Hey just-googling,

Yea I saw where Krishna Katha das's (Mike Gabbard) daughter went off to war. That made my heart fall to my stomach.

I remember our Goswami was so much against war. He once told the story of how in High School he made a poster with two pictures on it. One was President Johnson holding up a barbequed chicken leg and the other was a napalmed innocent child in Vietnam. Everyone laughed when he said how much his teachers hated that and made him take it down.

I have no doubt what-so-ever her going to war is to give her more political credibility. It shows how full circle things went with Siddha.

I feel terrible for her and to think she most likely thinks that her military stint is service to Krishna. That is really heart-breaking.

Krishna Katha would be better off just doing what he always did best, chanting loudly the Holy Name for one and all to hear.

I always thought he was a sincere devotee. Just see what he is doing now. Shame shame shame!!!!

When I read that he sent his daughter off to war he lost my vote.

Just-Googling there is much we were kept in the dark about concerning Siddha and his supposed guru Srila Prabhupada. It was not anything like what we were told.

Yea there were people who did not like him in Iskcon but what can you expect with the way he always expected to be treated. He was already the guru before he came to Iskcon while he was in Iskcon and when he left Iskcon. But he never was disciple. His godbrothers were neophytes just like him and that is what unadvanced devotees do, they fight with each other. Srila Prabhupada was so unhappy that he chastised others for not being more humble around Siddha and he even blamed some for pushing Siddha out of Iskcon. It is all in the folio. There was no agenda to cover up the things that happened both good and bad. There was no conspiracy. Just a few loud mouthed 'want to be guru' neophyte devotees making bluffs about doing Siddha in. There was no real conspiracy. There was no agenda to make up things to discredit Siddha, he did that himself, he did enough on his own. There was no need to make up extra things.

Quote
just-googling
More reflections on the post-Siddha experience:

however, we were all thinking that Siddha was god's rep so he was above all these rules!

This is a big red flag. If that is the mentality you know you are in a cult.

The spiritual leaders of the Vaishnava religion have always taught and shown by their example that one should never feel above the rules. Example after example can be shown within the Veda to illustrate this
point.

To think one above the rules and to let others worship one as such is considered a great offense in any healthy Vaishnava environment.

I was in iskcon for 4 years from 1977-81 and then I quit and moved to hawaii. I used to hear things about the siddha group and I would see them regularly at the health food stores they run and a few times I went to their public kirtans/feasts. I remember that at the feast instead of a lecture as is usual at these types of gatherings they had a t.v. where they showed a video of siddhaswarupa. I had seen similar videos that would appear occasionally on public access t.v. in hawaii. I didn't see why people thought the guy was worthy of being accepted as a guru, his lectures to me seemed amateurish and condescending. To me he came across as a total fake, not just in the simplistic manner he would present vaishnava philosophy in, but his whole vibe seemed to me to be pulsating fakeness and egotism. I wondered how he could get people to accept him as a guru. My only idea was that it wasn't him that people were really attracted to, they were accepting and attracted to the message of the religion he was promoting in a situation where he was venerated as the "spiritual master".

In hindu traditions the role of the spiritual master or guru is the same as the role of the pope in catholicism. The guru is taught as being infallible. The guru is taught as being God's personal representative on earth. The guru is taught as being the doorway to salvation (taking birth in the heavenly world in your next life). The guru is taught as the be all and end all of a person's spiiritual life. The way to heaven is through the "mercy" of the guru. Mercy in this case meaning instructions, but oftentimes mistaken to mean other things.

With siddha's group it appears to me that the members were in 2 categories. The 1st category were the leaders, most of whom had been in iskcon before they were in siddha's group. I am sure that although they put on a good show of faith in siddha as a true blue spiritual master on the level his group promotes him as being on, I seriously doubt they believed it. The 2nd category were the followers who either truly believed in siddha or who didn't but went along with it for various reasons i.e financial or familial etc.

