Podcast transcription:
The Covert Non-Compliance That Ruined ISKCON
by Kailäsa Candra däsa
HARIÙ OÀ NAMAÙ
“The ripened fruit is not dropped all of a sudden from the highest planet of Kåñëaloka. Rather, it has come down carefully through the chain of disciplic succession without change or disturbance.” 1
“In the Upaniñads it is stated, therefore, that the path of spiritual realization is just like the sharp edge of a razor. The example is very appropriate. One shaves his cheeks with a sharp razor very nicely, but as soon as his attention is diverted from the activity, he immediately cuts his cheek, because he mishandles the razor.” 2
All of you listening to and/or reading this presentation have experienced—or are still experiencing–a deep and haunting feeling that something is very problematic in Prabhupäda’s branch of the Hare Kåñëa movement of Kåñëa consciousness. Some of you may believe that the problems can be eradicated via concerted effort, and, concomitantly, that constructive criticism–followed by rectification in accordance with it–will eventually re-pave the way to make the movement right again.
Some of you may believe that its Deity worship is great. You think that its melding into the Hindu diaspora (entailing many compromises) is a spiritual strategy that can produce real advancement for those active in the cult, and, to some degree, even for those connected to its fringe.
“Unfortunately, there are many so-called followers of Caitanya Mahäprabhu who are satisfied simply to construct a temple, make a show of the Deities, collect some funds . . . The Age of Kali is so strong that it affects even the so-called followers of Lord Caitanya.” 3
You believe that it is a movement with international scope and outreach. You may believe it is spreading Kåñëa consciousness and has gurus producing legitimately initiated disciples. You have faith that, after this difficult impasse, it will take up the mantle of spreading the Holy Name to every town and village. You hope that its contamination, although that today bothers you, can be overcome by reform.
None of this syrupy sentiment and misplaced faith has any real value. The “ISKCON” narrative is shot through with falsity, mistaken knowledge, show-bottle Deity worship, and major deviations from the teachings, process, and strictures of guru-parampara. The cult has created a Gordian Knot that has spawned off two other deviations from it. 4 All of this is too bewildering for many devotees to handle.
However, for those of you interested in the spiritual science of theistic transcendentalism, you know very well that all of it must be confronted, laid threadbare, and resolved. This entails understanding where, when, and how that broken arrow, “ISKCON,” went off the rails, and sentiment is of no value here but is instead counter-productive.
Although the superficiality of their presentations can appear to entail eternity, knowledge, and bliss . . . sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows is not how these three deviations are playing out. They will not lead to spiritual advancement for anyone who gets sucked into their vortices. Nevertheless, although it is not the darkest of the bunch, it is “ISKCON” that requires our focus at this time, because, due to its spread, it is ultimately the most dangerous of the lot.
As many of you know, Prabhupäda warned that the great danger was deviation from within via creating factions.
“The test of our actual dedication and sincerity to serve the spiritual master will be in this mutual cooperative spirit to push on this movement and not make factions and deviate.” 5
“Personally, I wish all the existing G.B.C. may be trained up so perfectly that in the future in my absence they can manage the whole Society very nicely and strongly. That is my desire. At least in this stage of my life, it is not at all desirable that there be any factions amongst yourselves.” 6
Historically, there were three efforts to create factions in the incipient stage of Prabhupäda’s movement. Interestingly enough, each one doubled the other in terms of the number of devotees implicated, all of which were overcome by Prabhupäda through various means. We begin in the late Sixties with the faction led by two of the first men to join his fledgling movement in the mid-Sixties: Kértanänanda and Hayagréva.
They were homosexual buddies from college days and were obviously close. They went to India together, so they had a smattering of Eastern orientation when they first contacted Prabhupäda. Kértanänanda accompanied Prabhupäda back to India as his personal servant after his first heart attack. Kértanänanda did not like India, but Prabhupäda gave him sannyasa and an assignment in London.
