972, who became disillusioned with the eleven zonal acharyas and challenged them in Vrindaban, India, in 1979, after which he was shunned by the Society. In 1985 he became editor for Sulochan’s book, “The Guru Business.”
Others who presented tributes were Bhakta Eric Johanson (formerly Vrindaban-Chandra Swami—a disciple of Hamsadutta Swami), who served as Kailasa-Chandra’s secretary for 26 years; and Janmastami dasa (John Sinkowski), a former disciple of Kirtanananda Swami who hunted for Sulochan in California, in the company of the hit man Tirtha dasa (Thomas Drescher), during January and February 1986.
Mahatma dasa (Mario Pineda), Dharmabhavana dasa, Bhakta Marcos and Henry Doktorski at the 2018 memorial service for Sulochan dasa.
May 22, 2019: On this date in history, the author receives an email from a reader in India:
Hare Krishna, Prabhu,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
I have been reading your book, Killing For Krishna, and following your "Killing For Krishna" page on Facebook. It is one of the best written and honest piece of ISKCON history. I’m from India but have spent most of ISKCON days in the U.S. I came in contact with ISKCON and Srila Prabhupada’s books while I was in U.S. I’m back in India now and find that most Indian-bodied devotees are being misled by corrupt GBC and false GBC-approved gurus. Some of them have interest in reading but they don’t have access to Srila Prabhupada’s lectures and conversations because of language problems. The same goes to the history of bad things happened in ISKCON after Srila Prabhupada left this planet. Most of it is on the Internet but the problem is, it is all scattered here and there. And it is in English. I admire your effort to consolidate the information along with providing genuine references.
I recently saw your post about "Killing for Krishna" being translated in Spanish. India is where these bogus gurus have made their hub and looting innocent Indian-bodied devotees. Your books need to be translated in Indian languages; especially Killing For Krishna. I have experience in translating books from English to Hindi. I translate and a scholar friend reviews it for me. He has Ph.D. in Hindi. I would like to offer my services to translate K4K and other related media to Hindi. Attached is my translation of your Dedication.
Thank you for your valuable service to Srila Prabhupada.
An aspiring servant,
Name withheld by request
India.
Author's update: Unfortunately, I lost touch with this Prabhu before he translated very much, and have not been able to contact him again.
For more about this, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 305.
May 23, 1968: On this date in history, after Kirtanananda Swami has been living in the old rundown farmhouse on Richard Rose's rural Marshall County West Virginia property, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada replies to Kirtanananda’s recent letter of apology, “I was so glad to receive your letter . . . and my gladness knew no bounds, exactly like that when one gets back his lost child. You have written to say that you think of me often and now it is confirmed that you cannot do without thinking of me, because I was always thinking of you. Sometimes I silently cried and prayed to Krishna that how I have lost this child, Kirtanananda. But I am sure that you cannot be lost because you chanted very nicely in Vrindaban [India]. Anyone who once sincerely chanted the Holy Name of Krishna cannot be separated from the Krishna consciousness atmosphere. So I was sure that you were never lost and you would come back.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 42.
Bhaktivedanta Swami and Kirtanananda dasa Brahmachari (c. 1966-1967)
May 23, 1975: On this date in history, the marble floors in Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s bedroom in his Palace are cut and inlaid and are being installed. Work on the doors and windows of Prabhupada’s room have also begun.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 134.
Palace hallway (undated).
Bedspread on Prabhupada’s bed.
Prabhupada’s Palace under construction.
May 23, 1986: On this date in history, Tirtha (who murdered Sulochan in Los Angeles the previous morning), in desperate need of the remainder of the $8,000 payment promised by Hayagriva to purchase plane tickets for himself and his family to fly to India, telephones Dharmatma and asks for money. Dharmatma refuses. Tirtha also calls Hayagriva, Kuladri, and the New Vrindaban comptroller, Dulal Chandra (Howard Fawley), for money, but “they just give him the run-around.” Tirtha drives to Columbus, arrives in the afternoon; speaks to Tapahpunja Swami about getting escape money.
On the same day, Bhaktipada returns to the U. S. from Germany and hears the news of Sulochan’s murder. He arrives back at New Vrindaban that night.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 316.
May 23, 2024: On this date in history, Bhakta Eric Johanson (a former disciple and sannyasi of Hansadutta) writes an essay about Bhaktipada and the other ten zonal acharyas. To read Eric’s essay, go to https://www.thekrishnaites.org/bhaktipadastakam-prayers/
Image: The advertisement pictured before appeared in a special Prabhupada's Palace Back To Godhead edition produced specifically for New Vrindaban and other temples/centers in Bhaktipada's zone. This advertisement did not, however, appear in the Back To Godhead magazines distributed in other gurus' zones.
May 24, 1986: On this date in history, Bhaktipada delivers the early-morning Srimad-bhagavatam lecture at New Vrindaban. A devotee asks Bhaktipada, “How should we understand it when a demon is killed?” (He refers to Sulochan who was assassinated two days earlier in Los Angeles.)
Bhaktipada responds, “A devotee isn’t disturbed when a snake is killed.”
In public, Bhaktipada put up a bold façade, yet privately, he confessed to one follower that murdering Sulochan was “the worst thing that could happen.” One Brijabasi, Devala dasa (Leon Lane), who worked at Palace Press, also served as one of Bhaktipada’s caregivers. Devala explained:
“The most dramatic thing for me is: I was living in town at that time and was asked to help with Kirtanananda Swami’s recovery. . . . [Two] days after the murder [Saturday morning] when Kirtanananda Swami was waking up (he was still pretty beat up from the head injury), he said to me ‘Devala, tell me it isn’t true about the murder.’ I told him, ‘Yes, it is true.’ He grabbed my lapel and pulled himself up in my face and said ‘That is the worst thing that could happen!’ He knew that [the murder] would really have bad consequences.”
The murderer, Tirtha, drives to Youngstown, Ohio, where he meets with his friend Gorby and begs him to intercede on his behalf to get his escape money, which Hayagriva had promised. Gorby telephones Hayagriva, who says, “I can’t discuss this on the phone.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, pp. 311, 331.
May 24, 1990: On this date in history, a federal grand jury returns an eleven-count indictment charging Bhaktipada with racketeering: kidnapping, running a fraudulent charity scam, mail fraud, and conspiring to murder two devotees—Chakradhari and Sulochan.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 212.
Bhaktipada sings the Sanskrit Samsara Prayers at Prabhupada’s Palace and accompanies himself on the harmonium (May 25, 1992).
May 25, 1972: On this date in history, during a conversation with GBC members in Los Angeles, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada expresses his personal distaste for the homosexual lifestyle, “The world is degrading to the lowest status, even less than animal. The animal also do not support homo-sex. They have never sex life between male to male. They are less than animal. People are becoming less than animal. This is all due to godlessness.”
However, Prabhupada erred in his assumption that animals do not have same-sex activities. He may have been knowledgeable of the Gaudiya-Vaishnava scriptures, but he was ignorant of the findings of science, and the scientific method. A paper published in the journal “Nature Ecology and Evolution,” explains that same-sex sexual behavior has been observed in over 1,500 species, including mammals like dolphins, bonobos, and penguins, as well as birds, insects, and reptiles. While some species may exhibit homosexual behavior occasionally, others have more consistent or even exclusive same-sex relationships.
Perhaps Prabhupada also erred in his assumption that homosexuality is due to Godlessness, as many gay men devote their lives as priests in the Roman Catholic Church. Certainly, although Prabhupada was a great preacher of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, he was not infallible, as many of his followers erroneously believe.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 191.
May 25, 1978: On this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami gives his followers and disciples permission to address him as “His Divine Grace.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 224.
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, publicity photo, sitting on his backyard deck at his house across from the Palace (1982).
May 25, 1986: On this date in history, Randall Gorby drives to New Vrindaban and personally meets with Hayagriva, who assures him that Tirtha will get his money “through the normal procedure.” Tapahpunja comes to New Vrindaban and tells Dharmatma he and Tirtha need money “to leave the country.” Dharmatma tells him to talk to “Number One” (Bhaktipada) regarding the money. Tapahpunja talks to “Number Two” (Kuladri), who also tells him to see Bhaktipada.
Tapahpunja allegedly spends ten hours with Bhaktipada trying to convince him to authorize the funds for escape money. Bhaktipada finally relents but does not have enough cash in his personal safe. Bhaktipada and Radhanath Swami drive to the sankirtan house and Dharmatma gives them several thousand dollars ($6,000 according to Dharmatma’s first recollection) in cash. Bhaktipada returns to his house, where he personally counts out the bills one by one, thereby putting his fingerprints on the currency. That night, or the next morning, Tapahpunja and Radhanath Swamis leave New Vrindaban together and drive to Kent, Ohio, where they meet with Tirtha and give him the cash.
After Tirtha is arrested some days later, police find fingerprints of Kirtanananda Swami and Radhanath Swami on the currency.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, pp. 334-336.
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada and his buddy Hayagriva sit at Bhaktipada’s breakfast table while personal servant Jambu watches from the kitchen (c. 1982). At this time the two were neighbors; Bhaktipada lived in a house across the street from Prabhupada’s Palace, and Hayagriva lived in a tiny house on the same driveway.
May 26, 1975: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada writes to one of his disciples, “I am very sorry that you have taken to homo-sex. It will not help you advance in your attempt for spiritual life. In fact, it will only hamper your advancement. I do not know why you have taken to such abominable activities. What can I say? . . . You should stop this homo-sex immediately. It is illicit sex, otherwise, your chances of advancing in spiritual life are nil.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 191.
Late-May, 1985: On or around this date in history, Bhaktipada has an altercation with a neighbor, a local resident who lived in a small house on McCreary’s Ridge Road right alongside the road which connected the site of the proposed Temple of Understanding with Palace Road: Larry “Speed” Howard. Larry’s daughter, Kelly J. Howard Carter, remembered:
Once my father complained to Bhaktipada about the loudspeaker devotees had set up near the construction site for the proposed Temple of Understanding which blasted Hare Krishna chanting day and night. He told Bhaktipada it was a terrible disturbance. Bhaktipada said something like, “Oh, I’m sorry about that, but you’ll have to live with it.”
So my father set up his own loudspeaker system and started blaring country music to drown out the chanting! This was shortly before the big Sila Ropana dedication ceremony for the proposed big temple. My father knew that dignitaries were coming, mayors, police chiefs, newspaper reporters, television cameramen and even a United States Congressman.
Bhaktipada must have decided that my father had to move. The Krishnas made several offers on his property over the years, but he refused to sell unless they met his list of demands. So Bhaktipada decided to drain the aquifer where he got well water from, so he wouldn’t have running water in the house anymore.
They brought in a big derrick and drilling equipment and set it up just next to my father’s property. My father knew just what they were planning to do; dry up his well. So he borrowed a cow from a friend and tied it up to a tree in his front yard. Bhaktipada came over and asked him, “What’s with the cow?”
My father said, “I know you’re having a big shindig in a few days with many dignitaries and television crews. When they arrive, I’m gonna pull out my shotgun and kill the cow. It’ll make a big, big noise. When the newspaper people come over, I’ll tell them about you trying to dry up my well. That’ll be very bad publicity for you.” Bhaktipada pulled out the well digging machinery and my father returned the cow to his friend. Eventually my father sold his house to the Krishnas.
To learn more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 204.
May 26, 1986: On this date in history, after receiving a bag of money from Tapahpunja and Radhanath Swami, Tirtha spends the day packing and preparing to leave for India with his wife and son. Tapahpunja assists. They plan to drive to New York City the next morning, where they will get their visas from the Consulate General of India office in Manhattan, and then purchase air tickets from Radha Travel Agency. During this time they plan to stay at Adwaitacharya's New Vrindaban satellite center at 1025 Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 349.
Tirtha (Thomas Drescher)
May 27, 1977: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada warns his leading men to be on guard lest after his passing some charlatan impostors pose as gurus, bewilder his disciples, and usurp the position of acharya in ISKCON. His disciples most likely think he is referring to the Vrindaban Caste Goswamis or his Gaudiya Math godbrothers, such as Bon Maharaja and others, whom he sometimes criticized as “envious,” but in fact the most dangerous enemy to ISKCON is within ISKCON; from the ranks of his “most advanced” students.
On the same day, Prabhupada chastises his leading disciples, “You are all children. None of you has any intelligence.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors.
May 27, 1977: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada tells his disciples he is old and ready to die; but his disciple Kirtanananda Swami, who joined ISKCON eleven years earlier and received the honor of becoming Prabhupada’s first sannyasi a year later, becomes distraught after hearing his spiritual master talk about his forthcoming death.
Kirtanananda, who is regarded by many as a pure devotee and self realized soul (Prabhupada himself said so), his heart apparently breaking, offers to trade his youth for Prabhupada’s old age, as was done—in ancient times according to Vaishnava mythology—by Puru for his father, King Yayati. Kirtanananda believes that Prabhupada has the mystic power to do such a thing if he wants.
Some thousands of years earlier in India, according to legend, Puru was the youngest son of King Yayati. His birth order made it unlikely that he would succeed his father on the throne. However, Puru’s selfless act of filial devotion by giving his youth to his elderly father proves Puru’s love for his father, and after enjoying life as a young man for a thousand years, Yayati makes Puru his heir. The dynasty Puru establishes later becomes the Kuru dynasty, from which the Pandavas and Kauravas are descended.
Another high-ranking ISKCON leader, Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, corroborated: “In Prabhupada’s pastimes of passing away, Kirtanananda was very prominent, letting his emotions come out, and crying to Prabhupada to please stay. And before that, he was preaching to us. We all resigned that Prabhupada was leaving, but when we met, Kirtanananda said, ‘Why are we resigned? He can stay. Krishna can have him stay. Let us ask him to stay.’ Such a personal breakthrough. None of us had been able to summon up that kind of devotion, to ask Prabhupada [to stay].”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 205.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Kirtanananda Swami
Artist's rendition of King Yayati and his son Puru
May 27, 1986: On this date in history, Tirtha, accompanied by Tapahpunja, his wife and son, goes to Bank One in Kent, Ohio, five days after Sulochan is murdered, to change $4,000 in small bills to big bills. Immediately after, they plan to get on the freeway and hightail it to New York City and buy air tickets to India where they can hide from U. S. law enforcement.
However, at 11:55 a.m. in the bank parking lot, Tirtha is arrested by Kent police on a West Virginia warrant regarding the 1983 disappearance of Chakradhari. Tapahpunja is also arrested. After hearing the news, the New Vrindaban temple president Kuladri leaves New Vrindaban in great anxiety and flies to New York City, where he hides out with a friend at the New Vrindaban satellite center in Brooklyn.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 353.
Kent, Ohio Police Department shoulder patch
May 27, 1987: On this date in history, Bhaktipada and the author travel to Bhaktipada's undergraduate alma mater, Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee, to see Bhaktipada’s former organ professor and hear the college’s pipe organ. Bhaktipada wants to build a magnificent pipe organ for the New Vrindaban temple.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 100.
Hrishikesh, Krishna Katha (Carl Carlson) and Bhaktipada observe Bhaktipada’s college organ professor, Dr. James A. Bloy demonstrate the Walter Holtkemp organ at Maryville College, Maryville, Tennessee (May 27, 1987).
May 27, 2024: On this date in history, a book about the zonal acharya era of ISKCON by Dr. Angela Ruth Burt (Arya devi dasi), a disciple of Ravindra Svarupa dasa, titled “Leading the Hare Krishna Movement: The Crisis of Succession in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness,” is published. I purchased a copy, and it’s quite excellent.
I mention her in my 2020 book "Eleven Naked Emperors." "I personally look forward to reading Burt’s forthcoming book (which will be undoubtedly more sympathetic to the eleven than mine), and discovering another important side of ISKCON history which I am unfortunately unable to present in ‘Eleven Naked Emperors.’ I believe both our books will be a complimentary pair, and both will be necessary to better understand the zonal-acharya era of ISKCON in full."
At least one other reader, however, was unimpressed. George Smith from Overland Park, Kansas, explained, "After reading the first 50 pages of Dr. Burt’s book, I feel like I have just been shown around an art museum by a tour guide who doesn’t like art."
If you're interested in learning about another side of the zonal acharya era of ISKCON, get her book. Routledge Books.
Leading the Hare Krishna Movement, cover.
May 28, 1977: On this date in history, the day following Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s warning that men will pose as guru and attempt to take over ISKCON, eighteen leading disciples met with their spiritual master in his personal quarters at Krishna Balarama Mandir in Vrindaban, especially to inquire about the process for initiating new disciples in the future. Satsvarupa dasa Goswami (Stephen Guarino)—the GBC representative for Miami, Gainesville, Houston, Dallas, St. Louis, Denver and Berkeley, and editor-in-chief of Back to Godhead magazine—was chosen as spokesman. Tamal Krishna Goswami, Prabhupada’s secretary at the time, also spoke up frequently during the conversation.
A GBC sub committee had selected five questions to ask Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada: (1) How long should GBC members remain in office? (2) How can GBC members who leave be replaced? (3) In the absence of Srila Prabhupada what is the procedure for first, second and sannyasa initiations? (4) What is the relationship of the person who gives this initiation to the person he gives it to? (5) Is there any provision for publication of other translations of Vaishnava scriptures by the BBT after the disappearance of Srila Prabhupada?
The following transcript of the first portion of the May 28th, 1977 conversation comes from the Bhaktivedanta VedaBase 2014.1.
Satsvarupa: . . . our next question concerns initiations in the future, particularly at that time when you’re no longer with us. We want to know how first and second initiation would be conducted.
Prabhupada: Yes. I shall recommend some of you. After this is settled up, I shall recommend some of you to act as officiating acharyas.
Tamal Krishna: Is that called ritvik acharya?
Prabhupada: Ritvik, yes.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 33.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Satsvarupa dasa Goswami
Tamal Krishna Maharaja and Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
May 28, 1983 (Memorial day Weekend): On this date in history, at the four-day 1983 US Festival (held in a huge field near San Bernardino, California, about sixty miles west from Los Angeles), I drove a New Vrindaban traveling sankirtan van filled with a half-dozen pickers and thousands of “I Love Rock and Roll” stickers through the back stage entrance security gate. Pickers and stickers.
I simply flashed my Nandagram Boys School badge at the security officer who was guarding the back stage entrance and announced firmly, “We’re making a delivery.” He let us inside and I parked right behind the massive stage.
The three-day festival featured twenty-six famous bands and performers including Men at Work, The Clash, Los Lobos, U2, Joe Walsh, Stevie Nicks, David Bowie, Mötley Crüe, Ozzy Osbourne, and Van Halen. The temperature peaked at a stifling 95 degrees F, and the air quality was the worst in years, what with pollution and car exhaust blowing in from the Los Angeles basin. The total attendance was reported at 670,000. Two people died at the event, I think from drug overdoses. New Vrindaban pickers collected a lot of money, I don’t remember how much. Several thousands dollars I believe.
While working the US Festival, I happened to observe one of the hundreds of Port-a-John portable potties rocking back and forth. My curiosity was aroused. What was going on inside the toilet? Eventually the Port-a-John toppled to the ground, and two people emerged, a young man and a young woman, both with their pants down. This is when I coined the phrase, “the dregs of human society,” referring to the people I saw at the rock concert who were stoned on drugs and under the influence of the Mode of Ignorance (Tamas Guna).
After the pick was over (we didn’t stay all four days as I recall we got nipped by security sometime on the first day), we returned to the Los Angeles ISKCON temple. There, for the first time I met Ramesvara Maharaja, the ISKCON zonal acharya for Southern California. He was a very, very important man, a pure devotee (we were told) who accepted extravagant worship in the temple. I was surprised; was very friendly to me. (I was, after all, one of biggest pickers on the New Vrindaban’s men’s sankirtan team.)
Ramesvara asked about the US Festival and during my reply I mentioned “the dregs of human society.” He found the phrase so appealing, that he repeated it a few times. The next morning, he used my phrase, “the dregs of human society,” once during his Srimad-Bhagavatam lecture at New Dwaraka ISKCON Los Angeles. Ramesvara asked me to train his Los Angeles and San Diego pickers in the “Art of the Citation Line.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 562.
The US Festival
May 28, 1986: On this date in history, one day following the arrest of Tirtha and Tapahpunja in Kent, Ohio, Randall Gorby, the government’s principal witness against New Vrindaban and a member of the conspiracy to assassinate Sulochan, is nearly killed in a huge explosion at Gorby’s house, allegedly caused by him illegally tapping into a gas line.
An FBI agent testified: “Mr. Gorby had suffered some trauma and shock as a result of being blown through the roof of his house. He was in intensive care ward at Ohio Valley Medical Center in Wheeling. He had first-, second- and third-degree burns over forty percent of his body. Doctors at that time did not expect him to live.”
Gorby remembered: “On the 28th of May I was at home. That morning, I was going to go back to the West Virginia State Barracks in Wellsburg where I was giving statements to them at the time, and Trooper Knight had called me and woke me at 9:00 in the morning. I got out of bed and started to light a cigarette and my home totally disappeared. It was leveled to the ground. I was in critical condition for seven weeks, in intensive care, and in a coma for the month of June up until the center of July.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 368.
May 28, 2024: On this date in history, our friend Jan Brzezinski (Jagadananda dasa, formerly Hiranyagarbha dasa) passed away in Montreal (I think his hometown) from cancer of the brain, or complications from. He lived at New Vrindaban, and directed the Varnashram College in 1974. He served as the headmaster for the Mayapur, India gurukula from 1975-1979. He explained, "I left [ISKCON] in disgust when I realized that I was not spiritually nor materially qualified to run such a school and when I realized that the ISKCON institution itself did not seek to improve the situation."
Later he lived in Vrindaban, India, and served as editor for "Gaudiya Grantha Mandir" and the online news blog "Vrindavan Today." He is quoted in Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, regarding teaching youngsters in New Vrindaban and Mayapur.
He also liked my Hare Krishna history books and wrote to me, "I consider your work very important, a necessary archive to cover an particularly significant moment in history, which will be very useful to sociologists and psychologists of religion in the future. I hope that you can get your books to be accepted in university libraries. Perhaps if you can find some scholars who work in those fields to support it, you will have the chance to see your work have more influence."
Jan Brzezinski (Jagadananda dasa, formerly Hiranyagarbha dasa)
May 29, 1986: On this date in history, Radhanath Swami delivers $7,500 to the Cleveland temple for Tapahpunja’s bail. Tirtha is held in jail without bail.
On the same day, Judge Richard A. Warmuth of the Marshall County, West Virginia Court sentences Triyogi, who had attempted to kill Kirtanananda Swami seven months earlier by smashing his head with a brick prying tool, to a fifteen-month term in the county jail for unlawful assault and jail escape charges.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 354, 98.
Radhanath Swami (Richard Slavin)
Triyogi dasa, ACBSP (Michael Shockman)
May 29, 1991: On this date in history, Bhakti Tirtha Swami, the ISKCON guru for most of Africa, defends his sannyasa guru (who was convicted for racketeering two months earlier at the Martinsburg, West Virginia courthouse):
“Swami Bhaktipada’s position is like that of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. All three of these men dedicated their lives very selflessly in trying to bring peace to mankind, but in the process they were often misunderstood and even violently attacked. The Swami is a man of the stature of these two great stalwarts of peace.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 17.
Bhakti Tirtha Swami (John E. Favors)
May 29, 2019: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
I was involved with ISKCON for twelve hears. Went directly from graduating high school to moving into a temple. Killing For Krishna, is absolutely outstanding. Many, many things come to mind reading the book. I, too, have spent years getting over ISKCON. I quit years ago but, hey, it was a big deal in my life.
Your book exceeded any expectations. Overall, I found ISKCON practices the very things it preaches against. But, in the end, I’ve suffered years of that group nagging me internally, in my mind. Your book helps me get over that hump.
Every three to four weeks I go and see a counselor. During the last three weeks I’ve had some wonderful realizations regarding my life. I’ve had much pain in my life. Luckily, I’ve made it through. I told her that reading your book was a liberating experience for me. I feel so much lighter now. Again, I thank you for the book. It played a large part in freeing me from the horrendous pain of my past.
Mark Middaugh
Mesilla, New Mexico
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 354, 98.
Mark Middaugh
May 29, 2024: On this date in history, a reader writes:
“The content of Henry’s books is a magnet for a listing of wounded souls!”
Gary William Roberts (Mayesvara Dasa)
Ojai, California
For more about this topic, see Hare Krishna Historian Henry Doktorski.
Gary William Roberts (Mayesvara Dasa)
May 30, 1976: On this date in history, during a tape-recorded conversation in Honolulu, Hawaii, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains that a madhyama adhikari (a second class devotee) has to complete a period of probation before he becomes an authorized diksa guru.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 51.
May 30, 1985: On this date in history, Sulochan, who left New Vrindaban nearly a year earlier and is currently living in California, challenges Bhaktipada to a debate. Bhaktipada ignores the challenge.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 61.
Sulochan (Steven Bryant)
May 30, 1986: On this date in history, after spending three days in jail after he is arrested in Kent, Ohio with murderer Tirtha, Tapahpunja is released on bail. Soon Tapahpunja disappears. It takes law enforcement four years to track and finally catch this slippery felon (they arrested him in Malaysia) and put him behind bars.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Killing For Krishna, p. 357.
Tapahpunja Swami (Terry Sheldon)
May 30, 2021: On this date in history, the author receives a Facebook message from a godsister:
I was born and raised in Ahmedabad in Gujarat State. I received diksa from Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada in September 1979 in Bombay. I was also married that year. I stayed at the Juhu Beach ISKCON temple for a few months in 1980. I left India in 1983. I lived at New Vrindaban in 1986 from May to December. At New Vrindaban I worked at the Palace Gift Store. I was getting paid fifty dollars a week, but my car payment was 250 dollars a month. I also started taking classes at Columbus Technical College in Ohio, pre-requirements for nursing school. My marriage started to unravel when my husband placed our five-year-old daughter in gurukula at New Vrindaban against my wishes.
The final breaking point came when I discovered he was bipolar, but refused to take his prescription medicine. Instead, he self-medicated by drinking alcohol excessively, staying out all hours, and not working. I was determined to take my daughter out of gurukula because every morning when I met her at mangal aroti, she was in tears. She had been thrown into a life that was unknown to her. It was heartbreaking for me, to say the least.
Dharmanistha Patel (Dharmakala devi dasi)
Houston, Texas
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 274.
Dharmi Norton
May 30, 2024: On this date in history, a reader comments on the author’s Facebook page:
“Truly, dear friend, thou art an unsung hero, but in your old digs of Eleven Butt Naked Kings in Their Own Minds, oh wow! what a superb title that might have been to classic text that is exciting all of scholarship’s Indological research. Actually, I think that it is the mercy of Krishna, the Supreme Lord, that you are named DOKTORSKI. Truth is the real medicine against tyranny in the form of saffron divinity. And you have shared lots of that from the razor’s edge throughout your exhaustive research and dedicated reporting.”
Patita-Uddharana dasa, ACBSP (Miles Davis)
AKA Patita-Pavana dasa
Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
Patita-Pavana on Hari-Nam in Manhattan (1969)
May 30, 2024: On this date in history, a reader comments on the author’s Facebook page:
Devotees weren’t taught to think critically before they became devotees, so of course there was little chance of that after they became devotees with Prabhupada’s clamp down on critical thinking, or “mental speculation” as the cagey little con man referred to it. He got um dumb and by God he intended to keep them that way, else otherwise they might figure him out. So there was no chance of them learning to think critically after that little con man scummy poopooplop got his stoolhooks into their heads.
After becoming devotees, they became essentially brain dead, they became Poopooplops parrots, mindlessly parroting his gibberish. “Prabhupada said, SQUACK.”
So here we are with devotees in their dotage, and even on hospice, that are still following a blind faith religion in the modes of declining, almost dead or completely kaput passion, and ever increasing ignorance because “Prabhupada said” and Prabhupada has Krsna in his pocket and they are are still dumb enough to believe the little con man.
I sometimes wonder if it isn’t cruel at this stage of their lives to try to wake them, but luckily I have Henry to point to and when recriminating eyes shift my way I can always point to Henry and exclaim “He started it!” which gives me time to slip away while they pile up on poor Henry.
Wake up calls are what Henry’s books are, each one of them like a bucket of cold water splashing upon the sleeping minds of the readers who read them. Time after time I see him lead them to water, the obvious conclusion right in front of them, but do they see it? No! They just stand there or read around it. If it were me I’d just call the glue factory and have them send a truck, not Henry, he has that character flaw called human compassion.
George Smith
Overland Park, Kansas
George Smith
May 31, 1967: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami is afflicted by a severe and unexpected stroke. A stroke is a type of cardiovascular disease which affects the arteries leading to and within the brain. It occurs when a blood vessel that carries oxygen and nutrients to the brain is either blocked by a clot or bursts. When that happens, part of the brain cannot get the blood (and oxygen) it needs, so the brain begins to die. When part of the brain dies from lack of blood flow, the part of the body it controls is affected. Strokes can cause paralysis, affect language and vision, and cause other problems, such as memory loss. A person who has previously had a heart attack, such as Swamiji, has a higher risk of having a stroke.
Kirtanananda was there during Bhaktivedanta Swami’s stroke. He remembered, “I was sitting with Swamiji in his room. While kirtan was going on downstairs, the twitching began again. The Swamiji’s face began to tighten up. His eyes started rolling. Then all of a sudden he threw himself back, and I caught him. He was gasping: ‘Hare Krishna,’ and then everything stopped. I thought it was the last, until his breathing started again, and with it the chanting. But he didn’t regain control over his body.”
Brahmananda also nursed Bhaktivedanta Swami. He said, “I was there along with Kirtanananda. It was on Memorial Day weekend. We couldn’t understand what was wrong with Swamiji. He couldn’t sit up, he was moaning, and nobody knew what was happening. We nursed him—myself and Kirtanananda—trying all different things. I had to go out and buy a bedpan for him.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 211.
Bhaktivedanta Swami and Kirtanananda dasa Brahmachari (c. 1966-1967)
May 31, 1985: On this date in history, New Vrindaban is at the peak of its popularity. The historic Sila Ropana (groundbreaking) ceremony for the proposed Great Temple of Understanding, is attended by many dignitaries, including a United States congressman. The New Vrindaban publication Land of Krishna calls it “the most significant and memorable day in the history of New Vrindaban.” On the same day New Vrindaban’s Swan Boat has its inaugural voyage on Kaliya Ghat.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, pp. 189, 132.
The Sila Ropana Ceremony; placing Ananta-Sesa into the pit.
U. S. Congressman Alan Mollohan speaks at New Vrindaban.
The Swan Boat.
June 1, 1967: On this date in history, the day following his stroke, Bhaktivedanta Swami’s disciples arranged to have him taken by ambulance to Beth Israel hospital; no one is allowed to stay in Swamiji’s hospital room except for Kirtanananda, who serves as his private nurse.
One of Swamiji’s California disciples remembers, “When we heard about it in San Francisco, there was grief, and people were crying. There was a tremendous love and thinking about Swamiji and just concentration, a mass concentration of pulling him through, giving him strength and summoning the help of Krishna and Lord Chaitanya.”
Bhaktivedanta Swami requests his disciples to offer prayers and twenty-four-hour kirtan, and petition the Lord to allow their master to finish his work. He later thanks his disciples for saving his life: “My dear boys and girls. I am so much obliged to you for your prayers to Krishna to save my life. Due to your sincere and ardent prayer, Krishna has saved my life. I was to die on Tuesday certainly, but because you prayed sincerely, I am saved.”
Bhaktivedanta Swami’s heart pains him; he can speak only softly and is too exhausted to converse. Skeptical of the doctors, he diagnoses himself: a heart attack affected part of his brain and paralyzed the left side of his body. Massage, he says, is the cure.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 212.
Bhaktivedanta Swami and Kirtanananda dasa Brahmachari (c. 1966-1967)
June 1, 1969: On this date in history, in a letter to the Los Angeles ISKCON temple president, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains, “I have decided that I shall spend four months [per year] in New Vrindaban and eight months in Los Angeles. That will be my regular program.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, pp. 132-133.
Painting of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, walking side by side and touring the New Vrindaban of the future, with seven temples on seven hills.
June 1, 1986: On this date in history, New Vrindaban News prints the first published documentation of Bhaktipada’s plan to de-Indianize the music at the temple, build a pipe organ and carillon, and establish a choir and orchestra, etc.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 40.
The City of God Temple Orchestra (c. 1990).
Choir concert in the temple. Professor Alfred R. DeJagger directs; Hrishikesh accompanies on the piano (c. 1987).
June 1, 2019: On this date in history, the author receives a letter from a reader:
Dear Henry Prabhu,
I had heard about your book, Killing For Krishna, a year ago and finally got it. Reading it shakes the very foundation of having any good feelings towards ISKCON. Thankfully, I am a Prabhupada disciple. Otherwise, I doubt that I would be practicing Krishna consciousness. Trivikrama Swami was in Chico, California, for a year in 2000-2001, so I could see he’s no more a guru than I am.
I fear for your life, because ISKCON can play dirty. Watch your back. You have done a great service by your efforts in publishing this book. The truth will always set us free.
Beverly Newman (Bhakti Lila devi dasi, ACBSP)
Forest Ranch, California
Beverly Newman (Bhakti Lila devi dasi, ACBSP)
June 1978: On or around this date in history, Syamakunda dasa, his wife Girindra Mohini (Gregory and Olive Detamore), and their three young children fly to Germany, purchase a Volkswagen live-in camper/bus, and drive 4,000 miles to Afghanistan where they purchase 160 kilos of high-quality hash oil.
They drive another 800 miles to India, where they meet Adwaitacharya dasa (Emil “Eddie” Sofsky) who helps smuggle the product into the United States and sell it through his street contacts. The operation is funded by New Vrindaban money, and generates a half-million dollars in profits, which are used to help purchase construction supplies for Prabhupada's Palace of Gold, and a few years later, to purchase the Wilson Valley property along Wheeling Creek which became the New Nandagram Boys School.
During a July 25, 2020 telephone conversation with the author, Girindra Mohini explained, "We never thought of our honey oil business as immoral or illegal or criminal. We were just doing the needful for Krishna, taking a risk to help build Srila Prabhupada a Palace of gold, and a school for our children. Don’t forget, New Vrindaban was not unique in this regard; many ISKCON temples were involved in similar recreational drug buying and selling businesses."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, pp. 242-243.
Bhaktipada and Shyamakunda (Gregory Detamore), who figured prominently in raising funds for Palace construction by unconventional means (photo c. 1988).
Bhaktipada and Advaitacharya (Emil “Eddie” Sofsky), who figured prominently in raising funds for Palace construction by unconventional means.
June 3, 1994: On this date in history, during a Srimad-bhagavatam class at New Vrindaban, the leader of the community, Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, explains that whether one wears dhotis or robes makes no difference. “The desire to please Krishna, that alone is pleasing—not doing it for show or to be known as a great devotee.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 200.
June 4, 1958: On this date in history, 17-year-old Howard Wheeler (and his mother) rides the train for 800-miles from his home in West Palm Beach, Florida, to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where he enrolls as a freshman English major. He doesn't know it of course, but two years later he falls in love with a graduate student from Peekskill, New York, enrolled in a doctoral history program. In 1966, in the Lower East Side of New York City, the two Bohemians become disciples of The Swami.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 30.
Kirtanananda (1966).
Hayagriva dasa Brahmachari at 26 Second Avenue (1966).
June 4, 1976: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains to a newspaper reporter that he is presently training his most “advanced students” to lead ISKCON as his successors after his passing.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, 17.
The eleven ISKCON zonal acharyas pose for a photograph in Mayapur, India (c. August 1978).
June 4, 1986: On this date in history, a big fire sacrifice is held in the New Vrindaban temple. Eight sannyasis are initiated, plus several other devotees take vanaprastha, while others accept first and second initiations, and several couples are married, About 40 people take vows, including the author and his 20-year-old Indian bride. Gaura Keshava serves as priest.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 332.
Bhaktipada oversees the June 4, 1986 marriage ceremony of Hrishikesh dasa and Shyama dasi (daughter of Mahaprabhu dasa/Rama Krishna Maheshwari, a dedicated Bhaktipada disciple and Bombay high court advocate who performed much valuable legal service for the Juhu temple).
June 4, 1992: On this date in history, the weekly newspaper, In Pittsburgh, publishes an article titled, “How the City of God Became a City of Fraud,” by the Unitarian Minister and City of God Interfaith former resident, Rev. George David Exoo.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, pp. 254-255.
City of God Interfaith member and Unitarian Universalist Minister Rev. George David Exoo (February 1991).
June 4, 2022: On this date in history, the author’s book, Gold, Guns and God: Swami Bhaktipada and the West Virginia Hare Krishnas, Vol. 6: The Guru Business, is published.
The first two chapters of "Gold, Guns and God," Vol. 6 deal with the rise of the zonal-acharya era of ISKCON, and the embarrassment the eleven leaders soon created. Of special note in this volume is the account of the little-known conspiracy to murder Richard "Rsi" Rose, the owner of 132 acres of West Virginia land which became New Vrindaban, the original property. Although the murder was never carried out, much time and planning went into it.
The remainder of this volume deals with the conspiracy to assassinate the radical Hare Krishna devotee dissident, Steven Bryant (Sulochan dasa), who attempted to expose the faults and corruption of the eleven pretenders, but especially against his mortal enemy, the leader of the West Virginia New Vrindaban Hare Krishna community and the inspiring force behind the building of Prabhupada's Palace of Gold: Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada (Keith Ham).
With encouragement from the "gurus" Bhaktipada and Ramesvara Swami, senior leaders and hit-men enforcers from West Virginia, Ohio and Southern California ISKCON temples hunt Bryant and murder him in Los Angeles on May 22, 1986, to protect the ISKCON status quo. Although the murder conspirators thought they were following the orders of Krishna, the tables were quickly turned because Bryant was able to accomplish in death what he could not do in life: bring down the mighty Bhaktipada (as will be revealed in Vol. 7).
June 5, 1973: On this date in history, the “Shooting Affair,” also known as the “Motorcycle Gang Attack,” occurs at New Vrindaban's Bahulaban temple. Six redneck men (four are members of the Sons of Silence Motorcycle Club) cut the telephone line and terrorize the devotees with firearms. Kenneth Elmore, the owner of a Louisville Kentucky tavern, is looking for his runaway 15-year-old daughter, who he thinks ran away to New Vrindaban.
Kirtanananda Swami and Dharmatma (the leader of the brahmachari bus party who were stationed in Louisville) are forced to climb the hill behind the temple and are told they will dig their own graves. The other men force the devotees to remove the heavy marble Radha-Vrindaban Chandra deities from the altar. The deities are dropped on the marble floor and crack, creating an incredibly loud sound like gunfire. Elmore, climbing the hill with Kirtanananda Swami and Dharmatma, hears the sound, becomes fearful, runs back to the temple and orders his party to leave. They return to Kentucky.
When Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada hears about the attack, he declares, “Our men should have guns and be trained to kill!”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, pp. 20, 40.
June 5, 1976: On this date in history, Prabhupada in Los Angeles chastises Sulochan and Puranjana Prabhus and orders that the “Gopi-Bhava Club,” which has about 50 members and meets secretly to read the passages from Prabhupada’s books dealing with the intimate conjugal affairs between Krishna and the gopis, be disbanded. Prabhupada calls it “Jumping like monkeys.” The two send a letter of apology to Prabhupada three days later, and then disappear from Los Angeles ISKCON. The two move to London where they continue serving Prabhupada and ISKCON.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 7.
Sulochan (Steven Bryant), offering aroti at New Vrindaban (c. 1975)
Puranjana (Tim Lee), passport photo (c. early 1980s)
June 6, 1973: On this date in history, on the day following the raid at New Vrindaban, Kenneth Elmore and his accomplice Joseph Clemons are arrested in Louisville, Kentucky, extradited to West Virginia, and charged with four counts of felonious assault. The other four men, the members of the Sons of Silence Motorcycle Club, avoid detection by the police.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 48.
Shoulder patch for members of the Sons of Silence motorcycle club.
June 6, 1990: On this date in history, Bhaktipada appears (for the second time) on the Larry King television show. The two talk about his indictment by the U. S. government two weeks earlier and charges of racketeering: conspiring to murder two devotees, running a fraudulent charity scam, mail fraud, and the "kidnapping" of Hayagriva's eldest son in 1979. Bhaktipada claims the charges are a "witch hunt, it's persecution by the U. S. government, pure and simple." "They want my land," he claims. "They want to turn Prabhupada's Palace into a casino."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 213.
Swami Bhaktipada on the Larry King television show.
June 7, 1990: On this date in history, Bhaktipada pleads “not guilty” to racketeering charges and is released on a $250,000 bond. He is ordered not to leave the United States.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 214.
Bhaktipada sings the Sanskrit Samsara Prayers at Prabhupada’s Palace and accompanies himself on the harmonium (May 25, 1992).
June 7, 2025: On this date in history, the author corresponds with a Krishna devotee who has questions about ISKCON history.
Devotee: Sir,
I’ve recently discovered your historical work, and am currently 2/3rds of the way through reading Eleven Naked Emperors. I’ve always been a history buff, and having read most of ISKCON’s sanitized tomes, I want to express my appreciation for your work. The service of truth is the highest service!
Only in recent months have I became aware of the possibility that Srila Prabhupada’s death may have arisen from deliberate, systematic poisoning by Tamal Krishna Goswami & other senor disciples, through the work of the Justice For Srila Prabhupada Foundation. However, a critical reading of ISKCON sanitized histories had previously raised red flags and various issues that troubled me. I want to ask about an incident recorded in Eleven Naked Emperors:
"...the Brijabasi Spirit—the newsletter for the New Vrindaban community—printed an article about Kirtanananda Swami’s trip to Hawaii. The article...noted Prabhupada’s praise when Kirtanananda showed him the blueprints for his proposed Palace. ‘One would have to be a great fool not to like it!’ Prabhupada exclaimed.”
My question about Prabhupada’s quote arises from your recent Facebook post concerning events that happened three years later:
“...47 years ago, Syamakunda dasa, his wife Girindra Mohini (Gregory and Olive Detamore), and their three young children fly to Germany, purchase a Volkswagen live-in camper/bus, and drive 4,000 miles to Afghanistan where they purchase 160 kilos of high-quality hash oil. They drive another 800 miles to India, where they meet Adwaitacharya dasa (Emil “Eddie” Sofsky) who helps smuggle the product into the United States and sell it through his street contacts. The operation is funded by New Vrindaban money, and generates a half-million dollars in profits, which are used to help purchase construction supplies for Prabhupada's Palace of Gold…”
So, the “Palace of Gold” was financed by a corrupt international drug smuggling ring, financed and overseen by Kirtanananda Swami, then a high ranking Srila Prabhupada disciple in an organization that supposedly represents dharma, teaches the precept of ahimsa, and whose regulative principals prohibit any form of intoxication! Jesus’ teaching about “White Washed Sepulchers” comes to mind...
Prabhupada was a shrewd and experienced businessman, astute concerning finance, wise in the ways of the world. He knew that New Vrindavan was poor – a mostly undeveloped rural farming community. I’m not a businessman, but my first question, if I was Prabhupada, after looking over Kirtanananda’s blueprints, would be, “This proposed architecture is very expensive, how are you going to finance this project?”
So, the questions I’m posing to you are:
1.) Did Prabhupada ever inquire about how the Golden Palace would be financed?
2.) If Prabhupada ever did challenge Kirtanananda on how the palace of gold was to be financed, did Kirtanananda inform Prabhupada truthfully about his plan to raise funds through an illegal international drug running scheme?
3.) If Prabhupada knew of this illegal fundraising operation, did he approve it?
I would really appreciate any insights you could share from your years of intense scholarship! I owe it to Krishna – the Absolute Supreme Truth – to inform myself to make appropriate dharmic decisions. Haribol!
[Name deleted]
Henry Doktorski: Hare Krishna, my friend, and thanks for your inquiry. You asked:
Question 1.) Did Prabhupada ever inquire about how the Golden Palace would be financed?
Not to my knowledge. As far as I have heard, Prabhupada never (or rarely) inquired from his disciples how they were making money. It seems most of his temple presidents told him that his books were selling like hotcakes, and that is how they generated funds.
Question 2.) If Prabhupada ever did challenge Kirtanananda on how the palace of gold was to be financed, did Kirtanananda inform Prabhupada truthfully about his plan to raise funds through an illegal international drug running scheme? The recreational drug business at New Vrindaban as far as I know was not implemented until a half year AFTER the death of Prabhupada.
However, Prabhupada didn't seem to care how Kirtanananda (or other temples) got the money. Guru Kripa and his Far East collecting pickers sent Prabhupada millions to build the Bombay and Vrindavan temples, most of it by illegal means, I have heard. Prabhupada just took the money and didn’t ask questions. After all, the money is the honey.
Prabhupada once prophesied that New Vrindaban would make as much money as Tirupati in India.
Prabhupada, however, it seems did not approve of drug dealing to raise money for his temples. Our friend Malati says when he was informed of devotees in California buying and selling recreational drugs, he put a stop to it. But Prabhupada is also famous for accepting money from his disciples and encouraging them: “by hook or by crook.” I’m sure that is the particular “Prabhupada says” that the New Vrindaban and ISKCON drug dealers/smugglers quoted frequently.
Prabhupada said many things, positive and negative, but devotees, I have seen, only hear what they want to hear. This is one reason I am unpopular (if not hated) by many devotees. Sometimes Prabhupada said you should be honest when selling books or fundraising. Other times, he said you could be dishonest.
In Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, we discover that when Prabhupada was informed that ISKCON fundraisers were lying to people, telling them the money was going to feed starving people in Bangladesh, he directly wrote to the president of NYC ISKCON and ordered, "not for any reason shall we decrease the book sales and collection monthly over some small lying about Bangladesh or other things."
Devotee: Hare Krishna, Henry Doktorski Prabhu!
Thank you so much for your response Prabhu! Your quote from “Gold, Guns and God” Vol. 4 was very informative and helpful. I can’t help but wonder if the Pandava Prince Yudhisthira would have agreed with Prabhupada’s “small lying” comment.
I’ll start reading your “Gold, Guns and God” book series next, but I first need time to reread Eleven Naked Emperors. Frankly, the implications of your work are staggering; it’ll take awhile to assimilate.