When I was in iskcon I saw the same thing going on. The gurus were promoted as being authentic highest level gurus by people who didn't believe it for a second, including the gurus themselves. They were maintaining a business model that required an authentic spiritual master in order to convince the hoi polloi to surrender their lives and work for them and their various schemes for wealth and power. In iskcon there were the gurus and their inner circle who tirelessly promoted the guru as an authentic guru, and there was everyone else who served them. The guru and inner circle made lot's of money off of the selfless service of the duped followers and innocent congregation. This business model was taken on after the death of Bhaktivedanta Swami.

During his life as iskcon morphed from a few dozen people into an international society with 10,000 commited followers, the leaders saw how easy it was to gain wealth through a position of power in iskcon. But they also realized that is was the guru who really controlled the purse strings. Those whom the guru made his satraps would also be in positions to exploit the society for the sake of gaining wealth. So during Bhaktivedantas life the most ambitious disciples tried to become swamis. Swamis in hindu society are like cardinals in catholicism, they are considerd to be above everyone else but your guru. You are supposed to treat them like gurus and also give them money. That is because the swami is supposed to have renounced everything in life except the teaching of vedic spiritual truth. Giving money and serving a swami is the most pious thing a hindu can do, it gains more good karma then anything else. In hindu society and in iskcon they are treated like celebrities, except that instead of paying to see a celebrities movie or concert you pay the swami out of religious duty. So in iskcon swamis were second in power to Bhaktivdenta Swami because he was modeling iskcon social society on the traditional hindu social situation. The swamis were the ones whom the congregation would give money to and they were the ones who headed up most of the iskcon projects and positions of society wide authority.

After Bhaktivedanta died the swamis saw an opportunity to take total control over the society in the same way that Bhaktivedanta had total control. So the top leaders split up the temples into zones where each one would have the total authority that Bhaktivedanta had over their particular zone or part of the world. They each had satraps e.g. other lesser swamis and temple presidents. They used the same business model that isckon operated under during Bhaktivedantas time i.e. the guru is a pope figure whom everyone needs to submit to if they want to please god and go to heaven, which is actually the religious teaching of the tradition.

So each guru was promoted by leaders in positions of power as being on the same level as Bhaktivedanta i.e a true authentic spiritual master pope figure. The result was as they had planned i.e the gurus and their satraps gained great wealth from the selfless work of the hoi polloi and donations from the wealthy indian and non-indian congregations. New people were taught that the gurus were authentic spiritual masters worthy of being treated in the way the scriptures say a guru should be treated. It still goes on like this, more or less, today.

With siddha's group what happened is that siddha and the leaders of his group were swamis in iskcon. But they were not the big leaders of iskcon. Power under Bhaktivedanta was jealously guarded by the elder leaders. They knew that when Bhaktivedanta died that there would be a great deal of wealth and power to be gained by those who were in power when he died. The old guard did not like siddha at all. Unlike them he was a newcomer who had a following before he joined iskcon and they joined iskcon with him. They loathed him as a newcomer, they feared him taking what they saw as rightfully their own i.e positions of power. So they treated him harshly, they even threatened him with violence, they didn't want him around because they were all set up to take over iskcon when Bhaktivedanta died. Siddha got the message and left iskcon in fear of being physically attacked.

But he had his following and he proceeded to set himself up in the same exact way that the iskcon gurus were going to do in due course of time. He and his satrap swamis promoted him as an authentic spiritual master pope figure in the same spiritual tradition as Bhaktivedanta. This was the same business model that the iskcon gurus were planning on setting up.

I call it a business model because that is really what it is. They learned from Bhaktivedanta's success that the gaudiya (hare krishna) tradition and religion had an eager market outside of India. These people, including siddha and his satraps who promoted him, were in it for the money and power. They are very very good at being professional "spiritual leaders". They know how to fake sincerity and they know how to con people into accepting them as authentic spiritual masters deserving of the respect that the tradition demands to be given to a guru. They went to school to learn how to do it i.e they spent time in iskcon studying and learning the religious literature, how to organize the religion, and how to preach and convert others, and how to convince others that you are a true representative of the religion or even a guru worthy of being seen as a pope like figure.

