GBC’s 25 year guru cover-up falls apart

Back to Prabhupada, Issue 18, Winter 2007/8

We have reported previously on how the numerous guru falldowns in ISKCON usually follow the same "cover-up" pattern: First, the fall-down is kept hidden and swept under the carpet for as long as possible; then, when this is no longer completely possible, the news is "managed"; finally, when their hand is forced, the GBC has no choice but to reveal all, before it comes out anyway.
A recent egregious and most shocking example of this dynamic in action was the recent fall from grace of yet another of the GBC's unauthorised gurus, as announced by the GBC in September 2007:

"The GBC Executive Committee, after much deliberation and consultation, has no alternative but to sadly report the deviations of and the abuses to devotees carried out by Balabhadra dasa (ACBSP), previously known as Bhakti Balabh Puri Goswami." (GBC Statement, September 17th, 2007)

(All subsequent quotes will be excerpted from this announcement).

Balabhadra das/
Bhakti Balabh Puri Goswami in his heydey

The falldown

"In the name of 'helping' two female disciples he performed many explicit sexual and voyeuristic acts by exploiting the obedience of his female disciples […] Balabhadra dasa has admitted that he thought of himself as a personal associate of Lord Caitanya and/or Krsna. In addition, his conception of guru was one in which he was the proprietor of his disciples, of ISKCON's assets and especially of ISKCON Scotland's monies."

So the absolute worship that ISKCON gurus demand on a daily basis went straight to Balabhadra's head. He indulged in an orgy of abuse as he lived off the hard labour of his disciples whilst lording it over everything and everyone around him. Srila Prabhupada has this to say about such a mentality:

"Anyone who is in the material world is certainly possessed of the impure propensity for lording it over material nature, or, in other words, for sense gratification. Such polluted propensities have to be cleared. Without doing so, through prescribed duties, one should never attempt to become a so-called transcendentalist, renouncing work and living at the cost of others."
(Bhagavad-gita As It Is, 3.8 purport)

We knew he was off 25 years ago

So did all these "lording it over" traits suddenly manifest overnight, with the GBC immediately jumping in to rescue the hapless subordinates of this raving deviant?:

"Balabhadra dasa was always eccentric and even in the early 80's showed a penchant for cars, cameras and handling money."

So the GBC knew, for at least a quarter of a century, that this man was "eccentric" and highly materialistic, and yet still voted him in as a good-as-God guru for ISKCON.

It got worse, but we still kept quiet

"The death of his wife seemed to be a visible turning point in his life. His sadhana deteriorated, his bodily weight increased and he became increasingly involved in the lives of his female disciples, despite his having entered the renounced order. There was a "special" relationship with one female disciple, who was the person with whom he later, repeatedly fell down."

Balabhadra's wife died on December 28th, 1994. This means the GBC allowed a man they always knew was an eccentric materialist, and who was then observed deteriorating further for approximately thirteen years, to pose himself as a bona fide guru and personal associate of God Himself.

It got even worse

"Over three years ago Balabhadra dasa's sexual abuse of his female disciple came to light and in investigating that abuse, a Pandora's box of equally serious deviations gradually came to light, all of which were made known to the GBC Executive."

The obvious question here is whether, once Balabhadra's horrendous sexual abuse came fully to light, the GBC then finally woke up and did something to warn his disciples?

But luckily only one person knew

"Until this year, the only devotee in Scotland aware of all the deviations and subsequent restrictions on Balabhadra dasa was the temple president, Prabhupada Vani dasa. Others thought he had semi-retired for health reasons. In the beginning of the year news gradually leaked to other senior devotees and since that time we have had many meetings to inform and then help those disciples."

So even after the GBC knew the full horror of what their voted in guru was doing, they were happy that only one disciple, Prabhupada Vani Das, knew the truth. All the other disciples and large congregation were kept completely in the dark. Why the reluctance to go public and bring Balabhadra to justice for his various illicit acts? That the members of the committee who dealt with him and compiled the report, Sivarama Swami and B. B. Govinda Maharaja, reportedly received substantial donations from Balabhadra Das for their projects, is of course purely coincidental!

The thieves finally part company

But what was the final straw that led to the GBC making public Balabhadra's crimes?:

"… if he chose to do as he liked, his case would be made public in order to protect devotees of the Society from him. […] Since Balabhadra dasa is now his own man […] he will seek to raise funds from the international society of devotees who should be informed that supporting him is not supporting any ISKCON approved project or person."

It is perfectly clear that Balabhadra had been doing "as he liked" for decades, and yet the GBC had never tried to "protect the devotees". But the big difference was that now he would not be giving his GBC buddies a slice of whatever money he was able to sponge off the labour of others. Only once this became clear did the GBC decide to "protect the devotees" by throwing him out of ISKCON. In this way, they can simply install a new false Lord to carry on the money generating project that has helped sustain their bogus guru program.