Leaving this where it belongs: https://news.yahoo.com/tulsi-gabbard-running-opportunist-chief-050000403.html

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: I know a man, a second-generation Hare Krishna man, an original Dallas gurukula survivor who was severely abused there as a child (tortured, really), who needs a kidney and whose health could be restored and whose life could be extended if he can find a willing donor. I tried to donate to this man myself, but I was refused on the grounds that I have hypertension for which I take medication. So if anybody who is reading this (former ISKCON, former SOIF, whatever) is willing to even consider donating a kidney then please send me a private message and I will introduce you to this man; I'll make the introduction. Thank you for your time and attention.

ISKCON should force one of their top gurus to donate their kidney. You know, as reparations, as devotional service (giving gifts is one of the angas of bhakti!), and since they're not their body, what's the big deal?

In fact, devotees who actually care should stand outside the ISKCON temple and boycott and picket till a swami emerges with a Kidney.


Since their ignorant Prabhupada thought it wise to separate kids as young as five years old from their parents, have them wake up at 4 am, take cold showers, and chant nonsense mantras in a dark room while some "devotee" felt them up or took them behind the altar curtain and asked for a haribol blow job—it seems only right that at least one healthy vegan swami can produce a left kidney. Or is the right one better? We must consult the Dhanvantari Ayurveda at an auspicious time to find out.

Fucking clowns. RUN.

Very frankly, I think to call what these gurukula kids suffered "abuse" is accurate, but it's also a gross understatement. I think it'd be more accurate to state that these kids were TORTURED in various ways. Here's an example. I was told that these kids, toddlers, people under six years of age, were sometimes made to get inside of a large trash can and then the trash can would be filled with water. The kids would be made to tread water, in order to keep their heads above the surface, and would be warned that they'd drown if they stopped doing so. They'd be kept doing this for hours at a time, sometimes all night, being subjected to terror and sleep deprivation, and then would be made to go to mangal aarti the next morning. These kids would be beaten, too, in order to try to drive away their "lusty nature." In other words, the "senior devotees" would literally try to beat the sexuality out of these kids, even while sexually abusing some of those very children. Good God, man.

Yup. They would make them eat their vomit if they barfed up "Prashad," which was days old that they could not eat the first time. Kids were forced to sleep on the ground or, as my friend had on many occasions—a fucking running dryer machine to keep warm. Boys were regularly beaten, anally raped and forced to endure total nonsense lectures and classes that left many of them with the education and mental and emotional development of kindergartners by the time they were adults.

And that's "some" of the known bad abuses. But the rest, all of it, was traumatic, unnecessary abuse daily for YEARS. The only thing the kids knew as "good" was a picture of some old Indian guru man on the altar and a pair of plastic statues dressed in gaudy clothes. They were forced to bend down as they peeked sideways, waiting for when they could lift their head.

IDIOCY OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. There is no way to slice it one way or another. It's the epitome of human failure and degradation of the mind. Kids are robbed of that basic right to critical thinking and self-exploration. Instead, their brains were poured into a hare Krishna mold, and everyone waited for it to harden. A destroyed generation. The path to hell is indeed paved with good intentions.

RUN.

The man I am trying to help find a kidney, was a hardcore IV drug user and alcoholic who was forced to get sober after having three strokes in years(between 2018 and 2023). I met him through ex-member and second-gen Facebook circles. Today he walks with a cane and speaks with some impediment, though he is cognizant and lucid. If you met him, you would think he is about twenty years older than he actually is (he is 52 but he looks 72). He has diabetes that he'd left untreated for many years. Last week we smoked some weed together and he told me that he wishes that he'd just been a pothead, rather than ruining his health with meth and heroin and booze. He is mostly at fault for his physical condition and he knows it. But I do not judge the man negatively over any of that. He's told me how he grew up to my face. After the Dallas gurukula got closed in 1976, he got shipped to Mayapur, and went from the frying pan into the fire. If I grew up like he grew up, if I'd suffered all that he had suffered before he was even eight years old, then I'd want to get high too, hell. And he told me that Bhavananda ought not even be allowed to wash the temple's dishes, much less be in charge of that stupid planetarium project. I just want to help save this man's life, FORREST. He's a good dude, and he lives closeby to me. He told me very disturbing things.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2024 03:47AM by XKRISHNA.