So when I first encountered siddha and his group it was like deja vu all over again. I saw the same thing which had prompted me to leave iskcon i.e. con artists in charge. I saw the same dynamic at play as well. The followers were sincere but were being conned by people who had learned how to use the religious teachings for their benefit at the expense of others. I saw right through siddha the first time I saw a video lecture on public access t.v. He clearly had no real deep spiritual realization or deep experience, he was parroting the simplest of teachings from Bhaktivedanta. I had seen people who were far more adept at it then he was. But the followers were caught in his net of deceit just like the followers of the gurus in iskcon. In their own minds they were being faithful to the teachings of the religion, not knowing that their "gurus" had spent years learning how to pose as gurus. They were fearful of having negative thoughts or "offending" their gurus. Hearing criticisms of their gurus would result in an angry or violent outburst. That is because the teachings of the religion warn the disciple that the guru is the only way for them to reach salvation. Offensive thought or speech or action against an authentic guru gives the worst kind of bad karma. So followers develop a concsious and unconcious fear of being offensive in their minds, what to speak of speaking or acting in a way that their guru or god will perceive as offensive. The future of your life depends on not offending a guru.

Of course the ambitious cynical exploitative personalities who learn this religion and who seek to use it to gain wealth and power over others know these things very well. They use these religious tenets as a form of mind control or emotional control over whomever they can.

When I was living on Maui I had a roomate who was a member of the siddha group. He was a professional who worked for the health food stores in a professional capacity (I wont mention what he did or his name). Ordinarily if he was working for himself or for a firm he would have made a very good living. He was upset with the group because he felt they were exploiting him by not paying him a decent wage and were taking advantage of him and his services while they were raking in the doh re me. We got to talking about siddhas group and I mentioned that the group seemed very antagonistic to iskcon. He told me that they were instructed to have nothing to do with iskcon, that iskcon forced siddha to leave out of fear of violence. I mentioned that siddha was a GBC member (governing body of iskcon) when he left iskcon and that I had heard he had a falling out with some of the leaders. Some of the other GBC members threatened siddha and told him to leave iskcon because they felt threatened by him because he was an outsider with followers and he wasn't the type to chum it up with the insiders in order to work together to profit together. Siddha saw himself as a guru who had joned iskcon and apparently he rubbed his fellow leaders the wrong way. They didn't trust him because he treated them like he was superior to them. When the leaders are together alone they treat each other like brothers in arms, like co-conspirators, when they are amongst the hoi polloi they put on airs and get pretentious and act the part of the holier then thou spiritual leader. Siddha wouldn't get chummy with the other leaders, he would act like a guru and be the pretentious spiritual leader when only the leaders were present. So they did not trust him one bit. They feared his ambition. This is what I had learned from some people who were involved intimately in that situation but who later left iskcon altogether (Jayatirtha was one source). When my roomate heard that siddha was a GBC his eyes bugged out and he got upset. He told me that siddha never told them he was a GBC in iskcon. He told me that siddha always painted himself as a victim of the GBC but never mentioned that he was also a GBC member. This person drifted away from the group eventually. He saw them as exploiting him and treating him with disrespect while making lots of money off of the health food store business he helped run.

From my impression of meeting the siddha followers at events, at their stores, etc, they seemed to be the same types of people who joined iskcon after Bhaktivedanta left and who got suckered into accepting some con man as an authentic spiritual master. They believe[ed] that they are following the teachings of the religion in their acceptance and worship of these so called gurus. The guru's satraps facilitate that delusion because they are financially invested and profit from the guru being seen as authentic and worshipable. As in iskcon the longer the con goes on the harder it is to keep old followers because the "gurus" cannot maintian the illusion indefinitely, and usually they have falling outs with their satraps who then oftentimes have bad things to say about the "guru". Or oftentimes the satraps strike out on their own to gain a following as a guru for profit.

[www.myspace.com]

I would say what maui posted was pretty right on.

Glories to the simple hearted servants of God.


This is my last post here.

Ok one more.

I am not sure Siddha was a GBC. My understanding is that Srila Prabhupada wanted him to be GBC in Honolulu but Siddha didn't want to be. There was much trouble due to SIddha having his own following and Srila Prabhpada tried to reconcile it by giving Siddha the Hawaii temple. But just like Siddha didn't want to go to India with his guru he also did not want to manage one of his temples.