Just before I read Eleven Naked Emperors, I had finished the two-volume “Radha Damodara Vilasa” by Vaiyasaki das Adhikari. This read left me extremely uncomfortable with the managerial tactics and deeds of Tamal Krishna Goswami (TKG). “Eleven Naked Emperors” raised that level of discomfort to utter horror.
My Gurudev is a Prabhupada disciple, a former ISKCON temple president, and today one of ISKCON’s initiating gurus. My Guru was a close friend of TKG. Gurudev related a story that once, he attended a meeting with other temple presidents and TKG. As they were talking in an upstairs room, they suddenly heard glass shattering downstairs. My Gurudev jumped up and looked out a window, and saw a long haired, bearded man throwing rocks at the stained glass windows. My Gurudev grabbed a broom with a thick wooden handle and ran down the stairs. As he came upon the bearded man, the man turned to attack him. Then Gurudev hit him over the head with the broom handle, and the man collapsed unconscious to the ground. TKG leaned out the upper story window and said, “Hit him again!” My Gurudev replied, “Naw, he’s down.” TKG repeated a second time, “Hit him again!”
Henry: Hare Krishna, Prabhu and thank you for your 2nd letter. Nice story about TKG. I'm not surprised. TKG himself admitted, during the 1980 Pyramid House Talks, he said, “When I was temple president in Los Angeles, I used to beat the hell out of people. That’s why I was the king of the heap there.” I never met him, but I did see him and hear him speak a few times when he visited New Vrindaban, at the Palace opening and in the early 1980s. My Gurudev, Bhaktipada, didn’t like him.
Please don't get in trouble with your temple authorities if you read my books. Several ISKCON gurus, I have heard, forbid their disciples from reading my books. Take care!
June 8, 1967: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami begins to recover from his stroke of eight days earlier, and asks his disciples to get him out of the hospital, one way or another. He complains, “They are simply sticking needles.” He is taken briefly to the New York City temple, then to a rented cottage near the Atlantic Ocean in Long Branch, New Jersey. Kirtanananda dasa Brahmachari serves as his personal servant and nurse.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, pp. 212-213.
June 9, 1969: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada praises his first (and at the time only) sannyasa disciple, “He [Kirtanananda] is educated. He is intelligent. He has studied our philosophy.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 151.
Kirtanananda Swami (center) in India with Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Hansadutta dasa, and Hansadutta’s wife, Himavati devi dasi. Photo (autumn 1970) published in Back To Godhead, No. 43, p. 22 (c. January 1971).
June 9, 1976: On this date in history at Los Angeles ISKCON, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada praises Kirtanananda Swami and blesses him that he will go back to Godhead in this life. Pranada dasi, initiated in Los Angeles in June 1976, recalls:
Srila Prabhupada decided to see the new movie that Vishakha and Yadubara Prabhu made called Spiritual Frontier about New Vrindaban, and Kirtanananda Swami flew out to look at that movie with him. So one evening it was being shown in the temple room. Prabhupada sat on his vyasasana, and we proceeded to view this wonderful movie of the New Vrindaban community and what was happening there. Prabhupada liked it very much. . . .
But then at the end of the movie, he [Prabhupada] was glorifying Kirtanananda Swami and the work that he had been doing in New Vrindaban, and he was so pleased. He said, “I bless Kirtanananda Swami to go back to Godhead in this life,” and all the devotees broke out in this cheer.
If we accept this statement by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (and other statements he made regarding his first sannyasa disciple) as fact, we can be assured that 35 years later, on October 24, 2011, Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada returned to Krishna’s abode when he took his his last breath, after 45 years of chanting and preaching.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 174.
Painting of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, walking side by side and touring the New Vrindaban of the future, with seven temples on seven hills.
June 9, 1991: On this date in history, the renowned cellist Cecylia Barczyk performs for the Music at the Palace recital series. Cecylia was, without a doubt, the most accomplished musician to appear at New Vrindaban. She was the winner of:
the
Pablo Casals International Cello Competition in Budapest (1973),
the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow (1974),
the A. Parisot International Cello Competition in Brazil (1978),
the J. S. Bach International Cello Competition in Leipzig (1980), and
the G. Cassado International Cello Competition in Florence (1981).
She has performed with the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. Her program at the temple consisted of
Suite No. 2 for solo cello by J. S. Bach (1685-1750),
Sonata No. 1 in G (also by Bach),
Sonata in A by Carlo Graziani (d. 1787),
Sonata for solo cello by George Crumb (1929-2022) and
Capriccio per Siegfried Palm by Krzysztof Penderecki (1933-2020).
I accompanied her on the harpsichord for the Bach and Graziani sonatas. For an encore, we played Introduction and Allegro for cello and accordion by Matyas Seiber. Sam Shaw attended the concert and wrote a review for the Moundsville Echo.
I am in the photo, sitting with others on the floor in front of the Allen organ console. It seems that Cecylia's music puts Bhaktipada's guard dog, Gudakesh, to sleep. The rest of us appreciated her musicianship. Bhaktipada would have attended, except he was incarcerated at the time at the Martinsburg Eastern Regional Jail.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 109.
World-famous cellist Cecylia Barczyk performs at New Vrindaban (June 9, 1991).
June 10, 1976: On this date in history, during a garden conversation in Los Angeles, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada declares, “Money is so sweeter than honey.” His disciples imbibe this particular teaching with relish.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 64.
June 10, 1983: On this date in history, Chakradhari is murdered by New Vrindaban’s chief “enforcer,” Tirtha, and accountant/bookkeeper, Daruka, on community property. Soon after, Daruka moves to Los Angeles. Tirtha moves to Ohio after he is banned from residing at New Vrindaban.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 84.
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Chakradhari (Charles Saint-Denis) at top right wearing a white shirt.
June 10-12, 1988: On this date in history, New Vrindaban hosts its first Interfaith Conference, titled “Religion in the Year 2000.” A total of fifteen interfaith conferences are held between 1988 and 1994.
Many New Vrindaban devotees appreciated the interfaith conferences. Dutiful Rama fondly remembered the interfaith conferences, “Looking back, what I thought was groundbreaking at New Vrindaban was the interfaith conferences. They opened my eyes; they were so unique, so precious. The development of our interfaith preaching was so concise and accelerated. I feel blessed to have been part of that: trying to show the world that although there are many faiths, there is one common truth behind each tradition. The festivals allowed people to experience their faith and others’ faith, to share joy with each other. It was a monumental experience.”
Even Nityodita Swami, who later rejected Bhaktipada’s “Reformation,” at one time said he was greatly inspired by the interfaith festivals. He explained, “This is a dream come true. Sometimes we think it’s Bhaktipada’s vision, but it’s not Bhaktipada’s vision (although he is pushing it); it is God’s vision. It’s in every true lover of God’s heart to bring together the peoples of the world under the banner of love of God. To see it actually happening; getting a taste for what is the full-blown daily life of the City of God resident is ecstatic. There was such tremendous energy. . . . I feel very grateful to be a part of this. It’s like being swept along in a hurricane of devotional service that is being manifest. . . . I feel lucky to be near this hurricane.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 235.
Dutiful Rama (Robert Wagner) plays electric guitar in New Vrindaban’s rock band (November 2, 1992).
Nityodita Swami (Carlos Ordonez)
June 10, 1989: On this date in history, one of New Vrindaban’s undocumented Latin American workers is murdered on community property at the Frazier Smith house near Wheeling Creek.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 199.
Wheeling Creek
June 10, 1990: On this date in history, West Liberty State College music major organist Thomas Soplinski performs at the second Music at the Palace concert. Soplinski’s organ recital coincided with the Fourth Interfaith Conference. Bhaktipada attended the recital and personally congratulated Soplinski and spoke briefly with the organist’s teacher, Alfred de Jaager, Director of Choral Studies at WLSC, during the reception.
De Jaager: “Your Allen organ is very nice.”
Bhaktipada: “For an electric organ!”
De Jaager: “I can’t wait to hear the new 100-rank organ that you’re planning.”
Bhaktipada: “No one wants it more than I!”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 108.
Program for Thomas Soplinski's recital
Newspaper clippings for Thomas Soplinski's recital
Newspaper clipping for Thomas Soplinski's recital
June 10, 2014: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust trustees prohibit former Nandagram headmaster Sri Galim from purchasing or selling copies of any artworks with copyrights owned by the BBT. He is also prohibited from purchasing BBT books for resale.
Sri Galim had been making money as a distributor of BBT products for many years, practically since he was evicted from New Vrindaban in the late 1990s, to support his family. In 2014, gurukula alumni submitted a petition to the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust director Naresvara dasa and twelve others to protest Sri Galim’s selling BBT paintings and books.
The petition claimed, Sri Galim "sexually molested a number of young male students under his care while headmaster of an ISKCON boarding school. Since that time he has never apologized or attempted to make amends with those affected by his abuse. . . . That the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, clearly an organization central to Srila Prabhupada’s ISKCON, quietly continues to do business with him is an embarrassment to many in the broader devotee community. We hope this is an unintentional oversight and ask all devotees to sign our petition and encourage the BBT Trustees to do the right thing and permanently end any business connections with him."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 414.
New Nandagram headmaster Sri-Galim (Gary Gardner) with student.
June 10, 2019: On this date in history, the author receives a letter from a reader:
Namaste, Dear Prabhu.
I hope that more devotees will understand the serious defects some of these ISKCON gurus have. Your eye-opening book can be another torch light, guiding us away from deranged devotion and back to Krishna consciousness. Prabhupada said that Krishna consciousness is 80% common sense and the rest is devotion.
Before reading your book I had a general understanding about what had happened to Sulochan, but by reading it, more details and unknown facts were revealed. One German devotee told me she wasn’t going to buy Killing For Krishna, because she already knew all those things. I am convinced that she would get some new insights, too. But what can I do? For some strange reason conversations between devotees, at least in my experience, don’t last very long in Germany. And there seems to be little time for clearing up important issues. I hope this will improve in the future.
Name deleted by request
Germany
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna.
June/July 1903: On or around this date in history, six-year-old Abhay Charan De, with the help of his father, organizes a miniature Ratha Yatra (chariot procession) festival in his Calcutta neighborhood. His father, Gour Mohan De—a cloth merchant—wants his son to grow up singing bhajans (religious songs), playing the mrdanga (a two-headed Indian drum made from baked clay and cowhide), and preaching from Srimad-bhagavatam, one of the principal scriptures of the Gaudiya Vaishnavas.
Fast forward 62 years: Abhay, now known as A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, travels on a freighter from Calcutta to New York City with about seven dollars worth of Indian rupees in his pocket. He establishes the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., and in twelve years' time, his Society, now worth millions of dollars, has thousands of initiated disciples and many more thousands of supporters. If his father had been alive, surely he would be pleased by his son's success.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 142.
Artist's rendition of Gour Mohan De and his son Abhay, from Srila Prabhupada-lilamrita, Vol. 1, by Satsvarupa dasa Goswami.
Artist's rendition of Bhaktivedanta Swami walking up the ganglank of the Jaladuta, from Srila Prabhupada-lilamrita, Vol. 1, by Satsvarupa dasa Goswami.
June 12, 1974: On this date in history, during a lecture in Paris, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains, “Polygamy was allowed.”
Polygamy was common in many human societies until recently and is still common in some countries. It was especially prevalent in China, India and in Muslim nations. The Hebrew scriptures document approximately forty polygamists, including such prominent religious figures as Abraham, Jacob, Esau and David, with little or no further remark on polygamy as such.
In Islam, polygamy is allowed, with the specific limitation that men can only have up to four wives at any one time. Before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, it was lawful to have a wife and multiple concubines within Chinese marriage. An emperor, government official or rich merchant could have up to hundreds of concubines after marrying his first wife. After the Communist Revolution in 1949, polygamy was banned. This occurred via the Marriage Act of 1953.
Polygamy was accepted in Hindu India. The demigods in Heaven and the ksatriyas on Earth often had multiple wives. According to Srimad-bhagavatam: King Chitraketu had ten million wives, Lord Krishna had 16,108 wives, Sasabindu had ten thousand wives, Saubhari Muni had fifty wives, Kasyapa Rishi had seventeen wives, Krishna’s father King Vasudeva had sixteen wives, Dharma had thirteen wives, Lord Siva had eleven wives, Dharmaraja had ten wives, Arjuna had four wives, King Dasarath and Maharaja Bharata had three wives and King Pandu had two wives. Even Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada had attempted to make arrangements to marry a second wife when he was a young man.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 146. Image: Polygamy
The Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII (1886-1967), had 7 wives, countless concubines and mistresses, 34 legitimate children and countless illegitimate children. The Nizam was so wealthy that he was portrayed on the cover of Time magazine on 22 February 1937, being described as the world's richest man.
June 12, 2000: On this date in history, forty-four children of ISKCON, including twenty-one New Vrindaban gurukula alumni, file a $400 million lawsuit through the Turley law firm at the Federal Court in Dallas, Texas, against the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, along with sixteen ISKCON temples and farms, including New Vrindaban, six executors for the estate of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and seventeen members or former members of the GBC, including Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, for permitting alleged multiple forms of child abuse including sexual, emotional and physical abuse.
After the initial filing, fifty-one more gurukula alumni join the suit, making a total of 95 plaintiffs. Among the seventeen defendants named in the case, Windle Turley notes, “New Vrindaban was the worst offender.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 435.
The Dallas Gurukula
June 12, 2022: On this date in history, a popular podcast producer explains,
"The hidden message behind Henry’s books is the Bhakti Yoga process, a process which I see as a type of self-improvement process which can transform people for good. Honestly, I think the message of Bhakti Yoga is blatant in Henry’s books, and despite all the negative in the story of New Vrindaban and Swami Bhaktipada, Henry’s books still give a positive take on the Bhakti Yoga process, and also on the dynamics of cults and the general cultural dynamics of what was happening in America at the time. This is because Henry’s books deal with real human struggle and flawed people making mistakes. I am skeptical of power structures, so all the corruption he uncovered is not surprising to me. Nor does the corruption diminish what I interpret as how Bhakti Yoga generally helped the people Henry writes about in a self-improvement process."
David A. Calton (Doooovid)
Host of the Doooovid Internet Streaming Show
Detroit Michigan
Doooovid (David A. Calton) and Henry on Doovid’s Internet Streaming Show
June 13, 1984: On this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, the ISKCON-approved guru, announces during a counselors’ meeting: If community enforcers could “cut off a few hands, a few balls, and shoot a few people,” petty crime would be eliminated at New Vrindaban. This statement is recorded in Gopinath's diary.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. xxii.
On the same day, Bhaktipada also tells the New Vrindaban parents, “You might as well send your children to hell, if they eat karmi candy.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 275.
June 13, 2021: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Reading Eleven Naked Emperors was a very clarifying experience. Being provided with all sorts of historical accounts in chronological order was like a puzzle that was gradually being put together.
I came to ISKCON in 2001, after the zonal acharya system [was disbanded], and was initiated by a “guru” who later turned out to be unfit for this service and had to step down. Over the years I got some information from some people in regards to the history of the guru system in ISKCON and the Ritvik camp, but never such a detailed and thorough account as Henry provides in his book.
I very much appreciate the holistic and honest approach Henry takes. Many theological and philosophical issues, that go along with the previous and present guru system are being presented. Henry truthfully allows that all these viewpoints and arguments are being looked at objectively and critically. I didn’t sense any bias on his side.
Since many contemporary witnesses had a place to share their insights and experiences, I was provided with historical details which I would probably never have gotten otherwise. I felt as a reader that I was led to come to my own conclusions. That I appreciate a lot.
I think that ISKCON should establish a history department that honestly and truthfully presents the history of ISKCON “as it was” and not “as we would like you to believe it was,” written by their own people and not by others, as Kailash Chandra Prabhu points out in one place of the book. Great read!
Hare Krishna
Your servant
Keshava Madhava das (Klaus Frenzel)
Transformational Coach
OMNI Hypnotherapist
Zürich, Switzerland
Keshava Madhava das (Klaus Frenzel)
June 14, 1968: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada declares that the “special feature” and “main business” of New Vrindaban is to care for cows, calves, oxen and bulls. He insists that the economic problem will be solved by tilling the land and protecting cows. In a letter to Hayagriva from Montreal, he explains, “Give all protection to the cows, and that should be the main business of New Vrindaban.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 46.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada visits the new barn at New Vrindaban.
Gurukula student with cow at New Vrindaban (c. 1969-1971)
June 14, 1990: On this date in history, after four years in hiding, Tapahpunja is apprehended in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lampur by U. S. Marshals from Hawaii. He is later found guilty in a court of law for assisting in the murder of Steven Bryant and spends five years in federal prison.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 359.
Tapahpunja Swami (Terry Sheldon)
June 14, 2016: On this date in history, a memorial service for Charles Saint-Denis—33 years after his murder at New Vrindaban by Tirtha and Daruka—is held at Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold.
WTOV Channel 9 television from Steubenville, Ohio, reported, “Charles Saint-Denis’ best friend began this important memorial service by reliving fond memories of their past. Saint-Denis’ widow and children also spoke of his impact in the Rose Garden at the Palace of Gold, a Hare Krishna community and a place where Saint-Denis was a member. . . . Happy memories were shared, but also moments that have been tucked away for years—the moments leading to Saint-Denis’ death. . . . ‘I think facing our heaviest challenges and dark times in our lives helps us to become more rich and wise people, so I hope this will really be a service to the Moundsville community and the larger community to do just that,’ Bhima Karma Saragrahi [Saint-Denis’ son] said.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 107.
Chakradhari's son, Bhima Karma.
June 14, 2020: On this date in history, the author appears as a guest on the Jim Paris Talk Radio Show. Mr. Paris explained:
I love podcasts. I listen to so many podcasts, and one that I enjoy is called “American Scandal.” I listened to a series of episodes about this book [Killing For Krishna], and I have to tell you: it was fascinating. I went online, and yes there’s a book about this [the Hare Krishna murders], and I wanted to get the author with us [on my radio show]. The book is called Killing For Krishna. . . . For someone [in our radio audience] who’s looking for a true-crime story, this [book] is just an incredible, incredible page-turner. . . . A barn-burner. This book is incredible. It’s incredible what happened there [at New Vrindaban]. . . .
And you [Henry] are such an interesting guy, and now you’ve moved on with your life. . . . I think these are positive things; we take something negative that happened [in our lives] and we turn it to a positive. And you’re certainly not just sharing this story [about the Hare Krishna murders] but you’re giving kind of a blueprint for cults that are out there today. [Cults] that could draw people in and terrible things can happen, and you’ve got to know when you’re crossing that line and getting involved with a dangerous group, such as what was happening back in 1986 [in the Hare Krishna movement, like the murder of Steven Bryant].
—James L. Paris, from an interview with Henry at Jim Paris Talk Radio Show.
Jim Paris and Henry Doktorski
June 14, 2024: On this date in history, a former New Vrindaban resident, Sudharma (Susan Meyers Wieland), dies. I knew Sudharma when she worked as manager of the Palace Gift Store, c. early to mid-1980s or thereabouts. She was born in 1955. I was friendly with her and sometimes talked with her (despite the fact celibate brahmacharis like me were not supposed to chit chat with women) at the Palace Gift Store during my three-days-a-month return from the pick to New Vrindaban for the sankirtan festivals.
I thought she was intelligent, cultured and attractive. I also knew her husband, Varaha (William Meyers), a short, heavy-set guy who I thought was a former Hansadutta disciple. I took him out on the pick for a couple months and I never had a problem with him. He seemed to me to be an okay guy, but certainly not in the same social class as his wife. She refers to him as a "man of very low character."
Sudharma appears in Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, pages 44-46. She says:
In New Vrindaban, I was able to open a bookstore in the basement of the Palace of Gold. From there, with very little support from the management, and with my young baby girl in tow, by Srila Prabhupada’s mercy I was able to distribute a sizeable quantity of Srila Prabhupada’s books. This effort was easy because of the grandeur of the Palace and the sincerity of the devotees. Unfortunately, like so many previous efforts, it was not to last. I had just completed a Labor Day weekend of book sales that totaled $10,000 when I was once again informed that it was now time to bring in a more qualified individual. I will not dwell here on the demoralising manner in which the transition took place, but I will say that after my departure from the New Vrindaban book store, the sales immediately decreased to less than a tenth of what they had been when it was under my care.
More detrimental to me . . . was my arranged marriage. It was determined that the solution to the numerous fall-downs of New Vrindaban’s residing spiritual leader would be to give many of the men sannyasa and to marry off all of the women. Upon hearing of this decision, I approached one of the leading household couples in our community to inquire about one godbrother I thought might be interested in marrying me. Unfortunately he was one of the candidates for sannyasa and thus I was kicked out of the ashram and forced to live outside, alone in the sankirtan van.
After returning to the ashram, it became apparent that I was earmarked to marry a man of very low character. Understanding the intention, I began fasting and praying to the Lord for understanding. After several days, I had no answer, so I also stopped drinking water. After four days of not drinking water and not eating, I received a phone call. “Please break your fast, I will not force you to do anything against your will.”
You can imagine my surprise and dismay when less than two weeks later, my marriage to this very same man was unexpectedly announced at guru puja. I was tired and weak from the fast and had no fight left in me. I felt that for some unknown reason, Krishna wanted me to surrender.
Thus, after years of ardent service and unflinching dedication to the regulative principles, book distribution and preaching, I found myself married to a low-class, disturbed individual who smoked, drank, stayed out nights roaming the streets of the gay sections of San Francisco, regularly forced himself upon me sexually, beat me and tore up everything I owned. He even gave me a disease that is a known link to cervical cancer, a disease for which I have recently undergone extensive surgery in what then appeared to be a life-threatening circumstance.
For more, see Krishna1008 Blogspot
Sudharma dasi (Susan Meyers Wieland)
June 15: June 1972: On or around this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami, on Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s order, serves as a ritvik priest and chants on new initiates’ beads at an initiation ceremony in Brooklyn, New York. This is the first time Prabhupada authorizes a disciple to chant on initiates’ beads and devotees admire Kirtanananda because Prabhupada gave him this great honor.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 48-49.
June 15: June 1972: On or around this date in history, during a visit to ISKCON Boston, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s disciples rent the V. I. P. suite for him at the Boston Sheraton Hotel. However, Prabhupada refuses, “I am not going to stay in a hotel. A hotel is a brothel. I will stay in the temple.” As his disciples hadn’t prepared any room for him at the temple, he stays in an empty room near the bathroom, with only a bed and a rocking chair. He says, “It is sufficient.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 15.
June 15, 1994: On this date in history, the German scientific journal, "Der Pathologe," publishes a paper titled “Normal weight of the brain in adults in relation to age, sex, body height and weight,”—which compares measurements from autopsies of 8,000 adult male and female cadavers without brain disease—and determines that the average brain weight of an adult male is 1336 grams (47 ounces) and an adult female is 1198 grams (42 ounces). The difference is only ten percent, not fifty percent as Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada erroneously claimed.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 32.
June 16, 1971: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada visits Detroit, Michigan, and hundreds of disciples come to see him, including Kirtanananda Swami.
One disciple notes the loving relationship between Prabhupada and Kirtanananda, “Prabhupada appeared powerful, yet at the same time delicate and soft, like a very wonderful flower. As he moved along very slowly, the devotees lined up and made an aisle for him to walk. He walked up to Kirtanananda Maharaja, put a garland around him, and embraced him. Kirtanananda Maharaja was crying tears of ecstasy, and he looked like a little boy next to his father.”
Later that day at Detroit ISKCON, another disciple recalls, “After the kirtan, Prabhupada sat down and asked, ‘Where is Kirtanananda Maharaja?’ He [Maharaja] was just sitting in the crowd. Prabhupada called him forward and had him sit right by the vyasasana.” It is obvious to all present that Prabhupada loves his first sannyasa disciple and that Kirtanananda Swami loves his spiritual master.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 207.
June 16, 2004: On this date in history, after eight years and two months of imprisonment (and prior to that two years under house arrest), 68-year-old Kirtanananda Swami is released from the Federal Correctional Institution at Butner, North Carolina. He goes to live with his disciples at the Interfaith Sanctuary in New York City.
One of Bhaktipada’s loyal New York followers, Adi Purusha dasa (formerly Adi Purusha Swami), tells “The New York Times” that the criminal charges which resulted in his master’s imprisonment were “totally fallacious.” Adi Purusha insisted that “Bhaktipada is dedicating his life after prison to prayer, preaching and writing.”
Eternal Love (Susan Bauer/Sukhavaha) expresses her joy and exclaims, “It’s like having your father back.” The author, invited by Bhaktipada to attend his homecoming despite the fact that he had rejected Bhaktipada as spiritual master over ten years earlier, attends the joyous event as an observer.
Bhaktipada, upon his arrival at the 25 First Avenue Interfaith Sanctuary, is greeted with kirtan and flower garlands. He does not wear his City of God Franciscan-style robe, but wears a traditional saffron ISKCON sannyasa dhoti. I hadn’t seen him for nearly ten years and I am a bit surprised by his physical condition: he lookes quite old, even invalid, and is confined to a wheelchair. But he is obviously glad to be released, and, after so many years in prison, to live at a Radha Krishna temple surrounded by adoring disciples and followers.
About fifty devotees and guests attend, including three of Bhaktipada’s Indian sannyasis who traveled from India to see their guru maharaja. Ninety-two-year-old Rabbi Joseph Gelberman is also present, and sits on a folding chair next to Bhaktipada near the altar. Bhaktipada takes darshan of the deities and gives a short lecture, then retires to his room upstairs.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 75.
Bhaktipada with disciples and followers at the entrance to the Interfaith Sanctuary at 25 First Avenue, New York City.
June 17, 1988: On this date in history, the Krishna Chorale travels from West Virginia to Cincinnati, Ohio, to sing at the Interfaith Festival held at the New Jerusalem Catholic community. A large contingency of New Vrindaban residents attend, including Bhaktipada, the City of God Children’s Choir (directed by Chakravarti Swami and his former wife Dinasharana), the Theater of Understanding and Malini the elephant.
At the request of Krishna Balaram Swami (Joseph Bonomo, who joined ISKCON at 26 Second Avenue in the mid-1960s and later came to New Vrindaban and served as one of the organizers of the event) I composed a piece which incorporated aspects of both the Christian and Hindu traditions. The work, written for narrator, choir, flute, guitar, bass guitar and keyboard, was titled "Alleluia! Hare Krishna!" The text was adapted from Christian and Hindu scriptures.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 70.
New Vrindaban’s Minister of Music from 1986 to 1993, Hrishikesh dasa (1988).
The City of God Children’s Choir, formal portrait behind Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold (1989). Adults include Hrishikesh (director) and assistants: Dhirodatta, unknown Bhaktin, and Bhavisya.
Malini and her mahout, Tattva (Thomas Reidman).
June 17, 2004: On this date in history, on the morning following Bhaktipada's release from prison, the author plays accordion and leads the “Blazing Fire of Samsara” English song (written by Hayagriva 16 years earlier) during mangal aroti at the Interfaith Sanctuary, at the the insistence of godbrother Kevala Bhakti.
That morning while chanting japa in the temple, my younger godbrother, Kevala Bhakti (Carlos Núñez), asked me to lead the English “Blazing Fire of Samsara Prayers” with accordion at mangal aroti. I refused, and suggested that one of Bhaktipada’s sannyasa disciples should lead the aroti. But Kevala Bhakti insisted, and I acquiesced when he put the little accordion in my arms.
Although I hadn’t seen nor served my former spiritual master for over a decade, when I sang Hayagriva’s “Blazing Fire” song tears filled my eyes and my voice choked. Tears also filled Bhaktipada’s eyes. It was an emotional moment for all of us, I think.
During Bhaktipada’s class, as I recall, he addressed me personally in front of the congregation, and acknowledged how my kirtan had brought tears to his eyes. I replied, “The feelings are mutual.”
Later during the day, so many devotees came to me and commented on the kirtan. Some described with awe and amazement the tears in Bhaktipada’s eyes. They said that my kirtan had touched Bhaktipada’s heart and their hearts. It was a certainly wonderful moment, a gift from Krishna. These moments cannot be produced on demand, nor can they be completely suppressed, we can only thank Krishna when they come.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 77.
Bhaktipada and the author at the Interfaith Sanctuary (June 17, 2004).
June 17, 2021: On this date in history, the author visits the West Virginia and Regional History Center at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia, where the Swami Bhaktipada Archives are preserved for posterity. He meets John A. Cuthbert, the Director and Curator of the History Center, who has been purchasing copies of the author's books for the University libraries as soon as the books are published. Cuthbert writes a short review of Henry's books for promotional purposes. Cuthbert writes:
Henry Doktorski’s "Gold, Guns and God" series represents an exhaustive compendium of information about one of the most compelling stories of the late 20th century: the meteoric rise and gradual decline of the Hare Krishna movement in America and elsewhere around the globe, but especially at the West Virginia New Vrindaban community.
Rather than a concise summary, these books draw on literally all existing sources of information about the Hare Krishnas, including the voluminous personal archives of Swami Bhaktipada himself. Personal reminiscence and oral history is another significant source. Doktorski himself was a devotee at New Vrindaban for more than a decade and a half. His personal experiences and observations are compelling testimony, as well as those of fellow devotees (some) with whom he interacted for more than four decades.
It is a story of absolute power corrupting absolutely.
John A. Cuthbert, Director and Curator
West Virginia and Regional History Center
West Virginia University
Morgantown, West Virginia
For more, see Gold, Guns and God.
John Cuthbert and the author at West Virginia University, Morgantown (June 17, 2021).
June 18, 1988: On this date in history, the Palace Rose Garden is accredited by All-America Rose Selections, a nonprofit association of rose growers dedicated to the introduction and promotion of exceptional roses.
Bhaktipada was very fond of the rose garden at Prabhupada’s Palace, and often visited. One Palace gardener, Rupa Ramesvari dasi (Rebecca Strowger), recalled, “Srila Bhaktipada was always so gentle, concerned, and protective of the rose bushes. At times we were thinking they were almost like his kids in a way (except that they smell a lot better!). . . . One day, while he was taking one of his frequent walks through the rose bed, he commented, ‘Roses are just like babies; they need constant attention.’”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 300.
The Palace Rose Garden
June 18, 1992: On this date in history, Bhaktipada’s attorney, the celebrated (and expensive) Alan Dershowitz, who represented such celebrated and wealthy clients as Claus von Bülow, Mike Tyson, and O. J. Simpson, presents oral arguments for Bhaktipada’s appeal of his 1991 Martinsburg conviction before a three-judge panel of the 13th Circuit Court in Charleston, South Carolina. In his memoir "The Best Defense," Dershowitz admits, “Almost all of my clients have been guilty.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 96.
Alan Dershowitz
June 18-21, 1993: On these dates in history, many New Vrindaban devotees fast from food, on Bhaktipada’s suggestion, in order to petition the demigods and the Supreme Lord to permit their spiritual master’s release from house arrest.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 98.
Some of the prominent demigods who, according to Hindu mythology, reside in the invisible heavenly planets.
June 18, 2001: On this date in history, New Vrindaban fringe resident Sacinandan dasa (James A. Prins, also known as Sacipita) pleads guilty to three counts of first-degree sexual abuse. He admits that more than twelve years earlier he had abused two girls ages eight and eleven and an adult woman, although the actual number might have been in the dozens. He is sentenced to eight months in prison and three years of probation.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 374.
West Virginia Penitentiary, Moundsville, West Virginia
June 18, 2014: On this date in history, a New Vrindaban gurukula alumnus recollects his time at the West Virginia commune and other ISKCON gurukulam:
My mother and I were in Los Angeles in 1969 and when Prabhupada went to New Vrindaban we just followed him there. The gurukula was all the world we knew. I was there in New Vrindaban I think from 1969 to 1971. In the fall of 1971 we moved to New York for a few months, then back to New Vrindaban, and in the winter of 1971 I left for Dallas when the Dallas gurukula started.
At New Vrindaban, Paramananda [Ben Jenkins] and his wife [Satyabhama] were taking care of us. She was teaching us. They started a little school. It was Ekendra, myself, Bhirabhadra and Girish. They were a lot older. I was about six years old and they were teenagers already.
I remember I used to entertain myself all day. I would get a stick and pretend I was driving a car, making noises. I remember going to Keshi Ghat at the bottom of the ravine. We’d swim together. A lot of nice prasadam. I remember getting poison ivy (laughter). Five or six times.
I lived in the brahmachari ashram upstairs in the main house. I was always so tired because I never got enough sleep. I would always sit beside the old log heater in the temple room, the wood-burning stove, and my sikha would sizzle on that (laughter). It was a big wood-burning steel barrel that they made into a furnace. It was really austere. It would get too hot, and then when the fire burned out it would get too cold. (laughter).
We had some schooling, some teachers, Devakinandan, Trivikrama Swami, they were there teaching us. We had a little schoolhouse at one time. Devakinandan didn’t have any patience; he beat us with a big stick. He would beat me so hard that I had black and blue bruises on my butt and on the back of my legs. We were scared of him. He would take a big switch and hit us for any little thing; like how many rounds we didn’t chant. If I said I chanted eighteen rounds, he’d check my bead counter and whip me eighteen times.
I remember the festivals; swimming, working in the garden. There were nice devotees like Paramananda’s wife, Satyabhama. She was taking care of us. She was always nice to us. I remember her teaching us how to wash our bead bags (laughter). I used to make sweet rice for the Sunday feast. I think I was seven. They set me up with the milk and the rice on the stove. I was supposed to stir it continuously. A few times I burnt it when I got distracted (laughter).
New Vrindaban was austere, but I remember meeting lots of devotees, big festivals, Prabhupada being there, it was exciting. It was boring sitting in the classes; I would just fall asleep a lot. I was always so tired; I could never get enough sleep. We had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to go to the temple and chant our rounds.
I always felt New Vrindaban was a hell hole. . . . Too many false austerities and I felt it was a real cult. I was one of the first kulis. I went to New Vrindaban gurukula back in 1969. Then on, on, on to other kulas. I am glad I came out alive.
Dvarakadhisa dasa (Darwin Borthwick)
Facebook comment
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 224.
Dvarakadhisa dasa (Darwin Borthwick) with cow at New Vrindaban (c. 1969-1971)
June 19, 1986: On this date in history, Randall Gorby tells an FBI agent, “Howard Wheeler preferred opium, and Keith Ham preferred to use cocaine.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 16.
"A New Vice: Opium Dens in France," an illustration from Le Petit Journal, 5 July 1903.
June 19, 1992: On this date in history, the author (serving as composer and music director) records two Buddhist chants ("quan yin pusat" and "namo quan shi yin pusat") at the New Vrindaban City of God in Marshall County, West Virginia. At that time, the leader of the community, Swami Bhaktipada, had removed many of the traditional Indian/Bengali influences from the Hare Krishna community, and incorporated aspects from other religions traditions. He called it "De-Indianizing," or "Westernizing" Krishna consciousness.
These chants, with orchestration by Hrishikesh dasa (the author), were written to exhibit Bhaktipada's ideas of what he later called "Ideational Music," ie., music in the mode of goodness, devoid of passion and ignorance. The mantra is a meditation. One focuses on the mantra in an effort to dive deep within to the peaceful serenity free from the stresses of the material world. In time, meditating on a mantra can also free one from the turmoil within one's own mind and emotions.
Brihan Naradiya Purana devi dasi (Bernice Roberto) and Krpamaya (John Sherwood) served as the singers on this recording. The first tune is orchestrated for accordion, bass accordion, double bass, harp, orchestra bells and gong. The second tune is orchestrated for pipe organ, accordion, trumpet, double bass, orchestra bells, harp and chime, It appears this was a live recording, as we hear a conch blowing at the very end.
I played accordion and pipe organ, but I'm not sure who played the other instruments. Perhaps Dutiful Rama played bass accordion, Brihan played harp, Dhruva played orchestra bells, Herapanchami played double bass, and Vishvatomukha played trumpet. Or perhaps I played some or all of the other instruments on my Kurzweil keyboard.
To listen to these recordings, go to: Two Buddhist Chants.
Painting of Quan Yin, the bodhisattva associated with compassion. Her name means "[The One Who] Perceives the Sounds of the World."
June 19, 2004: On this date in history, after visiting Bhaktipada in New York City when he was released from prison, the author writes to his former spiritual master a candid letter, expressing his affection for him, and also suggests that Bhaktipada should confess his sins and beg forgiveness from his godbrothers, disciples, and associates.
To read Henry's letter, go to Letter of June 19, 2004.
Bhaktipada and the author at the Interfaith Sanctuary (June 17, 2004).
June 19, 2019: On this date in history, the author receives a letter from a reader:
Hi Henry.
I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading your book, "Killing for Krishna" and the insight on ISKCON it has brought me. I’m from Vancouver and a older friend of mine was unfortunately abused during his time at ISKCON as well back in the day. Physically and mentally it has taken a toll on him. I very much appreciate your work and exposing the truth for what it is. I have a background in Hindu practice myself, that is in the lineage of Shiva/Divine Goddess which of course is pretty different than Hare Krishna, but I never imagined things as crazy as the stuff in your book were possible. Very eye opening and I’m looking forward to your next book, "Eleven Naked Emperors."
Alix Mochi
Vancouver, British Columbia
June 19, 2022: On this date in history, a reader writes a review of "Gold, Guns and God," Vol. 6 on Amazon.
FIVE STARS: Riveting, Enthralling, and better than a True Crime Documentary on Netflix!
This volume [Vol. 6] of the "Gold, Guns, and God" opus by Henry Doktorski is riveting and enthralling, much like a true crime documentary on Netflix ("Making a Murderer," anyone?). Two chapters in and like a magic act everything around me disappeared because I could not put this down or do anything else, but keep reading! The story itself of the conspiracy to kill Steve Bryant should be enough to capture anyone’s curiosity.
The author presents detail after detail of evidence of how many participated in the murder conspiracy and how it was carried out. The more one reads the more one may find themselves in this difficult place of what is reality vs. what we all wish was not. It’s not always easy to accept this unfortunate episode in Prabhupada’s movement and especially when it involved so many “higher ups.”
However, it’s too important to trace the root of the problem and it is already well known—it started immediately after November 14, 1977 after Prabhupada’s passing ISKCON degraded down a dangerous road of clashing cults of eleven personalities, or better stated—Eleven Naked Emperors.
Volume 6 provides details that explain the beginning of the end of Keith Ham’s reign of sex abuse, corruption, deviations from Prabhupada’s teaching, and ego centric cult in West Virginia. It’s a fascinating read when one compares to other dangerous cults that puts a flawed human being in the center of a community as good as God and calls him ridiculous names like “King.” I say fascinating because the similarities are frightening—unquestioned authority/power over others, blind followers, scriptural inaccuracies of pure teachings, the easy justification of crimes, etc. Think Nxivm, Osho, People’s Temple—the examples out there are endless yet feels like an all too familiar story.
Refreshing that ISKCON and those who follow the path of Bhakti (non-ISKCON) that I have experienced in the present have taken note. Krishna and Prabhupada seem to be at the center again, not “show bottle gurus” exalted to the point they are as good as God. In this sense there is definitely a collective maturity and intentional effort to restore the purity of the movement. The lessons here are impossible to ignore for anyone who wants to learn from the painful lessons of the past in order to avoid an encore. You may ignore this history at your own risk.
Pedro Ramos
Atlanta, Georgia
Pedro Ramos
June 20, 1972: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains, “I consider this gurukula school to be one of our most important aspects of this movement and it should be given all serious consideration by the members. If we are able to make a whole generation of our children into fine Krishna conscious preachers, that will be the glory of our movement and the glory of your country as well. But if we neglect somehow or other and if we lose even one Vaishnava, that is very great loss.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 219.
The Dallas Gurukula
June 20, 1984: On this date in history, the New Vrindaban bus, ferrying passengers from Bahulaban to the RVC temple complex behind the Palace, almost crashes due to lack of adequate maintenance on its brake system.
Gopinath wrote in his diary, “This morning, the brakes went out on the bus. We did not know it as Chakrapani [Charles Volger, a normally-quiet brahmachari who often worked in the kitchen] was driving. Suddenly going downhill he began veering from side to side. The devotees [riding in the bus] yelled, ‘You’re going too fast!’ and Chakrapani’s eyes were bugging out of his head. Many devotees began chanting Hare Krishna and Devadatta [David Tartakoff, initiated at Laguna Beach in May 1976] tried to pull the emergency brake, which failed. I thought we would soon crash so I tried to remember Krishna. Then suddenly the brakes took and we slowed down. Everyone laughed when we got off the bus.”
Despite this frightening mechanical failure which might have resulted in severe injury or death for the driver and passengers (none who wore seat belts), the bus was not repaired. Two months later, police stopped the vehicle and wrote out three tickets for operating an unsafe vehicle. Gopinath wrote, “The police just stopped our old shuttle bus and gave us three tickets for driving an unsafe vehicle.”
Most devotees were unconcerned, as they believed Krishna would protect them from harm.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 138.
June 20, 1991: On this date in history, Federal District Court Judge Robert R. Merhige, Jr. announces Bhaktipada’s sentence from his Martinsburg West Virginia trial three months earlier in which he was convicted of racketeering on Good Friday: thirty years in prison.
Devamrita Swami, an important New Vrindaban community spokesman who served as temple president after Kuladri left (and later as the sankirtan leader), revealed his optimism in a conversation with a television news reporter, “Bhaktipada had this dream [to build the City of God] and we’re pushing it on. We weren’t so much concerned as to whether he was sentenced to one year or a life in prison. The whole thing [criminal charges] is basically a farce, and we’re quite confident it [his conviction] will be thrown out in appellate court.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 22.
Campaign poster for Robert R. Merhige
June 20, 2024: On this date in history, a Prabhupada disciple praises the author’s work:
I have to thank my friend Doktorski for giving a voice to the voiceless in his honest, frank, and tightly-researched encyclopedic volumes of what actually happened. Doktorski, at risk to himself, has like God’s Public Defender, given a correct reflection of what actually transpired. His volumes are highly recommended. Even if you happen to one of the ex-Divinities on the cover itself, it is worth opening the pages of his encyclopedic research to see what sort of footprint you are going to leave for the scrutiny of the next generation of Hare Krishna historians. And a lot of that ain’t purty.
Patita-Uddharana dasa Adhikari, ACBSP (Miles Davis)
(Initiated September 1968, Santa Fe, New Mexico)
Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
Patita-Uddharana dasa with a statue of the famous Bulgarian artist Vladimir Dimitrov (1882-1960), Frolosh, Bulgaria (Spring 2021)
June 21, 1969: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada requests Hayagriva to establish a children's school at New Vrindaban.
Hayagriva, the New Vrindaban temple president, explains, “Prabhupada calls a special meeting beneath the persimmon tree to discuss the founding of a gurukula at New Vrindaban. So far, at our ‘school,’ there are only four boys. But not for long. Prabhupada wants all the Society’s children sent to New Vrindaban. ‘If you can make just one child Krishna conscious, that will be a great service to the Earth. Krishna will be pleased. Many children will come here, for this place is very nice, and Krishna will give us all opportunity.’”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 222.
Boys resting on a fallen log in the woods near Old Nandagram.
Boy hangs on grape vine in the woods near Old Nandagram.
Another boy swings on grape vine in the woods near Old Nandagram.
June 21, 1970: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada reminisces about his early life, “Although I had immense opportunities to indulge in the four principles of sinful life because I was connected with a very aristocratic family, Krishna always saved me, and throughout my whole life I do not know what is illicit sex, intoxication, meat-eating or gambling. So far my present life is concerned, I do not remember any part of my life when I was forgetful of Krishna.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 170.
Artist's painting of Abhay Charan De (Bhaktivedanta Swami) as a boy, with his father, Calcutta, India.
June 21, 1976: On this date in history, during a morning walk in Toronto, Ontario, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada claims that once a devotee’s heart is cleansed of material desires, he never falls down again; he is eternally liberated. Prabhupada said, “He [a devotee who falls down] is not devotee. He’s pretending to be devotee. One who is devotee never falls down. There are so many false devotees. He falls down.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 299.
June 21, 1976: On this date in history, during a conversation with Kirtanananda Swami in Toronto, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada expresses surprise when he learns that Hayagriva and Shama dasi have separated as husband and wife. Prabhupada says, “I thought that he is happy in family life.”
Prabhupada had ordered the two to wed over seven years earlier. Hayagriva had tried to refuse, but Prabhupada forced him. Prabhupada's innocent statement to Kirtanananda suggests that Prabhupada had no idea that his professor disciple was a life-long and incurable homosexual who began philandering within a year of his December 1968 wedding day to Shama dasi. Perhaps Prabhupada knew (unlikely) that his disciple was gay, but if he did, Prabhupada assumed that by chanting the Holy Names Hayagriva would be cured of his "demonic" disease.
It took Shama dasi seven years to finally leave her husband. She later wrote a book about her time in ISKCON which she titled "Mind Rape."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 98.
Hayagriva proofreading in his office (undated).
Polaroid photo of Hayagriva’s wife, Cheryl Ann Morris Wheeler (Shama dasi) at New Vrindaban (July 1969).
June 21, 1976: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada returns for his fourth and final visit to New Vrindaban. Prabhupada tells Kirtanananda Swami to grow grapes and make wine in order to store the juice. When it comes time to use it, strain off the alcohol, drink the juice and give what is left to the cows. “This will make the cows very happy.”
Our friend Bhima-Karma Saragrahi writes, “Did anyone else see the Prabhupada memory video where a servant of Prabhupada recalled Prabhupada drinking a half glass of red wine on the plane and explaining that a little bit was good for circulation and digestion, but if he did it openly, his disciples would become alcoholics?”
Our friend Malati dasi responded, “Prabhupada did like to take 7-Up on the plane to quell digestion. Once, in a first class seat, he was offered a glass of champagne which he thought was 7-Up so he drank it. After it was discovered to be Champagne, he commented that is was very good but he did not drink it again. When disciples heard about him drinking 7-Up, they began stock piling 7-Up in Los Angeles (I think it was Los Angeles). When he found out, he stopped it. They had no digestive issues and were only indulging for sense gratification.”
During this same visit to New Vrindaban, when asked by a disciple, “How can I serve you best?” Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada answers, “If you want to please me, please serve Kirtanananda.” When another disciple asks a similar question, Prabhupada replies, “Just do what Kirtanananda says.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s books Killing For Krishna, p. 141, Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 123, “Gold, Guns and God," Vol. 3, p. 167, and Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 79.