PS: that's a good point, FORREST, that you make about how some ISKCON Swami ought to donate a kidney to this man. But I will not hold my breath for that to happen. This man has very few living relatives, and his mother (a Prabhupada disciple) passed away several years ago. I've made this appeal to present-day devotees and ex-members alike. We'll see if somebody steps up. You are right: the guy in saffron (whoever he is) ought to be the first one to do so, but let's not kid ourselves: that's probably not gonna happen.

Another thing, FORREST: I've asked this man if he would be willing to be interviewed by myself, about his gurukula experiences as a youth. I've also asked him if he'd be willing to be interviewed by somebody else in our network of persons who are pushing for institutional improvement and positive change, if he would not be interviewed by myself. I've told him about the book of former-member testimonies you were writing of here a while back. But he is not willing to go on the record with anybody for a recorded interview, or even anything like that. He said that to revisit certain things in very much depth would be too much for him to bear, and I respect that. I take it as a privilege, my privilege, that he was willing to speak with me off the record and while we smoked out. We're going to hang out later this week, too, him and me. We are friends, personal friends. But he is not willing to go on the record, with anybody. The man had three strokes in five years, the last one being in 2023. He's not in good shape, physically speaking.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2024 07:36AM by XKRISHNA.

I hear ya. Of course, he turned to drugs. And the sad part is that he may get a kidney and it will solve but one small physical problem for him. What he was raised like has totally trashed his brain well before he did any meth or heroin. Many Prabhupada devotees turned to heroin and drugs or ended up being pot addicts or alcohol/cigarettes etc. Why is that? Why, if the holy name is so powerful and all purifying etc..??? Many of these people sat in the so-called holy presence of their guru and even touched his feet. So in the end, what exactly has the chanting of mantas and bowing to sculptures and reading myths done for them? Seriously. What in gods green fucking earth has it given them? Oh wait, oh wait... I go it! It gave them a sense of belonging to a group, access to food and singing and dancing... sure, yeah, all those are fun activities by any standard. But did it solve any real issues for them? For many it exasperated issues. If they had mental issues before, they were often amplified or simply put on temporary hold as they deluded themselves that rambling on beads 16 rounds or sitting through some arduous and cumbersome lecture did anything meaningful for them other than flattening their brain. 40 years later, they sit at the swami's feet and ask the same question they did 40 years ago, "Gurudev, why am I suffering? Why is my mind so agitated? When will I taste the nectar of bhakti???"...

Instead of getting help at a therapist or clinic, they think that chanting a few rounds will fix it for them. Or worse, they pray to some picture of the guru for guidance. And their thinking has become so docile and juvenile in this regard that they think the swami will wipe up their life's mess. And for many devotees it is a mess. No financial security, no career, zero education, just living one verse to the next. In the meantime, they spend their "free time" chanting on beads repeatedly and further blunting their brain. It's basically just a spiritual movement full of distractions masquerading as "transcendental" and transformative when literally NOTHING is happening. ZERO. Fucking blind leading the blind circumambulating around a dying bush.

But hey don't get me preachin'.

RUN.

Remember: this is one of Prabhupada's "Vaikuntha children" who we are talking about. His mom left ISKCON in the 1980s, and took him with her. So he's been on the fringes of ISKCON ever since.

His mother has been dead for several years but I am told that she spent her last years homeless and asking strangers on the streets for spare change. A female Prabhupada disciple, begging for change in her elderly years.

A fine job ISKCON did of providing for the women and children, huh?

It's one of the saddest things I have ever seen, man, that I have ever been made privy to. God, it's sad. Terrible, it is.