That is what I heard from very reliable sources.

Bye Bye.

Quote
devadasi
I feel terrible for her and to think she most likely thinks that her military stint is service to Krishna. That is really heart-breaking.

Kind of like "Kill a Commie for Krishna"??????

Quote
maui
Offensive thought or speech or action against an authentic guru gives the worst kind of bad karma. So followers develop a concsious and unconcious fear of being offensive in their minds, what to speak of speaking or acting in a way that their guru or god will perceive as offensive. The future of your life depends on not offending a guru.

Yes, Maui, this is exactly what was happening in our minds (I wonder if this falls under the category of "Brainwashing")... I suppose the theological theory goes like this: "God has his favorite person on this planet - but if you don't get along well with him, God will punish you..." Kind of simplistic, really!

PS - I also worked on Maui for a while - I think I can guess who your room-mate was.

Some good information here now. Any substantive information about previously mentioned youth "Schools" in the Phillipines? Supposedly in remote areas. American children sent there for extended periods.

[b:961e31ec98]Maui- Great post deconstructing Siddha's M.O. and business model. (also ISKCON doesn't end with a CON for no reason!)[/b:961e31ec98]

Quote
maui

So when I first encountered siddha and his group it was like deja vu all over again. I saw the same thing which had prompted me to leave iskcon i.e. con artists in charge. I saw the same dynamic at play as well. The followers were sincere but were being conned by people who had learned how to use the religious teachings for their benefit at the expense of others. I saw right through siddha the first time I saw a video lecture on public access t.v. He clearly had no real deep spiritual realization or deep experience, he was parroting the simplest of teachings from Bhaktivedanta. I had seen people who were far more adept at it then he was. But the followers were caught in his net of deceit just like the followers of the gurus in iskcon. .

You came in after the mostly failed political campaigns (1976) and the sting of the local newspapers exposing the ruse. Most of the newspapers got info on Siddha's involvement with the "Independents for Godly Government" party from Siddha's enemies in ISKCON and others who knew about the group (since there was a pattern of ALL of the candidates being involved with Siddha!). These newspaper articles really pissed Siddha off. I don’t know how he could have been so naïve not to know he would be attacked. I offer that he has been delusional all along. He really believes himself to be a pure devotee. This coupled with native intelligence, charisma, and leadership capacities has created his empire.

After the campaigns he began his video productions and simplistic publications (e.g., The Root Cause of Crime, Homosexuality, The Reality of Reincarnation, You Are Not God, Root Cause of Divorce, False Identity Equals Bad Economy, etc.) most of which can be found on [www.iskcon.net]) These articles first appeared in his own newspapers “The Garden Aisle” (Kauai) and a Maui version (I forget the name of that paper) and “Haribol California”.

The old days of simple living and high thinking were gone. Everything had changed so much. Gone were the intimate kirtans on the beach where Vaishnavism was seriously taught and Bhaktivedanta's translations of ancient Vedic writings were actually studied! Siddha was a different man. What kept me around was waiting for the old Siddha to emerge again. But it was like “Waiting for Godot”, Samuel Beckett’s existentialist play.

Quote
maui
Of course the ambitious cynical exploitative personalities who learn this religion and who seek to use it to gain wealth and power over others know these things very well. They use these religious tenets as a form of mind control or emotional control over whomever they can.

Again I offer that Siddha really believes he is a pure devotee, but developed cynicism and contempt over time for the very system that keeps his body and soul together. By 1976 he had experienced the ISKCON nastiness (whether you are a Bhaktivedanta apologist or Siddha apologist or believe whatever version you choose, it doesn’t matter). He also had been attacked, exposed, and vilified all over the State of Hawaii in the media. Some of his trusted followers had ripped him off (embezzeled). He had a failed soft rock album and tried to go after organized crime in Hawaii (who controlled the music and tour industries) with his newspapers and by successfully getting two of his followers into the District Attorney’s Office (the arranged marriage of Rick and Carter Reed). Carter disappeared and only she can tell what really happened. Rick’s had at least one more arranged marriage since then. It was during this time that the paranoia and seclusion really set in. Siddha even had a trap door placed in his bedroom closet with an escape hatch that led to an exit into the jungle under his house on Maui!