June 21, 2009: On this date in history, the author questions Radhanath Swami at a preaching program in Schenley Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, regarding the historical accuracy and truthfulness of his newly-published book The Journey Home. Radhanath remains silent; he refuses to reply. The author explains in more detail:
In 2008, Radhanath Swami’s autobiography—The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami—was published. The 344-page hardcover book begins with his childhood in Highland Park, Illinois and ends with a reunion with his parents in 1972 after he left India and before he came to New Vrindaban. In the “Afterword” he devotes one page to his twenty years at New Vrindaban, but he is careful not to mention the names “New Vrindaban” or “Kirtanananda.”
When I first read The Journey Home, I had doubts about the integrity of Radhanath Swami’s autobiography. To me, too many events appeared to be fabricated, or if they were actual events, were placed into sections of the book not because of historical accuracy, but for dramatic purposes. I spoke to Radhanath Swami about this on Sunday evening (Father’s Day), June 21, 2009, at an outdoor ISKCON preaching program hosted by New Vrindaban devotees. The program was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the grassy field near Schenley Park (now it’s a paved parking lot) between the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh on Forbes Avenue, and the Carnegie Mellon University library. When I was a graduate student at Duquesne University (and after), I visited both libraries many times.
Radhanath Swami was the featured attraction of the festival, and some of his disciples set up book tables. After all was finished, Radhanath was chatting with some long-time New Vrindaban residents who had come to the program. I remember Lilasuka was there, and a few other mothers. Maybe a brahmachari or two, who I didn’t recognize. They were sitting on the grass and conversing with and listening to Radhanath in a worshipful mood. I think they were praising his recently-published autobiography. Radhanath Swami was squatting on the sidewalk next to them.
I came over to chat. I’ve known Radhanath Swami since 1978 when he served as the full time pujari and cook for the Radha Vrindaban Nath deities at the Old Vrindaban Farm Brahmachari Ashram, when he was known as Radhanath dasa Brahmachari.
I also squatted down on the sidewalk, and remarked, “I read your book, Maharaja. You tell some fantastic stories!” We smiled. He was pleased. Then I asked, “But did everything happen just the way you described it, or did you embellish the story?” There followed an awkward silence. I think the devotees present were horrified that I would be so offensive to ask such an incriminating question, which I’m sure they thought was not needed nor necessary. Radhanath did not respond. After a few moments, in an attempt to change the strained mood, I said, “Oh, even if you embellished the story, it’s still a great story!” I don’t think I stayed around much longer after that.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 11.
Cover of Radhanath Swami's book The Journey Home
June 21, 2023: On this date in history, the author’s book, Gold, Guns and God: Swami Bhaktipada and the West Virginia Hare Krishnas, Vol. 10: The Final Pastimes, is published. This is the 12th and (possibly) final book in the author's Hare Krishna dodecalogy. Within a few days, the book rises to Number One in Amazon Hot New Releases in Biographies of Hinduism.
See Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10
Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10 front and back cover
June 22, 1968: On this date in history, Kirtanananda Maharaja, after three months at New Vrindaban, writes to Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada about the difficulties with Mr. Rose the landowner, Rose’s insistence on having a “nonsectarian” institution, and the “backwards and suspicious” neighbors. He also requests some assistance to help build the community. Specifically Kirtanananda requests Prabhupada to send one hundred brahmacharis to help at New Vrindaban. In response to his disciple’s specific request for one hundred brahmacharis, Prabhupada answers, “I think no brahmachari will agree to go there.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 51.
Vrindaban farmhouse (undated).
June 22, 1969: On this date in history, during a lecture while visiting New Vrindaban, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains that churning butter--a vigorous and strenuous physical workout--will keep the women's figures slender and pleasing. "And the churning business is for the girls. That will keep your health very nice."
Two days later, Prabhupada explains the duties of a woman, including butter churning, to one of his female disciples currently living at New Vrindaban: “I have advised Kirtanananda Maharaja that girls who are living in New Vrindaban should be engaged in the following activities; (1) taking care of the children, (2) cleaning the temple, kitchen, etc., (3) cooking, and (4) churning butter.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p 13.
June 22, 1974: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains to Father Emmanuel Jungclaussen, "Christos is the Greek version of the word Krishna. . . . Actually it doesn’t matter—Krishna or Christ—the name is the same." Six years earlier, Prabhupada explains to a disciple, “There is no clash between the Bible and the Vedas, simply some people formulate their personal ideas and cause quarrels.” —letter to Sivananda (April 19, 1968)
On Christmas Day 1988, a life-size murti of Jesus Christ is installed in the New Vrindaban temple next to the life-size murti of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 81.
Gaura Shakti and Mahaprasad carry the murti of Jesus Christ to his vyasasana in the New Vrindaban temple (Christmas Day, 1988).
The advent of the murti of Jesus Christ in the New Vrindaban temple (Christmas Day, 1988).
Jesus Christ in the New Vrindaban temple (undated).
June 22, 1976: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada tours his Palace-under-construction. When he looks into the deity room under the Palace’s big dome, he inquires, “Radha Vrindaban Chandra will go here?” Kirtanananda Swami replies, “Actually, Srila Prabhupada, we wanted to place you [your murti] there.”
Without changing his expression, Prabhupada pauses for a moment and then quotes a Sanskrit verse, “yasya deve para bhaktir yatha deve tatha gurau, The Vedic secret is that—unto the Lord, similarly, to the guru—to them [who surrender to the Lord and the guru], the whole thing becomes revealed automatically. Vedic knowledge is grasped not by erudite scholarship, mundane scholarship has nothing to do. The secret is yasya deve para bhaktir yatha deve tatha gurau.” Prabhupada continues, very gravely, “Yes, this is proper.”
Prabhupada's personal servant, Hari Sauri dasa, described his master's tour of his Palace-under-construction:
In the evening, Prabhupada was taken on a tour of Guruban, where the devotees are constructing a small “palace” for him. It is situated atop one of the highest hills for many miles around, affording a glorious, panoramic view of the surrounding West Virginia countryside.
Srila Prabhupada was impressed with their devotional efforts. With the transcendental vibration of the Krishna Consciousness Happening Album resonating in the background, Prabhupada followed Kirtanananda Maharaja’s lead, carefully inspecting the entire work site. Most of the concrete work is done, and the finishing work started. There is a central hall, big enough to hold lectures in, with a small deity room at the end. Down each side are rooms for Srila Prabhupada and his servants. A dome at one end will be capped with a lotus flower-shaped peak and reach twelve feet above the roof. Plastering work is about to begin and already some beautiful marble inlay has been fitted in what will be Prabhupada’s sitting room. The rooms are completely surrounded by a veranda and decorative arches run all around the veranda’s outer edges. Kirtanananda Maharaja said they were planning to fill the arches in with stained glass windows. Srila Prabhupada was pleased to hear that all the work has been done by our own men—Bhagavatananda dasa did the design and Atmabhu dasa directed the construction. Devotees have also made many of the fittings, furnishings, and other paraphernalia.
Prabhupada was deeply appreciative of their dedication and he expressed this with a quote from the Bhagavad-gita, “Sv-alpam apy asya dharmasya trayate mahato bhayat.” “Little service in this connection, Krishna consciousness, can protect one from the greatest danger.” “You are so kind to let us do it,” Kirtanananda Swami submitted. “Hare Krishna. Krishna’s desire,” Srila Prabhupada said, humbly accepting their offering.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 169.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada—with his servant Hari-Sari and Kirtanananda Swami, and other disciples—visits his Palace-under-construction (June 1976).
Kirtanananda Swami, Brihat-Shloka, Jalakolahali and Atmabhu at the Palace-under-construction (undated).
Bhagavatananda and Kirtanananda Swami (undated).
June 22, 2020: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader in Italy:
It is terrible to become fully aware of so many terrible events like those you describe in Killing for Krishna. But it is necessary to know the truth. When I bought your book last year I put it on a shelf and started waiting for the right moment to read it. Everyday I took a look at its cover and didn’t open it: I was scared of what I would read in it one day. Now, one year later, I had the strength to read. Now I know. Thank you Henry.
Lucia Ballerini
Senigallia, Italy
P. S. Less than a year later, Lucia’s Italian translation of Killing For Krishna, is published: Uccidere per Krishna
June 23, 1952: On this date in history, Keith Ham graduates from Drum Hill Junior High School (ninth grade) in Peekskill, New York. He takes piano lessons and performs in student recitals at the Studios of Musical Art for Serious Study in Crompond, New York. Music was very important in the Ham household. Keith's older brother, Gerald, remembered:
In our home, music had both a cultural and spiritual value. In our family the assumption was—that regardless of talent—no member should be musically challenged regardless of a lack of talent and aptitude. This notion was an inherited one from my mother and from her parents and siblings, all of whom played an instrument and, in effect, was a family ensemble. Even her grandfather, Ira Clark, was a choirmaster. Mother played the cello. Roberta was the first to have piano lessons. Then Joan and I took up the violin. . . . Joan became modestly proficient with the violin, Shirley moderately able with the piano and organ, and Keith the best of the lot on the same instruments, often playing the organ for church services.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 11.
Keith's self-assured visage became a trademark look years later.
June 23, 1969: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, after more than a month visiting his first ISKCON farm community, departs from the backwoods New Vrindaban commune. His parting instruction: “We must all follow in the footsteps of Kirtanananda Maharaja.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 132.
June 23, 1976: On this date in history, during his fourth visit to New Vrindaban, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada tells the Brijabasis, “If we take to Krishna consciousness, then our folly will be finished. We are no more interested in unnecessary things. For instance, illicit sex. . . . The babajis in Vrindaban [India], you have seen—siddha deha. They are smoking and having illicit sex with one dozen of women, and they are talking svarupa [eternal spiritual form]. Simply rascals. This is called sahajiya. They are condemned.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 114.
Mid-June 1984: On or around this date in history, Sulochan is bullied by Kuladri and his thugs. One New Vrindaban resident explains:
Soon after I moved to New Vrindaban in 1981, I hooked up with the basketball-playing group of devotees. Once or twice a week, when the weather permitted, a group of us would get together and go to a local outdoor basketball court and play ball after working hours. We played at the Big Wheeling Creek Volunteer Fire Department court about six miles or so from New Vrindaban along Big Wheeling Creek.
There was a steady core of us who played together for a few years, but there were also some comers and goers. Four of us who played together for years were the Ohio boys: Jalakolahali (George Meyers, a Palace tour guide), Tapomurti (Todd Schenker, a security guard), Parambrahma (Paul Ferry, a manager in the planning department), and me (the New Vrindaban “Telephone Man”). The other group who we played against regularly consisted of Kuladri (Arthur Villa, the temple president), Sudhanu (George Weisner, a longtime resident and board member), Pavitra (Frank Larkin, a photographer), and Bimbadhara (William Jones, a mechanic). We usually had to split up Sudhanu and Bimbadhara on different teams because they were the tallest.
That group of eight of us or so played basketball summer after summer. Early on we had some guys come out to play who didn’t hang on. Sulochan was one. Big Mahabuddhi (Randy Stein, the Palace manager) was another. Dayavira (Dewitt Hill, a construction foreman) also played a few games with us. One early summer evening in 1984, Sulochan joined us at the court along Wheeling Creek. Kuladri and Sudhanu always ran the show. We introduced ourselves and the teams were chosen.
(Before I continue the story, it is important to note that if you ever got on Kuladri’s bad side, you either left New Vrindaban or paid a price, such as harassment, for staying. Cruel-adri we called him behind his back. So right away, at the beginning of our game, it became obvious that Kuladri disliked Sulochan. They were like water and oil: the two never mix. The problem for Sulochan was that Kuladri was “Number Two,” the second-most powerful man at New Vrindaban.)
I can’t remember the exact sides, but it was Kuladri and some of his thugs. I was on Kuladri’s side. When the game started it became obvious that Mahabuddhi and Dayavira were not accomplished ball players, and so Kuladri started encouraging them to play rough against Sulochan, who played basketball quite well for the opposing team. Early on Sulochan scored a couple of baskets pretty quick, so Kuladri prodded his players to stop him.
First, Dayavira whacked Sulochan a couple of times with his hand. After the second whack, Sulochan and Dayavira exchanged nasty words. During the second game, big Mahabuddhi guarded Sulochan. Mahabuddhi must have weighed 300 pounds (in private we called him “Maha-Body”); he was so obese that he couldn’t even get off the ground. Nimble Sulochan scored right over him, so Kuladri encouraged Buddhi to play defense more aggressively. Buddhi began whacking Sulochan. Sulochan called for fouls, but none were given. Kuladri and Sudhanu had the last word on fouls. Finally, as Sulochan was driving to the basket, big Mahabuddhi grabbed him around the head and tossed him to the ground. Sulochan’s eyeglasses flew onto the asphalt court.
Sulochan was cut across the bridge of his nose by his glasses. His hair was disheveled, his face was red. He was visibly upset as he realized he had just been beat up. From my viewpoint, there was no reason to whack on Sulochan just because Kuladri didn’t like him. It made me feel like I was back in high school. This was a classic case of bullying. Sulochan left the community soon after, never to return, to the pleasure of Kuladri and his thugs.—Jyotirdhama dasa (Joe Pollock)
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p 25.
June 24, 1969: On this date in history, in a letter to Kirtanananda Swami, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada writes, “I am always thinking of your New Vrindaban.” Prabhupada also proposes that ISKCON temples finance the purchase of cows for New Vrindaban. (Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 132) On the same day, in a letter to a female disciple at New Vrindaban, Prabhupada outlines the duties of women, “I have advised Kirtanananda Maharaja that girls who are living in New Vrindaban should be engaged in the following activities; (1) taking care of the children, (2) cleaning the temple, kitchen, etc., (3) cooking, and (4) churning butter.”
Two days earlier during a New Vrindaban lecture, Prabhupada explained that churning butter--a vigorous and strenuous physical workout--will keep the women's figures slender and pleasing. "And the churning business is for the girls. That will keep your health very nice." (June 22, 1969)
In “Srimad-bhagavatam” (6.17.34-35, purport), Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada proclaims the superiority of men over women: “It may be clearly said that the understanding of a woman is always inferior to the understanding of a man.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p 13.
June 24, 1984: On this date in history, after arguing with community leaders, Sulochan leaves New Vrindaban with his two young children (one still in diapers); his wife Jamuna remains with her eldest son from a previous relationship.
Jamuna immediately calls Bhaktipada for help, a ksatriya posse is hastily assembled, and she retrieves her two sons in Martins Ferry, Ohio, with the help of three armed New Vrindaban enforcers.
Sulochan, defeated, drives to Los Angeles, acquires a pirated microfiche set of Prabhupada’s letters and begins studying them. He focuses on Prabhupada’s quotes on marriage and Kirtanananda Swami. He never saw his sons again.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 29.
Sulochan and his two sons (c. mid-1980s).
June 24, 1987: On this date in history, 26 major league baseball teams and United Features Syndicate (Peanuts cartoons) sue New Vrindaban for more than $27 million for copyright infringements. Actually, all of ISKCON in North American (and elsewhere) was "Doing the PIck" with illegal copyright stickers. New Vrindaban took the rap for all of ISKCON.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 170.
Snoopy bumper stickers printed at Palace Press.
June 24, 1992: On this date in history, at the request of the leader of New Vrindaban, His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, community choir members and musicians record a cassette of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra with Radhanath Swami as soloist. The chant, based on a tune from a recording by the popular Indian guru, Muktananda, is recorded at Prabhupada’s Palace. The marble walls in the kirtan hall provide reflective surfaces which produce an excellent natural reverberation.
Yours Truly (at the time serving as the Music Director, principal organist, choir director and orchestra director of New Vrindaban) writes the musical arrangements and directs the orchestra, in accordance with Bhaktipada’s concept of Ideational Music. I titled the cassette, “Transcendental Meditation by Radhanath Swami: 60 Minutes of Transcendental Sound Vibration with Members of the City of God Cathedral Choir and Orchestra.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 188. To hear the recording, go to YouTube.
The cover of the cassette tape Transcendental Meditation by Radhanath Swami (June 1992). To listen to Transcendental Meditation, go to YouTube.
June 24, 2009: On this date in history, 72-year-old Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada--after losing nearly all of his American disciples and moving permanently to India where he still has hundreds of adoring disciples and thousands of loyal followers--participates in the Rishikesh Ratha Yatha festival, organized by his devoted disciple Bhakti Yoga Swami. During the parade, he rides in an automobile decorated with flower garlands and passes out sweets to children.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 188.
Bhaktipada in India.
June 25, 1967: On this date in history, disciples of Bhaktivedanta Swami, who is gradually recovering from a stroke from 25 days earlier, take their master to a rented cottage at Stinson Beach in California, about 18 miles northwest of San Francisco after a 36-minute drive on mostly-winding mountain roads. They hope the weather will be warm and sunny, but the weather is cool and cloudy. Kirtanananda dasa Brahmachari serves as Swamiji's nurse and personal servant.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 213.
Map showing location of Stinson Beach (upper left).
Stinson Beach
June 25, 2004: On this date in history, His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, recently released a few weeks earlier from serving eight years in prison, who is undoubtedly feeling pressure from Hrishikesh's damning June 19 letter suggesting that his former spiritual master apologize for his offenses (see my June 19 post), gives a morning class at the New York City Interfaith Sanctuary during which he begs forgiveness for his offenses, and even admits some of his faults: “For making mistakes. For criticizing unjustly. For not always being truthful. For not always being a completely pure sannyasi.”
To listen to Bhaktipada's class, go to YouTube.
Bhaktipada and the author at the Interfaith Sanctuary (June 17, 2004).
June 25, 2018: On this date in history, a devotee woman writes a 3,000 word online review of Killing For Krishna in which she boasts, “I have not read the book, and have zero plans to do so.”
To read the "review," go to Hare Krishna Blogspot.
June 26, 1976: On this date in history, during his fourth and final visit to New Vrindaban, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada visits Bahulaban and the marble shop.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, pp. 173-174.
Karusha dasa, ACBSP (Kerry Roth—1954-2019) in the marble shop at Bahulaban, polishing marble for the floors and walls of Prabhupada's Palace of Gold.
June 26, 1976: On this date in history, during his fourth and final visit to New Vrindaban, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada talks about the place of women in Krishna conscious society, “. . . in the Manu-samhita it is clearly stated that a woman should not be given freedom. That does not mean that women are to be kept as slaves, but they are like children. Children are not given freedom, but that does not mean they are kept as slaves. . . . Actually a woman should be given protection at every stage of life. She should be given protection by her father in her younger days, by the husband in her youth, and by the grown-up sons in her old age. This is proper social behavior according to the Manu-samhita.”
However, three months earlier, during a morning walk in Mayapur, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada candidly admitted:
The woman must become a slave. The women are declaring, “Independent.” They are begging door to door to a man, “Please give me shelter. Give me a child,” and they’re independent. One American woman was…. She was speaking that “In India the woman are treated as slave. We don’t want.” So I told her that it is better to become slave of one person than to become slave of hundreds (laughter). The woman must become a slave. So instead of becoming slaves of so many persons, it is better to remain satisfied, a slave of one person.
And our Vedic civilization says, nari-rupam pati-vratam: “The woman is beautiful when she remains as a slave to the husband.” That is the beauty, not the personal beauty. How much she has learned to remain as a slave to the husband, that is Vedic civilization… And the beauty of woman is how much she is devoted and obedient to the husband. So it is very difficult.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 13.
June 26, 2004: On this date in history, “His Divine Grace” Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada admits that he has “broken the regulative principles” in a letter posted on his website. This was undoubtedly in response to the June 19th letter from his former disciple Hrishikesh recommending that Bhaktipada apologize for his offenses.
TO: All the Vaishnavas of New Vrindaban, ISKCON, and devotees of Lord Krishna all over the world:
All glories to Srila Prabhupada, our divine spiritual master, our eternal guide, and our source of all benediction and blessing. I offer my humble obeisances to all of you.
namah om visnu padaya krsna presthaya bhutale
srimati bhaktivedanta swamin iti namine
namaste sarasvati deve gaura vani pracarine
nirvisesa sunyavadi pascyata desa tarine
I approach all of you with humble prostrations, begging for your mercy so that I may receive the mercy of Guru and Krishna. I know throughout many years of service to Prabhupada and Lord Krishna in New Vrindaban, that I have offended many Vaishnavas, and have even broken the regulative principles. For that I have been reaping corrective chastisement from Prabhupada and Lord Krishna. I am reminded of the story of Durvasa Muni and Maharaja Ambarish. I, too, have offended the Vaishnavas, and no matter where I go or how much punishment I receive I cannot regain the shelter of Prabhupada’s lotus feet without the Vaishnavas’ mercy. Please be kind to me and show me your causeless mercy, and bless me that I may again serve Srila Prabhupada to his full satisfaction.
Your humble servant,
Kirtanananda Swami
Sri Sri Radha Muralidhar Temple
New York
However, the letter was later removed from the website. Reactions to his apology were mixed. As expected, his disciples glorified him for his deep humility, but ISKCON devotees remained skeptical, as they believed he had apologized too little and too late. In addition, he had not fulfilled the requirements given by the Association for the Protection of Vaishnava Children. Did Bhaktipada’s apology have any value? Was it worth anything? To those with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, forgiveness is a calculation made when the evidence stacks up so strongly against the narcissist that he begins to lose his narcissistic supply, such as disciples, followers, popular acclaim, etc.
When gas lighting (a form of psychological manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self doubt and confusion in his victims’ minds to gain power and control over others by distorting reality and forcing them to question their own judgment and intuition) no longer works, when apologies are far too long overdue, then and only then will an apology be offered. The apology is calculated to cut losses and is self serving.
However, the apology itself is an act of narcissism. It is a conditional apology, a faux apology, an apology which is barely one in form only, what to speak of substance or humble motivation. Bhaktipada said, in his early-morning Srimad Bhagavatam class delivered the previous day, he was sorry for “not being perfect.” This is no apology at all. The narcissist believes his apology will be embraced by his disciples and followers, and the idea that it would be received with incredulity or skepticism does not cross his mind.
The narcissist is a highly skilled manipulator and is expert at grooming his victims. Grooming is what an abuser does to build a relationship, trust and emotional connection with his victims so he can manipulate, exploit and abuse them. Bhaktipada was expert at grooming gurukula boys in order to abuse them sexually. Bhaktipada groomed his disciples and followers in exactly the same way, in order to procure their loyalty, devotion, money and time.
Factually, Bhaktipada’s disciples and followers embraced his apology. They saw not a sociopathic narcissist attempting to cut his losses, but a great soul exhibiting symptoms of true humility. In any case, his apology did not remain for long on his website; it was removed within a few months, as I recall.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, pp. 99-101.
Bhaktipada at the Interfaith Sanctuary holding his newly-published book, Humbler than a Blade of Grass. (March 4, 2008). Photo by the author.
June 26, 2025: On this date in history, a reader comments on Facebook:
I learned a lot from Henry’s books. I learned from Eleven Naked Emperors that my realization about Hansadutta, the ISKCON leader which had me primed and ready to kill him on the spot in 1977, was indeed accurate, that he was in fact materially motivated, praying for Prabhupada’s death so that he could take over ISKCON.
Henry gives voices to hundreds, if not thousands of devotees through the pages of his books, many of which might not have ever been heard otherwise, his books are a history of ISKCON yes, but more it is the story of the people that made and make this movement and in particular one portion of it, the history of his own people, the devotees of New Vrindaban, people who he shared so much with, people who he tries to help make sense of it, the moment when the joy turned to ashes, the moment when all faith in what they lived for was blasted, the days and times of their lives of the greatest personal meaning to them irretrievably lost.
Henry is a servant of a servant of a servant, tens of thousands of times removed. His books will keep shining a light into the dangers of deranged devotion into the Krsna Cult as long as the Krsna cult continues. Henry is to my mind more humble than any of ISKCON’s leadership has ever been for he has never claimed to be a spiritual master of anyone, just a historian and a teacher of music and chess to kids. He’s someone who I believe that Krsna looks up to with admiration.
George Smith
Overland Park, Kansas
George Smith
June 27, 1976: On this date in history during his fourth and final visit to New Vrindaban, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada surprises everyone during his morning walk by stating that animal flesh can be used as medicine to cure disease. He says if you put a live goat into a big pot of boiling ghee, and add other ingredients, you can create a medicine which can cure tuberculosis. The death of one goat, he says, can save hundreds of human lives.
Prabhupada also says that karmis can eat any type of flesh, animal or human, as long as they do not kill it outright. It must die naturally.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 175.
June 27, 1980: On this date in history, “His Divine Grace” Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, the ISKCON GBC-approved guru for New Vrindaban, writes:
To all the New Vrindaban Sankirtan Men. . . .
As you probably know the Palace marathon is on; when was it not on, but now it is on even more. Those of us who are in the midst thank Krishna for it every day. I only wish that this marathon could continue twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, and I also realize that you Sankirtan devotees are out there making this possible by your marathon, and so I thank you just as much as I do the boys who are working on the Palace. It is truly a great Sankirtan effort, because together we are preaching the glories of Lord Krishna and his pure devotee Srila Prabhupada.
So I can simply pray to Lord Krishna to bless you more and more and give you more and more realization of this glorious mission of Krishna consciousness. Please keep up the good work more and more so that we can build Prabhupada’s Palace more and more and get more and more of the conditioned souls to come here and experience Krishna consciousness. . . .
P. S. My special thanks to Hrishikesh who writes me every week with his realizations and reports, and I wish all the devotees would write to me like that.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 68.
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, publicity photo, sitting on his backyard deck at his house across from the Palace (1982).
The money is the honey.
June 27, 2005: On this date in history, ISKCON guru Bhakti Tirtha Swami (John E. Favors)—one of Bhaktipada's biggest supporters in the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s (he was the only GBC member who voted NOT to expel Bhaktipada from ISKCON during the March 1987 Mayapur GBC meetings)—dies in Gita Nagari from complications from melanoma cancer.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 17.
Bhakti Tirtha Swami, near death, with Radhanath Swami and other well wishers.
June 28, 1977: On this date in history, in Vrindaban, India, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada speaks about chanting prayers in Sanskrit, “The sound must be vibrated. You cannot translate it. . . . Then it will be artha, arthavad. That is prohibited. You cannot interpret or do other way.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 45.
The Sanskrit letter Omkara
June 28, 1993: On this date in history, thirty Native Americans protest at Pa’Ris’Ha’s White Buffalo Society headquarters in Cleveland and carry signs which say, “Don’t mess with things you don’t know anything about,” and “You stole our land, don’t steal our religion.” They claim she is abusing the Native American teachings.
Pa’Ris’Ha is one of Bhaktipada's most favorable interfaith leaders, and she visits New Vrindaban several times a year to speak at Interfaith Conferences. At least two New Vrindaban devotees went to live at her a rural retreat called “Friendship Village” about sixty miles west of New Vrindaban, near Summerfield, Ohio.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 37.
Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha visits from her rural retreat “Friendship Village” near Summerfield, Ohio.
June 29, 1967: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami explains, “Vrindaban is the only solitary transcendental abode within this universe where Krishna consciousness automatically reveals.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 172.
Map of India showing location of Vrindaban
Scene from Vrindaban
Scene from Vrindaban
Scene from Vrindaban
Scene from Vrindaban
June 29, 2021: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a godsister:
Finally I started reading Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1. My mind is blown. There is so much details. Every decision has reaction, how life choices can change our course of life. I haven’t even gotten to the part where Keith meets Prabhupada, getting close to that part. I must say, it is well written, very impressive. Bravo.
Oh! and further I read & I couldn’t believe the subway stalls & university stall stories. I thought those occurrences were rare & not the norm. Boy, was I naive!!! I’m surprised Keith and Howard didn’t succumb to death from disease at young age from all the unsafe practices. They were very lucky indeed. They were so promiscuous. I feel like they never left their wild ways, just more discreet.
I’m amazed that such a sex maniac as Keith was able to achieve the status of sannyasi and guru. How he had fooled so many for so long.
I’m enjoying tremendously reading this volume. I laughed out loud when I read about Keith and Howard’s first experience ingesting the hallucinogenic cactus! The peyote experience and puking in the shared bucket. Ewwww!
Dharmi Norton
Houston, Texas
former disciple of Kirtanananda Swami
initiated Bombay (September 1979)
Dharmi Norton
June 29, 2022: On this date in history, Bhakta Eric Johanson (formerly a disciple of Hansadutta Swami known as Vrindaban Chandra Swami) completes the Foreword to Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7.
To read Eric's essay, go to GGG Volume 7 Foreword.
Bhakta Eric Johanson
June 29, 2023: On this date in history, Henry presents a lecture/slide show at the annual convention of the International Cultic Studies Association at Hotel Distil in Louisville, Kentucky. His presentation, titled "Gold, Guns and God: Swami Bhaktipada and the West Virginia Hare Krishnas," focuses on the first five books of his decalogy of the same title.
Henry said, “I am extremely honored to have been chosen by the International Cultic Studies Association to speak at their annual convention. My presentation was well received and I made several new friends. Especially noteworthy to me, was a conversation after my lecture with Anuttama Dasa, Public Affairs representative for ISKCON (who attended my lecture/slide show with his assistant). In conversation, he praised me, ‘Your books are exceptional and you are an exceptional historian of ISKCON.’ He brought along to the convention a first edition copy of my book (purchased five years ago), 'Killing For Krishna,' which he had given to his assistant to read. We chatted for a half hour, and he purchased an entire set of my 12 books. Former Ramesvara disciple and author of the book, 'Betrayal of the Spirit,' Nori Muster, was also there, and spoke at the conference.”
To hear Henry's lecture, go to: Henry Speaks at the International Cultic Studies Association (YouTube)
Henry at the podium.
June 1972: On or around this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami, on Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s order, serves as a ritvik priest and chants on new initiates’ beads at an initiation ceremony in Brooklyn, New York. This is the first time Prabhupada authorizes a disciple to chant on initiates’ beads.
For more about this topic, see Eleven Naked Emperors, pp. 48-49)
Soon after the initiation ceremony, Kirtanananda Swami, again on Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s order, returns to New Vrindaban. Kirtanananda immediately organizes a festival and the deities are moved from the sleepy Vrindaban Farm to Bahulaban, which has become the bustling center of the community. Deity worship becomes a primary focus of the Brijabasis’ attention. Kirtanananda has successfully inspired the Brijabasis from their morose mental state (there was talk about closing New Vrindaban) and rekindling their love for Radha Vrindaban Chandra.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 268.
The presiding deities of New Vrindaban: Radha-Vrindaban Chandra, on their altar at Bahulaban.
June 1976: On or around this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami travels to Los Angeles, where he meets with Hayagriva and orders him to take his eldest son from his wife and bring the boy back to New Vrindaban. During the last few years, when the family still lived in New Vrindaban, Kirtanananda had developed a great affection (some claimed an obsessive and sinister affection) for Hayagriva’s eldest son. Kirtanananda demanded that the five-year-old boy be returned to him in West Virginia.
Hayagriva got his opportunity to fulfill Kirtanananda Swami’s request when his wife, Shama, went to visit her mother in San Francisco and left her eldest son temporarily in her husband’s custody. Hayagriva immediately spirited Samba back to New Vrindaban without her knowledge or permission. This was too much for Shama to bear. After more than five years of marriage, she left her husband and the Hare Krishna movement, taking with her her youngest son.
In New Vrindaban, Kirtanananda Swami personally cares for the boy, as Hayagriva soon departs for his customary recreational travels to India, Mexico and Thailand. Years later, the boy explained, “My father and mother were separated when I was five years old. . . . [Kirtanananda] took care of me, because my regular father . . . wasn’t there. I didn’t have a father. My father wasn’t around much. Kirtanananda treated me like a father.”
Kirtanananda treats the boy like his own son, sometimes sleeping with the boy under his sleeping bag which he used as a blanket in his Bahulaban cabin. Many years later, some claim Kirtanananda sexually abused the boy, although Hayagriva's son has consistently and repeatedly denied the allegations, "Bhaktipada treated me like a father. He never molested me. Nothing close."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 97.
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada and his buddy Hayagriva sit at Bhaktipada’s breakfast table while personal servant Jambu watches from the kitchen (c. 1982). At this time the two were neighbors; Bhaktipada lived in a house across the street from Prabhupada’s Palace, and Hayagriva lived in a tiny house on the same driveway.
Kirtanananda Swami samples his Sunday feast plate at Bahulaban, while his seven-year-old protégé, the first-born son of Hayagriva and Shama dasi, patiently waits for remnants (c. 1977). The shirtless devotee behind Kirtanananda is rendering devotional service by fanning the “pure devotee” with a peacock feather fan.
June 1986: On or around this date in history, a few weeks after the assassination of the Bhaktipada critic and whistle-blower, Sulochan (Steve Bryant), Radhanath Swami, deeply troubled in his mind, confesses his involvement in the murder conspiracy to his godbrother Jagad Guru Swami, while both sit on a Pacific Ocean beach in San Diego.
Jagad Guru Swami (later known as Bhakti Gaurava Narasingha Maharaja) claims Radhanath said, "What was I supposed to do under those circumstances? We were convinced that Bhaktipada was a pure devotee and that Sulochan was determined to murder him, so we thought we were obligated to stop some demon from killing a pure devotee by any means possible.”
Although I had originally heard this story from another devotee, when I contacted Bhakti Gaurava Narasingha Maharaja, he confirmed this information in a Facebook message to the author (February 7, 2019).
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 481.
Bhakti Gaurava Narasingha Maharaja
Late June 1994: On or around this date in history, Radhanath Swami and PK Swami visit Bhaktipada at his cabin at Silent Mountain and convince him that his reign is over. New Vrindaban will abandon his reforms--wearing robes, chanting in English with pipe organ and western instruments, silent japa, women sannyasa, interfaith preaching and living, the City of God--and return to the ISKCON style of dress and worship.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 203.
Bhaktipada outside his stone cabin at Silent Mountain (undated newspaper photo).
June 30, 1976: On or around this date in history, during a visit to New Vrindaban, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada orders the Brijabasis, “Just follow Kirtanananda Swami. He will take you back to Godhead.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 189.
Painting of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, walking side by side and touring the New Vrindaban of the future, with seven temples on seven hills.
June 30, 2005: On this date in history, Bhagavatananda dasa (Joseph Cappelletti), New Vrindaban’s resident sculptor and architect for a decade, tells the author, “Kirtanananda . . . is sometimes a paradox. I served him and I loved him because I felt something deep inside him was sincere. Somewhere deep inside he was real. There was something about him, at least when I first met him.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 46.
Bhagavatananda and Kirtanananda Swami (undated).
Photo collage of Bhagavatananda (from a Brijabasi Spirit magazine).
June 30, 2005: On this date in history, the head mechanic at New Vrindaban—Bimbadhara dasa (William Jones)—explains to the author during a telephone conversation the use of violence and the loosely-organized system of disciplining disobedient devotees:
We were all trying to serve Prabhupada. We were all living together. We would rub elbows every day; we went to the temple together, we had our meals together, we chanted kirtan together. We lived in a spiritual community, and if there was any violence, it was only like a white-cap on a wave. The ocean underneath it was intact.
We took care of business on our own, probably the same way most communities have done throughout human history. We didn’t have a jail. No one was permitted to call the police. We took care of our own business. We didn’t see the need for involving ourselves in the outside world—in the establishment—because they were against us anyway.
There was a great shared community spirit and trust, but sometimes people would rough someone up to settle the score. Bhaktipada didn’t have an organized system of roughing people up to the extent that the Mafia has, for instance: using physical violence as a main tool for achieving objectives. Bhaktipada never had that at all. People come to a spiritual community for spiritual reasons, and even though people have that element in them because of human nature, because of the spiritual overtones at New Vrindaban it kept things from ever being like that.
One time I sold a stove to a New Vrindaban resident, and he never paid me. He was a good devotee; he had a good relationship with Kirtanananda and the other devotees, but he never paid me. I waited a very long time, and then I told him: “Look, we’re gonna have to square up on this.” But he didn’t take me seriously, he just acted like a smart shit. So I asked Kuladri if I could square up with him, and Kuladri said he had no objections. So I made a quasi-attempt to clear a few channels before I went to get this guy.
So one day I walked into his stained-glass studio, and I said, “Well, I think I’ll take this piece here for a trade,” and the guy freaked out and tried to attack me physically. That didn’t work, and in fact, I attacked him physically. So you can see, it’s not that Kirtanananda had a big crime ring and he’s sending people to rough others up and that kind of thing. It was individuals. Everybody at New Vrindaban was pretty independent.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 6, p. 53.
Bimbadhara is the tall man with heavy coat with hands crossed in the center/left of the photo. Identification of all: Kasyapa (Varsana Swami), Marudeva (front), Mankumari dasi (rear), Bimbadhara, Karusa, Amburish (with mridanga), Unknown (with kartals) (some say it is my godbrother Kumara, but I don’t believe it), Tilakini dasi (front), Chaidya-Satru (rear, with plastic bags for gloves) & Vidya dasi (with folded hands) (winter, late 1970s).
June 30, 2022: On this date in history, the author’s book, “Gold, Guns and God: Swami Bhaktipada and the West Virginia Hare Krishnas, Vol. 7: Trials and Tribulations,” is published.
See Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7
Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7 front and back cover
June 30, 2023: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of "Gold, Guns and God," Vol. 10, on Amazon:
And so, the story and life of Keith Ham finally comes to an ignoble end. For the eleven previous volumes (counting Killing For Krishna, and Eleven Naked Emperors) the reader is taken through quite a spectacular story worthy of a Netflix documentary. Through this Decalogue-plus-two, we are offered a front row seat to the tragic life that was Keith Ham’s along with the community he helped build (and eventually destroy in the cruelest fashion) in West Virginia.
With this concluding volume to the saga I find myself reflecting on so many questions. Most of them have been answered in these volumes. The author has helped me better understand that this tragedy called New Vrindaban is still a human story, which implies endless contradictions, dramas, and imperfections. The subject of accountability has always fascinated me.
As I read each volume I wondered what real accountability looks like for leaders in any capacity and for ourselves. The answer to that question came as a most pleasant surprise in this volume. The author shares a letter that implores Keith Ham to consider holding himself accountable for all the pain he has caused. In a spectacular and direct message, the author offers a blueprint for what holding anyone accountable entails. It suggests coming clean about all his deeds and who he is as a person to all he had offended. After all, Keith preached to “do the right thing.” Apparently, this did not apply to him. Considering his crimes, being a hypocrite is probably one of the more flattering adjectives he earned in his lifetime.
In the larger context that is ISKCON, here I was naively thinking (I consider myself extremely naive) that since child sexual abuse was so rampant in the gurukulas of the 70s and 80s, the problem today would be totally under control and children fully protected within the ISKCON Society. To learn it continues is baffling. But, is it really? Many times Prabhupada suggested that the spiritual master is beyond scrutiny. The alarm bells went off immediately after reading this. “Even if your spiritual master goes to a liquor store, he must have some purpose in going there.” Are you kidding me? This sets up a horrific precedent and a framework Keith Ham used to perpetuate abuse, criminal activities, and sexual deviance. Never mind seeing a “Swami” go into a liquor store; let’s use a real life example from New Vrindaban’s unfortunate history—how about watching Keith Ham performing oral sex on your husband? What should this devotee’s wife think? She saw it with her own eyes, but has to assume Keith Ham must have a good purpose for blowing her husband? Disturbing.
I relate to Suresh Persaud’s sentiment of sadness after reading Volume Ten. After Keith departed the USA, he left a legacy of crime, corruption, divisiveness, pain, deep emotional wounds, and a spiritually devastated community. Yet, he retired to a life of comfort and adoration. Spending his remaining days in prison would have been more fitting for this character. However, that he still had blind followers in India and Pakistan speaks volumes to what fanaticism looks like.
The similarities of this story to that of Osho, Jim Jones, Fidel Castro, Keith Raniere, Hitler and others makes for the compelling observation that they all used the same playbook. Create an infallible image, an environment where the leader cannot be questioned, and if you challenge the leader, there is something wrong with you (gas lighting anyone?) This playbook is old and well-known, yet Keith Ham is proof of its effectiveness.
The Director of ISKCON Communications recently stated that “ISKCON devotees need to quit thinking they’re immune to the same frailties, sins, and corruption that tempt every person and plague every community. It’s time to wake up.” This urgent message is equally applicable to child protection issues as well as dealing with corrupt leaders. Turns out, to the disappointment of many, ISKCON is equally susceptible to the same con employed by leaders all over the world. Sadly, not only was the same playbook used by leaders, the responses from Keith Ham loyalists also regurgitate the same ideas as others who support their corrupt leader: “People who do great things always attract criticism, the critics are just envious,” “look at all the good he did,” etc.
I will always wonder two things—how ISKCON would have fared had Prabhupada not accepted Keith Ham back in 1968 after Keith got the boot the first time. Also, how New Vrindaban would have turned out if Keith Ham would have put God in the center instead of himself.
Pedro Ramos
Atlanta, Georgia
For more, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10
Pedro Ramos
July 1, 1966: On this date in history, with the help of a handful of sympathetic followers, Bhaktivedanta Swami moves into an apartment and a small storefront at 26 Second Avenue. Word soon spreads among young hippies and seekers of spiritual truth that an Indian Swami has come with a “far-out” yoga method: chanting Hare Krishna.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1.
Bhaktivedanta Swami outside the Matcheless Gifts storefront (1966)
The Matcheless Gifts storefront (1966)
July 1, 1972: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada writes to Satsvarupa dasa Goswami in Dallas, “We must develop our Krishna consciousness school . . . to be the model for education in all the world.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 220.
Article from Back To Godhead magazine
July 1, 1977: On this date in history, during a conversation in Vrindaban, India, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada discourages silent chanting, “Chanting with mouth is better. You can hear; others can hear. If you chant within, then you’ll remember only. But you chant loudly, others can hear. Others are benefited.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 49.
Some devotees begin rebelling against Bhaktipada’s Western Music Program and silent chanting. Kirtan at the RVC temple: Unkown black devotee, Kevala Bhakti, Radhanath Swami, Rupanuga, Nityodita Swami, Sri Galim.
July 1, 1983: On this date in history, the installation festival for the deities at the newly-built temple for Radha Vrindaban Chandra, a quarter mile behind Prabhupada’s Palace, begins. The first ceremony is guru puja. Bhu-Varaha puja is the highpoint of that night, with ten torches lighting the way.
The head priest, Gaura Keshava (Gregory Jay), begins a fire sacrifice and offers oblations, bananas, coconuts and incense. Under the newly-built yajña-sala (place of sacrifice), four different fire pits are built with clay bricks and the puja begins. The final event that night is the Mirror Ceremony. Before deities are installed, they are customarily submerged under water for one night, but if that is not possible, the deities are placed in front of large tubs of water, and the pujaris imagine that their reflections are submerged under water.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 112.
Bhaktipada supervises a construction marathon; building Radha-Vrindaban Chandra’s new temple.
July 1, 1993: On this date in history, Bhaktipada wins his appeal, all the conviction charges from his March 1991 trial are thrown out, due to the expertise of his appeal lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who argued that the prosecutors introduced irrelevant testimony which might have negatively swayed the jurors' opinions against the defendant, and possibly also due to many months of heartfelt prayers, penances and austerities performed by Bhaktipada's disciples and followers.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 101.
Alan Dershowitz
July 1, 2009: On this date in history, New Vrindaban’s former interfaith friend, Native American medicine man Charles Chipps, Sr. is arrested on four counts of sexual assault in violation of Section 234 of the Oglala Sioux Tribal Code and four counts of child abuse.
Four years later, before his trial goes to court, while suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure and congestive heart failure, Chipps dies in prison on January 20, 2015. His attorney, Terry L. Pechota, noted, “Charles Chipps has not been convicted of anything. He left a legacy of helping people. He was a true medicine man. He had a vast network of supporters across the United States. There’s certainly nothing proven that would tarnish that legacy he will leave.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 37.
Lakota Chief Charles Chipps, with Dog Man and Fantuzzi at New Vrindaban.
July 1, 2023: On this date in history, Our friend, Henri Jolicoeur, visits the "samadhi" in Vrindaban, India, of Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, the founder of the New Vrindaban ISKCON farm community in West Virginia.
To watch Henri's video, go to: Henri Jolicoeur Speaks.
Henri Jolicoeur
July 1, 2024: On this date in history, Kailasa Chandra publishes the first installment of his multi-series review of Eleven Naked Emperors. See YouTube
Kailasa Chandra reviews Eleven Naked Emperors.
July 2, 1974: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada declares that tractors (and other machines) are by nature demoniac, and cause unemployment and degradation of human society. “And the machine, it works hundreds of men’s labor and hundreds of men become unemployed. So unemployed means devil’s workshop.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 157.
A steam-powered tractor
A Brijabasi riding a wagon pulled by two horses at New Vrindaban (summer 1974). Photo from Back To Godhead, No. 66 (c. September 1974).
July 2, 1983: On this date in history, the installation festival for the New Vrindaban deities continues with a procession for the deities from Bahulaban (where they have resided for some 11 years) to the newly-constructed temple behind the Palace, where they are installed with much fanfare. During the procession, Bhaktipada and Satsvarupa dasa Goswami Gurupada ride in the back of a pickup truck and periodically spray the devotees with water from a fire extinguisher, as it is a hot and humid July summer day.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 113.
Head priest Gaura-Keshava (Gregory Jay) offers aroti to the straw man (July 2, 1983).
Procession for the deities from Bahulaban to the new temple (July 2, 1983).
Bhaktipada and Gurupada ride in the back of a pickup truck during the processional and spray devotees with water from a fire extinguisher (July 2, 1983).
Preparing to install the chakra on the roof of the new temple (July 2, 1983).
The “spiritual master” invites the Supreme Lord to enter into the deity of Gopal Nathji (July 2, 1983).
The main altar.
July 2, 1994: On this date in history, a few days after Radhanath Swami and PK Swami visit Bhaktipada at Silent Mountain and convince him that his reign is over, and that New Vrindaban should abandon his reforms and return to the ISKCON style of dress and worship, Bhaktipada claims to have had a “dream” during which his deceased spiritual master, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, appears before him in an angry mood and orders him to abandon the de-Indianization reforms and return to the traditional Bengali-Vaishnava ISKCON ways. This is not the first time Bhaktipada claimed to have had a "dream" about Prabhupada when he was caught in an embarrassing position.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 207.