Kértanänanda changed planes at Heathrow, neglected his duty, and returned to N.Y.C. with a whole new plan for how he and his godbrothers should now run the Kåñëa movement. This gave Prabhupäda, in his own words in a letter to that center, “a great shock.”
Prabhupäda called Kértanänanda “a crazy man,” and opined that he should be sent back to an insane asylum that had been his D.O.M.icile some few years previously. Only Havagréva bought into Kértanänanda’s proposals, so the threat turned out to be minimal. It appears that Prabhupäda excommunicated at least one of them:
“Kértanänanda may be eager to address in the Harvard University, but recently he has lost his link on account of disobedience. . . Very recently, Kértanänanda has developed a different consciousness of Maya which is called misuse of one’s minute independence offered by Krishna.” 7
This one went down in the late Sixties, and then we come to 1970. The movement survived that first speed bump, but Prabhupäda had to intervene to make sure of that. The next one in 1970 doubled the danger both in numbers and possible repercussions.
Four prominent leaders came to wrong conclusions, and they began preaching upon the mistaken knowledge. These men were the first temple president of ISKCON, Brahmananda, his brother Gargamuni, the charismatic Visnujana, the best kirtan and bhajan man in the movement, and Subal das, who could single-handedly open centers.
Their propaganda was that Prabhupäda was not a servant of God but was actually God Himself. According to the four, he was displeased with all of his disciples and was on the verge of withdrawing from the movement due to that displeasure. The solution to this alleged problem was to consolidate all of the American temples into one center.
They selected Greenwich Village in New York City as the site for this scheme. So that God could not interfere with their plans, they locked Prabhupäda into his room at the Los Angeles center. Some say that it was in Baltimore, but your host speaker inclines toward it being at the La Cianega center in Los Angeles. It constituted a crisis, and Prabhupäda once again was forced to counter it.
One of the ways he did so was by forming a governing body in July of 1970. It consisted of twelve of his leading secretaries at the time. He wanted this body to be advisors to his temple presidents, not controllers of them. All of the temple presidents were either unmarried or householders. Prabhupäda wanted sannyäsés to act separately from the temple presidents as preachers and not as managers.
Since the governing body would consist entirely of former temple presidents and would be advising them, he wanted them also to be predominantly householders, not sannyäsés. As such, its charter, the governing document of this new body—which was called the Direction of Management—he appointed eleven householders and one unmarried leading secretary, who soon married afterwards. No sannyäsés were appointed to the governing body, and that was by design.
Another possible misconception would be the use of the word “governing” in the title of this new body of advisors. This is easily eradicated by understanding the historical fact that Prabhupäda’s guru-mahäräj had also formed a governing body in the last decade of his mission in India. It was called the Governing Body Commission by Siddhänta Sarasväté, and he took that title directly from the entity which governed the Indian railroads. As such, Prabhupäda simply used the same title for his entity.
The governing charter of this advisory commission was and is known as The Direction of Management or, according to its acronym, the D.O.M.. The D.O.M. was a charter that contained what were called Particulars. Here is what the charter said about sannyäsés being separate from the Commish:
“The Sannyäsés will travel to our different centers for preaching purpose as well as enlightening the members of the center for spiritual advancement. The Sannyäsés will suggest for opening new centers in suitable places and the G.B.C. will take action on it.”
Keep this in mind as we proceed. The ISKCON centers were listed near the very beginning of the D.O.M. and, closely following, were the names of the twelve leading secretaries first appointed to it. The last named appointee was that unmarried man. The first Particular clearly and irrefutably establishes Prabhupäda’s authority as always superior to whatever power was granted to the Commish in the D.O.M.. Then, we come to Particulars Two and Three:
“2. His Divine Grace will select the initial 12 members of the G.B.C.. In the succeeding years the G.B.C. will be elected by a vote of all Temple presidents who will vote for 8 from a ballot of all Temple presidents, which may also include any secretary who is in charge of a Temple. Those 8 with the greatest number of votes will be members for the next term of G.B.C.. Çréla Prabhupäda will choose to retain four commissioners. In the event of Çréla Prabhupäda’s absence, the retiring members will decide which four will remain.