His hardcore followers stayed around, but many left after the burn out of the campaigns. For Siddha, familiarity breeds contempt. He needed fresh blood. He traveled to China, New Zealand and the Phillipines to recruit more followers and start new projects. He launched Kathy Hoshijo’s vegetarian cooking show which aired on PBS. She published a cookbook whose recipes were written mostly by other followers. Kathy just ran the test kitchen and put in a few recipes. The layout, design, and illustrations and many of the editorial ideas came from a lady who did not get a dime from the cookbook. She had a day job (probably tithed) and didn’t even get room and board. The same went for the team that worked on all of the publications and video projects. Guys were sleeping in the attic of the “Warehouse” (where the video productions and print publications were made) hidden behind ceiling panels in case inspectors appeared! They tried to make a business, but I don’t know if it made any money doing outside jobs.

Again, people were stressed and weren’t getting along. Vaishnava dasi appeared and the isolation became more intense. Face masks began to be required for cooks and servers. People were yelling at each other about what Siddha wants. Trickle down effect. I like the quote from Leonard Cohen who spent many years as a Zen monk in a monastery, “I hated everyone, but acted generously, and no one found me out.” That was me. Actually, I liked a lot of people. But there was no space for friendship.

About a week before I left without saying a word I somehow got to see Siddha. It was so
strange. We had spent many years and good times together. He sat there and spoke to me as if he had never met me. He didn’t seem to remember me. He had become so frail. His light was gone.

Quote
maui
When I was living on Maui I had a roomate who was a member of the siddha group. He was a professional who worked for the health food stores in a professional capacity (I won’t mention what he did or his name). Ordinarily if he was working for himself or for a firm he would have made a very good living. He was upset with the group because he felt they were exploiting him by not paying him a decent wage and were taking advantage of him and his services while they were raking in the doh re me.

Absolutely true. But he knew what the deal was. We volunteered to check our common sense at the door and let ourselves be exploited. We are also guilty of trying to bask in the glow of the guru and suck his energy and get attention just as he was living off and sucking us. We are also guilty of our own jealousy and ambition to get close to the “charismatic one” or maybe becoming like him as Katyayani has done; running another guru scam (Pa-leez - god's incarnation of his mother in the spirit world?!). Many of us did drugs prior to our involvement with Siddha. We were just trying to extract another kind of high. We had the disease “guruitis” (no longer taking responsibility for ourselves) and he provided the energy tit.

Quote
devadasi
Hey just-googling,

Yea I saw where Krishna Katha das's (Mike Gabbard) daughter went off to war. That made my heart fall to my stomach.

I remember our Goswami was so much against war. He once told the story of how in High School he made a poster with two pictures on it. One was President Johnson holding up a barbequed chicken leg and the other was a napalmed innocent child in Vietnam. Everyone laughed when he said how much his teachers hated that and made him take it down.

I have no doubt what-so-ever her going to war is to give her more political credibility. It shows how full circle things went with Siddha.

I feel terrible for her and to think she most likely thinks that her military stint is service to Krishna. That is really heart-breaking.

How does any one know if they are still Siddha followers? In any case, I have no issue with her going to Iraq. That's her business and choice. So is the family's religion. Besides there were Kshatrias (warriors) in Krishna's time. No one really knows if Siddha is advising them or not and who cares. Billy Graham advised politicians all the time. I think it would be bigoted not to vote for them because they were Siddha devotees any more than if they were Jews, Catholics or atheists! What are they DOING that is hurting or serving the constituency? If their policies and voting record don't reflect your desires - don't vote for them. I don't support the war, but support her freedom to go and chant in Bhagdad.

If Siddha ordered her to go off to war, then it's his own hipocracy. If she allowed herself to go off to war on his orders for political motivations, which I doubt, then she is an idiot. But all politicians live their lives and make decisions based balancing their ability to get elected with upholding public policies they hold dear. Thank the founding fathers for preventing us from ever becoming a theocracy. Now THAT would be dangerous! Prabhu Bush!?!