That same night, a group of non-devotees from Moundsville attempts to burn down the New Vrindaban temple. A devotee stops them and gets beat up. He calls the police, who arrest the suspects and charge them with arson and assault. Their bail is set at $10,000.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, 206.
Bhaktipada outside his stone cabin at Silent Mountain (undated newspaper photo).
July 2, 2013: On this date in history, Lion Television: Investigation Discovery Channel (cable TV) broadcasts their “Deadly Devotion” episode about the murder of Krishna devotee and former New Vrindaban resident Steven Bryant (Sulochan).
To watch the movie, go to Deadly Devotion.
Police photograph of Sulochan’s lifeless body at the Los Angeles morgue (May 22, 1986).
July 1978: On or around this date in history, I visit New Vrindaban for the first time. I stayed for an afternoon. I tell about my visit in more detail in my article “Prelude To Perfection” which was published by the Brijabasi Spirit. In it I explain the circumstances which led me, fresh out of college at the age of 22, to join the Hare Krishnas.
To read the article, go to: Prelude to Perfection
Brijabasi Spirit article "Prelude To Perfection"
July 3, 2025: On this date in history, a Krishna devotee blocks me on Facebook. He made two comments on my post:
Ramanya Dasa: Will be nice if you put more Srila Prabhupada philosophy and lectures. Please call him His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada. The way you expressed about him [Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada] sounds like Mayavadi. Or if you are a ordinary karmi [non-devotee]?
Henry Doktorski: I am not a devotee.
Ramanya Dasa: Okay, now everything is explain. I’m going to block you out cause you don’t know who is Srila Prabhupada. And you making offenses. Putting him like he authorized all the nonsensical things Kirtanananda perform when my Guru departed. I will also communicated to ISKCON that you area making false accusation to Srila Prabhupada. And also to Facebook media. You are trying to made profits with bad publicity.
The author concludes: This exchange appeared as comments on my June 27th post where I quote Prabhupada during a 1976 morning walk at New Vrindaban speaking about putting a live goat into a pot of boiling ghee to make a medicine to cure tuberculosis. During this morning walk, he also points out that karmis are permitted to eat any type of meat, whether beef or human flesh, as long as the animal (or human) is not killed for its meat, but dies naturally.
First, I must point out that I all I do in my Facebook posts is quote the Founder/Acharya of ISKCON. I do not manufacture anything or put words in Prabhupada’s mouth that he did not say. It seems to me many people do not like to hear the controversial statements made by Prabhupada. They pick and choose what they want to hear from who they believe to be a “pure devotee” of Krishna (like “Cafeteria Catholics,” who pick and choose which beliefs of the church they follow).
These dedicated Krishna devotees believe that Prabhupada was a divine, perfect and infallible being, incapable of error. Yet when they are exposed to his controversial (and sometimes erroneous) teachings, instead of confronting their beliefs about Prabhupada’s alleged divinity and infallibility, they condemn the messenger, who is only quoting Prabhupada’s allegedly divine and infallible words.
This is to be expected, as these people are deathly afraid of committing the “Mad Elephant Offense,” criticizing the spiritual master. Prabhupada once chastised a student, “The spiritual master is never at fault! And even if he is, it is your duty as his disciple to do whatever he asks.” (Prabhupada-lila, chapter 1: “Return to America, 1967,” 25-26.) I think only in a dangerous cult is a member never allowed to critique or question the motivations and actions of the supreme leader.
It appears to me this fellow has become blind to reality and prefers to live in his own make-believe world of illusion. Of course, that is his choice. He undoubtedly gets much satisfaction and pleasure from his cherished religious beliefs, and it is painful for him to meet someone who does not share his beliefs. I wish him the best, of course. I have tried to wake him from his slumber, but some people prefer to live in dream land. Of course, that is what I see from my perspective. Others may see things differently, depending on their perspectives.
It is also possible that our former Facebook friend was offended by my comment on my June 23rd post regarding the young Keith Ham taking music lessons. I wrote in reply to another Facebook friend:
Karolina Prisni Lindqvist asks "Was it the Krishna movement which was a bad influence in Keith's life?"
Excellent question, my friend. Before meeting his spiritual master, Keith was not a bad person. Yes, he enjoyed activities which at that time in history were illegal in the United States, such as homosexual activities with consenting partners, and recreational drug use such as imbibing marijuana and LSD. But he was not a bad person.
However, after joining ISKCON, he learned from his spiritual master that it is perfectly acceptable (and advantageous for preaching and for one's own spiritual advancement) to cheat for Krishna, to lie for Krishna, to steal for Krishna, to denigrate women as they are less intelligent than men and should not be given independence, always considered the "slave" of men (as Prabhupada suggested on a number of occasions), and Keith also learned that six types of aggressors can be killed without any guilt or punishment given to the executioner. Keith saw the absolute and worshipable position of his spiritual master, and he wanted to be worshiped and obeyed in the same way, as a divine representative of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Keith's older brother, Gerald (quoted above) told me in conversation, "If Keith hadn't met The Swami he probably would have become a big history professor at a respected university."
As an aside, joining ISKCON was certainly a bad influence on me. I learned to lie and cheat for Krishna. It took me quite a few years to reverse that terrible brainwashing, which originally came from Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. I'm glad I left when I did.
On the other hand, I also benefited from my 16 years at New Vrindaban. I learned a lot about detachment, how to be equipoised even under trying circumstances, how to minimize and eradicate irrational thoughts by meditation, and today I benefit from those lessons which I learned. Perhaps the greatest lesson I learned, is not to trust an authority without evidence. Don’t accept anyone’s word, even an alleged spiritual authority.
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
July 4, 1934: On this date in history, Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie (1867-1934), the great physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity, dies at the age of 66 in Passy (Haute-Savoie), France. Madame Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. Her husband, Pierre Curie, was a co-winner of her first Nobel Prize, making them the first married couple to win the Nobel Prize and launching the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was, in 1906, the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris.
And yet, despite all the evidence (and there are volumes of evidence), there are still some ill-informed men who erroneously claim, “All women, you cannot have freedom. You have got only thirty-four-ounce brain, and man has got sixty-four-ounce. . . . Actually that’s a fact. Where is woman philosopher, mathematician, scientist? Not a single. . . . Up to date in the history there is not a single woman who is a great scientist or great philosopher or great. . . .”
To learn more about this topic, read Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 30.
July 4, 1952: On this date in history, Steven Leslie Bryant (later known as Sulochan), the son of Jack and Helga Bryant—a United States Air Force officer and a German-born high school teacher—is born in Laramie, Wyoming. He grows up in Royal Oak, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.
In 1974 he becomes a duly-initiated disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and receives the name Sulochan dasa at a fire sacrifice at Detroit ISKCON. The historical Sulochan mentioned in the ancient Mahabharata was one of the 100 sons of King Dhritarastra and Queen Gandhari, and was killed by Bhima during the Kuruksetre War.
Twelve years later, some years after Prabhupada's death and the ascent of the eleven zonal acharyas, Sulochan initiates a smear campaign against Kirtanananda Swami and the other ISKCON gurus and is murdered by a Bhaktipada disciple.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 1.
Helga Bryant and her Boy Scout son Steven (c. 1966)
July 4, 1987: On this date in history, New Vrindaban's Swan Boat—and a murti of Prabhupada seated atop Radha Vrindaban Chandra’s flower-adorned hand-carved teakwood Rath Cart—participates in the National Independence Day parade in Washington D. C. Dozens of New Vrindaban devotees (including the author and his Indian wife) pull the two floats through the streets of the nation’s capital with ropes. Bhaktipada also appears in the parade riding in his Cadillac limousine, as does Malini the elephant, who walks the length of the parade route guided by her mahout.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 133.
The Swan Boat.
Malini and her mahout, Tattva (Thomas Reidman).
Bhaktipada keeps a low profile in his Cadillac limousine. Photo by Nelson Hooker.
July 4, 1988: On this date in history, the New Vrindaban publicity department announces the “De-Motorization” of the community. Bhaktipada purchases a beautiful horse and hand-crafted Amish carriage, and uses it for transportation within the community, until the cart accidentally tips over, the horse runs away, and Bhaktipada is dragged along the ground, sustaining minor (but bloody) injuries.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 279.
Bhaktipada said he wanted to root out all sources of passion and ignorance in New Vrindaban and replace them with goodness. He asked devotees to give up driving their cars in the community and ride bicycles or horses instead. He purchased a horse-drawn buggy which he used for a time (until he got in a bad accident) to ride around the community. Here he gives his horse a tasty treat (undated).
July 4, 1994: On this date in history, a few days after Radhanath and PK Swamis convince Bhaktipada that his reign is over at New Vrindaban, and after Bhaktipada claims that Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada chastised him in a dream, Bhaktipada begins a ten-day fast from food and sleep and a vow of silence.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 209.
Bhaktipada outside his stone cabin at Silent Mountain (undated newspaper photo).
July 5, 2009: On this date in history, Bhaktipada’s disciples take him on a day trip to the fifteen-acre Shangri La Resort and Water Park on the Mumbai-Nasik Expressway, about an hour’s drive north of Ulhasnagar, India. The owner of the park personally welcomes the 71-year-old "spiritual master," and Bhaktipada is ushered to a nice room in one of the guest houses. After changing into a white bathing suit, Bhaktipada joins the devotees at the largest pool. He climbs down the ladder into the pool, and amazes everyone by swimming about vigorously. After a game of toss the ball, the devotees all come to a large pavilion for a buffet prasadam dinner.
The playful mood between spiritual master and disciples at the Shangri La Water Park reminded some of the devotees of the playful mood between Krishna and his loving devotees who sported together in the ancient Dwaraka bathing ghats, as described in Srimad-bhagavatam. Bhaktipada had not enjoyed loving pastimes like this for perhaps thirty years, since he played water-splashing games with the Brijabasis—such as Kuladri and Hayagriva’s young son, Samba—at the Radha Kund pond across from Bahulaban during hot summer afternoons in the late 1970s. I have fond memories of swimming with Bhaktipada, Samba and other Brijabasis at New Vrindaban’s Radha Kund ghat during the summer of 1978.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 142.
Bhaktipada and his disciples at the Shangri La Resort and Water Park.
July 5, 2020, Vrindaban, India: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a Sanskrit scholar who used to live at New Vrindaban:
“I consider your work very important, a necessary archive to cover an particularly significant moment in history, which will be very useful to sociologists and psychologists of religion in the future. I hope that you can get your books to be accepted in university libraries. Perhaps if you can find some scholars who work in those fields to support it, you will have the chance to see your work have more influence.”
For more, see In Memorian
Jan Brzezinski (Jagadananda dasa, formerly Hiranyagarbha dasa, 1950-2024)
Former resident of New Vrindaban, editor for Gaudiya Grantha Mandir and Vrindavan Today
July 6, 1965: On this date in history, sixteen-year-old Thomas Drescher is convicted of his second crime: Robbery, First Degree, 3 Counts, Grand Larceny, First Degree, 1 Count (Amherst, New York). After returning home to Buffalo from a term as a combat soldier in Vietnam, he joins the Hare Krishnas, accepts diksa from Kirtanananda Swami, and later murders two devotees (he claimed under orders from his guru).
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 153.
Stock photo of a boy.
July 6, 2005: On this date in history, Richard Stephen Rose, a mystic, philosopher, author, poet, and investigator of paranormal phenomena who founded the TAT (Truth and Transmission) Foundation, dies from natural causes at the Weirton Geriatric Center (Weirton, West Virginia) at the age of 88 after a ten-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He had been the owner of a plot of 132 acres of Marshall County land and had given Hayagriva a 99-year lease on the property (which became known as New Vrindaban) in August 1968.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 6, p. 60.
Richard Stephen Vincent Rose, Jr. (1917-2005)
July 7, 1968: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada suggests to a disciple to acquire land in Florida and call it “New Vrindaban,” as Prabhupada is disappointed that Richard Rose refuses to grant a long-term lease to Kirtanananda and Hayagriva. Perhaps Prabhupada thinks the "New Vrindaban" he asked Kirtanananda and Hayagriva to establish in West Virginia a few months earlier will come to naught.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 53.
Vrindaban farmhouse (undated).
July 7, 1983: On this date in history, Daruka, a New Vrindaban accountant, purchases a .357 magnum at Sullivan Guns and Cycles in Moundsville; a revolver cartridge hand gun with a reputation for stopping power. He gives it to Tirtha, New Vrindaban’s chief enforcer, an advance payment for setting the fire and burning down Chakradhari’s abandoned house (owned by the community) in order to collect $40,000 from the insurance company.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 97.
357 Magnum
July 7, 1987: On this date in history, New Vrindaban hosts a parade in Wheeling, West Virginia. The Swan Boat, the Rath Cart, dozens of devotees, Bhaktipada and Malini the elephant participate in the parade. The parade ends at Market Plaza, where prasadam, dramatic and musical performances are offered.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 132.
The Swan Boat.
Malini and her mahout, Tattva (Thomas Reidman).
July 7, 1990: On this date in history, Bhaktipada pleads “not guilty” to racketeering charges and is released on a $250,000 bond. He is ordered not to leave the United States. His devoted disciples and faithful followers picket on the sidewalk of the United States Court House in Wheeling, West Virginia.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 214, and Killing For Krishna, p. 415.
Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7 front and back cover
July 7, 2010: On this date in history, deities of the Six Goswamis are brought to New Vrindaban by Varshan Swami, and are eventually placed on the altar previously used by Lord Ramachandra, Sita, Laksman and Hanuman, and years later, on the altar where Jagannath, Baladeva and Subhadra resided. When Varshan Swami completes his own temple, the deities will reside there. P. S. Malati dd says, "These Goswamis are display figures, not actual deities who receive regular daily worship as per pancharatrika vaidi."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 3.
Deities of the Six Goswamis at New Vrindaban
July 8, 1983: On this date in history, during an emergency meeting, the GBC passes a resolution removing Hansadutta from all his ISKCON responsibilities, although he is not officially excommunicated from the Society. The GBC had grown weary of constantly disciplining the "self-realized GBC-approved official ISKCON acharya" due to his fondness for women, guns, alcohol and recreational drugs.
Hansadutta Swami had caused quite an embarrassment to the Hare Krishna Movement. He had been arrested three times on weapons charges in California. Once, Lake County police confiscated 300,000 bullets and gunpowder. Another time, law enforcement authorities seized an arsenal including a Browning 9-millimeter automatic pistol and two foreign-made military assault rifles. "We tried repeatedly to rectify him and resolve his aberrant behavior," a Krishna spokesman, Michael Grant [Mukunda Swami], says.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 6, p. 34.
Hansadutta Swami
July 8, 2023: On this date in history, the author appears as a guest on the Hare Krishnas in Britain podcast.
Henry and Narada dasa
July 9, 1973: On this date in history, during a room conversation in London, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada encourages his disciples to send their children to the Dallas gurukula, “Everyone knows that sending boys to the [public] school means spoil them. . . . He learns how to smoke, how to have sex, how to talk nonsense, how to use knife, how to fight, these things; at least at the present moment. Yes, simply slaughterhouse, this so-called school is called slaughterhouse. Yes, slaughterhouse.”
If only Prabhupada knew what was really happening behind the closed doors of his Dallas gurukula.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 274.
The Dallas Gurukula
July 9, 1975: On this date in history, during a press conference in Chicago, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada cites Chanakya Pandit (c. 370-283 BCE), an ancient Indian polymath who was active as a teacher, author, strategist, philosopher, economist, jurist, and royal advisor, “Never trust a woman and a politician.” During his preaching, Prabhupada cites Chanakya more than 500 times in his books, lectures and conversations.
During the same press conference, Prabhupada declares, “Polygamy is allowed.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 33, 146.
Artist's depiction of Chandkya Pandit.
July 9, 1977: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada signs a letter typed by his secretary, Tamal Krishna Goswami, addressed to “All G. B. C., All Temple Presidents,” in which are listed eleven senior leaders whom Prabhupada appoints as “Ritvik” representatives of the acharyas, those trusted men who are authorized to initiate new disciples on his behalf. Kirtanananda Swami’s name is at the top of the list.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 46.
The eleven ISKCON zonal acharyas pose for a photograph in Mayapur, India (c. August 1978).
July 9, 2023: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Henry, PAMHO.
I just finished reading Gold, Guns and God, Volume 10. I’ve followed this complete journey now and have to commend you on doing such a wonderful job. When all is said and done, I think you treated Kirtanananda Swami fairly. I hope that you can now go on with your life, leave some of that behind you and just be happy. I’m forever indebted to you for your insights which helped me avoid mistakes I otherwise would certainly have made.
I don’t know what your spiritual condition is, but this much I know; God loves you and wants the highest for you. I hope you receive that. Thank you so much for permitting me to be of service to you (even though it was a very small way) and thank you for undertaking a daunting task. I’m happy to have known your association, my friend. If I can ever be of help again, please let me know.
Haribol,
Jagadananda Gauranga Swami
Vrindaban, India
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10.
Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7 front and back cover
July 9, 2023: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a former New Vrindaban resident:
Hare Krishna Hrishikesh prabhu!
Watched your guest appearance on Narada’s podcast last night. I found the whole conversation interesting. The most interesting thing to me is that I found out why you followed Bhaktipada almost to the end of his reign at New Vrindaban, and I contrast it with why I followed Bhaktipada as long as I did.
I never had the love for Bhaktipada like you did. I had some love towards him as an older, more advanced, senior god brother; that I had. I never bought the line that we were all fed and were supposed to follow at New Vrindaban that “Kirtanananda is a pure devotee,” but I decided to give him a chance. Srila Prabhupada also said that “Kirtanananda is a madman.” By the time he got hit over the head, I wasn’t sure which Kirtanananda I was following. Nice that you got to talk a lot about your work, your books.
It’s very courageous of you to openly talk about your feelings. That story about Tapahpunja and the boxes of documents to me is undoubtedly Krishna’s arrangement.
Jyotirdhama dasa, ACBSP (Joseph Pollock, Jr.)
Richland, Washington
To watch the podcast, go to: Hare Krishnas in Britain podcast.
Jyotirdhama dasa (Joseph Pollock, Jr.).
July 10, 1951: On this date in history, Robert Grant (later known as Ramesvara Swami) is born in a wealthy Jewish family and raised in the affluent village of Roslyn Estates in Nassau County, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island. He becomes an ISKCON guru and becomes involved in the conspiracy to murder Sulochan. He orders his ksatriya disciples to cooperate with the New Vrindaban hit men who are hunting Sulochan in his zone. He has denied that he had any involvement in the murder conspiracy, although his security-guard disciple who helped murderer Tirtha hunt for and find their victim claims otherwise.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 173.
Ramesvara Maharaja
July 10, 1968: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada suggests to Hayagriva that he abandon the fledgling New Vrindaban project and come and live with him.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 53.
Professor Howard Wheeler (Hayagriva) at his Ohio University office, Columbus, Ohio (c. late 1968 or early 1969).
July 10, 1991: On this date in history, the Honorable Robert Reynold Merhige, Jr., a United States district judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, releases Bhaktipada on $250,000 bail, pending his appeal, but rules that he cannot return to New Vrindaban. Bhaktipada lives in an apartment in the Warwood neighborhood of Wheeling, where he stays for two years under house arrest with an electronic monitoring device locked on his ankle.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 22.
Swami Bhaktipada in court.
The Honorable Robert Reynold Merhige, Jr.,
July 10, 1994: On this date in history, in a letter to a godsister, Tirtha Swami in prison laments, “My entire experience for the past eight years [in prison] has been minimized to almost nil. For the entirety of this time I was praised and congratulated. However, upon revealing my inner mind to the devotees [and rejecting Bhaktipada], I am now something less than a heretic, and have been labeled as an irresponsible fanatic. So it is in the material world. One day a hero, the next day a goat.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 170.
Tirtha in prison.
July 10, 2018: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of "Killing For Krishna" on YouTube and says:
Until I read the book by Henry, I wasn’t sure that Radhanath had a hand in it [the murder of Sulochan]. I trust Henry. I have communicated with Henry. I trust his sincerity. I trust his research. He is a very brave soul. He was a member of the New Vrindaban Community from 1978 to 1993. He gave fifteen years of his life. He has absolutely no interest in lying or deceiving people. As far as I can see, he is telling the truth. And as he mentioned in the Introduction to his book, the most important [factor] is the truth. . . .
One of the most interesting parts of the book Killing For Krishna, is when Henry, in 1993, finally went and asked Kirtanananda if it was true that he was molesting boys at New Vrindaban. Was it true that he was a pedophile? And Kirtanananda said he had never broken any principle of being a monk since he had joined the Krishna movement in 1966. But Henry had done his research, and he knew for sure that his guru was lying. So that was the end of accepting Kirtanananda as his guru.
Henri Jolicoeur (formerly Hanuman Swami—ACBSP), Montreal, Quebec, from a review (part 2) at YouTube.
Henri Jolicoeur
July 10, 2024: On this date in history, Bhaktavasya devi dasi’s book is published on Amazon. It is a memoir of a female Hare Krishna devotee who was initiated by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in Toronto, Ontario in October 1973. In this fascinating, honest and very personal account, Bhaktavasya devi dasi vividly describes her early life as a child in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, getting in trouble with the law, life as an inmate at the Andrew Mercer Reformatory for Women, getting hooked on recreational drugs, her release and marriage, and meeting the Hare Krishna people.
She joins the Hindu cult and begins working the airports. She moves to New Vrindaban in West Virginia for a time, but has a battle of wills with the commune's leader, Kirtanananda Swami, and leaves. Eventually, after the passing of the Hare Krishna movement founder, she becomes lovers with one of the eleven men known as Zonal Acharyas who succeeded Prabhupada as leaders of the Hare Krishna movement. Jayatirtha, who founded a branch of the Hare Krishnas which consume LSD as the "Blessed Sacrament," tells his disciples to call her "Holy Mother."
Eventually Bhaktavasya becomes hurt and disillusioned when her husband Jayatirtha runs off with another woman. Within a short time, one of Jayatirtha's former disciples attacks his "spiritual master" and severs his guru's head with a large knife.
To read Bhaktavasya dd's book, go to: A Different Kind of Life
Cover of Bhaktavasya devi dasi's book, A Different Kind of Life
July 11, 1970: On this date in history, Hayagriva and Shama’s first son, whom Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada names Samba, is born. Prabhupada predicts when the boy grows up he will “defeat all the Mayavadis.” The boy receives special "mercy" from Kirtanananda Swami, the leader of the New Vrindaban Community.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 96.
Kirtanananda Swami samples his Sunday feast plate at Bahulaban, while his seven-year-old protégé, the first-born son of Hayagriva and Shama dasi, patiently waits for remnants (c. 1977). The shirtless devotee behind Kirtanananda is rendering devotional service by fanning the “pure devotee” with a peacock feather fan.
July 11, 1973: On this date in history (and about one month after the shooting affair at New Vrindaban when six redneck men storm the temple with firearms and wound four devotees), during a Bhagavad-gita lecture in London, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains, “You will see the power of the Hare Krishna movement in due time. . . . Vaishnavas, they do not simply chant Hare Krishna. If there is need, they can fight under the guidance of Vishnu and become victorious. . . . So the devotees of Krishna should be trained up both ways; not only to give protection to the devotees, to give them encouragement, but if need be, they should be prepared to kill the demons. That is Vaishnavism. It is not coward-ism.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 508.
This photo appeared in the article “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Guns ‘n’ Ammo, Guns ‘n’ Ammo,” High Times (January 1981), which told the story of Hansadutta, and his infatuation with guns.
July 11, 1994: On this date in history, Radhanath Swami and Bhakti Tirtha Swami visit Bhaktipada at Silent Mountain to counsel Bhaktipada (as he requested) but they leave after a few hours after they discover Bhaktipada won’t talk to them, as he is still observing a vow of silence.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 211.
Bhaktipada outside his stone cabin at Silent Mountain (undated newspaper photo).
July 11, 2018: On this date in history, a former Krishna devotee publishes a review of "Killing For Krishna" in which he states:
Do not follow anyone because someone is telling you that this guy, or this lady, is a very spiritually-advanced person. You have to use your heart; you have to use your brain. You have to investigate. You have to ask questions. Otherwise, it is easier than you think to be brainwashed by a cult. . . .
I really recommend people to read the book by Henry, "Killing For Krishna." Henry was in the Hare Krishna New Vrindaban Community for fifteen years, and I sincerely believe that writing this book, researching this book, has been a great therapy for him. It might be a deep therapy and a deprogramming process [for others also], if you feel that you are following some sort of spiritual authority, some sort of a guru, that is telling you that you should obey because he knows better than you do. So pick up the book and get informed. There’s no better way to learn about brainwashing than from someone who admits that he was brainwashed for fifteen years.
Henri Jolicoeur (formerly Hanuman Swami—ACBSP),
Montreal, Quebec,
from a review (part 4) at YouTube.
Henri Jolicoeur
July 1962: On or around this date in history, after an argument with the 20th Street apartment managers, Keith Ham and Howard Wheeler move to apartment 3-A at 274 Mott Street in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The two brew homemade beer in their bathtub and later discover marijuana, peyote and LSD. Both imbibe heavily. They are not monogamous and often have casual sex with other young men, sometimes several acquaintances in one day. For a time, they keep an attractive, homeless seventeen-year-old teenager (Jimmy) in their apartment. They provide him food, lodging, beer and marijuana, and in return, Jimmy permits them to perform fellatio on him.
Don't assume that Jimmy was an innocent child who got corrupted by Keith and Howard. Jimmy was a street urchin; a hustler. His mother got pissed at him, threw a whiskey bottle at him and kicked him out of her apartment. Jimmy lived on the street, and discovered he could make money by renting his body to wealthy gay men and let them perform sex acts on him.
When Jimmy met Keith and Howard, Jimmy was quite happy to have a warm and safe place to sleep, plenty of food and beer and marijuana, and Jimmy liked to play rock n roll records on Howard's hi fi stereo. In fact, it was Jimmy who introduced Keith and Howard to marijuana. To pay his rent, all Jimmy had to do, was a few times a day, lay on his back on the bed, while Keith or Howard gave him a BJ. This is all explained in Howard's autobiography.
Jimmy was free to leave at any time, and factually, he was gone many hours a day, when he went hustling to make money. Eventually, after a year or two, Jimmy left Keith and Howard permanently and robbed them. Howard was especially devastated, as he had developed an emotionally attachment to Jimmy.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 55.
Keith Ham and Howard Wheeler
July 12: Mid-July 1966: On or around this date in history, 25-year-old Howard Wheeler meets his 69-year-old spiritual master on a street corner just a few blocks from his home on Mott Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side. The three Mott Street Boys, Howard Wheeler, Keith Ham and Wally Sheffey begin attending Bhaktivedanta Swami’s evening classes at 26 Second Avenue. Within a week, Howard becomes Swamiji’s chief editor. The previous year Howard had taught English at Ohio State University, therefore Swamiji liked to call him "Professor Wheeler."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 138.
Hayagriva (1966).
July 12, 2003: On this date in history, a singer and musician who sang soprano in New Vrindaban’s Krishna Chorale and played harp in the City of God Temple Orchestra, remembers the determination of the director to get her to join the choir some 16 years earlier in 1987. Brihan Naradiya Purana (Bernice Nieto Roberto) recalled:
It was a fateful day when Hrishikesh asked me to join the choir. Although I had taken piano lessons and sang in my high school choir, I said I couldn’t. But that didn’t stop Hrishikesh; he kept trying to get me to join. He wanted to recruit anyone and everyone. There were even a few tone-deaf people in the choir, which he tolerated, but appreciated anyway. He was digging for gold; searching for devotees who could sing and read music. I kept making excuses why I couldn’t join.
I said I couldn’t get a baby-sitter, as my daughter, Bhakti, was still an infant, and baby-sitters were so hard to find. Hrishikesh solved that problem; he made arrangements and got a baby-sitter for me during rehearsals. I was shocked; he was so fired up. I couldn’t say no anymore. So I came to my first rehearsal and loved it.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 61.
Brihan Naradiya Purana plays harp during the New Vrindaban morning service (c. 1990).
July 12, 2024: On this date in history, the author appears in an interview with Club Paranormal (Truth Be Told) host Tony Sweet. Henry does most of the talking: about why he joined ISKCON, why he (and others) were captured by Kirtanananda Swami's charisma, why he left in 1993 and the circumstances which prompted him to research and write 12 volumes of nonfiction Hare Krishna history. Oh, yes, he does talk a bit about the murders of Steven Bryant and Charles St. Denis.
To watch the video, go to: Club Paranormal
July 13, 1966: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami incorporates the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., a Gaudiya-Vaishnava religious society.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 156.
Bhaktivedanta Swami outside the Matcheless Gifts storefront (1966)
The Matcheless Gifts storefront (1966)
July 13, 1968: On this date in history, the Wheeling News-Register publishes an article about the “hippies” (including Howard Wheeler and Keith Ham) living on Richard Rose’s property. Rose achieves some notoriety and many curious readers drive to his farm. This unwelcome intrusion to his privacy contributes to his anxiety.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2. p. 27.
Richard Rose (1974)
July 13: July 1978: On or around this date in history, "Brijabasi Spirit" reports on Bhaktipada’s boy servants, “When Maharaja was living in his cabin, it was considered a great privilege to get to stay in the back room. Only a handful of selected boys got the opportunity.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 202.
Kirtanananda Swami samples his Sunday feast plate at Bahulaban, while his seven-year-old protégé, the first-born son of Hayagriva and Shama dasi, patiently waits for remnants (c. 1977). The shirtless devotee behind Kirtanananda is rendering devotional service by fanning the “pure devotee” with a peacock feather fan.
July 13, 1994: On this date in history, Bhaktipada ends his ten-day fast from food and sleep. RVC Swami reports that Bhaktipada lost thirty pounds.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9. pp. 211-212.
Bhaktipada outside his stone cabin at Silent Mountain (undated newspaper photo).
July 14, 1975: On this date in history, the Brijabasi Spirit publishes a letter from the ISKCON GBC member, Brahmananda Swami, in which he relates Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s statement, “Infant means dirtiness.”
Resulting from two morning walk conversations and one Srimad-bhagavatam class lecture, Srila Prabhupada has asked me to issue a letter to “inform them of my desire.” . . . Prabhupada has recommended that women who have babies that are still in the diaper stage, that is up to ten months of age, are recommended not to participate in the cooking or the deity worship. The reason for this is that by touching the baby, they become unclean. Infant means dirtiness.
However, a mother can participate in these temple activities if she can make an arrangement whereby her infant is cared for, but she must come to the temple and cook or do deity worship having taken bath and wearing clean cloth. The moment she touches her infant, she is considered to be in an unclean state and so is her cloth.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 245.
July 14, 1976: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada tells a Newsweek reporter that he is training his leading GBC secretaries to succeed him in the future. He appears confident that his leading disciples will rise to the challenge and become pure devotees, thereby insuring the continuation of ISKCON without deviation.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 18.
The eleven ISKCON zonal acharyas pose for a photograph in Mayapur, India (c. August 1978).
July 14, 1983: On this date in history, the house where Chakradhari lived (he was murdered a month earlier) burns to the ground. Tirtha admits to his non-devotee friend, Randall Gorby, that he had “burned the building, and it pretty near blew me up, running away from it.” New Vrindaban Community collects $40,000 from the insurance company.
We should know that it wasn't Tirtha's idea to burn down the house. The New Vrindaban comptroller understood if the abandoned house remained empty for two months, their insurance policy would automatically cancel. It was a crappy beat-up old house with little or no market value. The community (which owned the house) couldn't sell it, but they could make $40,000 if the house accidentally burned down.
Therefore Tirtha was contracted to do the dirty work. His payment for his devotional service was a brand new .357 magnum revolver cartridge hand gun with a reputation for stopping power, as noted in the author’s July 7th post.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 97.
July 14, 1990: On this date in history, New Vrindaban's resident bansuri flutist Maheshvara (Manuel Roberto) performs at the third Music at the Palace recital. Here he is pictured in an early 1980s photo with his wife Brihan Naradiya Purana (Bernice Roberto). Brihan is a fine singer and learned to play the concert harp with the New Vrindaban City of God orchestra.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 108.
Flute and tamboura duo: Maheshvara and Brihan
July 15, 1975: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains the correct way to treat a guru, “A guru is worshiped. . . . My disciples, they are offering respect [to me] exactly like God. That is their duty. . . . All the sastra [scripture] recommends that guru should be respected as good as God.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 13.
One year later, while visiting his Palace-under-construction at New Vrindaban, when Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada looks into the deity room under the Palace’s big dome, he inquires, “Radha Vrindaban Chandra will go here?”
Kirtanananda Swami replies, “Actually, Srila Prabhupada, we wanted to place you [your murti] there.”
Without changing his expression, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada pauses for a moment and then quotes a Sanskrit verse, “yasya deve para bhaktir yatha deve tatha gurau, The Vedic secret is that—unto the Lord, similarly, to the guru—to them [who surrender to the Lord and the guru], the whole thing becomes revealed automatically. Vedic knowledge is grasped not by erudite scholarship, mundane scholarship has nothing to do. The secret is yasya deve para bhaktir yatha deve tatha gurau.”
Prabhupada concludes, very gravely, “Yes, this is proper.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 179.
Four years later, after Prabhupada's Palace of Gold is completed, Bhaktipada places a gold crown on Prabhupada's head at the palace, and a gold mace in his hand. During a darshan soon after he was asked:
Question: If he was alive and we offered him a crown, do you think he would put it on?
Bhaktipada: If I asked him to! (devotees laugh)
I don’t think he would have worn it all the time! (devotees laugh)
But then I don’t think he’d sit on that altar all the time! (devotees laugh)
And I don’t think he’d eat six times a day!
You see, when it comes to puja, when it comes to worship, it is a little different than what we would have done to him personally, when he was present. So if we can offer him arotis six times a day, why can’t we offer him a crown? Why can’t we offer him a scepter, or anything else? There is no restriction in worship. There’s no restriction on how many times you can bow down to him. There’s no restriction on how many times you can chant his name. There’s no restriction on how much you can offer him. There is no restriction on how big a palace you can build for him. When it comes to worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead or his pure devotee, there’s no restriction. How could there be? If there could be restriction, then it is material. Question: But that worship is different when that person is dead?
Bhaktipada: Because, just like Lord Chaitanya when he was personally present, he wouldn’t accept sandalwood oil from his most intimate disciple. He wouldn’t accept a pillow. What to speak of accepting a crown. He blocked his ears when he heard the word “king.” But that doesn’t deter us from offering Lord Chaitanya a crown.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 332.
Crowned Prabhupada at his Palace (c. December 1981).
Mid-July 1988: On or around this date in history, the morning program is sung in English for the first time at New Vrindaban. It remains the standard for six years, until July 1994. During that time the music for the three New Vrindaban temple services (5 am, noon and 7 pm)--composed by the author--were performed more than six thousand times.
One New Vrindaban resident, Brihan Naradiya Purana, exclaimed, “When we first heard the beautiful prayers for the morning service sung in English—after years of chanting parrot-like in Sanskrit—devotees began crying tears of joy. We thought, ‘Wow! This is really beautiful!’ Finally we could understand the meaning of the words we’ve been singing all these years. It was a revelation.”
Eternal Love Swami (Susan Bauer/Sukhavaha) claimed, “For me, the English services were so celestial and uplifting that I often thought I was in heaven.”
Steady Swami (Sharon Ilski, formerly Salagram dasi) agreed, “When I heard the devotees’ voices, the harps and harpsichord, my hairs literally stood on end.”
The English morning service was even appreciated by devotees from India, who spoke English only as a second language. One influential devotee from Bombay, Hridayananda dasa (Hrishikesh Mafatlal), expressed his appreciation for the “wonderful, soul-stirring music in English with English lyrics” at the morning service which he heard during a visit to New Vrindaban. He wrote in New Vrindaban Worldwide, “Every morning starts off with japa meditation at 4 a.m. sharp. For one hour, you could hear a pin drop in the silence. At 5 a.m., everyone rises for the aroti. For the next half hour, the devotees line up behind the sannyasis who lead the way around the temple hall, paying their respects to all the deities. All this is to the accompaniment of wonderful, soul-stirring music in English with English lyrics. In this beautiful temple, Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra are glorified as no where else on the planet.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 135. To listen to the New Vrindaban English morning program, go to: YouTube.
The City of God Temple Orchestra (c. 1990).
July 16, 1964: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami’s professor at Scottish Church College in Calcutta, Rev. Dr. William Spence Urquhart (1877-1964), who taught Abhay De that women’s brains are only half the size of men’s brains, dies in Scotland at the age of 87. Prabhupada quoted his professor during his lectures, especially when talking about the difference in intelligence between men and women.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 28.
The cover of the biography of Dr. William Spence Urquhart.
July 16, 1968: On this date in history, a “Shoot Out” occurs at Richard Rose’s goat farm. This incident, in which Rose fires a gun at a vehicle passing his house and hits a teenager in the lung, removes Rose’s stubbornness to grant a long term lease to Hayagriva and Kirtanananda on his back farm, as Rose needs quick cash to hire a lawyer. Kirtanananda and Hayagriva are elated, as now Rose agrees to give them a long-term lease.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 54.
Richard Rose (1974)
July 16-17, 1974: On these dates in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada visits the Dallas gurukula. According to the Timeline of Srila Prabhupada’s Life at Vanipedia, Prabhupada spent a total of:
four days in Dallas in 1972 (September 9-12),
three days in 1973 (May 19-21),
two days in 1974 (July 16-17),
six days in 1975 (March 3-4 and July 28-31),
and zero days in 1976—during the critical time when the State of Texas began investigating his gurukula.
Prabhupada spent hardly two weeks in Dallas in four years.
On the other hand, during the same time period, Prabhupada spent thirty months (about 900 days—fifty percent of his time) in India, working tirelessly to build his three monumental temples in Vrindaban, Bombay and Mayapur. In hindsight, it is not difficult to see what Prabhupada thought was really important.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 262.
The Dallas Gurukula
July 16, 1975: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami explains how to raise children, “Up to five years the children may have all freedom. Whatever he likes, he may do. But when he is five years old, he must be under training. That is the old system. Gurukula means to send the boy, especially boy, not the girl, to be trained up at the place of the spiritual master or teacher.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 293.
Swami Bhaktipada, teachers—including headmaster Sri-Galim (Gary Gardner)—and students at the gala open house festival at New Nandagram (c. November 1982).
July 16, 1990: On this date in history, Bhaktipada holds a darshan at his house for visitors recruited at the recent Rainbow Gathering held at Superior National Forest in Minnesota. After the darshan he selects one of the young male guests, takes him arm-in-arm into his bedroom, and gives him an unnaturally long embrace which is witnessed by several devotees.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 366.
AI-generated image of "Keith Ham," created by Patrick Garrison.
July 1986: On or around this date in history, Bhaktipada meets with Radhanath Swami, Tapahpunja Swami, and Janmastami in Bombay to get their story straight in case they are subpoenaed to appear in court and talk about the murder of Sulochan.
One of Bhaktipada’s American disciples, who served as his chauffeur and director of purchasing at New Vrindaban, Priyavrata dasa (Frankie Lyons), recalled:
I was sitting in the passenger seat of a car; Bhaktipada sat in the driver’s seat. In the back seat was Janmastami, Tapahpunja and Radhanath. They were trying to decide what story they should present to the authorities if they were subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury. They wanted to make sure that they all had the same story. It would be very bad for their alibi if they spoke different things, if they weren’t perfectly consistent.
At one point, Bhaktipada stopped and asked me, “Priyavrata, I understand you’re from a Mafia family. How would you have gotten this job done?” I replied without hesitation, “I would have hired a professional; someone with experience; someone with credentials; someone discreet, who wouldn’t blab about it to everyone he met. Not someone like Tapahpunja.”
After I spoke, Bhaktipada scornfully glowered at Tapahpunja, who shrunk in the back seat like a naughty child getting scolded by an angry parent, and chastised him, saying: “You’re useless, Tapahpunja! You messed everything up! It’s all your fault! You’re to blame for all this!”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 46, Killing For Krishna, p. 371.
Tapahpunja Swami and Radhanath Swami at the New Vrindaban Temple of Understanding (c. 1983).
Late-July 1977: On or around this date in history, Tamal Krishna Goswami, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s secretary, prohibits leading GBC members from approaching Prabhupada and asking about initiations in the future. As Prabhupada’s personal secretary, Tamal Krishna controlled who got to see the spiritual master and he was not always willing to allow certain people to speak to the guru.
Yasodanandan Swami (Yoland Joseph Langevin, initiated in New York in August, 1969) witnessed an interesting conversation between leading GBC members which he recorded in his diary: Guru Kripa to Bhagavan: Why don’t we go and ask Prabhupada what he means by this ritvik acharya thing? How is it supposed to work? Can anyone else do this besides the eleven named in the letter? What is the GBC’s role in all of this? Let’s go and ask him.
Bhagavan dasa to Tamal Krishna: Let’s go and see Prabhupada and clarify this ritvik acharya thing. Tamal Krishna to Guru Kripa: Prabhupada is not well. Besides, I think he’s busy. Let’s not disturb him with this. It’s clear anyway.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, 53-54.
Yasodanandan (Yoland Joseph Langevin), on left, bathes his spiritual master's feet.
July 18, 1974: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada comes to New Vrindaban for the third time. During his arrival address, he claims, “I am very happy in this remote village. . . . Your guide is Kirtanananda Maharaja, giving expert guidance.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 83.
Late-July 1987: On or around this date in history, a newspaper reporter writes about Bhaktipada’s visit to Cincinnati during his First Amendment Freedom Tour, and takes special notice of the two young boys with him to keep him company during long drives in his limousine.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 211.
July 19, 1974: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada visits the new barn under construction at Bahulaban.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 85.
July 19, 1994: On this date in history, Bhakti Tirtha Swami--who was a great supporter of Kirtanananda Swami in the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s--pens a very serious letter to his former siksa guru, and also posts the letter on a New Vrindaban bulletin board. The letter lists nine points for Bhaktipada’s rectification:
Dear Srila Bhaktipada,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to our eternal father His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada.
As of your telephone call to me a day or two ago after you had a dream of Srila Prabhupada, you mentioned that Srila Prabhupada was angry at you and told you to take shelter of Radhanath Maharaja and myself. You had previously explained, when you came to see me in Washington, D. C. on June 15, 1994, that your pride has caused you to experience such difficulties and that Krishna and Srila Prabhupada gave you warning by letting you get hit on the head, but you did not accept it. You also told me on June 25, 1994, in Washington, D. C., and again on July 11, 1994, when I came to see you at Silent Mountain that you were not going to initiate any disciples but were going to ask your disciples to reject you. Of course, both times you explained that you felt about 30 of them would not be willing to do this.
So many wonderful devotees in New Vrindaban and around the world have great appreciation for your past services and great love for you. In most cases, it is because of this that most Vaishnavas, including your disciples and godbrothers and godsisters, are very disturbed, frightened, and even angry at your activities. Not only amongst ISKCON devotees but no leading Vaishnava leader in the world of other sampradayas feels that you are proper!
You seem to have come to a point that you either cannot fully help yourself or are just unwilling to seriously change. As you have helped so many in the past, now it is our duty to help you in your hour of great need. Many have observed that you can say one thing to one person and something else to another. You can write something, speak something, and act totally different. I do not think there is one person who is truthful who is around you who will deny this. . . .
As to make sure everything I present is very clear to you as well as the Vaishnava community and so we can all be fully accountable to our eternal father Srila Prabhupada, [I] submit the following counsel to you, which we were never previously given a chance to offer.
1. All devotees should dress exactly as Srila Prabhupada instructed us. This includes wearing tilak, dhotis, saris, etc., for temple functions. However, for public relations work and other activities where not appropriate, other dress is permissible.
2. As the morning program is the most important spiritual program and a devotee’s entire day is affected by this more than any other time, unity is important, and the shelter and blessings of the parampara is necessary. I, therefore recommend that there be one program, i.e., Srila Prabhupada’s program, without adulteration, for all in the morning as Srila Prabhupada told you in your dream, “Prabhupada said that it was your duty now to help heal the split in the Vaishnava community and end all the confusion, and the only way to do that was to do exactly as he had done.”
3. Jesus is not in our parampara and should not be placed next to Srila Prabhupada on the vyasa seat but can be placed in another room or a different area.
4. As you yourself have admitted that you are weak and have been sinful and as you also recently stressed that you are atoning for your sins and the sins of your disciples, you should not in any way act on the platform of an acharya or guru. For example, no receiving of worship on vyasa seat or altar. You are our older brother and for many a father. Therefore, I recommend that it is our duty to see that you are cared for the rest of your life but in no way as a spiritual authority.
5. You have taken on some individual austerities for personal atonement. Throughout the Vaishnava scriptures, as well as in Srila Prabhupada’s own remarks, one cannot fully atone by such activities but must beg a proper apology from the Vaishnava community. Only by their mercy can such atonement have proper potency. As one of your biggest problems is lack of peer association, you will never make any significant shift without humbling yourself to have quality association with your godbrothers and godsisters. You must get yourself proper with your spiritual father Srila Prabhupada and your spiritual family, which are both very disappointed in you and have more or less given up on you.
6. As you are very powerful and eager to write books, as part of your atonement, I suggest that you should write a book for the Vaishnavas helping them to avoid the kind of mistakes and pains you have caused your spiritual master and the Vaishnava communities.
7. A few will think this counsel to be a little heavy, but most will feel it is not heavy enough. I am expressing my love for all by these submissions and am very desirous to help the present assembly of Vaishnavas and generations to come. All of these should be implemented by godbrothers and godsisters, along with your leading disciples, so as to establish all of these changes in a mood of love and healing.
8. If you are not prepared to make these changes, then you should admit that you have already left the assembly of Vaishnavas, and you should also physically leave with whoever wants to go with you, leaving all assets of Srila Prabhupada and the Vaishnavas behind. If you are not ready to follow the orders of your own spiritual master, then you have made it clear to all that ultimately you do what you want, when you want, and how you want. This is not Vaishnavism or even the activities of any true follower of any bona fide tradition. It is never just guru but sastra and sadhu as well.
9. For Srila Prabhupada’s service, I am prepared to help keep all concerned from overreacting and to provide the best counseling I can, but I will do all that I can to stop you from committing spiritual suicide to yourself and to others.
