Hare krishna.

Greetings from Fiji Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
I would like to say that ISKCON is doing a very wonderful work here.
We have a population of 860,000 and there are 3 established temples. One under construction and 3 other centres.

The locals appreciate the movement. The culture is great, old, young of all races easily fit into ISKCON.

I am a Medical doctor by profession, studied both in Australia and in Fiji and we have many nurses and Doctors who are members of ISKCON.

Being in the health care we continuously see birth old age disease and death. Srila Prabhupada's Bhagavad Gita as it is helps us to see with correct perspective.

This is the age of quarrel and hypocricy and I cant understand just becasue of a handful of incidents is ISKCON ridiculed in this cheap manner, and even the moderator is harping in criticising ISKCON.

I am a real person, a family lady and I am not using any false names.
Being a respected person in society I pay all respects and worship to Lord Sri Krishna. Please dont criticise lord Krishna. If you want to say anything about me then say so, I am just a simple Pacific Islander in a small nation. But please do not say anything about Lord Krishna or Iskcon as they are the most beautiful objects i have ever encountered.

ISKCON has a horrible history, that includes the gross abuse of children in its schools, murder and other crimes.

See [www.culteducation.com]

The issue isn't "Krishna," but rather the bad behavior and poor judgment of ISKCON's leaders.

The organization sought bankruptcy protection rather than face the kids it hurt in court. But a federal judge eventually ordered ISKCON to pay its victims millions of dollars in damages.

This is not the behavior of a reputable organization.

ISKCON devotees will frequently claim that the organization has somehow changed from its bad old days of child abuse and crime.

See [www.culteducation.com]

However, as the above linked article demonstrates, there is much that has not changed at ISKCON.

[b:14a76b4a39]Nori Muster writes:[/b:14a76b4a39]

Over the years ISKCON’s board of directors has made many enemies, especially among former members. For example, they excommunicated a vocal critic named Puranjana (Tim Lee), after he accused one of the gurus of taking LSD--speaking about this violated their rules. Pranjana has now it seems become a lifelong enemy of ISKCON.

Another vocal critic named Sulochan (Steve Bryant) was excommunicated after he accused one of the gurus of selling drugs and running a prostitution ring. Sulochan was then murdered by a Krishna hitman shortly after his excommunication.

Some of these former members have dedicated their lives to toppling the current ISKCON leadership through lawsuits or public opinion. ISKCON leaders keep them away by claiming that these onetime Krishna devotees have certain ideological differences that are dangerous. In reality, their differences are very minor, but these disagreements have resulted in beatings, death threats and even murder.

If things are to change for the better, ISKCON needs to acknowledge these former members and make peace with them. This would be an obvious sign that things have actually changed for the better

For a long time, ISKCON has had leaders who beat their wives and advocate wife-beating among the other married men. Also, ISKCON arranged marriages between minor-aged girls and often abusive men. The girls’ complaints were generally ignored.

In order for ISKCON to really change for the better, they must come out in the open about their spousal abuse problem, remove abusers from official positions, and compensate the victims.

Over the years, many innocent people were beaten or kicked out of temples because they sided with the wrong political interests. The temple leaders keep their enemies away by threatening them, but this creates a sick environment throughout the organization.

In order for ISKCON to really change all these attitudes must change and then it could really become a better organization.