Oh yes, it's true. PJ was the Boston temple president for a period of time during the mid-seventies and heard about the GBC's machinations directly, as here was
there, in Mayapur, with Prabhupada at the time in '75. I totally, 100% believe him. PJ does not have the internet at his house, otherwise he'd probably tell you all about it himself.
"You have to understand that in my mind, it wasn't murder. It was dispatching an undesirable element from the community"
--Thomas Drescher (Tirtha)[
www.culteducation.com]
And it's even more incredible that ACB himself did not immediately fire them from their positions for even considering such a thing as an assassination???
I asked PJ about that very point. His response was that Prabhupada by that point ('75/'76) had more or less completely turned ISKCON over to the GBC and had a much more "hands off" leadership role, in terms of directly handling day-to-day affairs, internal politics, and such then he had had previously. So Prabhupada did not necessarily know what the GBC were up to in all respects at the time. The GBC, in fact, kept Prabhupada in the dark about a lot of things and directly disregarded many things that Prabhupada told them to do (and, of course, things he told them not to do). Somebody else (who was equally panicked about what was going on) came and told him about what the GBC were up to in terms of how they planned to "handle" Chris Butler and at that point Prabhupada "stepped in".
But why didn't he fire the conspirators? PJ didn't answer that directly and I do not know. I guess that that is a matter of conjecture and we'll talk about it the next time I see him.
Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 07/09/2008 12:41PM by zeuszor.