This is actually my greatest love offering to you ever, even though your mind and intelligence will probably resist Now I have done my part; the rest is left up to you, Srila Prabhupada, and Krishna.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 212.
Bhakti Tirtha Swami (John E. Favors)
July 19, 2022: On this date in history, the author receives a letter from a friend who wrote the Foreword to Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1:
Dear Henry,
You asked me a while ago (eight months) to give you a review of GGG4. I finally finished reading it today. Sorry it took so long. It was a difficult read, especially as I am female.
Of course, I love your writing style and that you acknowledge where the information was obtained. You stay neutral in your writings of a difficult subject matter and don’t try and bull shit the reader into one side or the other. One can make their own decisions of right or wrong; hearsay or fact; belief or non-belief based on the information you put forth!
As a female born in the late 1970s; I was blessed. I grew up with a loving family where both parents were happily married and involved in my growth. Education was supported and extremely important to both Mom and Dad. They wanted my younger sister and I to succeed in life intellectually. We both got good grades, went to college, and have decent jobs in our fields of study (mine Biology, Ann’s Chemistry and Mathematics). Throughout our 40+ years together (unfortunately Mom passed in 2015); we are still an extremely close family who care about each other and celebrate our accomplishments!
I found reading GGG4 rather difficult at times; it was a major reason why it took me so long to finish it. I can not imagine being separated from my parents to be raised by members of the community. As a child, I spent so much time learning about everything; from trees and farming to engineering, academics, and science from my Dad and academics and sports from my Mom. Our primary focus was on education and being able to provide for ourselves when it became necessary.
We weren’t trained to be housewives; to cook, clean, raise children, make sure our husbands were happy, etc. Ask my husband; I’m terrible at cooking, cleaning, and keeping house.
I’ve always had a “soft spot” for the underdog. As a child and adolescent; I was bullied and I understand the effects it can have on a person later in life. Fortunately for me; my parents could help and make things better! My experiences with bullying are nowhere near as traumatic as those of the gurukula kids at New Vrindaban.
These “underdogs” did not have the support and guidance needed! They needed someone to believe what was happening and continually act on it. Easy to say for me; I had my support! They didn’t! I feel there was abuse happening at New Vrindaban from the beginning!
The 1960s was all about free love, civil rights, and acceptance of everyone no matter religion, race, or color. The philosophy was everyone was equal; who cares if you’re black, white, or pink with purple polka dots, or if you praise Jesus, Krishna, or the Martian on the Moon. Now throw in Prabhupada, an enigma; he has the answers to the ’60s culture’s questions; information no US citizen has heard; Krishna is loving and forgiving, chant Hare Krishna, follow these four regulative principles: (1) No Intoxication. (2) No Meat Eating. (3) No Gambling. (4) No Illicit Sex. It’s no wonder that so many individuals wanted to join the flock. If I was a teenager during the ’60s; I may have joined (although, I’m sure I wouldn’t want to cook).
Unfortunately child abuse doesn’t just happen in ISKCON, it happens in many religions. I’m a confirmed Catholic as is my Dad, and his siblings, my sister, and my older son, (my youngest has confirmation this upcoming school year.) In 2018, the priest at my church and school my kids attended was accused of inappropriate conduct. Thank God my children weren’t involved, nor was anyone else at the school. It was an internet “liaison” so to speak. The Allentown Diocese has been part of a long investigation of child abuse by clergy. I’m sure other religious communities encounter the same thing.
On the aspect that Keith wasn’t right in the mind; I believe that to an extent. Yes, there is plenty of research that damage to any part of the brain can cause changes in behavior. The frontal lobe (where lobotomies are performed) does cause changes in behavior. Yes, Keith suffered major brain damage when attacked. As a scientist, I have trouble believing this was his turning point to homosexual tendencies. He was a homosexual before the blow to the head, and a homosexual after the blow to the head. His sexuality didn’t change. The only thing that changed was his ability to “turn-off” his proclivities.
Keith’s homosexuality isn’t the problem; it’s his denial that’s the major issue!
I’m not defending or condoning Keith’s behavior or that of other devotees. Any mistreatment of children, whether innocent or not, is deplorable! Children look up to teachers, elders, and those in authority to show them what is right or wrong.
I would like to add that I love visiting New Vrindaban! The dedication and love of the devotees to preserve Prabhupada’s vision is astounding! Since 2015 (when I learned of the familial connection); I’ve tried to visit yearly. Keep chanting Hare Krishna, it helps everyone; even us karmis.
Barbara Michaels
Keith Ham’s second cousin once removed
Bath, Pennsylvania
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4.
Barbara Michaels, with her model of Prabhupada's Palace of Gold made from Legos.
July 20, 1970: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada initiates four brahmacharis into the sannyasa order: Brahmananda, Gargamuni, Subaldas, and Vishnujan. Until this time, the only disciple who had taken sannyasa was Kirtanananda Swami (nearly three years earlier). Four days later, Prabhupada initiates two more sannyasis, Devananda Swami and Kartikeya Swami, his secretary and personal servant, respectively. Soon after, another sannyasi is initiated: Madhudvisa Swami. ISKCON now has eight sannyasis.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 173.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada initiates one of his disciples into the sannyasa order.
July 20, 1974: On this date in history, during a lecture at New Vrindaban, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada tells the Brijabasis if they follow Kirtanananda Swami’s guidance, “Everything will go nicely.”
On the same day, in a letter to two disciples (husband and wife) living at New Vrindaban, Bhaktivedanta Swami defends his first sannyasa disciple, “If Kirtanananda Maharaja speaks what I speak, then he can be taken a siksa guru. . . . I have no objection to your taking Kirtanananda’s instruction. There is no harm in going through Kirtanananda.”
Those two disciples (Paramananda and Satyabhauma) at New Vrindaban who wrote to Prabhupada asking about Kirtanananda Swami thought that Kirtanananda Swami was beginning to subtly deviate from proper Gaudiya Vaishnava philosophy. These disciples felt that a charismatic cult was forming between Kirtanananda and his followers, and they didn't want to become part of the Cult of Kirtanananda, but Prabhupada didn't see it, and simply told them to continue serving Kirtanananda.
Within a few months, Paramananda, his wife Satyabhauma, and several other devotees who were disturbed by the fanaticism of the growing Cult of Kirtanananda, left New Vrindaban and moved to the newly-established ISKCON farm community in Pennsylvania: Gita Nagari.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, pp. 85-86, 92.
Paramananda dasa (Ben Jenkins)
July 20, 1976: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada defends his first sannyasa disciple Kirtanananda Swami and the construction of Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold, “There is no limit to how much one may spend for the spiritual master. There is no question of practicality in this regard, rather it is a question of love.” By this, Prabhupada suggests that Kirtanananda must love Prabhupada, because Kirtanananda is building a palace for his spiritual master.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 99.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada—with his servant Hari-Sari and Kirtanananda Swami, and other disciples—visits his Palace-under-construction (June 1976).
July 20, 1980: On this date in history, Ramesvara Swami, the director of the Los Angeles-based Bhaktivedanta Book Trust and the zonal acharya for Los Angeles, San Diego, Laguna Beach, and Denver, renounces his guru worship, as he realizes and admits that he is not on the uttama adhikari platform. He even writes a paper explaining why he is stepping down. However, the GBC forces him to resume his extravagant worship, or else face expulsion from ISKCON. He reluctantly complies.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 216.
Ramesvara Maharaja
July 21-23, 1974: On or around these dates in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada visits his Palace-under-construction and utters, “These devotees are my jewels.”
Around the same time, a visiting devotee is shocked when he sees Kirtanananda Swami use a 4,000-volt cattle prod to stun devotees who he thinks are slacking off and not working hard enough. A cattle prod produces high voltage electric shocks that cause pain to a 1,500-pound dairy cow—one can only imagine the pain it causes a 150-200 pound human.
Apparently, the New Vrindaban inmates did not complain to Srila Prabhupada about Kirtanananda’s sadistic and psychotic motivational tools. Rather, devotees seemed proud to accept Kirtanananda’s assaults as mercy. They saw that their siksa guru (Prabhupada said Kirtanananda was a pure devotee) was teaching them how to be humbler a the blade of grass. They were following in the footsteps of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
A few weeks later, New Vrindaban's head pujari visits Prabhupada in India. Prabhupada tells him, “All over the world my disciples are creating temples to worship Krishna, but Kirtanananda Swami and you all are building a palace to worship me. This is the proper understanding of our philosophy.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, pp. 86, 88, 99.
July 21, 2024: On this date in history, on Guru Purnima—the traditional annual Hindu festival dedicated to offering respect to the guru(s), Bhaktipada’s successor Shri Madhusudan Bapuji presides over the “Ceremony for the Opening of Bhaktipada’s Palace of Love” at Shri Anand Vrindavana Dhama in Ulhasnagar, India.
Hundreds of congregational members attend the festive event. The high point is the installation of a nearly-life-size murti of Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada on a teakwood altar in the section of the temple where Bhaktipada resided for 3 and a half years, from March 2008 until his death in October 2011. The installation is accompanied by much fanfare—such as guru puja and exuberant chanting of the holy names. A cardboard cutout of a photograph of Bhaktipada is also placed on his bed in his bedroom.
Bhaktipada’s former residence has been transformed into a worshipable place of pilgrimage for his disciples and followers under the inspiration of his most faithful and greatest disciple, Shri Madhusudan Bapuji. Doesn't watching such devotion bring tears to your eyes? The Bhakti Cult of Kirtanananda is going strong in India!
The altar at Sri Vrndavan Dhama Ulhasnagar
July 22, 1947: On this date in history, John Anthony Sinkowski (later known as Janmastami) is born in Carle Place, a hamlet in North Hempstead, Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York. Years later, he becomes a disciple of Kirtanananda Swami and an important member of the conspiracy to murder Sulochan.
I first met Janmastami in September 1979, when I taught music to the boys at the Nandagram School for about a month. I was walking around the building and saw Janmastami carrying wood into the basement for the wood furnace. He stopped his work, pointed at some nearby poison ivy, and said, "If you start in the spring when the leaves are very small and the poison is mild, and eat one leaf a day, by the end of the summer you will be immune to the poisonous effects."
Of course, I recognized the poison ivy, being an Eagle Scout and all, but I respectfully listened to Janmastami's instructions. Some seven years later, in January of 1986, Janmastami was recruited by Radhanath Swami into the conspiracy to murder the dissident devotee who had threatened to kill Bhaktipada and the other ISKCON gurus. Janmastami drove his van out to California with a hand gun and a vial of cyanide, where he searched unsuccessfully for Sulochan.
In February, Tirtha flew out to California and Janmastami and Tirtha met the Los Angeles security guard Krishna Katha, and they traveled to the Mojave Desert where they examined abandoned mine shafts where in which they thought they'd throw the body after the murder.
Janmastami returned to New Vrindaban after Sulochan was arrested and locked up in the Marshall County Jail. After that, he did not participate anymore in the conspiracy, although Tirtha invited him to come to Los Angeles in May 1986 to help with the murder. Janmastami remained in Philadelphia taking care of his flower-selling business. Although Janmastami was questioned by the FBI regarding the murder, he was not charged with any crime.
Janmastami helped me immensely when I was conducting research for my book "Killing For Krishna." I felt during my meeting and interviews with him, he was telling the truth about the murder conspiracy, and for this I am grateful. Happy birthday, godbrother!
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 164.
Janmastami (at far right) with the author, the author's wife Cindy and Janmastami's housemate Madan Mohan (Everett, Washington: August 10, 2023)
July 22, 1967: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami leaves the United States on a flight from New York to New Delhi, with stops in London and Moscow, accompanied by Kirtanananda, who, on Swamiji’s order, wears a black flannel suit made from wool, with white shirt and red necktie. On the same date, Kirtanananda writes to his brother Gerald, “As soon as I reach India, I will be taking that long awaited step, the taking of sannyasa.”
Image: Kirtanananda dasa Brahmachari, wearing suit and tie, with Swamiji at the Air India terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City. They are headed to India, where Swamiji hopes to recover his health from the stroke he had some seven weeks earlier.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 218.
Kirtanananda, Bhaktivedanta Swami and disciples at New York International Airport (July 22, 1967).
July 22, 1969: On this date in history, 20-year-old Thomas Drescher is convicted of his sixth crime: Theft by False Pretext (Temple, Texas).
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 153.
Tirtha (Thomas Drescher)
July 22, 1987: On this date in history, convicted murderer Tirtha dasa (Thomas A. Drescher), becomes a swami at a fire sacrifice at the West Virginia State Penitentiary. Henceforth he i
s addressed as Tirtha Swami. Bhaktipada orders the yajna and Umapati Swami (Tirtha's counselor) officiates at the ceremony. Bhaktipada praises Tirtha for becoming a serious Vaishnava (hardly a year earlier he did not strictly follow the four regulative principles), but ISKCON leaders condemn the act of awarding sannyasa to a convicted murderer as a “mockery.”
Soon Tirtha Swami begins writing on his personal laptop computer, and in less than ten years completes 7 books, some of which are published by the New Vrindaban ISKCON Prison Ministry.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 410.
Tirtha's book, "The Definitive Guide to Practicing Krishna Consciousness In Prison," was published in Slovenian and distributed in prisons in Slovenia, due to the prison ministry of Chandramauli Swami (Frank Chiefa).
July 22, 1990: On this date in history, Ravindra Svarupa (William H. Deadwyler), an important GBC member, ISKCON guru, and leader of the Guru Reform Movement which knocked down the zonal acharyas a few notches three years earlier, refers to the religion practiced at New Vrindaban as “New-Age goulash.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 49.
Choir concert in the temple. Professor Alfred R. DeJagger directs; Hrishikesh accompanies on the piano (c. 1987).
New Vrindaban’s first female sannyasi, Ishvara Swami (Ilavati devi dasi/Evelyne Sheffey), accepts her danda, while Gudakesh the German shepherd looks on (November 16, 1987).
Gaura Shakti and Mahaprasad carry the murti of Jesus Christ to his vyasasana in the New Vrindaban temple (Christmas Day, 1988).
The City of God Accordion Ensemble—back row: Purity Swami, Dhirodatta, Thakur, Kripamaya, Hrishikesh, Dhruva; first row: Jamini, Dutiful Rama, Sanat Kumar, Vishvareta, True Peace (c. 1989).
Hrishikesh with cantor and harpist Bhavisya, and accordionist and timpanist Dutiful Rama at the console of the Allen electronic organ. Photo from New Vrindaban World, Vol. 1, No. 1 (February 1990).
The City of God Temple Orchestra (c. 1990).
New Vrindaban residents chant and dance enthusiastically during the noon service to the accompaniment of organ and timpani.
The dedication of the giant statue of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, with Bhaktipada front and center, surrounded by his disciples and followers, on the 13th anniversary of Prabhupada’s disappearance (November 14, 1990).
July 22, 1993: On this date in history, while still under house arrest in Wheeling, West Virginia, Bhaktipada announces that he will no longer lead the New Vrindaban Community and the Cities of God. He asks Radhanath Swami to take over as "acharya," but Radhanath refuses.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 100.
Bhaktipada began growing his hair and beard during his house arrest at Warwood, West Virginia. (Photo: August 16, 1993).
July 22, 2021: On this date in history, during an interview for Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, a former New Vrindaban resident tells the author:
When I first came to New Vrindaban, the Varnashram College was located at the Frazier Smith house in Wheeling Creek valley. It was a creepy house. During one of my first days there, I encountered a student in the basement just outside the shower room. He was about thirteen years old and completely naked. I noticed that he was not a child, but a fully-developed and sexually-mature young man. His behavior was surprising to me, because I had been taught as a devotee since 1973 that the genitals should always be covered by your kaupinam, even while showering or bathing. This boy was not embarrassed by his nudity, and he even stood right in front of me, chatting with me, completely naked. I was shocked. This was not proper Vaishnava behavior. “Why was he not trained properly?” I wondered.
A few months later, I noticed that this boy, and another boy about his age (I remember their names but will not reveal them), spent many, many nights at Kirtanananda Swami’s house across from the Palace. I thought this was very strange. I am a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and I had recently come to New Vrindaban. I was not infatuated with Kirtanananda Swami, as were so many other New Vrindaban residents I had met. I kind of admired him, from a distance of course; he had a powerful charisma and a sharp intelligence that impressed me, especially for an American. I didn’t believe the “pure devotee” propaganda which was going around. I was never taken in by all the worship and adoration; I was skeptical. So therefore I questioned his abnormal conduct with the two students.
I spoke to my superior Manihar, the headmaster for the Varnashram College, about Kirtanananda Swami’s unusual behavior with the two teenage boys. I said to Manihar, “These two boys spend an unnatural amount of time at Kirtanananda Swami’s house at night. It seems to me that there is only one reason a forty-five-year-old man would want to have thirteen-year-old boys spend nights with him: for sex.” Manihar responded, “I guess it’s none of our business.”
I also voiced my concerns to Radhanath Swami (perhaps he was still a brahmachari, as this happened in the first half of 1982), but when I spoke to him, he ignored me completely and just walked away. He didn’t want to hear about it. I thought his conduct very surprising. I wondered: suppose I had told him that two thirteen-year-old girls were sleeping alone at night with a middle-age man in his bedroom; would Radhanath have become concerned? Would he have just walked away without even considering the question?
Sri Govinda Goswami (Niraga)
Facebook message to the author
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 206.
Obituary for Manihar (Matthew Norton)
July 22, 2021: On this date in history, during an interview for Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, a former New Vrindaban gurukula alumnus tells the author about the riot of Summer 1982 at New Nandagram boys school. Following is an excerpt from the book:
“The Riot at New Nandagram”
After some time living in the Frazier house, the Varnashram College boys and teachers moved to New Nandagram at Wilson Valley, a former bar which New Vrindaban had purchased for a half-million dollars. By this time, the older boys were thirteen, fourteen, and even fifteen and sixteen years old and they were discovering their independence and their power. They were no longer cowering little boys who could be easily intimidated by an angry teacher with a stick or paddle. Some were now able to take the beatings and punishment from the teachers without flinching. They were discovering their strength. The boys were slowly but surely becoming men. Many no longer feared their teachers or the beatings.
One time, the boys rebelled against their abusive teachers and an actual riot ensued. Niragadev ACBSP, the headmaster’s assistant, remembered the confrontation with the students, “We left the creepy Frazier house and moved to the modern building at Wilson Valley, a few miles downstream on Wheeling Creek. We—the older Varnashram boys and their teachers—were living with the younger boys at the main gurukula, New Nandagram. As best I can remember, I got into a fight with a Mexican teenager who was a student in the Varnashram College. He was a nice chap with a sharp temper. He was bigger than me. I’m not sure how the fight started and blows (on both sides) were exchanged.” The Mexican student remembered the riot in more detail:
All the boys were lined up outside in military formation. The teacher, Ananta [Andre Deslauriers from Montreal], was going down the line slapping each of us in the face. He was threatening us, “If you don’t straighten out, you’re not going to get to go to the festival at the Palace tomorrow; you’ll be stuck here at Wilson Valley while everyone else is having fun and eating the feast.”
The face slapping and beatings didn’t bother me too much anymore; I was a tough kid; strong body, built solid. But it upset me when I saw some of the skinny, less-hardy boys get slapped or beaten. Sometimes they’d cry. As I remember it, Manihar’s assistant, Niragadev, started slapping JC’s son, BT. I liked BT and I felt protective toward him. BT was deaf in one ear, so it was hard for him to hear. He would often cock his head and hold his hand over his good ear to hear better.
I couldn’t stand seeing him abused anymore, so I broke out of formation and stepped between BT and Niragadev. I threatened Niragadev. A fight started and it seemed like all the boys got involved. It really was a riot. We let out a lot of repressed and uncontrolled anger toward our teachers.
Niraga continued his recollection of the riot, “Manihar [the headmaster] was curiously absent during the riot, even though he lived in a trailer with his wife just five minutes from the school. So I was left alone with a rowdy gang of twenty angry teenagers, all bigger and stronger than me. I retreated to the library and locked the door. Some of the older boys tried to break the door down. I was in fear for my life. They were violently banging on the door, trying to knock it down. Some of the boys called me on the phone and threatened me.”
Another Varnashram College student, CW, recalled threatening Niraga, “I remember DKW [another student] and I calling Niragadev—who had locked himself in his ashram room—on the phone, making fun of him, telling him they [he and Manihar] had to leave [New Vrindaban] as soon as possible or else we would get Kirtanananda to send his thugs to physically hurt them. Niragadev pleaded with us for that not to happen.”
Niraga concluded, “I was using the telephone, trying to call for help. I was about to call the police when finally Manihar turned up. The teen gang appealed to Kirtanananda Swami to remove me. I packed and left joyously two days later. My United States visa was ending in a few weeks. I was planning to exit anyway.”
The New Vrindaban gurukula teachers claimed that they were following Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s orders when they slapped a boy on the face. “Just like when . . . father always gives, always merciful to his son, but if the son is very obstinate, he gives him a slap.” (Bhagavad-gita lecture in Hyderabad, India, November 30, 1972)
During a conversation with teachers at the Dallas, Texas gurukula, Prabhupada explained:
Question: What is some good punishment?
Prabhupada: Slap here. (He motions to his own cheek.)
Question: Slap them on the head?
Prabhupada: No, here. (He motions to his cheek.)
Question: How about on the rear end? It is an American custom to spank on the behind.
Prabhupada: That is not very good. Slap here. (He motions to his cheek.)
(March 4, 1975)
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, pp. 298-299.
July 23: Summer 1990: On or around this date in history, “His Divine Grace” Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, the leader of the New Vrindaban Community and Cities of God Worldwide, slaps a disobedient disciple on the face at the John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The disciple (Jagadananda dasa/Jeff Dalton), who had served as the president of New Vrindaban's Cincinnati Ohio Preaching Center for a time, claims the force of Bhaktipada’s hand, “shattered all the illusions of pride in my demented mind. Upon receiving that sudden, split-moment contact with your lightning hand against my cheek, shock waves of spiritual energy were sent throughout my body. Indeed, I never felt so happy before in all my life. Therefore, I fervently pray that you always strike me with your thunderbolt hands and feet that break through the brick layers of darkness that imprisons my sleeping soul. Your transcendental power knows no bounds.”
Some say Jagadananda is a true and faithful and highly-realized disciple who accepted the mercy of his spiritual master with actual humility, like Lord Chaitanya. One must become like the grass; people trample all over the grass, but the grass never protests. Only one who is truly humble can see the Supreme Lord in his original transcendental form.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 90.
July 1990: On or around this date in history, Bhaktipada horrifies City of God interfaith members when, during a noontime lecture, he condones deception, theft and killing, when done for Krishna or Krishna’s representative.
Of course, the New Vrindaban Brijabasis had been hearing classes like that for two decades. When I joined New Vrindaban in 1978 at the age of 22, I heard so many classes about killing--Arjuna killing the enemy soldiers on the Kuruksetre battlefield, including friends, teachers, cousins, on the order of Krishna--that I thought I didn't have what it takes to be a Krishna Bhakta. If Krishna asked me to kill my father, could I do it? I didn't think I could.
Of course, Bhaktipada didn't make this stuff up; he got it directly from his spiritual master and Bhagavad-gita. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada spoke about killing for Krishna several times, including this conversation from March 15, 1974:
[We] will teach military art. With tilak [a mark worn by Hindus on the forehead], soldiers will [march and chant], “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna.” (laughter) We want that: marching with military band, “Hare Krishna.” You maintain this idea. Is it not good? When there will be military march of Krishna conscious soldiers: anyone who does not believe in Krishna, “Blam!” [gunshot sound] (laughter) Yes. The same process as the Mohammedans did, with sword and Koran, we’ll have to do that. “Do you believe in Krishna or not?” “No, sir.” “Blam!” Finished. (Prabhupada laughs)
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 77.
This photo appeared in the article “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Guns ‘n’ Ammo, Guns ‘n’ Ammo,” High Times (January 1981), which told the story of Hansadutta, and his infatuation with guns.
July 24, 1990: On this date in history, Randall Gorby, the only person among the conspirators in the plot to murder Sulochan who was a non-devotee, is found dead in his pickup truck at Bear Haven Recreation Area about ten miles east from his home in Elkins, West Virginia. Police authorities labeled it a suicide; they said that Gorby had asphyxiated himself by running a hose from the tailpipe to the cab of his truck; he died from “acute monoxide intoxication.”
Mother Paurnamasi (Hayagriva’s wife), however, suspected that foul play was involved. She said, “They [the police] said Gorby’s death was suicide, but . . . [shortly after Gorby’s death] I was in Cameron [West Virginia, a small town with a population of less than 1,000 people on Route 250 about 15 miles south of New Vrindaban] talking to Jim Kupfer. He told me that the day before Gorby died, he had come through Cameron. Gorby was afraid for his life and told Kupfer (a distant relative) that someone was following him; that someone was after him. Is this the mentality of someone about to commit suicide?”
Gorby had been a government informant and was to be the chief witness for the prosecution in the forthcoming trial of Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada. If Gorby was murdered, who did it, and why?
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 369.
“Gorby was more fired up to destroy Sulochan than any of the devotees.” Russell “Randall” Clark Gorby, retired steel worker, longtime “friend” of New Vrindaban, vocal advocate for the murder of Sulochan, and government informant (undated).
July 24, 2024: On this date in history, the author receives a letter from a reader:
I have read "Killing for Krishna" and "11 Naked Emperors." Very good work on both books. You are quite the scholar! I especially liked how the “Eleven Naked Emperors” book opened a new perspective for me, I always thought post-humus ritvikism was dimwitted and the appointment claim didn’t seem right either. That book offered a 3rd option that really clarified things for me.>
Similar to the situation of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta, he wanted the parampara to continue (not ritvik). But he didn’t appoint anyone either, so it’s kind of open for an exemplary disciple to become a “self-effulgent acarya.” So you offer a kind of a middle ground between the official ISKCON canon of events and the reactionary ritvik version of events. Basically, I see three options:
Option 1: Prabhupada assigned 11 acaryas to be the next successors
Option 2: Prabhupada intended to be the last guru for ISKCON even post-mortem (ritvik)
Option 3: Neither of the above was intended by Prabhupada>
My respects to you, Hare Krishna
Michael Stevenson
New York City
Cover of Killing For Krishna.
Late-July 1968: On or around this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami--after leaving ISKCON nine months earlier and attempting (without success) to start his own ashram at an old farmhouse in the backwoods of West Virginia--and his partner Hayagriva travel to Montreal where they humbly apologize personally to Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. They beg to return to ISKCON in good standing. Prabhupada “forgives his renegade disciples with a garland of roses and a shower of tears.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 58.
Kirtanananda (1966).
Hayagriva (1966).
July 26, 1986: On this date in history, a distraught New Vrindaban mother, initiated in New York in 1971, who discovers that her son [SH] has been sexually molested repeatedly by the gurukula headmaster, leaves the community. She says,
“I left the community because I found out that my son had been molested by the headmaster, Sri Galim [Gary Gardner]. When I got my children safely out of the farm area and I was in California, safe from any violence that could be committed to me or my children, then I contacted the police. I took my children to sexual abuse counselors, and the counselors themselves reported it to the West Virginia police in Moundsville. I never directly reported it to the police at any time.”
Charges of child sexual abuse were filed, and Sri Galim fled to India, then Malaysia. New Vrindaban management characteristically dismissed the allegations as unfounded charges, and claimed that the indictments were part of the ongoing “persecution” against the community. Bhaktipada tried to make it look like a conspiracy. He said, “They’ll come to him, YLN [a teenage ashram moderator who, along with Sri Galim, was also charged with sex crimes], and say, ‘We’ll let you off if you implicate the Swami.’”
The teenage boy turned himself in, went to court and served 6 months in a youth detention camp, but Sri Galim, on the other hand, fled from the United States in fear. He first went to India and then to Malaysia with his wife and two young children. After more than a year, he returned to the United States, first to Boston, and then to Washington D. C., where he worked for Janmastami, who had a lucrative business selling flowers on sidewalk tables.
After nearly two years of hiding from law-enforcement officials, in November 1988, Sri Galim turned himself in to police authorities. On May 1st, 1989, three days before the opening of Sri Galim’s trial, District Attorney Tom White dropped the charges due to “technical flaws.” White said that legal research revealed that the original indictment contained technical errors and would probably not withstand an appellate review.
SH’s mother, SOH, retorted, “There was plenty of evidence; we even had other gurukula boys lined up to testify. We were furious when the district attorney had the charges dropped. He had been paid off, probably by . . . Sri Galim’s father.” Janmastami attests that, yes indeed, Sri Galim's Texas cattle rancher father used his vast financial assets to influence the course of justice.
One reader responds to this post:
I lived in New Vrindaban for around 6 months. I lived in the valley next to the Nandagram School and worked there with the first grade boys. Sri Galim was there as headmaster and there were a couple of other male teachers, so I was the only women on campus. The little boys, 5 and 6 year old, always crowded around me, holding on to my sari and wanting my attention, no doubt, because they missed their mommies. I was just following the system that I thought was set up by Srila Prabhupada. I was naive and idealistic back then and never even heard of child molestation nor could never imagine a devotee would do such a thing. Yet something inside of me felt such deep sadness for these children. There were a few boys that always seemed unable to function and often remained in their sleeping bags all day. The son of this mother [in the post above] was there in the ashram at the time I was there. He seem to be the favorite of the headmaster. That is all I knew. In my innocence, I never suspected anything sinister.
A year or so later I ran into this mother and her son in California. She told me what was going on in that school and to her son there. This was a big jolt to my naiveté and the moment of reckoning for me. It has been a long journey for all of us trusting souls to comprehend the level of darkness hidden beneath the outward appearance of love and joy that most of us young devotees were experiencing in the movement. May we and ISKCON learn these hard lessons from these tragedies, heal the past and move forward avoiding further damage to Krishna's children.
Donna Nikki Krueger
Alachua, Florida
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 336.
SOH, the mother of SH (c. late-1980s).
Nandagram School headmaster Sri Galim (Gary Gardner) teaching Sanskrit to students (c. late-1970s, early 1980s).
July 27, 1969: On this date in history, during a presentation at the Family Dog Auditorium in San Francisco, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada extols the purifying power of Sanskrit, “I am going to sing now an Indian song, and then I shall explain it. Even if you don’t understand the language of the song, still, if you kindly hear patiently, the sound vibration will act.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 44.
The Sanskrit letter Omkara.
July 27, 1973: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada praises his first sannyasa disciple, Kirtanananda Swami, “You are Maharaja—Great King. Like Yudhisthir Maharaja and Pariksit Maharaja [two great kings of ancient India]—Emperor. Actually you are doing something very, very big—so you are Maharaja.” We, the residents of New Vrindaban, thought it quite fitting that Prabhupada pronounced his first sannyasa disciple as a "Great King" in this letter, and some of us (especially the New Vrindaban youngsters) wore tee shirts emblazoned with the text, "Bhaktipada is King!"
On Christmas Day 1980, Bhaktipada presents a golden crown and mace—created under his direction by Ishani devi dasi (Ellen Schramm), the head of the New Vrindaban Jewelry Department—to the murti of Prabhupada at the Palace. Bhaktipada explained, "Prabhupada wears a crown because he is the King of Kings! Ordinarly kings wear a crown, and he is the King of Kings. He has not conquered any land, but he has conquered the modes of material nature. So all these earthly kings, even though they've conquered so many acres and miles of land, they're all controlled by the modes of material nature. But he [Prabhupada] has conquered the modes of material nature, therefore he is the King of Kings."
Six years later, Ishani secretly constructs a gold crown and scepter which she presents to Bhaktipada during his 49th birthday celebration (September 1, 1986). It should be understood that this was the only time Bhaktipada ever wore his crown. I was there by Bhaktipada's side at the festival, I was one of the speakers and I had also prepared a musical tribute with singers and musicians. When Bhaktipada received his crown, he refused to wear it. Only at the vocal and animated insistence of his followers and disciples, who begged him to put on the crown, did he do so, but only for a few seconds, long enough for someone to take a photograph. Then he gave the crown and mace back to Ishani and said (I heard him personally), "Please give these to Prabhupada in his Palace. He deserves such a fine gift, not me."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. xvi.
Crowned Prabhupada at his Palace (c. December 1980).
Bhaktipada receives a beautiful crown and scepter crafted by Ishani devi dasi on his 49th birthday celebration (September 1, 1986).
July 27, 1976: On this date in history during a radio interview, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains: “Misunderstanding. The whole civilization, the modern civilization, is going on misunderstanding. Dehatma-buddhi—just like cats and dogs. Suppose if you become very proud, ‘I am Englishman. Why you have come here?’ As the dogs bark, ‘Row! Row! Why you have come?’ So where is the difference? What is the difference? He's thinking ‘I am dog,’ you are thinking ‘Englishman,’ I am thinking ‘Indian.’ There is no difference. So if we keep people in darkness of dog’s mentality, and declare we are advanced in civilization, most misguiding.”
Regarding dogs, three months earlier, during an istagosthi at the Vrindaban brahmachari ashram, Kirtanananda Swami explains the Gaudiya-Vaishnava conception of guru worship, “The spiritual master is offered worship, just like God, but if he starts to think, ‘Yes, I deserve this worship; they are finally recognizing me for what I am,’ immediately he’s dog. It is dangerous. The spiritual master has to accept the worship of his disciple, but he is always thinking, ‘What a fool I am.’” (April 25, 1976)
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book, Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 296.
July 28, 1970: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada signs a document known as the Direction of Management, and creates a committee within ISKCON which he calls the Governing Body Commission (GBC). He appoints twelve disciples to serve on the GBC to help him manage his rapidly-expanding preaching mission.
To see the document, go to Direction of Management.
July 28, 2011: On this date in history, Bhaktipada is admitted to Jupiter Hospital in Thane, India. He is semi-conscious and has difficulty breathing. He is put on a ventilator. A CAT scan reveals bleeding in his brain. He goes into a coma and is given a tracheotomy and a nasogastric feeding tube. After a few days when he regains partial consciousness, he is taken off the ventilator but continues to receive oxygen through a nose tube, and nutrients through a feeding tube. His condition looks grim.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 155.
Satyavrata, Bhaktipada's personal servant, cries tears of joy and sorrow while embracing his beloved master during a visit with Bhaktipada in the hospital.
July 28, 2024: On this date in history, the author has lunch with a charming and talkative lady who says she remembers me back at New Vrindaban in 1978 when I worked on a scaffold in the kirtan hall of Prabhupada's Palace painting the ceiling perimeter. At the time she was about 13 years old, I was 22. She lived in a small house right next to Sky Vue Inn, a redneck tavern on McCreary's Ridge Road.
She was very curious about her devotee neighbors, and often tried to talk to them, but she says many were indifferent to her. Some called her "Karmi Kelly." However, she says the Fringe Devotees were very friendly to her, they didn't mind talking to her, and she became lifelong friends with some of them. Actually today, decades later, she is now friends with many of the devotees who were initially indifferent to her.
Kelly says she loves my books. She has 5 volumes, and today, since she's visiting Southern California, we met in Escondido (she attended our Sunday Service at House of Prayer Lutheran Church), and afterwards we had lunch at the Lawrence Welk Resort, where she purchased the remaining seven books. Now she has the complete set: 12 volumes!
For two and a half hours at Canyon Grille, Kelly filled my ear to the brim with fascinating stories from around 1978 to 1985 when her mother finally decided living near the Krishnas was too dangerous and they moved away. She worked cutting out pictures for pendants for Sulochan Prabhu for an entire weekend, but quit when he paid her only $2.50 for dozens of hours of painstaking work!
I said, "Kelly, you should write a book yourself about growing up next door to the Hare Krishnas!"
She responded:
"Haha! I think I'll title it 'Love Your Neighbor,' because most of the families on the ridge hated the Hare Krishnas, and the Krishnas hated us. Once my father complained to Bhaktipada about the loudspeaker devotees had set up near the construction site for the proposed Temple of Understanding which blasted Hare Krishna chanting day and night. He told Bhaktipada it was a terrible disturbance."
Bhaktipada said something like, "Oh, I'm sorry about that." But the loud music continued.
So my father set up his own loudspeaker system and started blaring country music to drown out the chanting! This was shortly before the big Sila Ropana dedication ceremony for the proposed big temple. My father knew that dignitaries were coming, mayors, police chiefs, newspaper reporters, television cameramen and even a United States Congressman.
Bhaktipada must have decided that my father had to move. The Krishnas had offered him tons of money for his little property (right by the proposed temple), but he refused to sell unless they met his list of demands. So Bhaktipada decided to drain the aquifer where we got well water from, so we wouldn't have running water in the house anymore.
They brought in a big derrick and drilling equipment and set it up just next to my father's property. My father knew just what they were planning to do; dry up his well. So he borrowed a cow from a friend and tied it up to a tree in his front yard. Bhaktipada came over and asked him, "What's with the cow?"
My father said, "I know you're having a big event in a few days with many dignitaries and television crews. When they arrive, I'm gonna pull out my shotgun and kill the cow. It'll make a big, big noise. When the newspaper people come over, I'll tell them about you trying to dry up my well. That'll be very bad publicity for you."
Bhaktipada pulled out the well digging machinery and my father returned the cow to his friend.
Before we parted, I asked Kelly to say something for my Facebook friends, and she replied, "Tell 'em, thanks, Henry, for your hard work in recording the history of my neighborhood!"
Kelly J. Howard Carter, at Canyon Grille at the Lawrence Welk Resort, Escondido, California, holding the Hare Krishna history books by Henry Doktorski which will complete her collection.
July 28, 2024: On this date in history, one of author’s dedicated Krishna friends, a Prabhupada disciple and likeable fellow initiated at the age of 17 in January 1977 in Vancouver, Canada, recently vented on my Facebook page:
I was watching a YouTube video about the history of world religions today, and the professor spoke a little about Srila Prabhupada, but he said something like "Prabhupada was known for his racism, anti-Semitism, sexism and classism, and his followers later acknowledged that physical and sexual abuse had occurred in the movement" (which makes it sound as if Srila Prabhupada personally sexually abused people).
The fact that when people want to learn something about Srila Prabhupada they get this kind of false, negative impression of him because of irresponsible disgruntled former devotees or envious Hindu competitors (like the Saivite who publishes "Hinduism Today") is a great tragedy.
Make no mistake: this is an erroneous portrayal of Srila Prabhupada that unfortunately can be successfully promoted to those who only have a superficial familiarity and do not understand the mood and background of some of the controversial statements that Srila Prabhupada made in the course of his millions of recorded words.
Later, he and I spoke on the phone, and during our conversation he exclaimed, “Srila Prabhupada was not racist!” I did not reply on the phone to him, but his impassioned comment did cause me to reflect on this matter a bit. What does it mean to be a racist? How do we know if a person is racist or not? How is my friend so sure that Prabhupada was not a racist? It seems to me, that we can judge a person accurately based on the words they speak. We all know that the late scientist and author, Carl Sagan, was an agnostic because he said so. We can trust that Carl Sagan is an agnostic. He admitted he did not know if there was a supreme being or not.
I think we can all agree that the late Martin Luther King, Jr., the American Baptist minister, civil rights activist and political philosopher, was against racism. He fought against prejudice, discrimination, and antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized. We know this from Martin Luther King’s words, his speeches, his writings. How can we tell if a person is racist? We can tell by their words.
In the case of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, not only did he condone slavery for the black race in his words, but he also impressed upon his impressionable followers the gist of racism: the superiority of the Aryan race, which Prabhupada considered himself to be a member of. “White or a golden hue is the color of the higher caste, and black is the complexion of the sudras.”
I first heard about this when I went out on the pick in 1979 with Tapahpunja dasa Brahmachari in the parking lots of North Eastern Ohio. During our conversations he preached to me and taught me, among other things, the term “Bahuka,” which he said appears in Srimad-bhagavatam and refers to the inferior black race of people who are uncultured and uncivilized. He told me this was not only true in the distant past, but is also true today.
More recently, about seven years ago, for a few months I dated a young Caucasian lady, a disciple of a Prabhupada disciple who had left ISKCON and become affiliated with the Gaudiya Math. She once told me her guru’s name, but I don’t recall. Perhaps it was Bhakti Narasingha Gaurava Maharaja, but I’m not sure. During one conversation with her at her home in Santa Barbara, she surprised me by saying “Black people are less intelligent than white people. My guru maharaja told me so.”
In Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, I write about the Transcendental Road Show, begun by Kirtanananda Maharaja and continued by Vishnujan Swami, a troupe of singers, dancers, musicians, actors, set designers, and chefs, who traveled in the East and South United States presenting music, song, dance and prasadam, mostly for college students. One black devotee on the Road Show, Lamdodhara dasa, left the Road Show because he felt discriminated against by the white devotees. He said, “There was a current of racism in those days [in America]. I expected a certain degree of shelter in the movement from that, but I didn’t get it. I had a real hard time with the racism [of the white devotees].”
Where did this current of racism in ISKCON come from? Who can say it did not come from the top?
July 29, 2022: On this date in history, a reader posts a five-star review of Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, on Amazon.
FIVE STARS. FOREWORD SURPRISE!
To my surprise and delight—my review of [Henry Doktorski’s Gold, Guns and God, Volume 7] has to start with the Foreword by Bhakta Eric Johanson (formerly Vrindaban Chandra Swami). One of the more exciting parts of reading (for me) is when I find language for ideas I’ve conceived, but never found a way to articulate. Prior to reading Chapter 69 (first chapter of Vol. 7) I re-read the Foreword thrice. One of the virtues of the Foreword is how eloquently the stage is set for Vol. 7 and Dr. Henry’s opus on New Vrindavan and ISKCON in the larger context.
The opening sentence was enough to blow me away; it left me contemplating and reflecting on so many aspects of ISKCON since Prabhupada’s departure. “...ISKCON institution’s leadership has provided any number of cul-de-sacs... (for spiritual seekers).” The fact that this was pluralized makes me consider that this is actually a rhetorical question. The problems since A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s departure are impossible to count or categorize even if it’s already common knowledge and the evidence irrefutable. Here is where Eleven Naked Emperors provides a deep dive or “beginning of the end” type of analysis into these problems. Hats off to Bhakta Eric for enhancing this volume and the entire series with clear and “to the point” language. Bringing to light the complete disregard for morality by many leaders operating within the confines of ISKCON is a sad reality to come to terms with. The damage done caused a spectacular exodus of devotees and it’s painful to think how many good souls departed from Prabhupada’s mission and movement. However, reading these pages provides a compelling reason to do so. I had never made the connection between this hemorrhaging of devotees and the present-day dependency on followers of Indian descent. Suddenly, the current state of ISKCON that one can appreciate in temples all over the United States (and world) makes sense. This Foreword alone will provide, in few words, great insight and explanations to what we all can see today.
Moving on to Volume 7, one of the more interesting aspects described is the legal proceedings following a murder conspiracy. Most of us have a general sense of how the judicial system works and the deals can be worked out between law enforcement/judicial system and the accused. Volume 7 provides a front-row seat to the unfolding drama after Sulochan’s murder. Still hard to imagine that someone who so fiercely verbalized the determination to kill a “demon” did not serve prison time. Accountability may elude anyone willing to cooperate—I guess the fear of prison time; “snitches get stitches.” At least now there is some clarity as to why so many were involved and so few paid the price.
On a personal level I was looking forward to learning how Keith Ham and the New Vrindaban community got the boot from ISKCON in 1987. While there are too many reasons for Keith to have never returned to ISKCON in 1968 after getting booted the first time, it was the more compelling to learn exactly how he was thrown out after he built a Palace and a thriving community raking in money (in the millions), tourists, and great PR for ISKCON. This book documents the GBC’s resolution to support the excommunication. Here is yet another sad case where evil can be overlooked in the name of money and power. The fact that he made it one decade (after the passing of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada) and stayed in ISKCON is amazing by any measure and especially considering that even prior to GBC approval he started initiations in New Vrindaban. I’m still baffled every time I read the incredible amounts of cash that was pouring into the community from sankirtan in the early ’80s. There are several references to this and while there can’t be an exact amount documented—what is certain is that we’re talking about millions of dollars. This volume continues to document the “dangers of deranged devotion” and how it goes deeper and beyond a murder conspiracy. While this history is fascinating it continues to leave the reader oscillating between wonder, repulsion, and tremendous sadness that Prabhupada’s home was so tarnished by ego, power trips, corruption, and “deviations in the dhama.”
Thanks Henry for continuing this project that serves as a healing journey for so many and the hope that much can be learned to avoid repeating the same disastrous mistakes. All Glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Pedro Ramos
Atlanta, Georgia
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7.
Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7 front and back cover
July 29, 2022: On this date in history, a reader posts a video review of "Gold, Guns and God," Vol. 6 on YouTube.
There are lots of lessons to be learned about cults reading the books of Henry Doktorski. . . . If there’s one thing to learn from the books of Henry, is that you have to take care of your heart. You have to take care of your mind. You do not give your life and power to anyone except God himself. Henry speaks with experience, because he was himself deeply brainwashed by the Hare Krishna movement. And it takes a lot of effort to deprogram oneself from a cult that you’ve been involved for years. It’s possible, as Henry Doktorski is a shining example of one that has now a very successful life, a very positive life, helping others to see what the truth is all about.
Henri Jolicoeur
formerly Hanuman Swami, ACBSP
Montreal, Quebec
To hear Henri's video, go to: YouTube.
Henri Jolicoeur
July 30, 2024: On this date in history: Banned by executive decree!
The author writes: I have just heard from one of my Krishna friends that a long-time ISKCON guru has forbidden at least one of his disciples from reading my books. My friend, who asks that I not mention his name, explained: "Henry, I'm glad by Krsna's grace that your books are being read by the current ISKCON gurus, such as Bhakti Vikasa Swami, who briefly mentions ‘Eleven Naked Emperors’ in one of his videos, even though he told his disciples that it is not necessary for anyone to read your books. I have heard other ISKCON gurus are forbidding their disciples from reading your books. One disciple of Hridayananda dasa Goswami recently told me that her guru personally forbade her from reading any of your books."
My friend also shared the direct communication he received from the disciple of Hridayananda dasa Goswami:
"I have no interest in watching the Peacock documentary [Krishna: Gurus, Karma, Murder] and reliving the past or reading poisonous books like those by Henry Doktorski. Henry seems full of bitterness, enragement, hatred, and contempt towards devotees, leadership, the people I love as family, and my initiating spiritual master, H. D. Goswami. Guru Maharaj has instructed me not to read such material from a miserable Ritvik whose plan is to take down ISKCON, tear down the leadership of every person, and more. I love this ISKCON Hare Krsna movement and am grateful for the association of so many devotees."