3. The commissioners will serve for a period of 3 years, and they may be re-elected at the end of this period.”
As we can readily see here, Prabhupäda wanted the regulating instrument of his governing body—its charter, known as the D.O.M.—to include an integral system of checks and balances. The first check was his supreme authority over the Commish itself. The second check was a system of regular voting at three year intervals in which the temple presidents of all the centers in the world had a fiduciary responsibility to decide eight of its next members for the next three-year interval.
Please note: This was never at any time enacted. There are many reasons for this, and these will be described as our presentation continues. One of the chief reasons why these Particulars, which are in the form of a mandate and were a chief and integral component of the D.O.M., was never acted upon was because none of the temple presidents were even informed of this fiduciary responsibility. In point of fact, hardly any of them even knew that the D.O.M. existed, what to speak of its contents.
Now, let us give the credit (of this otherwise disastrous entity known as the G.B.C.) its due. Prabhupäda used it in 1970 in order to put out that brush fire the four rebels had ignited when they had locked Prabhupäda in his quarters and decided, on their own “authority,” to preach that the ISKCON movement should be centralized to Greenwich Village.
Some of the more powerful original members of the G.B.C. arranged to meet with Prabhupäda, and he easily convinced them that he was against what the radical four were trying to accomplish, as well as all of the nonsense they were preaching. As such, the G.B.C. men acted on this and reversed the tide. This led to the four men being forced to surrender to Prabhupäda (at least, to some extent) and give up their campaign. It was inspired by Prabhupäda’s constant enemies, the majority of his elder godbrothers in India:
“Regarding the poisonous effect in our Society, it is a fact, and I know wherefrom this poison tree has sprung up and how it affected practically the whole Society in a very dangerous form. But it does not matter. . . the poison administered to our Society will not act if some of our students are as good as Prahlada Maharaja. I have therefore given the administrative power to the Governing Body Commission.” 8
Although comparing neophyte commissioners to Prahlada was a stretch (and nothing more than encouragement), the fact of the matter was that the governing body did extinguish the fire lit by the four rebels. In doing so, Prabhupäda decided to forgive them and keep them in the fold. He gave all four of them sannyasa and instructed them to separate from each other and open centers in different regions of America.
After this close call, things proceeded well for the rest of 1970-1971, and the movement grew in both numbers and spiritual power. Many new centers were opened. It appeared to be blue skies until early 1972, when a very dark cloud entered. This darkness was initiated by eight of the twelve remaining members of the Governing Body Commission, and ironically, it focused upon another centralization scheme.
First it was two, Kértanänanda and Hayagréva. Then, it was double that to four, the above-mentioned four rebels, all of whom were scattered and took sannyäsa. Now it was double that to eight. These eight commissioners conducted an ad hoc meeting in New York City in the late winter of 1972 in order to attempt another change as to how the movement was to be run. When His Divine Grace heard about it, he wrote as follows:
“I beg to inform you that recently some of the Governing Body Commission members held a meeting at New York on 25th through 28th March, 1972, and they have sent me a big big minutes, duplicated, for my consideration and approval, but in the meantime they have decided some appointments without consulting me. One of the items which struck me very much is as follows: ‘Atreya Rsi das was selected to be the Secretary for G.B.C. and receive all correspondence including monthly reports.’
I never appointed Atreya Rsi member of the G.B.C., and I do not know how he can be appointed Secretary to G.B.C. without my sanction. ‘He was also appointed to be on the Management Committee with Karandhara for the purpose of supervising ISKCON business and implementing the decisions reached by G.B.C..’ This has very much disturbed me. Sriman Atreya Rsi das may be very expert, but without my say, he has been given so much power, and this has upset my brain.