My friend continued, "Also interesting to note how the zonal acaryas keep brainwashing their disciples by referring to you as a ritvik."
I find this interesting. Where do I promote the Ritvik System in any of my 12 volumes? However, I suppose it is a convenient strategy for those ISKCON leaders who wish to hide the past and instill hatred in gullible disciples. In addition, where in my books do I exhibit qualities of bitterness, enragement, hatred, and contempt towards devotees and the ISKCON gurus? I don't think this lady has even read one sentence from my books.
Henry has completed twelve books on Hare Krishna history (photo: August 5, 2022).
July 30, 2024: On this date in history, a reader describes, in a Facebook comment, the great benefit he received from reading the author’s books:
For me, there is nothing surprising that an ISKCON guru told his disciples not to read Henry’s books, and that is nothing to be surprised about. For years, I identified myself as an ISKCON devotee. In my experience, when I identified that way, it created this tension when I inevitably heard about the events described in Henry’s books. At first, I thought, “I do not believe what I am hearing in Henry’s books, especially about my guru, because I have devoted my entire life, my entire soul even, to the ISKCON project, which is perfect because Prabhupada is perfect and is never corruptible.”
However, after reading Henry’s books that tension broke, because I believe Henry’s interpretations of events is accurate and factual. That is why Henry’s books threaten even the big progressive gurus like Hridayananda dasa Goswami and Radhanath Swami. It’s a not a pleasant experience to lose that faith in the institution you are told again and again is your guaranteed path to salvation. The sorry truth is that most ISKCON devotees have exactly the same mindset as the HDG disciple Henry quoted in his post. Who wants to sacrifice their innocent bliss in the face of painful truths? I’m grateful to Henry’s writings for helping to burst my bubble. The freedom on the other side, to no longer defend what is actually indefensible, is a powerfully liberating feeling.
Christopher Fici
New York City
To date, Henry has completed twelve books on Hare Krishna history.
July 30, 2024: On this date in history, a Krishna devotee gives a warning to his Facebook friends:
These people like Henri Jolicoeur and Henry Doktorski are not against Prabhupada by chance! This must finally be understood. . . . People like Kirtanananda, Umapati and Hanuman (Henri Jolicoeur) and also Doktorski are clearly part of the Great Sinister Movement and are all working together to destroy Iskcon and Prabhupada's reputation! . . . They all work together for their beloved Kali Yuga age. . . . It's a huge struggle, but you have to learn to see it and not trust everyone like Doktorski or Jolicoeur.
Doktorski is an intelligent asura and his books are also enlightening about what was going on in Iskcon, but you have to understand that he is still part of this Great Sinister Movement, just like Henri Jolicoeur, Rabbinath and all the other Kamsas and Putanas [evil kings and witches] in and outside of Iskcon.
They are very smart and know exactly how naive and gullible we are. They talk about brainwashing in Iskcon and that we should free ourselves from all the rules and regulations and preferably drink alcohol like Henry and preferably become gay.
Mathura Pati Das
Author’s comment: I think our friend Mathura Pati Das is mistaken on several accounts. First, I am not against Prabhupada! Nowhere in my books do I belittle or blaspheme the ISKCON Founder/Acharya. I do, however, attempt to show evidence that he was not a divine and infallible being incapable of making mistakes. Nevertheless, I respect him as a great prophet of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Perhaps I drink alcohol from time to time, and Henri Jolicoeur writes about his sympathy for gays and lesbians in ISKCON, but that doesn’t mean I want Krishna devotees to break their vows and drink alcohol, or that Henri wants them to engage in homosexual activities!
However, it is nice that our friend Mathura Pati gave me an underhanded compliment, “Doktorski is an intelligent asura and his books are also enlightening about what was going on in Iskcon,” and I am grateful for the compliment!
To date, Henry has completed twelve books on Hare Krishna history.
Henri Jolicoeur
July 30, 2024: On this date in history, a customer posts a review on Amazon:
Five Stars. GGG Vol. 3. Verified purchase
An objective revelation from a former devotee of the main subject: the Swami known as Kirtanananda or Bhaktipada. Surprisingly a mixture of frankness & devotion.
Jada
United States
From a review on Amazon
Author's comment: I think the writer of this review might be my French-Canadian godbrother, Jadabharata dasa (Jean François Thibeault), who was/is Bhaktipada’s first initiated disciple; given diksa at a Christmas Day 1977 fire sacrifice at New Vrindaban hardly six weeks after the passing of the ISKCON Founder/Acharya Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Jada was known for his excellent service in Palace construction. Once, while kneeling on a concrete floor and drilling into the concrete with a power drill, Jada’s grip slipped and the drill shifted slightly and bored a hole in his right scrotum. The injury however, wasn’t life threatening, and I recall Jada liked to crack jokes about his accident and eliminating sex life for months after.
He was a fine writer, and Bhaktipada announced once “Jada and Hrishikesh are my literary disciples.” Today I heard Jada lives somewhere in Montreal.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3.
July 31: Summer 1953: On or around this date in history, Keith Ham contracts polio. He misses a half year of high school. Muscles in his legs and abdomen are permanently damaged.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 15.
Peekskill Star newspaper clipping: “Mrs. Gordon Ham, of 333 Nelson Avenue, a district captain for tonight’s Mothers March on Polio, accepts a first contribution from her son Keith, 16, a 1953 polio case. Contributors will deposit their donations tonight in the milk bottles carried by Marching Mothers.—Star Photo.”
Summer 1969: On or around this date in history, during a visit from New Vrindaban to New York ISKCON, Kirtanananda Swami declares, “The devil and the devotee reside in the same body.”
In the Mahabharata, the Sanskrit epic of ancient India revered in Hinduism, Lord Krishna says something similar, "No good man is entirely good; no bad man is entirely bad." Here Krishna speaks about the death of Duryhodhana, the Pandava Brothers mortal enemy on the battlefield of Kuruksetre.
This fact is also presented in contemporary popular culture. Harry Potter’s godfather, Sirius Black, explains, “The world isn’t split into good people and death eaters. We’ve all got both light and dark inside us.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s decalogy Gold, Guns and God, Vols. 1-10, Front matter.
August 1, 1975: On this date in history, during a room conversation in New Orleans, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada instructs his disciples that if polygamy is illegal in the United States, his disciples should simply call their second and third wives “girlfriends,” and get around the law. If the non-devotee general public objected, they should be considered no better than “asses.”
During a room conversation in 1975, Prabhupada said:
Prabhupada: Ksatriyas may marry more than one wife. They can take. So all girls must be married. That is... They must...They must have one husband, even the husband has got fifty wives. . . .
Nityananda: Are you saying that our men should have more than one wife?
Prabhupada: I have no objection.
Satsvarupa: That’s a difficult proposition.
Prabhupada: Why?
Satsvarupa: It’s not allowed in this country. It’s illegal. It’s against the law. . . . Everything we do, we don’t hide it. We show the world what we’re doing. I don’t see how we could hide that one man had many different wives.
Prabhupada: If you don’t call “wife,” you can have. The law allows you to keep boyfriend, girlfriend. . . . Instead of calling “husband,” call “friend.” That’s all. But, er, it is risky and the man must be responsible to keep. . . . More than one wife by trained-up man is not disallowed.
Brahmananda: But I think they thought that he could get it legally established, at least in the state of California.
Prabhupada: Well then go and marry there. If the state of California allows that, then they all can go to California.
Nityananda: The general public objects to that. It’s very. . . .
Prabhupada: Public we don’t care. . . . What is the public? We have got our own public here. . . . What is the public? All rascals. They are killing cows and drinking and topless dance, bottomless dance. What is the value of this public? All rascals. I don’t give any importance to this class of public, [they are] only after sense gratification, that’s all. They have no ideals of life. They do not know what is God. What is the value of this public? Mudhas, they have been described, mudhas. You know the meaning of mudha?
Devotee: Ass.
Prabhupada: Ass.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 147.
The Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII (1886-1967), had 7 wives, countless concubines and mistresses, 34 legitimate children and countless illegitimate children. The Nizam was so wealthy that he was portrayed on the cover of Time magazine on 22 February 1937, being described as the world's richest man.
August 1, 2023: On this date in history, the author receives a letter from a reader:
My dear godbrother Hrish,
l have now read all twelve volumes of your books: "Killing For Krishna," "Eleven Naked Emperors," and "Gold, Guns and God." What a massive and highly commendable effort you have made. As more people read your literatures, it will shed a lot of light for many.
Your idea to have the Timeline of Important Events at the end of Vol. 10 is a good idea. I am also impressed that you so honestly presented letters from people who disapprove of your work, also in Vol. 10. A couple of them were way over the top with their stupidity.
So you should rest assured that you have awakened people to the fact that having a certain position in an institution does not justify bad behavior. Will you write more?
Glories to your writing service.
If you want to post this online, no need to mention my name. I prefer to remain anonymous, being the nobody that I truly am.
Henry has completed 12 books of Hare Krishna history.
August 1971: On or around this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami establishes the Traveling Road Show, a musical/theater production featuring singers, dancers, musicians, costumes, sets, prasadam, and a psychedelic light show. At first, the group performs at churches and other venues in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. Later, after Vishnujana Swami joins the group, they become known as a "Transcendental Rock Opera" and perform in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Washington D. C., Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada attended the show at the famous Syria Mosque concert hall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 219.
Kirtanananda Swami at a Road Show performance (undated).
Publicity photo for the Road Show. Vishnujan Swami (with danda) stands near the altar of Radha-Damodar.
Publicity photo for the Road Show (undated).
August 3, 1973: On this date in history, during a lecture in London, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explains that guru must be authorized by the previous guru, “Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says, ‘amara ajñaya’ (‘On my order.’) That is the crucial point. One does not become spiritual master by his own whims. That is not spiritual master. He must be ordered by superior authority. Then he’s spiritual master.”
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 25.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada at New Vrindaban (1976).
August 3, 1986: On this date in history, when a New Vrindaban mother complains to Bhaktipada that the conditions in the nursery are “miserable,” Bhaktipada tells her that she has forgotten what real misery is, and as punishment she should go on sankirtan to see how the materialists are suffering, and consequently see how fortunate she is to engage in some little service, no matter what.
The children of fulltime sankirtan women had the most difficult time of all, because even newborns were given away to be cared for by other women while their mothers went back on the pick. Bhaktipada tried to placate the sankirtan mothers by explaining that a child who was cared for by “many mothers” was better off than a child who was raised by “only one mother.”
Bhaktipada explained: “Practically all of the mothers fully engage in temple service all day. . . . The children are in school almost from the cradle. . . . [The mothers being fully engaged] is very important because it minimizes the bodily consciousness: ‘Oh, this is my child.’ . . . There’s no question of neglecting them. There’s no neglect. The mother is still there, but not only one mother, the child is raised by many mothers.”
Despite Bhaktipada’s rationalizations, children suffered, especially when their mothers were away panhandling for the spiritual master. Sometimes one woman would be charged with taking care of ten or more infants at a time. One twelve-year-old girl who worked at the nursery claimed she had to “look after twenty infants by herself.” Gail Conger remembered one ten-month-old child of a sankirtan mother who was such a sad case that the memory of the neglected baby haunted her for years:
Some of the saddest children at New Vrindaban are those of the “Sankirtan Mothers,” who are raised more as communal property than anything else. Many sankirtan mothers reluctantly leave even their newborns in order to go out collecting money for Bhaktipada. They visit their children at irregular intervals. Most of the time the children are farmed out to various devotees.
I was approached myself once or twice, to care for an infant while his mother went out on sankirtan. One woman sometimes had as many as ten sankirtan babies in her care. . . . One cannot help but wonder at the long-term ramifications of infants being constantly shuffled about like so much baggage.
One sankirtan baby which I had the opportunity to see for a few days still haunts me. He was about ten months old and had often been shuffled from one person to another. (His mother was one of the most efficient money collectors and was constantly being sent out.) There was an expression of resigned pain in his eyes which was startling in a baby. He would sit unmoving for long stretches, and made no sounds except for an eerie, abnormal cry.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 254.
August 4, 1990: On this date in history, cellist Susan Kemper, a friend of New Vrindaban who teaches English at Ohio State University in Newark, Ohio, performs at the fourth Music at the Palace recital. The author accompanies her on accordion. (We didn't get our temple harpsichord until 1991.)
Bhaktipada explains: “New Vrindaban hopes to combine the best of both worlds—East and West—in a harmonious chorus of Love of God. . . . I hope to see New Vrindaban become the center of a Vaishnava cultural revolution and a new renaissance in Love of God. Not art for sense gratification, but real art—for the pleasure and glorification of Krishna.”
Later, around 1993, Susan married Murti Swami, the head of the New Vrindaban planning department. I visited them at their home in Columbus, Ohio, in 1996.
Our August 4, 1990 program consisted of:
Arioso: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1770)
Sonata in D Major: Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
Sarabande and Menuet: Louis de Caix d'Hervelois (1680-1760)
Rigaudon: Louis-Claude Daquin (1694-1772)
Sonata in Bb Major: Antonio Vivaldi (1680-1743)
Sarabande from Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major: J. S. Bach
Sonata in A Minor: Vivaldi
Traumerei: Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Minuet in G: Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Bourree: W. H. Squire
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 108.
To listen to Susan's recital, go to: YouTube.
Cellist Susan Kemper performed several times for Music at the Palace.
August 5, 1984: On this date in history, the ISKCON GBC-approved guru His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada unveils plans for the $50 million Temple of Understanding and Krishna Land complex. New Vrindaban president and spokesman, Kuladri dasa (Arthur Villa), claims the 18-story, 180,000 square foot temple will be twenty times larger than Prabhupada’s Palace and the largest Hindu temple of its kind to be built in the last one thousand years. All of ISKCON is excited.
Harikesh Swami Vishnupada (Robert Campagnola), the ISKCON zonal acharya for Eastern Europe, enthusiastically exclaims, “Someday, this will be the greatest temple on the planet!”
The zonal acharya for Western Europe, Bhagavan Maharaja Gurudeva (William Ehrlichman), expresses his appreciation, "Devotees need a project like the Temple of Understanding to get behind, to support—this will unify them. New Vrindaban should be the sankirtan capital of the world, where preaching centers from all around send busloads of people and devotees to get inspired.”
During a visit to New Vrindaban, the ISKCON zonal acharya Tamal Krishna Goswami Gurudeva (Thomas G. Herzig) declares, “New Vrindaban is the holiest place on earth.”
Hridayananda dasa Goswami Acharyapada (Howard J. Resnick), the ISKCON zonal acharya for Brazil, El Salvador, Uruguay, Venezuela and Florida, explains, “New Vrindaban is actually a great pillar to our preaching all over the world.”
Ramesvara Swami, the ISKCON guru for Southern California and head of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, visits New Vrindaban and declares, “When I was Prabhupada’s personal secretary in 1977, he introduced the phrase ‘cultural conquest.’ He told me dozens of times during that period that this is the way to preach in America. . . . Once, only once in my life as a devotee, I had a dream of Krishna consciousness making America a spiritual country. . . . In this dream I had a vision of a gigantic, all-pervading, and fully developed New Vrindaban. Everywhere I looked in this dream I saw temples, art galleries, huge and beautiful parks full of sculptures and art exhibits, gardens and restaurants, and millions of people. . . . I’ve always been convinced from that moment that New Vrindaban has a very special place in history. I’ve always been convinced that the project—and especially after seeing the master plan that Bhaktipada has inspired—will make America the first Krishna conscious country.”
Ramesvara promises to donate more than one hundred original Bhaktivedanta Book Trust paintings to New Vrindaban to be housed in a proposed permanent museum display. The Golden Age of New Vrindaban is in full swing. It seems everyone in ISKCON loves New Vrindaban and His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, the most-empowered representative of Prabhupada and Krishna.
Of course, we all understand that Bhaktipada was simply trying to follow the orders of his spiritual master, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who ordered his first sannyasa disciple to "make New Vrindaban like the Venkateswara Temple" of Tirumala in the Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh. It is one of the wealthiest and most-visited temples on earth, with 24 million pilgrims annually.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 182.
Artist’s painting of the proposed Great Temple of Understanding at New Vrindaban
Artist’s rendition of the proposed Great Temple of Understanding, showing the main tower (Vimana) and at top right, the Great Gate (Maha-Dvaram) by the reflecting pool.
August 6, 1985: On this date in history, Bhaktipada visits Schulmerich Bells, a Philadelphia company which supplies tuned cast bells, hand bells, electronic carillons, tower clocks and prefabricated bell towers. He also travels to New Britain, Pennsylvania, and visits the Elderhorst Bells, Inc. company. He wants to build a magnificent carillon and bell tower at New Vrindaban.
After calculating the cost of such a magnificent carillon and bell tower, Bhaktipada had to be satisfied at present with a tower of only six bells, which were installed in March 1992.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 210.
Steel frame of the Maha-Dvaram Gatewy with six bells on top.
Six bells in the Maha-Dvaram Gateway.
Somadasa dasa (Thomas Graves) and Gaura-Shakti (Gregory Carlson) install the bells.
August 7, 1968: On this date in history, Hayagriva, along with Richard Rose and his wife Phyllis, signs a 99-year lease on Rose’s 132.77 acres Marshall County rural property for four thousand dollars, with an option to purchase for ten dollars when the lease expires. Hayagriva puts down a $1,500 deposit. Five months earlier, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada told Hayagriva to call the land "New Vrindaban."
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 60
Professor Howard Wheeler (Hayagriva) at his Ohio University office, Columbus, Ohio (c. late 1968 or early 1969).
Richard Rose
August 7-9, 1975: On or around this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada visits his temple in Toronto, Ontario, and Thomas Drescher comes from Buffalo to see the Founder/Acharya of ISKCON. Drescher, a strong and muscular man, who served honorably during many combat missions for the United States Army in Viet Nam and received many medals for bravery, is recruited to be one of Prabhupada’s bodyguards. Later he receives diksa from Kirtanananda Swami and becomes New Vrindaban’s Chief Enforcer.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Killing For Krishna, p. 154.
Tirtha (Thomas Drescher)
August 7, 1978: On this date in history, Pradyumna dasa (Paul H. Sherbow)—a senior ISKCON scholar “brilliant in Sanskrit learning” who edits the Sanskrit and Bengali passages in Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s books and at one time served as Prabhupada’s personal secretary—expresses his grave concerns about the zonal acharya debacle in a widely-publicized August 1978 letter to Satsvarupa dasa Goswami (Stephen Guarino).
“At the time of Srila Prabhupada’s disappearance, it was most clearly understood by all of us present that Shrila Prabhupada made no successor. Everyone admitted that fact and understood it clearly. . . . These are not good signs for our society. Older godbrothers and sannyasis here are very concerned that if the present trend is not checked immediately, it will have passed beyond that point and ISKCON will be in chaos in the near future.”
Pradyumna’s letter to Satsvarupa is ignored by the GBC. In fact, as punishment, Pradyumna’s service of completing the translation of Srimad-bhagavatam was taken from him and given to Hrdayananda Maharaja.
“There were severe consequences for any Prabhupada disciple who disrespected the zonal guru system,” Nandini devi dasi, an Assistant Editor for ISKCON World Review, confirmed. “A scholarly devotee in India [Pradyumna dasa] had written to one of the gurus [Satsvarupa dasa Goswami] to express philosophical points that made him doubt the validity of the system, and then he was silenced and forced out of the organization. His assignment of translating the remaining volumes of Srimad-bhagavatam passed to one of the [new] gurus [Hrdayananda Goswami]. They made an example of him [Pradyumna], and the incident chilled the atmosphere for anyone else who wanted to speak out.”
In return for his bravery and philosophical acumen, Pradyumna is made to feel unwelcome in ISKCON. After other qualified brahmins leave the Society, ISKCON, some claim, becomes headless. Without qualified brahmins to direct the administrators, the Society careens into a maelstrom of uncharted waters, destined for a catastrophic shipwreck.
At the March 1999 GBC meetings, an apology was offered to Pradyumna, who twenty-one years earlier had tried to warn his godbrothers and sisters about the inherent instability of the zonal-acharya system and who had been subsequently shunned by the Society.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 150.
Pradyumna (Paul H. Sherbow)
August 7, 1997: On this date in history, while incarcerated at the federal prison in Springfield, Missouri, Kirtanananda Swami admits to a disciple that he “had many regrets and had made a lot of bad decisions and mistakes,” especially regarding the children of New Vrindaban. One might wonder: did Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada ever admit he made a lot of bad decisions and mistakes, especially regarding the children of ISKCON? Perhaps Bhaktipada was more self realized than his own spiritual master, who never apologized for anything, as far as I know. It takes a truly great man to admit he was wrong.
For more about this topic, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 329.
Bhaktipada in prison.
August 7, 2023: On this date in history, a reader communicates with the author:
Your consistent Facebook posts, Prabhu, are very succinct and they bring to life the history that you have carefully compiled and published in your books. Thank you for serving us Kali Yuga people who can’t find time to read big books and when we do, usually can’t remember and quite specific points.
This type of real propaganda, repeated and with links to the research materials, goes a long, long way towards defeating the bogus propaganda that is keeping up, till now, this charade of the Naked Emperors. I hope it can be brought down before too many more of Srila Prabhupada’s direct disciples leave this world.
Hare Krishna. Thank you, Prabhu, for your love for history & truth and for your readiness to honestly share your own experience of having been under the grip of devotional delusion and how you brought yourself out of it eventually. May more such deluded souls wake up soon.
Dina-Anukampana Das
Singapore
Henry's Facebook page
August 7, 2023: On this date in history, a reader communicates with the author:
My dear Hrishikesh dasa Prabhu,
Dandavats to you and all glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Your very generous gift to this poor brahmana has arrived and I am so grateful to have this library. The thirteen books are sitting before me and, when the Deities of Radha and Lord Krishna open later, will be offered.
You always say that you are not a devotee—which is fine with me because that is a means of protecting your professional status as an even-handed writer/historian. Nonetheless, this is a work of devotion.
Your readers are not coming to you to find their “siddha-dehas” and “submerge in prema.” Rather they come to you to be protected from charlatans who claim to submerge them in a fabricated prem and false spiritual status. This is important, and is very much an important aspect of devotional service in this day and age.
You have always displayed Vaishnava qualities inwardly, rather than the big show devotees are apt to settle on nowadays. When you are insulted on Facebook, you simply take it in stride and do not strike back. Then when the astonished party offers apologies, you always accept and move on. These are more important qualities of a devotee than merely being an ISKCON groupie though few these days are sufficiently pensive and introspective enough to see the obvious.
The dull-headedness of the ISKCON Community is astounding, yet it can only be attributed to the class of so-called “gurus” and the quality of “disciples” they attract. Basically, they have forgotten the Founder-Acharya and are like Christians begging for their daily bread from ordinary men who put on a song and dance and are attired in saffron cloth.
Best always to you,
Humbly your servant,
Prabhupada disciple living in Slovenia
[Name deleted by request]
August 8, 1970: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada departs from Los Angeles for Hawaii, Tokyo, and India, accompanied by four sannyasis (including Kirtanananda) and one householder, Tamal Krishna dasa Adhikari.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada suspects that a poison from India has infected his society. The poison is impersonalism; considering the spiritual master to be an ordinary man. Even Kirtanananda Swami has—perhaps inadvertently—contributed to his master’s pain. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada had planned to attend the August 21-23 Janmastami festival at New Vrindaban. However, when he speaks to Kirtanananda on the telephone about the festival, his first sannyasa disciple casually mentioned that “it wasn’t necessary for him to come.”
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is visibly upset by Kirtanananda’s words and walks out of the Los Angeles temple into the garden, where he announces to Brahmananda, Gargamuni, and his secretary Devananda, “So you do not need me.” Prabhupada tells them he is leaving, and it is final; he will return to his rooms at the Radha Damodar temple in Vrindaban, India, and his disciples will have to manage ISKCON without him.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada writes, “At the present moment in our ISKCON, campus politics and diplomacy has entered. Some of my beloved students on whom I counted very, very much have been involved in this matter influenced by Maya. As such there has been some activity which I consider as disrespectful. So I have decided to retire and divert attention to book writing and nothing more.”
For more about this topic, see Henry's book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 173.
August 8, 2011: On this date in history, after eleven days in intensive care at Jupiter Hospital in Thane—a city located halfway between Ulhasnagar and Mumbai, Bhaktipada is unconscious, on a ventilator, and a CAT scan reveals some bleeding in his brain.
For more about this topic, see Henry's book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 155.
Bhaktipada's Indian disciple Yajneshwar dasa pushes his master's wheechair.
August 9, 2008: On this date in history, a New Vrindaban gurukula alumnus claims, “I got molested by Kirtanananda. I couldn’t speak about it to anyone for years until I got counseling. So when I saw the post [on the Sampradaya Sun] glorifying this madman [Kirtanananda], I got nauseated. . . . I still hurt from what Kirtanananda did to me but I’m going on with my life.”
For more about this topic, see Henry's book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 202.
August 1966: On or around this date in history, Keith, Howard and Wally begin attending Bhaktivedanta Swami’ s morning programs at his apartment behind 26 Second Avenue. Howard remembered:
“It was also in early August that we began attending the early morning meetings. None of us had ever gotten up before ten or eleven in the morning, but the magnetism of Swamiji drew us out of our dark Mott Street dens at 6:30 and down from fifth floor apartments into deserted Lower East Side streets. I would walk briskly over to Swamiji’s, chanting Hare Krishna and feeling better than ever before. Miraculously the Lower East Side no longer looked drab. The sidewalks and buildings seemed to sparkle, and in the early morning, before the smog set in, the sky was red and golden. I would sing all the way to his front foyer then ring the buzzer marked A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, and the door would buzz and open, and I would go through the hallway on through the small patio between the back apartment and the storefront and up to his small second floor apartment, tip-toeing quietly in order not to awaken the neighbors. Those early morning meetings were the most beautiful and most intimate.”
Keith brought Bhaktivedanta Swami little gifts each morning. He said, “I used to walk along the Bowery and look for flowers for him. When there were no flowers, I would take a straw or some grass. I loved going over there in the morning.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 179.
Kirtanananda (1966).
Hayagriva (1966).
Umapati (Wallace Sheffey) lectures at the American Center in Paris (1970).
August 1974: On or around this date in history, New Vrindaban purchases a marble-cutting machine for the construction of Prabhupada’s Palace. It is installed on the ground floor of the four-story Bahulaban utility building and guest house-under-construction.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 129.
Karusha (Kerry Roth) in the marble shop.
August 10, 1992: On this date in history, a half-dozen New Vrindaban musicians travel to the Moundsville Daily Echo newspaper offices and perform a piece composed by the author and written to commemorate the 79th birthday of the editor/publisher of the Echo: Sam Shaw (1913-1995).
I liked Sam; he was open minded and extremely fair to us; he was a music lover and came to many of our Music at the Palace concerts. He always published my press releases in his paper. Most Moundsville residents regarded him as beloved and eccentric. At an old age he still rode his bicycle around town.
Our guitarist, Kripamaya (John Sherwood), remembered our performance to honor Sam, “One time we piled into a van and jostled our way to the Moundsville Echo. With our accordions, violin and guitar, we serenaded Sam Shaw. It was great fun. Something extraordinary. I think when Sam saw the variegated talents of the devotees, and saw how devotees were willing to do something personally for his pleasure, I’m sure he enjoyed it and it certainly must have warmed his heart. I think any kind of community outreach devotees do that helps people become happy is preaching, as long as it is done in the mood of service and in the mode of goodness.”
Sam was tickled pink, and published an article about us and a photograph of our group in the next day’s newspaper.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 117.
Brihan Naradiya Purana, the author, the author's 4-year-old daughter, Sam Shaw, Good Hope, Dutiful Rama, Kripamaya.
August 10, 2011: On this date in history, in the intensive care ward at Jupiter Hospital, Thane, India, Bhaktipada regains consciousness and speaks a few words. His disciples and followers listen to each syllable as if the Supreme Lord is personally speaking through their spiritual master. They are cautious yet optimistic about the future.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 155.
Bhaktipada and disciples at Bhaktipada's "Palace of Love" in Ulhasnagar.
August 11, 1974: On this date in history, over four hundred ISKCON devotees, plus a good number of Indian Hindus, attend the 5th annual Janmastami festival at New Vrindaban. This is considered by many as the major turning point for New Vrindaban: abandoning the ideal of a simple, Vedic village, and inaugurating a massive campaign to develop New Vrindaban as an important place of pilgrimage for Krishna devotees and Hindus in the west.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 95.
Kirtanananda Swami and devotees at an outdoor New Vrindaban fire sacrifice (summer 1973). Photo from Back To Godhead, No. 66 (c. September 1974).
August 11, 1994: On this date in history, Tirtha Swami appears before the Federal Grand Jury for the Northern District of West Virginia Investigative Grand Jury, in Wheeling, West Virginia, and testifies that Bhaktipada ordered him to assassinate Chakradhari in 1983 and Sulochan in 1986. Bhaktipada sycophants in prison, egged on by Bhakti Rasa Swami (Brooke Brody), the head of the New Vrindaban Prison Ministry, attempt to murder Tirtha for blaspheming the pure devotee.
Years later, Tirtha admitted he lied at the 1994 Grand Jury; he reversed his testimony on the matter of Bhaktipada’s personal involvement in the Sulochan murder plot. Nearly two decades after the murder, in a letter to the author, Tirtha admitted that he never personally heard Kirtanananda authorize Sulochan’s murder. He had fabricated the story about meeting Bhaktipada in his house and getting the order to kill Sulochan. It wasn’t true. Tirtha made up the story just to put his former “spiritual master,” whom he had recently rejected as his spiritual authority, in prison.
Today, decades later, law enforcement and ISKCON officials still believe Tirtha's fabricated testimony about getting the order to murder Sulochan from Bhaktipada, as noted in the 2023 documentary film, "Krishnas: Gurus, Karma, Murder." All put the blame on Bhaktipada, where (in this case) it doesn't belong.
In addition to helping to put Bhaktipada behind bars, Tirtha's lie helped protect those who had actually ordered and assisted in the murder: Radhanath Swami, Ramesvara Swami and others.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 234.
Tirtha in his prison cell with his Gaur-Nitai deities.
August 12, 1988: On this date in history, Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Maharaja, the elder godbrother of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and the founder of the Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in Navadvipa, India, passes away at the age of 92.
Sridhar Maharaja's disciples noted, “His Divine Grace Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Deva Goswami Maharaja departed from this world to enter into his eternal pastimes. His departure did not herald the departure of one of the great stars of the Sri Gaudiya-Vaishnava firmament, but that of the moon itself. Even the Earth herself trembled on two occasions, forecasting and punctuating the event. A divine temple, ‘The Temple of Union in Separation,’ was erected at his holy shrine at Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Navadvipa, and worship will continue throughout the generations.”
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada spoke highly of his elder godbrother during a 1973 visit to Navadvipa:
"So we are thinking we are very much fortunate to hear His Divine Grace Om Vishnupada Paramahansa Parivrajakacharya Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Maharaja. He is, by age and experience, in both ways he is senior to me. I am also, I was fortunate to have his association since a very long time, perhaps since 1930 or something like that. . . . I had the opportunity of associating with His Holiness [B. R. Sridhar Maharaja]. For several years I had the opportunity. Krishna and [Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati] Prabhupada liked it to prepare me. Sridhar Maharaja. . . .[Sridhar Maharaja lived] in my house, some may say, for few years, so naturally we had very intimate talks, and he was my good adviser. I took his advice, his instruction, very seriously, because from the very beginning I know he’s a pure Vaishnava and devotee, and I wanted to associate with him, and try to help him also in so many ways. He also tried to help me. So our relationship is very intimate. After the breakdown of the Gaudiya Math [in 1937], I wanted to organize another organization making Sridhar Maharaja head."
In 1977, Prabhupada, knowing his days were numbered, approached Sridhar Maharaja, asking him to take up residence at Mayapur ISKCON and offer guidance to his disciples in his absence.
Born: October 10, 1895, Purba Bardhaman, India
Died: August 12, 1988 (age 92 years), Mayapur, India
Initiation: Diksha (as Ramendra Sundara), 1926; Sannyasa (as Bhakti Rakshak Sridhar), 1930
Notable writings: The Search for Sri Krishna, Sri Guru and His Grace, The Golden Volcano of Divine Love
Resting place: Temple of Union in Separation, Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Nabadwip
For more about this topic, see Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 419.
Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Maharaja
Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Maharaja
Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Maharaja with Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada at the dedication of the Mayapur Chandradaya Mandir (March 17, 1973).
August 13, 1965: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja boards a steamship freighter in Calcutta, India, for New York City. He is 68 years old. The Scindia Steamship Company gives him free passage aboard the freighter S. S. Jaladuta, and Bhaktivedanta Swami leaves India with a suitcase, a crate of his books including “Srimad-bhagavatam” and “Easy Journey to Other Planets,” a three-tiered brass cooker, a pair of kartals (cymbals) and forty rupees (worth at the time about seven U. S. dollars).
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 152.
Artist rendition of Bhaktivedanta Swami boarding the Jaladuta.
August 13, 1971: On this date in history, the hand-carved white marble deities Radha Vrindaban Chandra are installed at New Vrindaban at the original Vrindaban Farm. One young 22-year-old devotee at New Vrindaban—who five years later become the community’s Temple President—Kuladri dasa (Arthur Villa), explained:
"Srila Prabhupada personally picked out Radha Vrindaban Chandra for New Vrindaban. They were carved by the same murti wala [deity vendor] (probably in Jaipur) who created the Rukmini Dvarkadish and Radha Londonishvar deities for Los Angeles and London. The installation was a major event in the life of the community; the temple room was packed with devotees (I don’t know where they all came from). The deities had only one set of clothes; a purple and silver outfit made by Hayagriva’s wife, Shama dasi. There was a large curtain for the deities’ privacy; it had a long drawstring which the pujari would pull and the curtain would slide along a track on the ceiling."
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 208.
The installation ceremony for Radha-Vrindaban Chandra (who are hidden under sheets). Kirtanananda Swami (sitting directly in front of the deities, lower center) presides over the fire sacrifice, while Rupanuga dasa (at right, the GBC representative for New Vrindaban), chants japa with at least forty Brijabasis and guests (August 13, 1971).
Radha-Vrindaban Chandra at Bahulaban (undated).
August 13, 2005: On this date in history, the author directs the performance of “Within Vrindaban’s Woods and Groves,” at the Audiomation Recording Studio on the North Side of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The song was originally written in 1988 for the Morning Service at what was known as the “New Vrindaban City of God” in Marshall County, West Virginia. The music arrangement and orchestration is by Hrishikesh dasa (the author), who served from 1988 to 1993 as the New Vrindaban Minister of Music (principal organist, choir director, orchestra director, composer-in-residence).
“Within Vrindaban’s Woods and Groves” is an English translation of “Jaya Radha-Madhava” by Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur (1838-1914), with translation by Umapati Swami. The song was performed every day during the 5:00 am morning service in the temple, and was accompanied by the musicians of the New Vrindaban City of God Temple Orchestra, and sung at nearly 2,200 New Vrindaban morning services from 1988 through 1994.
After Bhaktipada's liturgical and musical reforms were outlawed at New Vrindaban in the summer of 1994, "Vrindaban's Woods and Groves," and other songs, continued to be sung daily at preaching centers which remained faithful to the spiritual master, such as the Interfaith Sanctuary in New York City, where these songs were sung for another fifteen years or so (another 5,000 performances) until the Interfaith Sanctuary building was taken over by Radhanath Swami and renamed the Bhakti Center.
The 2005 orchestration heard in this recording is similar to the original version sung at the New Vrindaban temple—with the addition of an elaborate flute cadenza/introduction, and a flute/piccolo canon during the Hare Krishna chant.
The cantor in this recording is the long-time New Vrindaban resident singer/musician Bhavisya devi dasi (Belinda Hymes), an experienced singer who sang professionally with the popular vocal group The Orlons (a Philadelphia-based rhythm and blues group which won gold discs for three of their hit single records) before joining the New Vrindaban Community, where she lived for fifteen years.
Chorus members in this recording include current and former New Vrindaban residents Damodar dasa, Krpamaya dasa, Dutiful Rama dasa, Terry Logan, Janaki devi dasi, and Pundarika devi dasi, as well as more than a dozen Christian friends from several Pittsburgh-area church choirs.
For this recording session, Hrishikesh hired five professional string players (two violins, viola, cello and bass), the harpist Lauren Monks, and Rhian Kenny, the principal piccolo player for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (who also played flute). Hrishikesh later added the percussion instruments (rainstick, glockenspiel and chimes) in the studio.
The composer/music director explained: “This recording of ‘Within Vrindaban’s Woods and Groves’ is our humble attempt to provide a snapshot of Gaudiya-Vaishnava history in the West. The song, we hope, will glorify Lord Krishna and provide pleasure for the worldwide community of Vaishnavas. We believe that A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the Founder/Acharya of the Hare Krishna movement in the West, approved of the translation of the songs of the Vaishnava acharyas into vernacular languages and their presentation in local musical traditions, and we hope that those who live in English-speaking countries—by hearing ‘Vrindaban’s Woods and Groves’—will develop greater appreciation for Bhaktivinode’s original Jaya Radha-Madhava and increase their love for Krishna. Our aim, as originally propounded by the person who established the New Vrindaban community in 1968 and led the community for 26 years, Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada (1937-2011) (Keith Gordon Ham), is to present Krishna consciousness in a way which will be attractive to many people, especially Westerners. Krishna, by definition, is ‘All Attractive,’ and we hope that listeners will come to appreciate some of Krishna’s all-attractive qualities by hearing this song.”
"I had originally hoped to record all of the music we created at New Vrindaban, including "The Blazing Fire of Samsara," "All Glories to Nrsihmadeva" with trumpets and organ, “Siksastaka Prayers,” and others, but the recording of "Vrindaban's Woods and Groves" is as far as we got."
For more about the music at New Vrindaban, see Henry’s book Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8.
To listen to Within Vrindaban's Woods and Groves, go to: YouTube.
Choir concert in the temple. Professor Alfred R. DeJagger directs; Hrishikesh accompanies on the piano (c. 1987).
August 14, 1971: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada criticizes the GBC which he created a year earlier, “I set up the GBC with the hope that I shall get relief from administration of the mission, but on the contrary, I have become the center for receiving so many complaints.”
For more about this topic, see Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 215.
The eleven ISKCON zonal acharyas pose for a photograph in Mayapur, India (c. August 1978).
August 14, 2019: On this date in history, the author’s book “Killing For Krishna” is published in a Spanish edition: “Sicarios Por Krishna.” To purchase a copy, go to Amazon.
August 15, 1971: On this date in history, during a room conversation in London, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada describes his marriage, “I was married, my wife was eleven years. I was twenty-two years. She did not know what is sex, eleven years girl. Because Indian girls, they have no such opportunity of mixing with others. But after the first menstruation, the husband is ready. This is the system, Indian system.”
Prabhupada also explains the rationale for child marriage, “And the psychology is the girl, after first menstruation, she enjoys sex life with a boy, she will never forget that boy. Her love for that boy is fixed up for good. This is woman’s psychology. And [if] she is allowed to have many [boyfriends], oh, she will never be chaste woman. These are the psychology.”
Prabhupada’s disciples did their level best to follow the instructions of their spiritual master, and when Prabhupada’s disciples’ daughters had their first menstrual period, the fathers attempted to get the young girls married to responsible brahmacharis. At New Vrindaban, where I served in ISKCON, we were simply trying to revive the ancient Vedic ways of Sanatan-Dharma (eternal Cosmic Law).
When I was 29, a New Vrindaban father offered me his 13-year-old daughter in marriage. Although the girl was pretty, with fair complexion, long straw-colored hair and a slender waist, I declined his kind offer because at the time I was happy with my brahmachari (celibate student) life.
Child marriages were not unique to New Vrindaban, ISKCON as a whole approved of the practice. One ISKCON guru, Hridayananda Goswami wrote, "These early marriages show our concern for not letting women become polluted" and he promoted and defended the practice in GBC meetings.
None of the ISKCON child marriages lasted more than a few years, although several girls became pregnant. My spiritual master, the ISKCON-approved guru Srila Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, said the child marriages failed because the girls were not sufficiently submissive. He suggested importing a few of his teenage female Pakistani disciples (who had lived their entire lives in a male dominated world) to come to New Vrindaban and teach the New Vrindaban girls how to become submissive to their husbands.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 319.
Abhay Charan De as a young man (undated)
Child marriage was the norm in India for thousands of years, until the Child Marriage Act of 1929 propelled India into the 20th century and made the practice illegal.
August 15-16, 1987: On this date in history, Bhaktipada announces his intention to build a spiritual city for 10,000 devotees at New Vrindaban. He predicts the imminent collapse of civilization by pestilence and war, but claims the devotees will be protected by Krishna.
Murti dasa ACBSP/William Walsh, the head of New Vrindaban’s Planning Department, claims that Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada personally spoke to him fifteen years earlier about the future cities of God: “My spiritual teacher, Srila Prabhupada, wanted to have these devotional cities, as he used to call them. When I was with him in 1972 in Calcutta, he said he wanted to have twelve of these devotional cities around the globe. All would have God’s temple, a Temple of Understanding, at the center of the city and everyone in the city would be infused with the love and light of God’s presence. They’d be happy and pure. No more than ten or twelve thousand people would reside in each city. They’d be self-sufficient because of the farming around them and they’d be capable of surviving any holocaust or any aggression that may occur on this planet. He gave us this vision in 1972. . . . Happiness, fulfillment and satisfaction from within are the property of the residents because of their faith and love. For those who have the eyes to see, and the wisdom to understand, now is the time to begin a pilgrimage to the Holy City of Light: the City of God!”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 272.
Plan for the proposed City of God at New Vrindaban (c. 1988).
Artist’s rendition of the proposed City of God at New Vrindaban (c. 1988).
Artist’s rendition of the proposed City of God at New Vrindaban (c. 1988).
Artist’s rendition of the proposed City of God at New Vrindaban (c. 1988).
August 15, 2003: On this date in history, during a telephone conversation with the author, Hansadutta (one of the ISKCON zonal acharya leaders who fell down from his vows) explains, “When most conditioned souls are exposed to immense wealth, unlimited prestige, adoration from women and devoted disciples, we go crazy. We can’t help it. Our constitutional position is not lord and master of all we survey, our position is servant of the servant: dasa dasa anudasa. We go crazy. Nearly any conditioned soul would.”
For more about this topic, see Killing For Krishna, p. 125.
Hansadutta Swami (Hans Jurgen Kary)
August 16, 1977: On this date in history, 28-year-old Thomas Drescher is convicted of his ninth crime: Unlawful use of Fireworks (Buffalo, New York). Six years later, he murders a New Vrindaban resident, and three years after that, murders a former New Vrindaban resident.
For more about this topic, see Killing For Krishna, p. 153.
Tirtha (Thomas Drescher)
August 16, 1993: On this date in history, Bhaktipada is released from house arrest and returns triumphantly to New Vrindaban. The reversal of his convictions from his March 1991 trial in Martinsburg, West Virginia, orchestrated by the Harvard University attorney Alan Dershowitz—a well-known criminal law professor at Harvard University who successfully defended celebrated and wealthy clients such as Claus von Bülow, Mike Tyson, and O. J. Simpson who received a $100,000 retainer and $495/hour rate—seemed to prove Bhaktipada’s claims that the charges against him—kidnapping, conspiracy to murder, mail fraud, racketeering—were simply a form of religious persecution. New Vrindaban devotees greeted their master with ecstatic kirtan and an enormous sign which hung from the roof of the huge greenhouse-under-construction situated down the hill from Bhaktipada’s house: “Welcome Home, Master.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9.
Bhaktipada, after two years under house arrest in Wheeling, West Virginia, is released from house arrest, returns to New Vrindaban, and prepares to enter the RVC temple to greet the deities and devotees, and give class. He is followed by important men in the community: Tapapunja Swami, Garga Rishi and Sudhanu (August 16, 1993).
Bhaktipada gives class at the RVC Temple of Understanding. “My release proves all the charges against me were false!” then he retires to Silent Mountain, his peaceful retreat at an abandoned stone quarry about 25 miles south near Littleton, West Virginia. (August 16, 1993).
August 16, 2010: On this date in history, Sampradaya Sun publishes the author’s article, “Radhanath Swami’s Alleged Involvement in Sulochan’s Murder.” This was four years before "Killing For Krishna" was published.
For more about this topic, see Killing For Krishna, p. 485.
To read the article, go to Sampradaya Sun.
Radhanath Swami, official sannyasa initiation photograph (c. May 6, 1982).
August 17, 1968: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada warns about industrial development, such as mining coal or drilling for oil, at New Vrindaban:
“I do not know what is written there in the Clerk’s office in Deed Book 98, but on common sense, it appears that the area is coal mine or oil mine. Under the circumstances, if in future coal industry is developed and if it is required, the government may at once ask us to vacate and no law can stop it. Even if the government does not acquire our land, if in our vicinity some such industry (coal or oil industry) is started, the whole idea of Vrindaban will fade away.”
42 years later, in March 2010: New Vrindaban officers sign a contract with Ohio-based AB Resources for Marcellus shale fracking on community property, with a lease rate of $2,500 per acre for about 4,000 acres—and 18.75 percent production royalties when the company begins pumping natural gas. The community expects to receive $10 million in royalties.
Five years later, on December 20, 2015, New Vrindaban officers sign a contract with Ohio-based AB Resources for Utica shale (a few thousand feet below the Marcellus shale formation) fracking on community property.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 34.
August 17, 1986: On this date in history, the Brijabasi Spirit publishes comments by a New Vrindaban maintenance worker which reveal that Prabhupada’s Palace is falling apart, due to shoddy construction and insufficient maintenance, only 7 years after the grand dedication of Prabhupada's Palace of Gold in September 1979.
“At the Palace, Lord Chaitanya’s movement keeps going on strong. We are just about finished with everything that was left to be done. Of course, we have been working on these ‘finishing touches’ for the last four years, but then again, what else can be expected, since every time we think we are finally done, we turn our backs, only to find out something else that was previously finished has just collapsed.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 38.