I also understand that immediate actions are going to take place even prior to my permission, and that, also, ‘without divulging to the devotees(!)’
I do not follow exactly what is the motive of the so-called G.B.C. meeting, therefore I have sent the telegram which you will find attached herewith, and I have received the replies as well. . . I AUTHORIZE YOU TO DISREGARD FOR THE TIME BEING ANY DECISION FROM THE G.B.C. MEN UNTIL MY FURTHER INSTRUCTION.” 9
The gist of this debacle was another takeover attempt led by Karändhar and Hansadutta, primarily. As you can see from the text, Atreya Rishi was integral to the scheme. It was meant to centralize men and collected funds, so that movement expenses were kept minimal and not spent on field operations and expansion. Instead, all excess funds—which would be substantial—were to be placed in equities at a major investment house managed by Atreya for the purpose of maximum profits.
Prabhupäda said that he did not follow the motive, but the motive was and remains obvious: Another change . . . this time by the governing body itself. The scheme involved appointing Atreya to Secretary of the G.B.C., a post conjured out of thin air. All the power, from one perspective, got shifted to Atreya. Prabhupäda noted that in the excerpt.
Eight commissioners convened. Prabhupäda and the other four commissioners were not only not invited to it but were not even informed of it. Once he got wind of it, Prabhupäda acted: He suspended the G.B.C., which at that point had become a broken arrow. He moved all of the management power back to the temple presidents.
This rebellion was more than a tempest in the ISKCON teapot. It would have radically changed the mission. It would have subverted ISKCON into an entity meant for something other than educating and empowering all of his disciples to become regular gurus. Had this scheme gone through, the whole ISKCON paradigm would have been radically altered.
TATTVAMASI
It also proved beyond doubt that the G.B.C. was anything but a pure or an infallible entity or even an entity that was dedicated to Prabhupäda. It had changed for the worse since its creation a mere two years previously. It would have murdered the very essence of Prabhupäda’s Hare Kåñëa movement of Kåñëa consciousness had the centralization prevailed. Later that same year, Prabhupäda mentioned this hijack attempt in a letter to Karändhar, verifying how dangerous his scheme had been:
“Do not centralize anything. Each temple must remain independent and self-sufficient. That was my plan from the very beginning, why you are thinking otherwise? Once before you wanted to do something centralizing with your G.B.C. meeting, and if I did not interfere, the whole thing would have been killed. Do not think in this way of big corporation, big credits, centralization—these are all nonsense proposals.” 10
As aforementioned, this threat went down and was overcome in early 1972. Something important was supposed to be coming up by no later than mid-1973: The vote by all the temple presidents as to who would—and, just as importantly, who would not—remain members of the Commish during its second phase (so to speak) after the vote was tallied. More or less, the most of them could be flushed, but almost no rank-and-file devotees knew about the close call of the 1972 centralization scheme.
The temple presidents knew, because Prabhupäda warned them about it. He informed them that they were to disregard G.B.C. orders—which meant disregard its former power, which he then took away—but the devotees at large did not know about it. As it turned out, your host speaker was at a center in Madison, Wisconsin which was thriving. It got wrapped up, along with Chicago, Columbus, and Cleveland. Everything was centralized to where that zone’s G.B.C., one of the eight, resided in Detroit.
That the temple presidents knew is one thing, but they did not share the knowledge, including the fact that Prabhupäda suspended the G.B.C. for some length of time, proving in the process that it was anything but absolute. In point of fact, it had become all about control and power in the ISKCON hierarchical pyramid, instead of a genuine Commission meant to advise and enthuse the presidents of the centers. Keep this in mind as we proceed, because it did get worse.
Another ominous development within the G.B.C. (in the early Seventies after its creation) was the disturbing fact—and again, based upon the individual ambition of some of its members (read, most of them) for power and control—was that some of them ditched their wives and household responsibilities in order to take sannyasa. At least five did so.
By doing that, they now were equal to the preachers while still increasing their bureaucratic and organizational power. Technically, they could say that they were advisors to the presidents and favored them, but practically such was not the case. Can we know this? We can know it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Why? Because, as the movement moved into the horrific year (for ISKCON and its purity) of 1973, the G.B.C. had not informed any of the presidents of their fiduciary duty to rinse and remove G.B.C. members by no later than July of that year.
The important thing to note at this point in our presentation is that the movement was changing, and it was changing for the worse. The devotees were being stratified much like was the case in the Soviet Union, into only managers and workers. The real workers were not the G.B.C., but they were meant to become regular gurus, not serfs:
“Regarding your questions you say that amongst the elder disciples there are still symptoms of greed, anger, strife, bickering, etc., but you are one of them. You are one of the old students, so you fall in that group. So, the fighting is among that group, but not amongst the real workers. . . We should never give up our duty. My godbrothers always discouraged me, but I did not give up. I am doing my duty and always keeping my spiritual master in front. Even there is some difficulty or hardship, or even my godbrothers may not cooperate or there may be fighting, still, I must perform my duty to my spiritual master . . .” 11
All of Prabhupäda’s disciples were meant to become madhyam-adhikaris, fixed in firm faith, and qualified to receive his order to become regular gurus in order to initiate their own disciples, linking them to the guru-parampara. However, with the social and cultural engineering that the vitiated G.B.C. was insidiously embarking on, it had no impetus to train the devotees in that way. Nor did the temple presidents. They wanted power, and the G.B.C. wanted to then control the presidents. This was the degradation that was happening in the early Seventies. The real workers were fully dedicated without ulterior motive, but they were mostly working under commissioners, some presidents, and some sannyäsés who were personally ambitious.
Ambitious to control and exploit the real workers. This inevitably led to fighting amongst those leaders, all of whom tried to get to the top of the turtle tank on the backs of those they could overcome in the battle for institutional and personal supremacy. That is how the ISKCON social engineering got its start. Instead of training and creating the honest, self-sufficient, knowledgeable, and powerful men who joined the movement after them, they kept those workers under the oppression of a power pyramid with the serfs at the base supplying revenue.
The whole thing lurched into this abysmal pit by the end of 1973. Two things transpired in that year, but one of them was not something that actually took place. This may seem a bit contradictory, but it is not difficult to understand. Your host speaker has already informed you that the initial commissioners had not informed the presidents of their fiduciary duty to vote every three years for new commissioners and/or approve current ones. That three-year window was up in mid-1973.
However, as most of you know, the vote never took place. It never even came close to taking place. It was never discussed. The G.B.C.s at that time saw neglecting it as only a way in which they could avoid being shoved down the power pyramid. The presidents remained ignorant of their duty in this connection, and the Commish made sure of it. The thing was the non-event; it was dereliction of duty on the part of every individual commissioner, as well as the governing body as a whole.
The G.B.C. broke the mandate of its charter. Its members disobeyed what Prabhupäda wanted for them: To be guides and advisors to the presidents, who would actually be the managers of the movement. What then transpired by mid-1973 was that the vitiated G.B.C. had become a wild-card and was doing its own thing, disregarding its checks and guard rails.
There would no longer be balance system in the institution. The G.B.C.s each had their zones, and now the replacementparadigm was firmly in entrenched. Each G.B.C. man considered himself superior to all presidents in his zone. This pride was buttressed if he had also taken sannyäsa, which, as mentioned before, many of them did.
The new ISKCON pyramid of power had Prabhupäda as the capstone but little more than a figurehead. Devotees were strongly discouraged to write to him or try to meet with him. That was, more or less, prevented. The temple presidents, if they fell for the scheme (which many, if not most, of them did) had no interest in training the devotees to become gurus. They had every interest, on the other hand, in the context of this social engineering scheme, to use them to serve their desires.