"Area Closed" sign at Prabhupada's Palace of Gold. (c. 2002)
August 18, 1972: On this date in history, the Moundsville Daily Echo newspaper prints an article which quotes a resident of McCreary’s Ridge who complains about the Krishna’s disregard for private property. She said, “I saw a person in Krishna Society garb picking flowers from my flower bed which I planted in front of my home. I remonstrated him, whereupon he replied, ‘It’s all right, for God made these flowers.’” Janmastami dasa (John Sinkowski), who worked in community maintenance, explained:
“Thanks for the apple blossoms!” was a standard joke among the pujaris at New Vrindaban. Whenever a pickup truck full of rednecks would speed past the commune, especially if they were [from] a house that had been raided for flowers for the altar, the pujaris who knew this would joke among themselves and thank the “donors” for what was called ajñata-sukrti—unknowing devotional service. The concept was that by removing something from its lawful owner and returning it to Krishna, you were properly engaging the items in devotional service. This then, was “ajñata-sukrti,” unknowing devotional service. . . .
Yes, it was true that he [Krishna] was the flower bearing spring and the deities did look very beautiful every Sunday morning, but at what cost? Every morning, especially Sunday mornings, in the pre-dawn hours, a van or a pickup truck would roll out into the early morning fog banks and in about as long as it takes to dress the deities, that vehicle would re-emerge as a virtual cornucopia of assorted fresh flowers and flowering fruit tree branches. Wanted in three states for theft and destruction of private property, devotees were impervious to arguments on this issue. EVERYTHING belonged to Krishna. They were trying to serve Krishna. Therefore, everything that they got their hands on was “their gift to Krishna,” or not, as they saw fit for that day.
This practice of stealing flowers was not unique to New Vrindaban; it was widespread throughout ISKCON. Henry Jolicoeur (formerly Hanuman Swami) says, “Devotees did the same in Los Angeles when I lived there. No front garden in Beverley Hills was safe from the flower ISKCON thieves.”
Tom Sun (formerly Trisanku dasa) agreed, “I certainly am guilty of doing it in Toronto. And I know that the temple president of Chicago got arrested for doing it. We couldn't help ourselves.”
If stealing flowers was prevalent throughout ISKCON (as well as mistreatment of women and children, lying while fundraising, etc.) it behooves us to ask, “Where did this practice originate? Who started it? Why did all of ISKCON (at least in the United States) do this?
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 200.
Those Hairy Critters stole my flowers!
August 18-19, 1986: On these dates in history, an emergency meeting of the North American GBC is held in San Diego, three months after the murder of Sulochan. Bhaktipada is asked, by telephone, if he will resign from the GBC if indicted by the Grand Jury. He answers in the affirmative.
Why did the GBC ask Bhaktipada to resign if he was indicted by the Grand Jury?
Ravindra Svarupa, the temple president of ISKCON Philadelphia who was the leader of the Guru Reform Movement, explained, “When Sulochan was killed, everybody in ISKCON knew that Kirtanananda was behind it. Because we had New Vrindaban devotees [who were based in Philadelphia and often visited the Philadelphia ISKCON temple to shower, attend mangala aroti, and take breakfast prasadam] come and tell us, ‘What’s the matter? It was authorized.’ Everybody knew it. No devotee would kill another devotee unless it was authorized (laughter).”
However, if Ravindra knew the actual story and less hearsay, he would not have said, “Kirtanananda was behind it.” He would have said, “New Vrindaban, Cleveland ISKCON and Los Angeles ISKCON were behind the murder.” He could have said, “Radhanath Swami, Tapahpunja Swami, Kuladri, Hayagriva, Randal Gorby, Tirtha, Janmastami, Ramesvara and Krishna Katha were behind it,” but he speculated, and thereby helped propagate the myth that Kirtanananda Swami ordered the murder of Sulochan. Kirtanananda only became involved three days AFTER the murder, to secure the funding so Tirtha and Tapahpunja could purchase plane tickets and flee to India.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 55.
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada uses a walker to ambulate in the temple room of his house at New Vrindaban (December 4, 1985)
August 18, 2010: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a former New Vrindaban devotee who read the author's August 16, 2010 article published in the Sampradaya Sun: "Radhanath Swami’s Alleged Involvement in Sulochan’s Murder.” Jyotirdhama dasa writes:
Hare Krishna, Hrishikesh prabhu. Regarding your recent Sampradaya Sun article, "Radhanath Swami's Alleged Involvement in Sulochan's Murder," it appears to be 100% on. I was there, on the fringes of management and all the details you so meticulously corroborate fit into my memories like a glove. Ever since the murder happened we all knew Kuladri & Radhanath were involved. I remember the following morning well. I was shocked that they finally did it.
When I was back at New Vrindaban for those few years around 2004, Tapahpunja cornered me & for some reason chose to recount his involvement in the whole sordid mess in detail. I did not prompt him. His account does not fit the evidence, but it certainly protects Radhanath Swami. I was confused about his account because it didn’t fit in with what I knew. I implicitly trust Dharmatma and think Janmastami is probably being honest too. Their accounts line up with each other’s and with what we do know. TP’s account is contradictory, I do not believe him.
And last, not that it really matters, but I remember you & I having a conversation in front of Prabhupada’s Palace some years ago and you asked me why I left New Vrindaban. I answered that I really didn’t know; I just kind of drifted away. Well I can tell you that when the drain got plugged and all the sewage started coming to the surface, I was praying to Krishna to take me away from New Vrindaban. When the accusations of child molestation and other criminal activity started surfacing I just wanted out, but I could not give up my service. Very soon after that, Srila Bhaktipada sent me out on the traveling sankirtan “pick” with Ramachandra and I ended up at the Minneapolis center with Krishna Katha (Carl Carlson). I never moved back after that.
Over the years, I have had one lingering, unanswered question that nagged me even when I knew the murder was in the planning stage, and during the stalking of Sulochan. WHAT IF Bhaktipada was really Jagat Guru? You see, I was and am a Prabhupada disciple first, I never bought into the Bhaktipada Jagat-Guru propaganda. But what if? Would the murder then be justifiable? Would Radhanath’s involvement have been justified?
I suppose this talk won’t go away as long as Radhanath is a leader in ISKCON; but personally, I am neutral in the whole finger-pointing, hate-mongering, envy-filled arguing. I am simply trying to chant Hare Krishna. If we just sincerely try to serve Srila Prabhupada, everything will take care of itself. If we can just get back to that simple goal, trying to satisfy Srila Prabhupada, then our lives would be perfect. When death comes our devotional service will be all that matters.
Author’s comment: Jyotirdhama went on to write a 15-page essay about his involvement in the Sulochan murder conspiracy which was included as an Addendum to "Killing For Krishna."
Jyotirdhama dasa (Joseph Pollock, Jr.).
August 18, 2020: On this date in history, a reader posts a review of "Eleven Naked Emperors" on Amazon:
Five Stars: Extremely Objective
Pranams. Jaya Srila Prabhupada. Meticulously and voluminously researched and extremely non-partisan, especially considering how partisan virtually every devotee he interacted with to write this book was. Lots of facts and background info are given that allow the reader to come to their own conclusions. The author takes pains to avoid steering the reader to a certain perspective, purposely including even the most blinded views of the eleven subjects. I also lived through this experience and interacted with Henry in the 80s during our shared mis-leadings at the hands of our one-time “gurus.”
The objectivity extends to some critical examination of Hare Krishna founder A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s preparation of his leaders, including the eleven, for what would be needed after his physical departure. Hence the one negative review. However, at the end, Henry does give a very Krishna conscious reason as to why Srila Prabhupada handled this issue as he did.
Nevertheless, this book, although respectful of devotees, isn’t pure devotional service. One needs to exercise good discrimination regarding siddhanta when faced with the diversity of devotees’ biases and sectarian loyalties. Logic leads one to conclude that, at most, only one of many differing conclusions could be the Krishna conscious one. May the Lord in the heart guide you as you read and otherwise!
Eric Johanson
formerly Radha-Vrindaban Chandra Swami, a disciple of Hansadutta Swami
Moab, Utah
from a review at Amazon
Bhakta Eric Johanson
August 1979: On or around this date in history, Bhaktipada snorts cocaine with Hayagriva at Hayagriva's house, gets intoxicated, falls off the porch railing, thereby spraining or breaking his ankle or leg. He ambulates on crutches for a few weeks, as attested by photographs of him at the Palace dedication festival. This secret is revealed years later by Randall Gorby, Hayagriva's non-devotee friend.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 16.
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada (on crutches) speaking to newspaper and television reporters at the dedication of Prabhupada’s Palace (September 2, 1979).
August 1976: On or around this date in history, the Nandagram Boys School is established at New Vrindaban. Gopinath (Ronald Nay, after 1986 known as Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami) serves as the first headmaster. The original Nandagram is a village in the Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh, India, renowned as the childhood home of Lord Krishna and his foster parents, Nanda and Yashoda.
The September 1976 issue of Brijabasi Spirit described the allegedly-idyllic atmosphere of the school run by headmaster Gopinath dasa:
“Our gurukula is located at Nandagram, a pleasant mile away from the hustle and bustle of Bahulaban. The country road goes right through a hay meadow, sprinkled with late summer flowers, then through a pasture, flanked by a high ridge on one side, and a thick woods on the other that seems to lean right over it. The century-old white farm house, freshly painted with red trim, sits on a level clearing. Behind is the pasture where the yearling calves romp on the hillside. In front is a cornfield, surrounded by fields of red clover. The children actually see the crops growing that they help give the calves every day when they come up to the barn for feeding time—no need for that book learning here, the boys and girls experience it first hand.”
“Gopinath dasa, the headmaster, relates how wonderful the Krishna conscious atmosphere is there, and how all the children are eager to come to school. Srila Prabhupada has stated that these children are very fortunate because they are being shown to love Krishna from the very beginning, and they have the freedom to choose between spiritual and material lives. But what sane person would choose to live a miserable mundane life? Gopinath noted that these children, unlike ourselves, will never have to rebel against family or society, because they have the real authority of Srila Prabhupada and the Vedas to rely on. Our children are eager to love God, because that is our natural position.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, pp. 233, 239.
Gopinath (later known as RVC Swami) teaches Sanskrit at the Nandagram School.
August 1984: On or around this date in history, one of the eleven original ISKCON zonal acharyas, Hansadutta, goes berserk. He fires 18 bullets through the windows of McNevin Cadillac on San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley, California. Then he drives to University Avenue, where shoppers in Ledger’s Liquor Store hit the floor when bullets blast through the front window, shattering whiskey and gin bottles on the shelves. When the gunfire stops, somebody outside floors a Ford Bronco. When the police pull the Bronco over, Hansadutta stumbles out, drunk on ouzo.
The San Jose Mercury News reported, “One August night in 1984, Hansadutta ran amok. Shoppers in Ledger’s Liquor Store on University Avenue in Berkeley must have thought they were in a Sylvester Stallone movie. Bullets blasted through the front window, shattering whiskey and gin bottles on the shelves. Shoppers hit the floor. When the gunfire stopped, somebody outside floored a Ford Bronco. When the cops pulled the Bronco over, Hansadutta stumbled out, drunk on ouzo. He had just fired 18 shots through the windows of McNevin Cadillac on San Pablo Avenue. The cops found a 12-gauge shotgun, a 9 mm pistol, a semi-automatic .22 pistol and a fully automatic 9 mm machine pistol, plus box after box of ammunition. The weapons were loaded; the guru was carrying $8,200.”
Hansadutta recalled, “I was totally in despair. I didn’t know which way to turn. I was like a kid throwing rocks through windows in frustration.” Laksmi devi dasi remembered the shooting incident, “One day, I came to the Berkeley temple and Hansadutta said to me, ‘Did you hear the news? I wanted to get arrested, so I loaded up some guns and drove around for awhile and looked for the biggest windows I could find. Then I shot one, drove around and shot another, and parked and waited to get arrested. Well, as soon as I landed in jail, I decided this is NOT what I want to do. The devotees came and bailed me out and got me a good lawyer.’ One of the buildings, at least, had people inside, although it was at night.”
Hansadutta got off easy. The San Jose Mercury News reported, “The guru got off with what cops derisively call ‘post card probation’—all he was required to do was inform a probation officer of his whereabouts once a month for three years and pay $5,000 restitution.” Puranjana recalled, “Hansadutta eventually lost his case, and he pleaded ‘guilty by reason of insanity.’ He asked the judge, ‘If you have all kinds of drugs, alcohol and women, won’t you go crazy too?’ And so he was left with some kind of probation.”
Hansadutta’s wife, Laksmi devi, noted, “The court had Hansadutta examined. Basically they said he was having a nervous breakdown due to pressure of being a leader, etc., which was true, and that what he did was due to a breakdown. He got probation, which he successfully completed.”
For more about this topic, see Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 196.
Hansadutta Swami (Hans Jürgen Kary)
This photo appeared in the article “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Guns ‘n’ Ammo, Guns ‘n’ Ammo,” High Times (January 1981), which told the story of Hansadutta, and his infatuation with guns.
August 20, 1978: On this date in history, Hridayananda Goswami (Howard J. Resnick), one of the eleven ISKCON gurus, explains, “I do not want to minimize the spiritual influence of His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Maharaja, whom I consider a pure devotee of Krishna and always my superior.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 296.
Hrdayananda dasa Goswami Acharyadeva (Howard J. Resnick)
August 20, 1986: On this date in history, a Grand Jury interviewer notes, “[Randall] Gorby described Wheeler as being on a self-gratification trip and Keith Ham as being on an ego trip.”
I knew both of these men, and I agree with Gorby. Hayagriva was addicted to sense gratification, and Bhaktipada was addicted to fame and adoration, among other things.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 16.
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada and his buddy Hayagriva sit at Bhaktipada’s breakfast table while personal servant Jambu watches from the kitchen (c. 1982). At this time the two were neighbors; Bhaktipada lived in a house across the street from Prabhupada’s Palace, and Hayagriva lived in a tiny house on the same driveway.
August 2005: On or around this date in history, in Alachua, Florida, Dharmatma dasa (Dennis Gorrick) the former New Vrindaban sankirtan leader, is accused by eight former New Vrindaban sankirtan women of mental, physical and sexual abuse of women and girls. Alachua ISKCON bans him from visiting the temple properties. Dharmatma told me these women were “vicious” and just making up stories.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 164.
To read the accusations by the eight women, go to Memories of Dharmatma.
Dharmatma dasa (Dennis Gorrick) from a Brijabasi Spirit article, 1977.
August 2006: On or around this date in history, Krishna Balarama Swami (Joseph Bonomo), one of the new members on the Interfaith Sanctuary board, sues Eternal Love (Susan Bauer, formerly Sukhavaha dasi), who serves as treasurer, in Manhattan Supreme Court for putting their nonprofit status in jeopardy by renting rooms at the temple building to tourists. The temple’s bed and breakfast takes in more than $300,000 a year.
The fact is devotees at Bhaktipada's Interfaith Sanctuary were fighting each other. The "New York Post" newspaper reported:
So much for peace, love and bean sprouts. A faction of Hare Krishna—the kooky cult whose members are supposed to promote goodwill and forgiveness—is in the middle of a civil war following a string of lawsuits and a fistfight in its East Village temple in recent months, court papers show. . . . A second lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court, alleges that when Bauer learned of board director David Chatterjee’s dissent over the B&B in May 2000, a group of her supporters, including ex-husband Nark Kumaravelan, attacked Chatterjee in the third-floor temple and physically threw him out of the headquarters.
Others confirmed the infighting. One of my godsisters, who lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, explained to me, “The Interfaith Sanctuary is like a battlefield: Adi Purusha and his bed and breakfast versus the Malaysians who manage the restaurant. Adi causes friction between devotees. Bhaktipada threatened to kick out the Malaysians from the temple. The bottom line is: Bhaktipada treats the devotees disrespectfully. He is constantly mean and nasty.”
Bhakta Phillip recalled, “I also knew the Malaysians and worked with them in the restaurant for free labor without pay. They were also nasty and rude. One in particular was a devotee known as KD (Krishna dasa).”
Bhakta Phillip remembered Bhaktipada’s anger, “After Bhaktipada was released from prison in 2004, I would wheel him in his wheelchair anywhere he wanted to go. He seemed to get angry a lot of times. There was one time when I had to wheel him to the corner grocery store across the street from the Sanctuary, where he resided. He ended getting angry in the grocery store because his food stamp card didn’t work. There wasn’t enough funds in his account. That was an episode!”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 103.
Sukhavaha devi dasi, ACBSP (Susan Bauer), formerly Eternal Love Swami
Four Far East pickers: Krishna-Chaitanya, Krishna Balaram Swami, Supreme Truth Swami (Talavana), and Maheshvara (Manuel Roberto).
Bhaktipada with disciples and followers at the entrance to the Interfaith Sanctuary at 25 First Avenue, New York City.
August 21, 1968: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada warns his disciples not to be in a hurry to become spiritual masters. If they begin initiating disciples before they are spiritually qualified, they will cause havoc. “The first thing, I warn . . . do not try to initiate. You are not in a proper position now to initiate anyone. . . . Don’t be allured by such Maya [illusion]. I am training you all to become future spiritual masters, but do not be in a hurry.”
For more about this topic, see Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 17.
August 21, 1970: On this date in history, New Vrindaban’s first annual Janmastami festival is held. Besides the heavy rains and mud, the festival is memorable for another reason: it is the scene of a great crisis in ISKCON which is precipitated by four errant newly-initiated sannyasis who preach to the devotees at New Vrindaban that Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada abandoned them and fled to India as punishment because his disciples have not recognized that he is actually God.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 178.
Kirtanananda Swami and devotees at an outdoor New Vrindaban fire sacrifice (summer 1973). Photo from Back To Godhead, No. 66 (c. September 1974).
August 21, 1985: On this date in history, during an address to his disciples in New York City, Bhavananda Swami Vishnupada, one of the eleven “divine ISKCON spiritual masters,” confesses that he has “many flaws, inebrieties, [and] material desires.”
Bhavananda also admitted that he had sex with a teenage boy in Vrindaban, India. "At this [August New Vrindaban] meeting it was presented to me that someone had testified that I had approached them for sex in Vrindaban in 1980, and I went to Balavanta and Rupanuga and Tamal Krishna Prabhus and told them, 'Yes, that was right. It was true.'”
He continued, "The Privilege Committee meeting went on for some hours and their final result was that one of the main factors in the falldown of Bhavananda Goswami has been the acharya system that has been set up. . . . That doesn’t excuse me, but they all see that is one of the main factors and I also see that. . . . I have nothing to hide anymore. I’m not a 100% pure devotee at all. I have many, many flaws, inebrieties, material desires. . . . It’s my fault and on another hand it’s not my fault: it’s the system’s fault. Everything was thrust upon us."
Curious. The ISKCON Privilege Committee determined that one of the main factors in Bhavananda’s fall down was the ISKCON Zonal-Acharya System.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 6, p. 41.
Bhavananda Maharaja Vishnupada (Charles Bacis)
August, 2011: On or around this date in history, the doctors at Jupiter Hospital in Thane, India, claim there is nothing more they can do for Bhaktipada, as he is dying. Bhaktipada's disciples check him out of the hospital and take him to his “Palace of Love” at Anand Vrindavan Dhama in Ulhasnagar.
On Janmastami (August 22, 2011) Bhaktipada's disciples carry their master's bed (and their master) into the Anand Vrindavan Dhama temple room so he can have darshan of the deities Radha Vrindaban Chandra. Clearly Bhaktipada loves his disciples and his disciples love him.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 156.
Satyavrata cries tears of joy and sorrow while embracing his beloved master during a visit with Bhaktipada in the hospital.
August 22, 2022: On this date in history, a reader comments about Henry’s Hare Krishna history books on Facebook:
It’s interesting that Henry Doktorski sold as many books as he has, particularly since he does not have the backing and marketing expertise of literary agents and a publishing house.
Literary agents receive a percentage of the advance the author gets from the publishing house, as well as commission from book sales. Obviously, traditional publishing houses also make money from book sales. Both agents and publishers have a vested interest in skewing the manuscript to enhance revenues. The author may scarcely recognize his manuscript after all of the intermediaries are done massaging it.
Henry Doktorski’s books are not written to provoke shock. Lack of sensationalism limits readership. Doktorski considers different and conflicting perspectives on a given issue, effectively challenging the readers to weigh competing arguments and form their own conclusions. The readers have to do quite a bit of the work. The truth of the matter is that most people just don’t want to exert that type of effort, meaning that it’s not realistic to expect a massive audience, unless you’re willing to dumb down the books.
Perhaps one way to increase readership without introducing sensationalism and partisanship is to conceptualize the GGG series as case studies of a broader set of issues. The Foreword to GGG7 is useful, in part because Eric Johanson Prabhu transitions from the general to the specific. His opening clause grabs the reader’s attention: “The search for truth can take spiritual seekers to unexpected places.” The Forewords for GGG3 and GGG9 also begin with relatively general statements about the human condition, before proceeding to specific components of these volumes. Why should non-Hare Krishnas care about the GGG series? The Forewords argue for the broader relevance of Doktorski’s work, thereby addressing the “so what” question.
Years ago, I managed a large forecasting system for an energy company in Texas. My boss told me that my results must be unbiased. My boss also told me that if you are unbiased, then you maximize the number of people that will shit all over you. On the other hand, if you are partisan, then at least one group will support you. Although Doktorski’s books tend to focus on New Vrindaban, his good faith attempts to be nonpartisan have the potential to to “offend” just about everyone’s guru in ISKCON. Doktorski’s literary output has reached formidable proportions. My forecast is that ISKCON leaders will increasingly shit on Henry. It’s a badge of honor.
Suresh Persaud (Chand Prasad)
Maryland, USA
Chand Prasad (Suresh Persaud).
August 22, 2023: On this date in history, a reader sends the author a message:
[Your books are] Simply wonderful. Very accurate, it does not jump to conclusions but explains well the atmosphere, situations, the feelings of an entire historical period of the Hare Krsna movement.
Manuela N.
Henry has completed twelve books on Hare Krishna history (photo: August 5, 2022).
August 23, 1965: On this date in history, on the tenth day of his journey on the steamship Jaladuta, Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja encounters great difficulty, and notes in his diary, “We are floating now on the Arabian Sea. My seasickness again began. Headache vomiting tendency no hunger dizziness and no energy to work. It is continuing.” The symptoms persist, but it is much more than a simple case of seasickness: he has two heart attacks.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, pp. 152-153.
Artist's painting of Bhaktivedanta Swami departing Calcutta for his trip to New York City.
Brochure for the Scindia Steamship Line
August 1978: On or around this date in history, during my second visit to the New Vrindaban Hare Krishna Community in Marshall County, West Virginia, Kirtanananda Maharaja convinces me to put aside my graduate studies in music and live at New Vrindaban and study Bhakti Yoga under his tutelage. I planned only to stay a few days. My “visit” lasted 16 years. I talk about my conversion in more detail in my article “Prelude To Perfection” which was published by the Brijabasi Spirit. In it I explain the circumstances which led me, fresh out of college at the age of 22, to join the Hare Krishnas.
To read Henry's article, go to Prelude To Perfection.
Drawing by Krishna Katha, ACBSP (Chris Carlson), from Brijabasi Spirit, Vol. 2, No. 2 (February 1982)
August 24, 2005: On this date in history, a few days before Janmastami, Bhaktipada attempts to fondle the genitalia of a visiting young man during a private darshan. The Interfaith Sanctuary residents split into two camps: one believes the accusation is a malicious rumor invented by envious ISKCON devotees, and the other believes the accusation is true and tries to evict the “spiritual master” from the building.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10. p. 104.
Bhaktipada with disciples and followers at the entrance to the Interfaith Sanctuary at 25 First Avenue, New York City.
August 24, 2011: On this date in history, Steady, Bhaktipada’s loyal American disciple, visits Ulhasnagar and stays by her ailing master’s side for nineteen days. For quite a few years she was one of Bhaktipada's female sannyasis, known as Steady Swami.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 158)
Bhaktipada in his “Palace of Love” at Anand Vrindavan Dhama in Ulhasnagar, India. You can see Steady’s arm behind Bhaktipada.
Bhaktin Sharon Ilski accepts her beads from His Divine Grace Srila Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada and becomes Salagram dasi at an initiation ceremony at New Vrindaban in 1984. Notice the photos of two other ISKCON zonal acharyas on the step near Bhaktipada's feet.
Salagram and godsister Rukmini dasi enjoy watching their spiritual master distribute maha prasadam from his vyasasana in the New Vrindaban temple after eating lunch prasadam, probably during his 1986 birthday celebration. It appears Salagram is holding a water pot, to wash the fingers of her spiritual master when he is finished.
A more-recent photo of Steady and a godsister visiting the site of Bhaktipada's samadhi.
August 25, 1969: On this date in history, in a letter to Brahmananda, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada implies that Kirtanananda Swami (who took sannyasa two years earlier) is not yet a highly-advanced sannyasi.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 155.
Kirtanananda Swami plays the tamboura at Pittsburgh ISKCON (1972).
August 25, 1970: On this date in history, in a letter to a leading disciple, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada writes, “In a family, if there is one good boy, he can glorify the whole family, and similarly, if there is [a] bad boy, he can turn the whole family into ashes. Similarly in this institution [ISKCON] if there is a bad disciple, he can burn the whole institution into ashes.”
For more about this topic, see Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 144.
August 25, 1978: On this date in history, Tamal Krishna Goswami, an official ISKCON spiritual master, offers his godbrother Guru Kripa Maharaja the position of guru in ISKCON. Guru Kripa refuses the offer.
Pradyumna and Yasodanandan Swami, who constantly criticized the zonal acharyas when they visited Vrindaban, caused much consternation for the new gurus. Tamal Krishna, in a futile effort to silence them, offered Guru Kripa, the GBC representative for Vrindaban, a position as an ISKCON guru if he restrained the two dissenters. Guru Kripa was not tempted by their offer and refused. Yasodanandan recalled:
That evening [August 25, 1978] just after 7:35 p. m. I went to chant japa on the third floor of the guest house, just above Guru Kripa’s room. Bhagavan dasa, Guru Kripa and Tamal Krishna Goswami were in Guru Kripa’s room near the balcony having a rather animated discussion in loud voices. Guru Kripa could be heard in his uniquely abrasive tone pointing out that the then-current process of zonal divisions, vyasasanas, guru pujas, pada pujas, Vyasa Pujas, etc., was never mentioned by Srila Prabhupada prior to his “departure for Goloka” [Krishna’s personal planet in the spiritual world]. Bhagavan dasa pointed out that this was done for preaching, and Srila Prabhupada had also done it, so they could also do it. Guru Kripa argued that this new concoction should be stopped and that Prabhupada had never meant for things to be organized like this.
Tamal Krishna Maharaja then said, “We have a list of potential gurus, and if you just control these two Smarta brahmins, this Yasodanandan and Pradyumna, we’ll also make you a guru.” A brief, chilling silence followed. Then the conversation resumed and Tamal Krishna Goswami said, “Actually, Guru Kripa, don’t you realize that these two could spoil it for everybody?” Guru Kripa’s temper flared. He called them “nonsense” and continued to argue.
For more about this topic, see Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 153.
Tamal Krishna Goswami Gurudeva (Thomas G. Herzig)
Gurukripa dasa
August 26, 1966: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami explains, “We don’t use anything for my personal comfort; everything for Krishna. That is called renouncement, not a single farthing for my personal comfort, but millions of dollars for Krishna.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 90.
August 26, 2011: On this date in history, in his room at Anand Vrindavana Dhama in Ulhasnagar, India, Bhaktipada drifts in and out of consciousness. He cannot breathe on his own. One lung is collapsed; the other full of mucous. A letter is posted on Chakra.org asking the New Vrindaban Brijabasis and all Vaishnavas around the world to forget past differences and pray for Bhaktipada.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 156.
To read the letter on the WayBack Machine, go to: Web.Archive.
Letter posted on Chakra-Org (August 26, 2011)
August 26, 2020: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader in Germany:
Greetings and Namaste. First of all a VERY BIG thank you for your second masterpiece, Eleven Naked Emperors, which recently arrived at my doorstep. It was great that I’ve received your book upon returning from a magnificent trekking holidays in Nepal. I was and still am very much inspired by being Blessed to witness Mother Nature’s splendid and glorious manifestation in form of mighty Himalayas.
Coming back to your book, it’s obvious that you've written your name in a history of the Hare Krishna movement as a marvelous historian and Truth investigator. It goes without saying that your natural honesty and transparency in seeing things/facts as they are is your weapon and absolutely captivating quality in your writing, my dear friend. As an ex-Hare Krishna devotee myself, please allow me to use a vocabulary associated with our past: “I bow upon your lotus feet and take a dust from your lotus feet on my head.” Kindly continue writing and sharing with others the Truth as only Truth will set as all Free. Om shanti. Om tat sat.
Rafael Kotowski
Former disciple of Indradyumna Swami
Hamburg, Germany
Rafael Kotowski
The author and Rafael taste a bock and a pilsner at a Dresden, Germany Biergarten (July 26, 2018)
August 26, 2020: On this date in history, the author receives a message from a reader:
Henry, if you can open the eyes of just one person and save them, it is enough. If you can save more, it is the beginning of a new era. We all need to know the Truth. I suffered while reading "Killing for Krishna." After buying the book I let it sit on top of a shelf for about a year. I was afraid of reading it although I already knew something about Sulochan’s death. Then I decided it was time to read it. I cried for long hours when I discovered about the mischievous actions of those who were supposed to take care of so many people and educate them spiritually. But I went on. I am a different woman now. No lies in my Life. No Fairy tales: I don't need them anymore. Krishna Is in my heart. But I say NO to rascals telling lies and abusing people.
Lucia Ballerini
Senigallia, Italy
P. S. Six months after sending me this letter, Lucia finishes her Italian translation of “Killing For Krishna.” To purchase Uccidere Per Krishna, go to Amazon.
Lucia Ballerini
August 26, 2021: On this date in history, Nori J. Muster (formerly Nandini devi dasi), the author of Betrayal of the Spirit and Child of the Cult, finishes writing the Foreword to Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4. She explains:
THE BOOK YOU HOLD IN YOUR HANDS is the history of the women and children of New Vrindaban. The story is set in West Virginia, where the New Vrindaban residents were building a tremendous golden shrine for the ISKCON Founder-Acharya His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Thus began the most difficult phase of ISKCON’s history, the years following Prabhupada’s death. Parts of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) were civilized, but New Vrindaban was not one of those places. As Henry Doktorski points out, New Vrindaban modeled itself after the Bronze Age of India, when Lord Krishna walked the earth as a king, sometime between 3100 and 300 BCE.
Since New Vrindaban founder Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada and his followers knew little about the Bronze Age, they defaulted to their own backward notions of how to treat women and children. Thus, their misogynist attitudes won out: women and children were merely chattel—property—and did not deserve any rights. This book explains who these women were, who their children were, and how they fared under the cynical monarchy of Kirtanananda.
When I studied the children of ISKCON in Los Angeles and wrote Child of the Cult, I had no idea how bad things were for children in New Vrindaban. Any book I would have written about the history of children in ISKCON would have been incomplete without a thorough review of what went on in New Vrindaban. That’s why I’m grateful to Henry Doktorski for writing this book. As a witness to events and diligent researcher and reporter, he has a good grasp of the history. Plus, he inherited a cache of documents from New Vrindaban, which he fully explains in the acknowledgments section at the end of the book. He also conducted interviews in person, by phone, and by email as he was preparing to write this book. Thus, he tells the story through interviews and documents, along with his own memories.
This book captures the essence of the problems at New Vrindaban. Although it’s a haunting history, Doktorski narrates it with a raconteur’s sure command of story. As much as I wanted to, I could not put the book down until I read the whole thing. Although tragic, it’s a story worth telling and worth reading.
Nori J. Muster
Phoenix, Arizona
To read Nori's Foreword, go to Foreword.
Nori J. Muster (formerly Nandini devi dasi)
August 1978: On or around this date in history, the author abandons his graduate school music studies and moves to New Vrindaban to study bhakti yoga under the tutelage of Kirtanananda Maharaja. During his first conversation with Kirtanananda Maharaja, Maharaja tells the young man in the future magnificent operas based on stories from the Ramayana and Srimad-bhagavatam will be produced at New Vrindaban.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 225.
To read an article by Henry about this time in his life, go to: Prelude To Perfection.
Henry, during his summer vacation from college (1977), hiking up Long's Peak in Colorado.
Henry, five years later at New Vrindaban, West Virginia (February 1982)
August 1986: On or around this date in history, the ISKCON-approved guru Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada visits the Dallas ISKCON temple, and boldly brings his German shepherd guard dog Gudakesh in with him, despite the fact that Hindus consider the dog an unclean animal and unfit to bring into a temple.
The ISKCON guru for Texas, Tamal Krishna Goswami Gurudeva, makes a derogatory comment about Gudakesh “licking himself” (his penis) in front of the deities. Bhaktipada retorts, “It’s all right for a dog, but not for you.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 7, p. 129.
Bhaktipada and Gudakesh in India (c. 1986)
August 28, 1967: On this date in history, Kirtanananda dasa Brahmachari becomes Kirtanananda Swami during a fire sacrifice on Krishna’ s birthday (Janmastami) at the Radha Damodar Mandir in Vrindaban, India.
Bhaktivedanta Swami conducts the sacrifice and exuberantly proclaims, “Kirtanananda is now a fully Krishna conscious person as he has accepted sannyasa on the birthday of Lord Krishna with great success. He is the first sannyasa in my spiritual family and I hope he will return back home to begin preaching work with great vigor and success.”
Seven short weeks later, Bhaktivedanta Swami changes his tune: "It is clear that Kirtanananda has not rightly understood Krishna consciousness philosophy & it appears that he does not know the difference between impersonal & personal features of Krishna. . . . It is clear that he has become crazy & he should once more be sent to Bellevue [Psychiatric Hospital].
After Kirtanananda apologizes to Prabhupada in July 1968, prostrates himself on the floor at his feet, and returns to ISKCON, Prabhupada once again praises his first sannyasa disciple:
“He [Kirtanananda] is educated. He is intelligent. He has studied our philosophy.” (1969)
“We must all follow in the footsteps of Kirtanananda Maharaja.” (1969)
“Whatever Kirtanananda Maharaja asks, please help him.” (1970s)
“He [Kirtanananda] is worth ten of you [ISKCON leaders].” (1972)
“Kirtanananda, he is a pure devotee.” (c. 1972)
“If you want to please me, please serve Kirtanananda.” (1976)
“Just do what Kirtanananda says.” (1976)
“I bless Kirtanananda Swami to go back to Godhead in this life.” (June 1976)
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 224
Kirtanananda, Bhaktivedanta Swami and disciples at New York International Airport (July 22, 1967).
August 28-September 13, 1977: On this date in history, despite great physical disability, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada travels from India to visit his disciples in London for two weeks. He wears dark glasses as his eyes are sensitive to bright lights. He is incredibly weak and unable to walk, therefore he has to be carried from his personal quarters to the temple room. He stays in London from August 28th to September 13th. Today some claim that he was slowly poisoned by some of his leading disciples.
Sulochan and his godbrother Tirthakara are honored to carry Prabhupada on a palanquin.
For more about this topic, see Killing For Krishna, p. 9.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in London (August/September 1977)
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in London (August/September 1977)
August 28, 1990: On this date in history, the author performs an accordion recital at the fifth Music at the Palace concert, including works by G. F. Handel, J. S. Bach, J. Brahms, Vittorio Monti, Eugene Ettore, Alan Hovhaness, Pietro Deiro, and Walter Girnatis, with assistance from West Liberty State College Music Major Thomas Soplinski, who plays an electronic piano during the Girnatis piece.
The concert finale is three movements from J. S. Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D, with the City of God Accordion Ensemble and other New Vrindaban musicians: Duane Shaw (Dhruva) and Bernice Roberto (Brihan Naradiya Purana) on accordions, Robert Wagner (Dutiful Rama) on bass accordion, William Byars (Visvatomukha) on Trumpet, and William Hough (Wonderful Love) on Timpani.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 108.
To listen to a recording of the recital, go to: YouTube.
The author (1990)
August 28, 1993: On this date in history, the Parliament of the World’s Religions’ centennial celebration begins in Chicago, and continues until September 5th. The event is enormous: 6,000 attendees hear 1,300 religious leaders speak at the conference, one of whom is His Divine Grace Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, who came with his devoted teenage Malaysian personal servant (LN) and chauffeur (Sarvabhauma) who drives Bhaktipada's Winnebago motor home.
Bhaktipada doesn't know it at the time, but in a few days his reign as "King of New Vrindaban" will be challenged, and he will eventually fall from power just as Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall. None of the king's horses nor none of the king's men could put Humpty Dumpty back together again, although some tried.
Later, LN spoke of the many times Bhaktipada gave him the “mercy”—oral sex. When LN asked his divine master, “Bhaktipada, did Prabhupada do these things [fellatio] to you?” Bhaktipada affirmed, “Oh yes. Prabhupada trained me up.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 108.
Bhaktipada (wearing his finest robe and holding a red rose and staff in his hand) and his young Malaysian servant walk through a hallway at the Parliament of the World’s Religions annual conference in Chicago, while his driver Sarvabhauma dasa lightens the solemn mood by photobombing the picture from behind (early September 1993).
Bhaktipada’s Winnebago van in the RVC temple parking lot (undated).
August 29, 1970: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada returns to India for the first time in almost three years, and arrives in his hometown, Calcutta, with Kirtanananda Swami and other disciples. Some of Prabhupada’s godbrothers and old friends receive him, and a kirtan party from the Chaitanya Math helps create an auspicious welcome. The reception is large and festive. During subsequent days, Prabhupada’s party of ten devotees (Prabhupada calls them “dancing white elephants”) chants and dances for several hours daily at Dalhousie Square, the seat of power for state government and the central business district of Calcutta.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 184.
Kirtanananda Swami (center) in India with Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Hansadutta dasa, and Hansadutta’s wife, Himavati devi dasi. Photo (autumn 1970) published in Back To Godhead, No. 43, p. 22 (c. January 1971).
Scene from Dalhousie Square, Calcutta.
Scene from Dalhousie Square, Calcutta.
Scene from Dalhousie Square, Calcutta.
Scens from Dalhousie Square, Calcutta.
August 1977: On or around this date in history, during an istagosthi (discussion or darshan) at New Vrindaban, Kirtanananda Swami explains that a female devotee should “be more tolerant than a tree and humbler than the blades of grass.” He implies, if a woman is slapped or punched or beaten, she should think she “deserved to be hurt a hundred times more.”
The women, for the most part, considered beatings from their husbands as “mercy.” They understood from Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s books that they had mostly bad qualities and that they needed to be disciplined in order to succeed at spiritual life. “Getting the mercy” (receiving a beating) was regarded simply as a physical manifestation of the more common “getting the sauce” (receiving verbal abuse). When a woman came to mangal aroti with a black eye, she often boasted to her friends, “I got the mercy last night.”
However, new devotee residents from mainstream society—male and female—were often appalled by the frequency of wife beatings at New Vrindaban. They couldn’t understand why so many women willingly submitted themselves to this humiliating and painful indignity from their husbands. In the outside world, contemporary women had (at least theoretically) equal rights and often fought for their rights in the courts. But New Vrindaban was more like Bronze-Age India where women were regarded as property.
The author once heard Bhaktipada say (with a smile and a twinkle in his eye) during a men’s darshan at the Vrindaban farm brahmachari ashram around 1979: “Three things improve with a good beating: your drum, your dog, and your wife.”
Where did Bhaktipada learn this maxim about wife beating? He heard it from his spiritual master, who taught his disciples the verse written four centuries earlier by the great Vaishnava poet-saint Tulsi dasa Goswami (c. 1532–1623), who said, "A drum, an idiot, a sudra, a dog and a woman are all eligible for a beating." (Room conversation, New York, April 12, 1969)
Tulsi dasa Goswami was a great poet, known as an incarnation of Valmiki. He wrote thousands of verses. One might wonder, "Why did Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada choose this one particular verse to teach his disciples, and not something else from the great writings of Tulsi dasa Goswami?"
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 18.
August 1978: On or around this date in history, the eleven zonal acharyas pose for a formal portrait with their spiritual master on the lawn at the holy place of Mayapur, India, where the Governing Body Commission holds their annual meetings. Back to Godhead, the official magazine for the Hare Krishna movement, reported the “appointment” of the eleven “successor gurus.”
“Recently the International Society for Krishna Consciousness entered a new phase in its history, as eleven successor gurus appointed by ISKCON’s founding spiritual master began initiating new disciples around the world. His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada selected the eleven successor gurus in June 1977, five months before he passed away. According to the Vedic system, a spiritual student has to take initiation from a guru still physically present on earth. So Srila Prabhupada, who represents an unbroken chain of spiritual masters coming down through time from Lord Krishna himself, chose some of his most advanced disciples to carry on the chain and initiate new devotees.”
However, in the same Back To Godhead issue, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is quoted as saying (two weeks before his death), “All of my disciples will take the legacy. . . . I—one—may soon pass away, but they [my disciples] are hundreds, and this movement will increase. It’s not that I’ll give an order, ‘Here is the next leader.’ Anyone who follows the previous leadership is a leader. . . . All my disciples are leaders, as much as they follow purely.”
Are not these two statements contradictory? How could Prabhupada have selected the eleven successor gurus in June 1977, five months before he passed away, and also said that “It’s not that I’ll give an order, ‘Here is the next leader.’ Anyone who follows the previous leadership is a leader. . . . All my disciples are leaders, as much as they follow purely.”
(Not to mention that Prabhupada DID NOT appoint successors in June 1977—it was July 1977—and if you take the time to read the July 9, 1977 letter, he had appointed rittvik priests, not successors.)
Apparently Prabhupada came to realize as his death approached that his senior-most disciples were not following purely. And the proof is the fact that Prabhupada never appointed successors, and yet the eleven regarded themselves as successor acharyas and fooled nearly everyone for close to a decade.
In this connection Prabhupada says, “There is a Bengali saying that a jackal is king in a small forest. The story is that a jackal became king in the forest by fooling the other animals for some time, but he remained always a jackal and his ruse was at last exposed.” (Rupanuga, 11/13/70)
For more about this topic, see Eleven Naked Emperors.
August 29, 1996: On this date in history, Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada is sentenced to thirty years in prison—the maximum possible sentence—for racketeering. Federal District Court Judge Robert R. Merhige, Jr. in Martinsburg, West Virginia, also fines Bhaktipada $250,000.
He is taken to a Federal Prison Hospital for a physical. He suffers from impaired walking due to Post Polio Syndrome, severe asthma, weak abdominal muscles causing hernia, digestive problems, hearing loss, balance problems, vision difficulties due to traumatic head injury, loss of short term memory, carpal tunnel, and an atrophied leg.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 9, p. 247.
Bhaktipada in prison.
August 30, 1987: On this date in history, New Vrindaban’s Swan Boat participates in the Stern Wheel Regatta on the Kanawha River in Charleston, West Virginia.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 133.
The Swan Boat.
August 30, 1999: On this date in history, ISKCON’s Central Office of Child Protection concludes an investigation and determines that Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami (Gopinath/Ronald Nay), the notorious former headmaster at the Nandagram School, had physically abused and sexually molested boys at New Vrindaban in the 1970s and 1980s, including forcing at least one to perform oral sex on him. He moved permanently to India in 2008 and today is revered as “His Divine Grace Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 398.
Former Nandagram headmaster Gopinath dasa (Ronald Nay), who is himself learning Sanskrit, attempts to teach the language to the older boys at the Nandagram school. (c. January 1980). Photo by Ethan Hoffman from Life magazine.
His Divine Grace Radha Vrindaban Chandra Swami with adoring Indian disicples taking the dust of his lotus feet.
August 30, 2025: On this date in history, a Krishna devotee shares his interpretation of Henry's work as a Hare Krishna historian:
I highly encourage all devotees to follow the excellent, and provocative work of Henry Doktorski. I may not always agree with him, but I find his perspective invaluable to my own faith. His writings can be disturbing, because they force us to confront painful truths about our own history, but this is precisely why they are important. Faith that has never been tested or disturbed remains fragile. As the philosopher Paul Ricœur observed, there is a difference between a first naïveté, which is uncritical and unquestioning, and a second naïveté, which comes only after struggle, doubt, and confrontation with complexity. It is only through this second naïveté that faith matures and deepens, becoming resilient enough to face reality without denial.
Kiśora Śyāma Dāsa
Georgia
For more, go to: Henry's Facebook page.
Kiśora Śyāma Dāsa
August 31, 1965: On this date in history, and eight days after his heart attacks while crossing the Atlantic Ocean on the Scindia steamship Jaladuta, Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja writes in his diary, “Passed over a great crisis on the struggle for life and death.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 153.
Artist's painting of Bhaktivedanta Swami departing Calcutta for his trip to New York City.
August 31, 1972: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada visits New Vrindaban for the second time for the community’s third annual Janmastami festival, and more than one thousand disciples and visitors attend the event.
A pavilion is erected atop one of the hills behind Bahulaban, where inside, the Sri Sri Radha Damodar deities from the traveling Road Show and the giant 51-inch-tall Jagannath, Balarama and Subhadra deities from Pittsburgh are placed on the altar. Prabhupada tells his GBC members, “He [Kirtanananda] is worth ten of you.”
One Brijabasi describes the great affection Prabhupada bestows on his first sannyasa disciple, “During an unusually ecstatic kirtan, Srila Prabhupada chanted louder and louder with the assembly of devotees. When the kirtan ended, Srila Prabhupada slowly and resoundingly boomed: ‘Kirtanananda Swami Maharaja, ki jai!! Kirtanananda Swami Maharaja, ki jai!! Kirtanananda Swami Maharaja, ki jai!!’ Prabhupada got off his vyasasana and paid his obeisances to Radha Vrindaban Chandra. Then, instead of turning and walking out of the temple, he reached out and clasped the back of Kirtanananda Swami’s neck very firmly, gripping it over and over. Then he smeared his hand over Kirtanananda Swami’s head and face, back down to his neck, and grasping it again, shook it tightly in great affection. Kirtanananda Swami almost ruptured into tears, and when Srila Prabhupada went out the door, Kirtanananda Swami was freely crying.”
All who were present observed the great love which was revealed between master and disciple. Kirtanananda Swami's love for Prabhupada was one defining factor which caused the New Vrindaban Brijabasis to love and surrender everything to their siksa guru.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 314.