The presidents overlorded the real workers, and the G.B.C. overlorded the presidents. This was never Prabhupäda’s vision. The razor was wielded carelessly, and it cut everybody. The ripened fruit from the top of the tree was mishandled, and it was passed down in a perverted form. Everything was changed. Prabhupäda tried to thwart this momentum, however. Here is one example of his effort in this connection, which ultimately failed due to his leading secretaries determined defiance:
“G.B.C. does not mean to control a center. G.B.C. means to see that the activities of a center go on nicely. I do not know why Tamala is exercising his absolute authority. That is not the business of G.B.C.. The president, treasurer and secretary are responsible for managing the center. G.B.C. is to see that things are going nicely but not to exert absolute authority. That is not in the power of G.B.C.. . . The G.B.C. men cannot impose anything on the men of a center without consulting all of the G.B.C. members first. A G.B.C. member cannot go beyond the jurisdiction of his power.” 12
The G.B.C. was meant to be checked and reined in. It was meant to see that no center became a broken arrow, but it itself became an even worse version of the same thing. Strong headwinds were working against what Prabhupäda wanted, and the whole paradigm—which required constant and careful oversight and adherence to him—was being changed irrevocably. The non-event of failing to vote on, at least potentially, new G.B.C.s, was and remains in the category of major deviation.
However, there was one actual event that went down near the end of 1973 which also locked the changed paradigm in place:
The plainclothes pick!
This absurdity was counter-productive in the long-run, but a big money-maker short-term. The means of production was now converted into money-making and deception, ripping off the vikarmés through methods such as the change-up, bogus causes (like food for Bangladesh), and flat out lies. Even those collectors who made efforts not to prevaricate were still engaged in deception, because they were dressed to deceive. The men wore wigs and covered their neck beads and flags. The women dressed in order to project the dry hump. Nobody wore tilak, and everybody was dressed in vikarmé attire. Deception was the name of the game.
Prabhupäda did not want it, as verified in this excerpt in a letter to one of his leading secretaries:
“ . . . the devotees can dress up in respectable clothes like ladies and gentlemen in order to distribute my literatures under special circumstances, but even this program should not become widespread.”13
This order was defied. The pick, as it came to be known, was not limited to special circumstances, as it spread like wildfire all over America and Europe. It became the very thing that Prabhupäda warned that it should not become: It became prominent, along with all kinds of deceptive sales pitches, approaches, and rip-off techniques.
This was a major victory for the commissioners and presidents. Of course, they virtually never went out on the pick, but the presidents and the sannyäsé traveling parties collected the revenue and used it as they saw fit. Also included in this whole massive change to the movement was the obvious fact that no one was being trained to become guru. A guru is a self-realized brähmin, and a brähmin must eventually become a perfect man. A perfect man is a special devotee, a theistic Vaisnava fully aware of, and conversant in, the spiritual science of buddhi-yoga.
You cannot become any such thing while being engaged constantly in deception in your dress, in your approach, and in your words to the target you want to collect money from. To be constantly engaged in lying does not produce a brähmin under any circumstances.
It instead produces a rascal and a swindler, not a sädhu. And this attitude bleeds into how he or she would then deal with godbrothers and godsisters at the same level within the turtle tank. On the other hand, Prabhupäda wanted his devotees to be adored as honest:
“Regarding the controversy about book distribution techniques, you are right. Our occupation must be honest. Everyone should adore our members as honest. If we do something which is deteriorating to the popular sentiments of the public in favor of our movement, that is not good. Somehow or other, we should not become unpopular in the public eye. These dishonest methods must be stopped. It is hampering our reputation all over the world.” 14
The whole G.B.C. covert pyramid of power was a massive psy-op, and it was diabolically effective. The means of production was not even slightly conducive to producing gurus, and that’s just what the leaders at the top of the turtle tank wanted. The paradigm was designed for them to overlord the lower levels, who had not been trained to be able to even spot what was being done to them. What was going on was a completely unauthorized experiment in social and cultural engineering with a thin veneer of Eastern pseudo-spirituality covering it.
If you opine that Prabhupäda simply wanted the Direction of Management mothballed and merged into oblivion, guess again:
“Regarding the election of President, a president can only be changed by vote. If no vote was taken, then the president cannot be changed. Neither Hamsaduta can change the president whimsically or can anybody else change the president. According the Direction of Management, the G.B.C. cannot change the President but only by vote can it be done.” 15
“Regarding replacing Abhirama and Damodara I refer to the Direction of Management as follows: ‘Removal of a Temple President by G.B.C. requires support by the local Temple members.’ Therefore, you should take a vote of the temple members and do the needful.” 16
Both of these excerpts are from letters to leading secretaries during 1974, after the vote of the temple presidents (for rotation of G.B.C. members) should have transpired the previous year. The first excerpt (from a letter to Hansadutta) referenced the Direction of Management twice, but I chose not to post the second one for the purpose of concise presentation.
If the Direction of Management was to be neglected—and was converted into irrelevancy by not holding the movement-wide vote (as specified in its second and third Particulars)—then Prabhupäda would not have referenced it after July, 1973. However, he did. He did so three times in two letters to his leading secretaries. It was still the charter of the G.B.C.. It was still the document that was to regulate and check them.
And it was non-different from Prabhupäda’s actual desire.
By 1976, every center in America was collecting in plainclothes. Once the pick took over and became an ever-increasing boulder of snow rolling down the mountain (to further destroy everything that it hit), there was nothing to check the vitiated Commish. While Prabhupäda was emaciated and being poisoned 17 throughout 1977, that broken arrow, that unauthorized Commission, was irreversibly changing his movement from within. Both individually and collectively, they and it were the enemies which effectively destroyed ISKCON.
Rascals, all of them!
The colossal hoax known as the fabricated, so-called “ISKCON” confederation is a pseudo-spiritual scam. Its leading secretaries ignored the mandated vote for G.B.C. turnover, and that covertly ruined the movement. That disobedience was the root reason the vitiated Governing Body Commission was able to subvert the Hare Kåñëa movement, Prabhupäda’s branch of the Lord Caitanya tree, to the deviated entity it is now. You have no business associating with “ISKCON.” It is going to fail, one way or another, and you are therefore advised to not fall with it.
SAD EVA SAUMYA
ENDNOTES
1. Çrémad-Bhägavatam, 1.1.3, purport;
2. Çrémad-Bhägavatam, 3.26.23-24, purport;
3. Caitanya-caritämåta, Ädi, 9.47, purport;
4. Neo-Mutt and Rittvik, of course;
5. Letter to Babhru, 12-9-73;
6. Letter to Leading Secretary, 9-29-74;
7. Letter to Leading Secretary, 10-6-67;
8. Letter to Leading Secretary, 9-14-70;
9. Letter to All ISKCON Presidents, 4-8-72;
10. Letter to Leading Secretary, 12-22-72;
11. Letter to a G.B.C., 9-9-72;
12. Letter to president of Bombay center, 8-12-71;
13. Letter to a G.B.C., 2-14-73;
14. Letter to a G.B.C., 1-9-75;
15. Letter to Mukunda, 9-29-74;
16. Letter to a G.B.C., 11-7-74;
17. Statement by Prabhupäda on 10-10-77, about one month before his passing. This constitutes a smoking gun. There is a great deal of evidence that also proves the fact that he was poisoned by a coterie of his so-called leading men, led by T.K.G. However, all of it, which is overwhelming, can be categorized as somewhat circumstantial, although it constitutes plenty to prove in any court of law in the world that he was poisoned. That he was poisoned was also confirmed directly here by His Divine Grace.