August 31, 1974: On this date in history, during a private conversation with his personal servant in Vrindaban, India, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada laments, “One of my disciples is simply waiting: ‘When will the old man die so that I can become guru.’”
For more about this topic, see Eleven Naked Emperors, p. 138.
August 31, 1989: On this date in history, Hayagriva Swami (Howard Morton Wheeler), co-founder of New Vrindaban and longtime friend and lover of Keith Ham, dies at New Vrindaban from cancer of the spine. Hayagriva had been diagnosed with cancer of the spine in March 1989. He returns to live out the remainder of his days at New Vrindaban and he stays at Bhaktipada’s house. A nurse takes care of him.
I visited him frequently and enjoyed his company. Although he could hardly turn over by himself and had to use a bedpan, he liked to joke about his condition. I recall he ingested liquid morphine to help ease the pain. Many of us at New Vrindaban, aware that he was homosexual, thought he was dying from AIDS, but we were told it was bone cancer in his spine.
Shortly before his death, Hayagriva accepted the order of sannyasa from Kirtanananda Swami, and became known as Hayagriva Swami. He would have preferred the title “Babaji” instead of “Swami,” as at this time he was becoming more introspective than extroverted. Hayagriva Swami’s tomb is near New Vrindaban’s aviary, between Prabhupada’s Palace and the temple. His final book, Vrindaban Days: Memories of an Indian Holy Town, was based on his personal diaries from his month-long 1972 visit with Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada at the Radha Damodar Temple in Vrindaban, India. This book was published posthumously (Palace Publishing: 1990).
On his deathbed, Hayagriva Swami humbly acknowledged that “I was touched by the hand of God!” Satyaraja dasa (Steven J. Rosen), the founding editor of The Journal of Vaishnava Studies and an associate editor of Back to Godhead, appreciated the writings of Hayagriva, especially his poems written in the early Back to Godhead magazines. Over the years he had developed a friendship with Hayagriva and went to visit him in New Vrindaban when Hayagriva was dying of cancer.
By the time Satyaraja visited him he was in a very painful condition. Due to cancer his spine had become almost like an eggshell. Any movement was extremely painful. Hayagriva happily acknowledged Satyaraja’s presence. To view his guest he slowly turned his head upward and to his right. With tears in his eyes, according to Satyaraja, Hayagriva spoke slowly, with a voice filled with appreciation for his great fortune: “A seventy-year old aristocratic Bengali gentleman arrives in New York with a mission to print books in English, and who is the first person he meets? An English professor.”
Overwhelmed with the realization that he had been the object of inconceivable mercy, Hayagriva paused, and then, with a sense of drama and also with sincere conviction and deep emotion, expressed his heart: “I was touched by the hand of God!”
After his death, Hayagriva’s body was positioned in a cross-legged sitting posture and his funeral was held at the New Vrindaban temple. I played pipe organ in the temple for Hayagriva's funeral service. Hayagriva’s body was then carried out of the temple in a palanquin to his burial site near the aviary behind the Palace. A marble mausoleum was later built. His body was lowered into the chamber and the chamber was filled with salt.
Although Bhaktipada stoically refrained from displaying his emotions during Hayagriva’s illness, at the funeral the flood gates opened up and profuse tears poured out of his eyes. I never saw Bhaktipada cry so much in my entire life. It was obvious to me that Bhaktipada loved Hayagriva more than anyone, perhaps even more than Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
One of Hayagriva’s friends since 1968, Randall Gorby, confirmed, “They [Howard and Keith] were the closest two human beings I ever ran into in my life. Howard had never anything but a good word for Keith Ham. He would tell little anecdotes about his behavior, but he would never say anything that would be detrimental to Keith Ham in any way.”
Radhanath Swami eulogized Hayagriva Swami, “In the sacred passing of Hayagriva Maharaja, we have been enlightened by the infinite glory of the mercy of Srila Bhaktipada, Srila Prabhupada and Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra. Although for years and years he succumbed to the senses due to weak heartedness, at the time of severe crisis he honestly and genuinely repented and took complete shelter of the Holy Name. With all humility he laid his head at the lotus feet of Srila Bhaktipada, Prabhupada and Lord Sri Krishna. Thus he showed the world the infinite power of guru kripa (mercy of guru). He perfected his life in this world and returned to Srila Prabhupada and Krishna. How sweet is Krishna’s love. He knows what is required to lovingly call back his lost servants.”
Radhanath Swami concluded, “Hayagriva Swami . . . finished his devotional career in such spectacular success.”
Unfortunately, as far as I know, Hayagriva never apologized to any of the boys who he sexually abused, nor to his first wife Shama dasi who he cheated on. He also never apologized for his participation in the conspiracy which promoted the lie that Keith Ham was a pure devotee of Krishna. In the early 1980s, Kirtanananda had attended parties with Hayagriva with the homosexual Mexican laborers, had sex with them, and took intoxicants such as beer and cocaine. Hayagriva, although he knew about Kirtanananda’s failure to follow the four regulative principles, propped up his buddy for many years, to the detriment of thousands of devotees (and dozens of boys) at New Vrindaban and throughout the world.
Hayagriva’s support of Kirtanananda may have been his greatest fault. Why did he serve as Kirtanananda Swami’s sycophant? Perhaps because Hayagriva was too lazy to work to provide an income for himself and his family. Bhaktipada therefore provided him with a nice house to live in at New Vrindaban, and also provided the funds to sponsor Hayagriva’s winter trips to Mexico, India and Thailand. Hayagriva didn’t care for protecting devotees from following a cheater and giving their lives to a pretender, a show-bottle guru. He appeared only concerned about his own personal comfort and his continual sense gratification.
These photos were taken during Hayagriva's funeral procession from the RVC temple to his burial tomb near the aviary, a couple days after his death. You can see Hayagriva's body (carried on palanquin), Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada and his German shepherd dog Gudakesh, Hayagriva's 19-year-old son Samba, myself, Bhakta Steve (Hayagriva's nurse), and Sudhanu a community manager.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 171.
Hayagriva proofreading in his office (undated). Hayagriva wrote several excellent poetic English translations of Sanskrit and Bengali prayers. He also wrote or Krishna-ized several original hymns, such as Holy Father, Holy Mother and Hare Krishna über alles.
Hayagriva began wasting away from bone cancer, I think early in 1989. At this time he lived in the temple room at Bhaktipada’s house, as I recall. Whenever I came up to Bhaktipada’s house to see my spiritual master, a few times a week, I used to visit with Hayagriva as he lay on a hospital bed. In this photo, we see Hayagriva in wheelchair, Steve (his caretaker), Bhaktipada and myself. (c. May 1989)
Hayagriva passed away on August 31, 1989, two days before his 50th birthday. His body was bathed, dressed in a robe, positioned in a lotus position, adorned with tilak, and garlanded with flower garlands, as befitting a “saintly sannyasi” and lover/dear friend of Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada.
Bhaktipada processes as Hayagriva’s body is carried from the RVC temple to his burial site near the aviary.
Hayagriva’s 19-year-old eldest son offers flowers to his father’s body at his funeral.
August 31, 1997: On this date in history was the official dedication for Bhaktipada’s Interfaith Sanctuary at 25 First Avenue in Manhattan. Radha Muralidhara deities, originally from Cleveland, Ohio, are installed.
At the time, Bhaktipada was incarcerated in prison. This photo is from around 1995, shortly before he went to prison. A few years later, some of his own disciples tried to evict him from the building. Eventually, Radhanath Swami and his followers wrestled the $500,000 building away from Bhaktipada and his disciples (legal wrestling through the courts) and renamed the building The Bhakti Center.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 51.
Bhaktipada with disciples and followers at the entrance to the Interfaith Sanctuary at 25 First Avenue, New York City.
September 1: An excerpt from Kaliya Mardana dasa Brahmachary's book, The Journey Home Debunked: Exposing Mayavada Infiltration into Shrila Prabhupada’s Family. Chapter 1: "The Journey Home Is the Worst Form of Guru Aparadha."
I have read through The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami which is celebrated as some sort of revelation throughout the Hare Krishna Movement. In my opinion honoring this book of pseudo-yoga only reveals what neophytes ISKCON leaders are.
As far as I am concerned, I just can’t imagine why any so-called “devotee” would so proudly show off a book that openly contradicts his spiritual master. On page after page the reader finds nothing but pretentiously hip-sounding “yoga drivel.” To date none of the dozens of GBC members appears to have objected to The Journey Home; in fact the author is also on the GBC. Rather, this fantabulous yoga drivel has been hailed by so-called leaders of the society to the extent that they approve of its sales at ISKCON centers all over the world. Rather than being “a journey home” this book is an infestation of mayavada into the ranks of a once-Vaishnava organization.
The author Radhanath Swami is supposedly a disciple of His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Shrila Prabhupada’s avowed mission was to supplant mayavada—impersonalism—with the purest and highest form of Shri Krishna-bhakti, exactly as taught by Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Shrila Prabhupada condemned with the strongest words the storefront “yogis” who invaded America and Europe for material profit and who taught atheism in the form of nirvisesa and sunyavada. Shrila Prabhupada wanted his disciples to do the same—to defeat materialistic swindlers posing as gurus with the sword of shastric wisdom—or even to just “kick them on their faces.” Shrila Prabhupada would never have tolerated for an eleventh of a second—a lava—any sort of praise from the ISKCON camp for exploiters from India who pose in the dresses of yogis and swamis.
But The Journey Home is full of such praise for persons who Prabhupada aptly identified as cheaters and nonsense rascals. Here is just one of many shocking examples of the author’s praise for one such bogus swami. It is taken from page 171 of The Journey Home (we’ll look at other instances in coming parts of this essay). From the book:
“… I was led to a disciple of Nityananda Baba who was building an ashram nearby. Small but rapidly growing, the ashram was located just off the roadside. As the door opened, the mantra to Shiva, Om Namo Shivaya reverberated in a slow hypnotic chant. Inside a dozen disciples, both from India and the West, were chanting in unison … As the chanting faded into silence, everyone spilled out into a courtyard. I watched and waited. Then, as his disciples bowed down, their guru entered. He was sixty-three years old with dark complexion and deep brown eyes, short untrimmed hair and beard, and clothed in saffron robes. In his presence his followers lit up with joy. I asked who he was. ‘Swami Muktananda,’ I was told.”
Next Radhanath goes into the supposed spiritual journey of Swami Muktananda from the time he supposedly left home at the age of fifteen. How much of the story is true and how much this liar invented to attract followers is anybody’s guess. Then we get another episode in the life of Radhanath, which (again) could possibly be just as dubious as Swami Muktananda’s version of his own life. After all, birds of a feather flock together. Cheaters and Mayavadis enjoy the company of one another and naturally gravitate to fellow association.
“On one occasion as I stood with Swami Muktananda on the roadside, a vicious dog howling insanely and bearing its threatening fangs came charging towards us. People shrieked and scattered. With a mere stare Swami tamed the creature and it meekly bowed its head. Blessing the dog he turned and spoke to me through a translator, ‘I have noted you to be a sincere sadhu. If you wish, I will initiate you…’”
Who was Muktananda really? Well, according to William Rodarmor’s article “The Secret Life of Muktananda” this Swami who Radhanath is all praise for was a serial rapist who had thug disciples intimidate and threaten anyone who spoke out against his continuous defiling of young ladies. These same accusations were also echoed in one of America’s most established and respected magazines, The New Yorker.If you are not yet convinced that The Journey Home is the most offensive piece of crap to ever pose as some sort of spiritual journey, then you’ll be convinced once you have compared Radhanath’s schmooze of “Swami” Muktananda with Rodarmor’s more knowledgeable explanation of what really went on in his “ashrams.”
According to Rodarmor, Muktananda had it made. He would charge exorbitant fees for his lessons in “Shakti pat” and thus became very rich overnight. In the evening he would summon very young lady disciples to his room and reward them with a small token, a gold bracelet (which they had paid for with their yoga fees), after he seduced them with his “initiations into tantric yoga techniques.”
Muktananda’s picture is sitting right there between pages 110 and 111 of The Journey Home along with Shrila Prabhupada’s and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati’s likenesses in the same book. To date there has not been even the slightest whimper from the GBC—a body of supposed devotees who are entrusted to represent the wishes, the teachings and philosophy of the Founder-Acharya, the pure devotee of Lord Shri Krishna, Who (as a reminder in case they have forgotten) is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. As Prabhupada used to remind his students, “Be very careful, you are dealing with Krishna.”
Are you listening, GBC? Who is more important to you, Lord Krishna or some pretender in your midst? And this is just one reason why I cannot adequately describe in words my horror, shock and disgust that such a horribly offensive book receives tacit promotion from inept and incapable personalities within the Hare Krishna Movement. Each one of the GBC compro-misers will have to answer to Lord Krishna very, very soon—sooner than they would care to admit!
Kaliya Mardana dasa Brahmachary's book is available on Amazon.
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Cover of The Journey Home Debunked
September 1: An excerpt from Bhaktavasya devi dasi's book, A Different Kind of Life, in which she shares the “joy” she and her son experienced when she put him in the ISKCON gurukula:
Hell in the Holy Dhama
Here we were, at the birthplace of Lord Krishna. The first thing I did was pay obeisances on the ground and scoop up a bit of earth to sprinkle on my head and on my daughter’s. As we entered the temple compound, I skipped paying respects to the Deities in the temple room, and asked to see [my young son] Ganga right away. [My husband] Devananda went to find something to eat, and [my young daughter] Revati and I waited in the sun filled reception room until a teacher brought him to us. As I went to hug him he put his arms up, as if to fend me off. I asked him later if it was because he was beaten, so it was an automatic reaction when someone approached him. He said no, that wasn’t the reason. It was because of the ‘man becomes weak when he is embraced by a woman’ indoctrination that started when he was with me in Chicago and was being taught to the boys in the school here.
But that wasn’t the worst of it; as soon as he lowered his arms I hugged him anyway, noticing as I did a scabbed over 3 inch cut on his neck. When I asked him what happened, he said that one of the teachers scrubbed his neck with a metal brush.
Enraged, I grabbed him by one hand and carrying my daughter, went unannounced into the office of the temple president, a brahmachari named Danu. I pointed out the wound on Ganga’s neck, repeating what he had told me and demanded an explanation. “Mataji,” he said, putting his hands up as if to indicate I should calm down. “What happened was Bhavananda Maharaj (the resident guru) noticed the boys’ necks were dirty and he said their necks should be scrubbed until they bled, and a teacher took him literally.” Then he smiled, like it was no big deal. I had to control the urge to leap over his desk and knock him off his chair. I looked at him incredulously, shaking my head to indicate that I couldn't believe he was making light of the act.
Danu quickly changed the subject, asking if I’d brought the tuition fees with me. I mumbled something about him seeing my husband about that and whisked the kids away before I did something like hurl some swear words, which would have been a sufficient enough reason to have me ejected from the property.
Ganga came with us to Bombay for a two week holiday. When I was alone with him, I broached the subject of the sexual abuse rumors. I wanted to believe, just as most devotees did, that it was just that, a rumour, because it seemed impossible that any devotee could harm one of ‘Krishna’s children’, and especially here in the holiest of holy places. Not wanting to put any vile images in his young mind, I found it difficult to put into words. “Did any of the teachers ever, um, do anything...try to do something that was..” Ganga answered my incomplete question. “Do you mean did any of the teachers ever try to have sex with me?” I was stunned. How could he know such a crime even existed?
He continued. “Not me, but this one teacher, sometimes he comes in at night and takes some of the younger boys out of the room, and does things to them. The boys never say what he does, but I can hear them crying when they get back.”
He quickly added “promise you won’t tell anybody that I told you or they’ll beat me again.” Again?
“I get beat all the time. One time they made me fast for the whole day and this really mean teacher, he locked me in an empty room with no windows. Lucky for me, Jagadish (the minister of education) found out and he let me out of the room and gave me some prasadam. And he yelled at that teacher, for doing that to me.”
I couldn’t tell Devananda; I knew he wouldn’t believe Ganga and we had no money for a ticket to bring him back with us. I did tell him about Ganga being beaten, but of course Devananda’s answer to that was that Ganga was a bad kid, he probably deserved it. I felt I had no choice, I had to leave him in India, but I told him I would try to raise the money to bring him to Canada when I got back there. Before I left, Ganga asked me a surprise question. “Mata, how come that time I had malaria and almost died, you didn’t care?”
In March, during the Mayapur festival, the Gurukula boys were taken to Mayapur and some of them contracted malaria. The teacher who was in charge of the boys, “he was a nice one, I liked him”, wrote a letter to me in care of the Durban temple, saying that Ganga was very sick, they were afraid they might lose him, and that I should come there immediately. Someone had to have read that letter. I calculated the dates, from when I left Cape Town and flew to Durban and found out I was a month pregnant; February. In March or April, I was at the farm in Durban, with almost enough money for an emergency trip to India. Was this before or after I purchased the ticket for Ganga to come for the summer?
My mind was reeling. Why didn’t someone in a position of authority place a long distance phone call and insist on speaking with me?Is Tamas das really that evil? God, my poor boy. What have I done to him? He would have been better off in a ‘karmi school’ or with my family in the Soo. “I never got the letter" I said, and so he wouldn’t imagine the unthinkable, “it must have got lost in the mail. Or somebody just forgot to give it to me. I’m so sorry.” This time he let me hug him, his beautiful cherubic face brightening up, visibly relieved to hear this explanation.
We made a stop-over in Detroit before flying on to Toronto. I was depressed and conflicted with the information Ganga had given me. If I told I would be betraying his confidence, breaking my promise to him. But if this was going on, shouldn't everybody know? Especially the parents. I was sitting in one of the vacant rooms, crying as usual, when the temple president's wife, Sitarani, came in. She must have heard me.
"Prabhu, why are you crying when you just came back from the holy dhama?" she wanted to know. It all came pouring out. "Promise you won't tell..." I told her everything, including the promise Ganga made me make before he told me. She said she wouldn't tell, but her son was due to be sent to India the following year so she went to the minister of education, Jai das, when he came for a visit soon after. She telephoned the Toronto temple to tell me that she'd spilled the beans, sorry, and that Jai das got very angry with her and denied anything of the sort had gone on in India.
A few weeks later a letter came for me from India. It was from Jai das. The temple president had opened the letter (not unusual in Iskcon culture at the time) and told his wife that he didn't want to give it to me because it was so harsh. After all, I was about 7 months pregnant at the time. His wife told another woman and it of course got back to me. I insisted on reading it. Was Ganga okay? The temple president relented and gave me the letter. It had been sent cc to all Iskcon temples. In it, I was accused of being ‘an enemy to the Hare Krishna movement,’ that I was ‘going from temple to temple, spreading vicious lies about the gurukula.’ I had to stop and take a breath before reading more. Jai das said that Ganga was questioned in front of the teachers and Bhavananda (the presiding guru for Vrindavan), and “he denied everything; obviously, the boy is a liar.”
He ended it by asking me did I think he and Bhavananda were fools. I thought of Ganga, being hauled in for questioning, how scared he must have been, surrounded by probably half a dozen big bullies, And how he must have felt betrayed by me. It was all my fault. I shouldn't have said anything, until he got back to Canada. I prayed for his swift return, and for the safety of my baby in the womb. What if I accidentally committed Vaishnava aparadha? What if Ganga made up the story to get out of gurukula, and who could blame him if he did?
I began chanting the Nrsimha mantra almost constantly, alternating with the maha-mantra. On December 20, 1979, my third child was born. A healthy, (although a bit scrawny at first) son who I named Nrsimhananda (the bliss of Lord Nrsimha). On his birth certificate his name is Arthur, after his deceased paternal grand-father, (who both his widow and son agree, and they never agreed on anything except that) was a good man.
Another letter came from India, from the head-master of the school. Ganga had been misbehaving more than usual, disrupting the program and a bad influence on the other students. He was being ‘sent back, to my care.’ They were so eager to get rid of him that they were paying for his ticket to Toronto. All glories to Lord Nrsimhadeva!
Bhaktavasya devi dasi’s book is available on Amazon.
Cover of A Different Kind of Life
September 1, 1896: On this date in history, Abhay Charan De (later known as His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada) is born into a Gaudiya-Vaishnava family in Calcutta, India. His father, Gour Mohan De—a cloth merchant—wants him to grow up singing bhajans (religious songs), playing the mrdanga (a two-headed Indian drum made from baked clay and cowhide), and preaching from Srimad-bhagavatam.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 141.
Artist's rendition of Gour Mohan De and his son Abhay, from Srila Prabhupada-lilamrita, Vol. 1, by Satsvarupa dasa Goswami.
September 1, 1986: On this date in history, during Bhaktipada’s 49th birthday festival, the author, with assistance from New Vrindaban singers and musicians, offers a contrapuntal music performance of the Bhaktipadastakam Prayers and Jaya Jagad Guru Srila Bhaktipada.
Sometimes my godbrothers and I asked Bhaktipada, during intimate darshans in his bedroom before taking rest, whether we could build him a palace in the future, just as he had built a palace for his spiritual master. He always said, “No.”
However, after I became Minister of Music for the temple (principal organist, choirmaster, orchestra director and composer-in-residence), I realized that I could not build a palace of gold, or concrete, for my spiritual master, but I could build him a palace made from sound vibration: using bass, tenor, alto and soprano voices, with pipe organ and orchestra.
The result was the Bhaktipadaskatam Prayers, recorded by the Krishna Chorale and released on the cassette tape called “Jagad Guru.” To hear a recording of the Bhaktipadastakam prayers by the Krishna Chorale, follow the link below.
During Bhaktipada’s September 1986 Vyasa Puja festival, many senior godbrothers and disciples presented flowery homages. Umapati dasa (Wallace Sheffey)—one of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s first initiated disciples who, along with his Mott Street roommates Howard Wheeler and Keith Ham, began attending the Swami’s 26 Second Avenue Bhagavad-gita classes in July 1966—spoke the following words in glorification of our guru maharaja:
“Until I can find something better [to say], then I just have to say what I said last year: that all the disciples of Bhaktipada and everybody who is working under Bhaktipada, they’re not getting cheated. You’re just getting what Prabhupada gave, and you’re getting it purely. . . . I have to admit that Bhaktipada is still transmitting purely without any motivation, giving to everybody else what he got from Prabhupada.”
I remember the hearty applause Umapati received for his homage; we disciples of Bhaktipada were thrilled to be able to serve our guru just like Bhaktipada and Umapati had served their guru twenty years earlier. We felt we were directly connected to Krishna through the discipular succession.
During the same festive event, Ishani dasi (Ellen Schram), the longtime head of New Vrindaban’s Jewelry Department (and the same person who six years earlier gave the guru reformer Jadurani a violent beating as noted in Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 6), offered Bhaktipada a surprise birthday present: an elaborate gold-plated crown and mace which she had crafted in secret.
Bhaktipada accepted the crown and held it in his hands, but seemed too embarrassed to wear such a gaudy headpiece. He admired the handiwork, but refused to place it on his head. However, after several insistent rounds of encouraging cheers from us, Bhaktipada finally placed the crown on his head for only a few seconds; just long enough to acknowledge Ishani’s devotion and satisfy his disciples’ desire to see him wear it, while at least one photographer shot a picture during this brief but momentous occasion. To see the photograph, go to the first comment below.
After a few seconds, Bhaktipada took the crown off his head and returned the jeweled accouterments to Ishani and said: “Please give these to Prabhupada at his Palace. He deserves such a fine gift; not me.”
In several letters to his disciples Bhaktipada mentioned the feast and the musical concert which were presented to him on his 49th birthday celebration, but, perhaps because of humility, he did not mention the crown and scepter even once.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, pp. 52, 55.
To listen to The Bhaktipadastakam Prayers and Jaya Jagad Guru Srila Bhaktipada, go to: YouTube.
The cover of the cassette tape Jagad Guru by the Krishna Chorale (1988). For more about, and to listen to Jagad Guru, go to Jagad Guru.
September 2, 1940: On this date in history, Howard Morton Wheeler, III is born in Pensacola, Florida; an only (and spoiled) child of middle-class Roman Catholic parents. Howard’s father, Howard Morton Wheeler, II, works as a newspaper editor; his mother, Edythe, is a youthful and pretty Southern housewife.
At the tender age of five Howard discovers, while wrestling with a young boy playmate, Bubba, “an inexplicable delight, a giddiness and dizziness, of butterflies in the stomach and a certain tingling excitation (in the genitals) which I tell to no one, not even Bubba, because for me there are no words to express it and it is unique and awesome.”
At the age of twenty, at a gay bar in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Howard meets a 23-year-old graduate student at the University of North Carolina, the person who becomes the love of his life: a Yankee from Upstate New York: Keith Gordon Ham. “Keith’s real bright. He’s got that smooth Yankee way about him. You know, all that get up and go shit.”
At the age of 25, while living a Bohemian life with Keith in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in July 1966 Howard meets an aristocratic Bengali swami who has recently begun giving Bhagavad-gita classes in a small storefront at 26 Second Avenue. Howard becomes his chief editor within a week, and accepts diksa and the name Hayagriva from the Founder/Acharya of ISKCON. Keith becomes Kirtanananda.
A year later, Hayagriva and Kirtanananda Swami bloop from ISKCON and eventually start an ashram in the backwoods of West Virginia in competition with ISKCON. After a few months, they realize they need Prabhupada to succeed. They apologize to Prabhupada, and return to ISKCON. Prabhupada names their ashram “New Vrindaban.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 27.
Howard Morton Wheeler, North Carolina University yearbook photo (1959), and Keith Gordon Ham, Peekskill New York High School Graduation photo (1955).
Hayagriva dasa Brahmachari at 26 Second Avenue (1966).
Professor Howard Wheeler (Hayagriva) at his Ohio University office, Columbus, Ohio (c. late 1968 or early 1969). The January 1967 San Francisco Mantra Rock Dance poster hangs on the wall, along with pictures of Krishna and Vishnu.
Hayagriva with his life-long buddy at a Labor Day Festival at New Vrindaban (September 1984).
September 2, 1972: On this date in history at New Vrindaban, after the kirtan celebrating his 76th birthday, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada exhibits symptoms of ecstasy.
One disciple notes, “Then he began crying. He tried to chant through his tears. Prabhupada couldn’t hold himself back. Everyone went mad. They began screaming and crying to see such powerful emotions. . . . Then, in one blinding moment, two hundred devotees were driven absolutely and uncontrollably mad: screaming, crying, and swooning at once, crying and crushing into the stage with total abandon. Hundreds of arms stretched out to Srila Prabhupada, all of us crying and chanting, crying and chanting, crying, crying, until there was nothing but tears and love, as the devotees tried to chant, as they cried and whimpered, but couldn’t anymore. . . . We were, all of us, swept up, embraced, drowned, and devastated. . . . It was a divine experience. I cried for an hour.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 317.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in the pavilion on the hill behind Bahulaban (September 1972).
September 2, 1979: On this date in history, Prabhupada's Palace of Gold, a memorial shrine for the recently-deceased Founder/Acharya of ISKCON, is dedicated. This single event catapults New Vrindaban into the national and international news and inaugurates a seven-year golden age for the community. A life-size plastic murti of Prabhupada is installed in the Palace with much fanfare, including a palanquin procession, fire sacrifice, deity bathing (abhishek) ceremony, aroti, kirtan, feast, theatrical play, fireworks and bonfire.
About a thousand ISKCON devotees attend the festival, including seven of the eleven ISKCON initiating gurus. The first event is a procession during which the murti of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is brought to the Palace on a palanquin. Outside the Palace under a festival tent, aroti is offered to the murti. Kirtanananda Swami personally serves as pujari, offering the murti of Prabhupada incense, a ghee lamp, water, a handkerchief, a flower, a yak-tail fan and a peacock fan.
On the same day, New Vrindaban children, under the direction of Mother Yamini, perform Yamini’s "Krishna Book Suite" during the Palace dedication festival. For more about the dedication of Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold, see “Gold, Guns and God,” Vol. 3, p. 262.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 76.
To listen to Yamini’s Krishna Book Suite, with the New Vrindaban Children’s Choir, go to: Krishna Book Suite.
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada (on crutches, flanked by ISKCON zonal acharya Jayatirtha dasa Tirthapada and GBC representative Brahmananda Maharaja) offering a yak-tail whisk to the murti of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada during the outdoor aroti after Prabhupada’s arrival in procession at the Palace (September 2, 1979).
ISKCON zonal acharya Jayatirtha dasa Tirthapada offers flowers to the murti of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada while Radhanath dasa Brahmachari and Kirtanananda Swami look on (September 2, 1979).
Four ISKCON zonal acharyas sit on vyasasanas, along with godbrothers and disciples, behind Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold during the Palace Dedication Festival (September 2, 1979).
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada (on crutches) speaking to newspaper and television reporters at the dedication of Prabhupada’s Palace (September 2, 1979).
Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada (on crutches) speaking to newspaper and television reporters at the dedication of Prabhupada’s Palace (September 2, 1979).
The Palace main dome, framed by roses in the Garden of Time (undated).
Prabhupada’s Palace illuminated at night (undated).
Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold, detail (undated).
The Palace dome, flag of Hanuman, and upper portion of gold-leaf tilak (undated).
Prabhupada’s Garden of Time (undated).
Palace hallway (undated).
Bedspread on Prabhupada’s bed.
One of four peacock stained-glass windows at Prabhupada’s Palace (undated).
Palace exterior, elephant-head waterspout (undated).
Ceiling of the kirtan hall (undated).
Kirtan hall, from the main entrance, looking towards the murti of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in the altar room (undated).
Section of the ceiling which circles around the kirtan hall outside the interior columns. Creating this was the author’s service at Prabhupada’s Palace from October 1978 until March 1979
The murti of Prabhupada on his altar (c. 1980).
The murti of Prabhupada in his study. Many tourists, upon entering this room, stop talking because, upon first glance, they think the murti is a living Hindu monk, and they don’t want to disturb his writing.
September 3, 1971: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada writes to a New Vrindaban resident, “I understand that the incense business is very lucrative there. So get money and develop New Vrindaban to its fullest extent.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 193.
Prabhupada had earlier addressed the issue of acquiring “millions of dollars for developing” New Vrindaban during a darshan at the West Virginia commune two years earlier: “We require millions of dollars for developing. If we want to construct here temples, at least seven temples, nicely, so that requires huge amount. . . . If we construct temple, we will require so many things. It is not possible to be self sufficient within this land. We have to get so many things outside. That means we have to get money from outside. Yes.”
A few years later, Prabhupada told Kirtanananda to “Make New Vrindaban like Tirupati,” the famous Venkatesvara Temple (Tirumala in the Tirupati district) in the Eastern Ghats mountain range of Andhra Pradesh. The temple is designed in the South Indian architectural style and is believed to have been constructed over a period of time starting from 300 CE.
The temple is dedicated to Venkateswara, a form of Vishnu, who is believed to have appeared on the earth to save mankind from trials and troubles of Kali Yuga. Venkateswara is known by many other names such as: Balaji, Govinda, and Srinivasa. It is one of the wealthiest and most-visited temples on earth, with 24 million pilgrims annually.
During a darshan with my spiritual master, I heard Bhaktipada say, “Prabhupada told me that one day, after New Vrindaban completes our seven temples, we will make $50,000 a day from donations from pilgrims.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, p. 113.
The Venkateswara Temple (Tirumala in the Tirupati district) in the Eastern Ghats mountain range of Andhra Pradesh.
The Venkateswara Temple (Tirumala in the Tirupati district) in the Eastern Ghats mountain range of Andhra Pradesh.
Balaji, the presiding deity of the Venkateswara Temple.
Balaji, the presiding deity of the Venkateswara Temple
September 3, 1979: On this date in history, during an interview with a newspaper reporter, Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada explains, “We want to create a transcendental village here, a little space that would create a Krishna consciousness. There were always [local] people who were a little nasty. . . . Human nature is always the same. There are demons, and there are devotees, and they are always at loggerheads. You’ll never convince the demons to become devotees or the devotees to become demons. So they are always destined to fight.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 2, p. 206.
“We want to create a transcendental village here.”
“There are demons, and there are devotees, and they are always at loggerheads.”
September 3, 1988: On this date in history, after months of delays, the steel frame for the proposed Maha Dwaram Gateway, the entrance to the proposed Great Temple of Understanding at New Vrindaban, is erected on Krishna’s birthday.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 5, p. 206.
Tying the steel reinforcing rods for the Maha Dwaram Gateway.
Construction crew at the Maha Dwaram.
Steel frame of the Maha Dwaram Gateway with six bells on top.
September 3, 1990: On this date in history, New Vrindaban devotees celebrate Bhaktipada’s 53rd birthday. The Brijabasis celebrate with a Vyasa Puja festival and initiation ceremony in which seven new disciples receive spiritual names. While Bhaktipada eagerly opens his presents, his Indian disciple Pradyumna dresses as Lord Krishna and massages Bhaktipada's lotus feet, to remind us that the Supreme Personality of Godhead delights in rendering service to His pure devotees.
The City of God Examiner reported, “Some of the wonderful gifts [given to Bhaktipada] were a parrot given by Peaceful Swami [Dennis Moreau, formerly Devananda Pandit from Toronto], a money tree by Compassionate Swami [Rosalyn Fejes, formerly Rasayatra dasi, a big sankirtan picker from Cleveland], a beautiful song composed by Hrishikesh [the author] in glorification of Srila Bhaktipada and sung by the glee club. Pradyumna [an Indian devotee, the former national table tennis and badminton champion of India, who married an American devotee, Lilavati dasi (Marlene Hodas)] dressed up as Krishna complete with bluish complexion. . . . Srila Bhaktipada was the biggest Laksmi collector for the day. He collected more in one day than most devotees collect in one year.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 120.
While Bhaktipada eagerly opens his birthday presents, his Indian disciple Pradyumna dresses as Lord Krishna and massages Bhaktipada’s feet during his 53rd birthday celebration (September 3, 1990).
September 3, 1999: On this date in history, Bhaktipada’s Pakistani disciple Madhusudan dasa Bapuji presides at the dedication of the four-story Anand Vrindavan Dhama Radha Vrindaban Chandra temple in Ulhasnagar, India.
In Bhaktipada’s Last Will and Testament dated December 24, 2010, Bhaktipada announces that Bapuji will be his successor, “I leave all my material and spiritual assets to Madhusudan Das (Manilal B. Chauhan) to be used in Krishna’s service in Ulhasnagar and throughout India. He will be successor, guru in India, Pakistan and all other centres and no one else from my side.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 10, p. 115.
Today, Bapuji is known as “His Divine Grace Srila Madhusudan Bapuji”
Temple priests perform an abhisek ceremony (bathing the deities) in front of the main altar at Anand Vrindavan Dhama. You can see the presiding deities Radha Vrindaban Chandra in the center under the sringasana.
September 4, 1982: On this date in history, Jayapataka Swami Acharyapada, one of the eleven ISKCON zonal acharyas—and co-GBC for Sri Mayapur Dhama, Calcutta, Goa, West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Maldives Islands—praises Bhaktipada:
“In 1971, Srila Prabhupada instructed me to develop the Mayapur project. ‘I have given you the Kingdom of God!’ Srila Prabhupada told me. ‘Now develop it.’ So I went there, but one man couldn’t do it. So they sent Bhavananda, but two men couldn’t do it. So they sent the whole GBC, but during this time Srila Bhaktipada had already constructed the Palace singlehandedly. When I fly around America, people always ask me, ‘Don’t you have a palace in the hills somewhere?’”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 3, pp. 281-282.
Jayapataka Swami Acharyapada
September 4, 1984: On this date in history, Bhaktipada’s Vyasa Puja book is published in commemoration of his 47th Appearance Day, and in the book appears an offering from Sulochan dasa ACBSP (Steve Bryant), whose wife had been given diksa by Bhaktipada four years earlier without his permission. In Sulochan's offering, he honestly admits that he is unsteady and a “veteran fault finder.” He also expresses what appears to be genuine appreciation for the Brijabasis, whom he considers “advanced devotees.” He implies that he is having problems and wants to leave. He admits that he hasn’t “sufficient intelligence” to stay at New Vrindaban; but he begs the devotees to preach to him and even tie him up with ropes or put sugar in his gas tank if necessary—anything to make him remain at New Vrindaban and adopt the Brijabasi spirit.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) Sulochan left New Vrindaban for good three months earlier, in June 1984, after being bullied and knocked on the ground during a "friendly" basketball game by Kuladri's thugs. In May 1986 he is murdered by a disciple of Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada.
For more about this topic, see Killing For Krishna, p. 23.
Sulochan dasa Brahmachari offers aroti to Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra, the presiding deities of the New Vrindaban Bahulaban temple (c. 1975)
September 4, 1989: On this date in history, cellist Susan Kemper, a friend of New Vrindaban who teaches English at Ohio State University in Newark, Ohio, performs in recital at New Vrindaban during the annual Labor Day festival. The author, serving at the time as New Vrindaban’s Minister of Music, accompanies her on the temple’s Allen organ.
Kemper’s program consists of works by Domenico Scarlatti, J. S. Bach, Benedetto Marcello, Jean-Baptiste Bréval, Claude Debussy, Camille Saint-Saëns and Ralph Vaughan Williams. The Wheeling News Register and Moundsville Daily Echo newspapers print articles about the event. Bhaktipada attends the concert and suggests that I organize a concert series of classical music at New Vrindaban.
Thus Music at the Palace is born. During the first year of the series (1990) six recitals were scheduled from May through August at the Palace.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 8, p. 107.
Cellist Susan Kemper performed several times for Music at the Palace.
September 4, 2021: On this date in history, the author receives a blurb from a colleague who proofread Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4: Deviations in the Dhama:
“If you’re looking for a book that minimizes or excuses New Vrindaban’s history with women and children, this is not that book. This book tells the true story.”
Nori J. Muster (formerly Nandini dasi),
author of Betrayal of the Spirit and Child of the Cult
Phoenix, Arizona
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4.
Nori J. Muster, formerly Nandini devi dasi.
September 5, 1888: On this date in history, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnayya (later known as Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan), an Indian academician, philosopher and statesman who served as the President of India from 1962 to 1967, is born in what is now the Tiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu. In April 1909, Radhakrishnan was appointed to the Department of Philosophy at the Madras Presidency College. Thereafter, in 1918, he was selected as Professor of Philosophy by the University of Mysore, where he taught at its Maharaja’s College, Mysore. In 1921 he was appointed as a professor in philosophy to occupy the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta. Between 1918 and 1968 he wrote eighteen scholarly books about Hinduism, including Indian Philosophy, published by Oxford University Press in 1923. In 1948, his 388-page English translation of Bhagavad-gita with introductory essay and notes was published by Harper Torch Books of India.
When Bhaktivedanta Swami came to the United States and delivered Bhagavad-gita lectures at his Matchless Gifts 26 Second Avenue storefront in 1966, he recited verses from Dr. Radhakrishnan's Gita. But Swamiji was not happy with Dr. Radhakrishnan’s commentary, which he considered contaminated by impersonalist or Mayavadi ideas. Bhaktivedanta Swami wanted to write his own version of Bhagavad-gita, from the perspective of the Gaudiya Vaishnavas, who regard the personal manifestation of Sri Krishna to be higher than the impersonal conception of the absolute truth.
Bhaktivedanta Swami was fortunate in that one of his first disciples was a fine English editor: Hayagriva dasa (Howard M. Wheeler), who previously had taught English at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Hayagriva was a skilled editor, and began working on Swamiji’s manuscripts only a week after first meeting his spiritual master in July 1966. Swamiji affectionately called his editor disciple “Professor Wheeler.”
However, Bhaktivedanta Swami (he was not yet known as “Prabhupada–) wanted to publish his Gita as quickly as possible, and therefore he cut a few corners which can hardly be considered “scholarly.” For instance, Bhaktivedanta Swami instructed his editor to steal the English translation of the Bhagavad-gita by Dr. Radhakrishnan which had been published 20 years earlier. Hayagriva explained in his 1985 book, The Hare Krishna Explosion:
Swamiji finally tires of my consulting him about Bhagavad-gita verses. “Just copy the verses from some other translation,” he tells me, discarding the whole matter with a wave of his hand. “The verses aren’t important. There are so many translations, more or less accurate, and the Sanskrit is always there. It’s my purports that are important. Concentrate on the purports. There are so many nonsense purports like Radhakrishnan’s and Gandhi’s, and Nikhilananda’s. What is lacking is these Vaishnava purports in the preaching line of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. That is what is lacking in English. That is what is lacking in the world.”
“I can’t just copy others,” I say.
“There is no harm.”
“But that’s plagiarism.̵”
“How’s that? They are Krishna’s words. Krishna’s words are clear, like the sun. Just these rascal commentators have diverted the meaning by saying ‘Not to Krishna.’ So my purports are saying ‘To Krishna.’ That is the only difference.”
The translations of many stanzas of Bhaktivedanta Swami’s first edition of his Bhagavad-gita appear to have been lifted, or adapted from Radhakrishnan’s translation. When Bhaktivedanta Swami, in his translating work, came across passages in Radhakrishnan’s book that didn’t fit his own views, he produced vigorous attacks on “certain Mayavadins,” who always remained unnamed.
Yes, of course, Bhaktivedanta Swami would not dare to mention Dr. Radhakrishnan by name in his book, because if he did, the publisher of Dr. Radhakrishnan’s Bhagavad-gita might have more closely inspected Bhaktivedanta Swami’s edition, and upon seeing the plagiarism, sued Bhaktivedanta Swami for stealing from Dr. Radhakrishnan’s work without giving the actual author due credit.
For more about this topic, see The Guru, Mayavadins and Women.
Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
The cover of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan's Bhagavad-gita
September 5, 1967: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami shows confidence in his new sannyasa disciple. In a letter to Umapati, he writes, “Kirtanananda is now a fully Krishna conscious person as he has accepted sannyasa on the birthday of Lord Krishna with great success. He is the first sannyasa in my spiritual family and I hope he will return back home to begin preaching work with great vigor and success.”
Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja (he was not yet accepted the honorary title “Prabhupada” yet) changed his tune pretty quickly when his “fully Krishna conscious . . . first sannyasa in my spiritual family” turned rogue and Swamiji wrote, “Kirtanananda is a crazy man. That is proved.” (letter November 9, 1967).
Yet eight months later, when Kirtanananda groveled at his master’s feet, apologized, Prabhupada told Brahmananda, “Let us forget about our past incidences with Hayagriva and Kirtanananda. . . Please be brotherly with Hayagriva and Kirtanananda. They have come back with sincerity.” (letter July 29, 1968)
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1, p. 226.
Bhaktivedanta Swami and Kirtanananda dasa Brahmachari at 26 Second Avenue, New York City.
September 5, 1968: On this date in history, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada sends Brahmananda (Bruce Scharf), a senior disciple and president of New York ISKCON, to West Virginia to inspect the New Vrindaban premises and make sure Kirtanananda and Hayagriva are following Prabhupada's program strictly. When Brahmananda returns to New York City and presents a favorable report to his spiritual master, Prabhupada approves ISKCON’s first farm project.
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 42, p. 66.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Brahmananda Swami
Brahmananda Swami and Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Brahmananda and Kirtanananda dance while Swamiji leads kirtan at Thompkins Square Park (c. October 1966)
September 5, 1985: On this date in history, New Vrindaban News publishes an article which reveals the “high regard” children were held at the community in the mid-1970s. Kunti devi dasi (Susan Pritchard) relates:
In the spring of 1976, after a typical day doing my service at New Vrindaban, I went to the nursery to pick up my eight-month-old son. As I approached, I could see both the teacher and the nursery manager (Advaita) had very worried looks on their faces. In a very serious tone, Advaita told me, “We have some bad news. [Your son] KP swallowed one of Ishani’s crystals, and spit up some blood. I went to Bhaktipada and he said you should check his stool every day for three days. If after three days he hasn’t passed the crystal”—he stopped, looked at me very soberly, took a deep breath, and delivered Bhaktipada’s instruction—“you’ll have to pay for it.”
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 4, p. 246.
September 5, 2021: On this date in history, a reader writes a review of “Gold, Guns and God,” Vol. 1 on Amazon:
Five Stars—A Spiritual Criminal
Overall, Kirtanananda “Swami” is an extremely confusing study both devotionally and morally. He was very intelligent and convincing as far as Krishna consciousness is concerned. And there is no question that he was very dear to his guru, Srila Prabhupada, at least during periods of Srila Prabhupada’s manifest presence prior to 1978. Yet, the author paints a very detailed picture of his ambition, something Srila Prabhupada was largely able to control through peer pressure and Kirtanananda’s emotional attachment to him. Of course, his positives are contrasted with this and his homosexual promiscuity, the level of which most readers will not be able to imagine. The author also provides some evidence that, even as a devotee and “Swami” under strict vows, this only ceased for brief periods.
Being also a product of the 1960s, Kirtanananda was the type of hippie who others admired. He went to India on a spiritual search and otherwise exemplified the counterculture. He was the first American to commit pretty wholeheartedly to his guru’s otherwise foreign, Indian cultural demands for his disciples. Although many, in the light of his later life’s scandals, pretense and audacity, will see his early superlatives as little more than a prelude to his later self-absorbed ambition, there are a number of testimonies from others of his example and guidance. The author highlights a quote by Lord Krishna from the Mahabharata at the book’s beginning, “No good man is entirely good; no bad man is entirely bad.” Kirtanananda more than fits the bill. It is hard to refute his positives.
Rather than thoroughly condemn him, something I have been inclined to do many times in the past, I found myself wondering what might possess myself if I found myself in the prominent and privileged position he achieved in his guru’s society so early. In terms of Krishna conscious philosophy, it seems clear that Kirtanananda had been a disciple of some Vaishnava (Vishnu worshiper) or quasi-Vaishnava guru in a past life. It may have been Srila Prabhupada. However, his early offenses in this life are also detailed at the end of Vol. 1, and his overall saga through the following books will bring out that many more.
Kirtanananda was, in the end, a charlatan’s charlatan. In many ways he set the substandard for so many of the other Hare Krishna movement so-called guru cheaters, a paradigm which has ruined so many both spiritually and emotionally, at least for a number of their years. It is debatable as to whether Srila Prabhupada’s good will was there for him at the time of death. These books would be better classified in the true-crime genre.
Eric Johanson, formerly Vrindaban Chandra Swami,
a former disciple of Hansadutta
Moab, Utah
For more about this topic, see Gold, Guns and God, Vol. 1.
Bhakta Eric Johanson
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