Kamrā devī dāsī Autobiography Part 1
My name is Kamrā devī dāsī, and Śrila Prabhupāda accepted me as his disciple in December 1974. I served in the temples for many years as pujari, book distributor, seamstress, cook and kitchen manager, gurukula teacher including asrama, academics, and curriculum development, and doing what is very dear to my heart, cow protection. After some time, being removed from temple life, and feeling a bit lost, I was asking Śrila Prabhupāda in prayer, “I am not working in your temples, not taking care of the deities, not cooking, not going out on sankirtan, what is my service?” He replied very strongly, “The second generation is your service.” There was no doubt. I had received both confirmation and an instruction.
I have put together a short autobiographical video series about my service to Śrila Prabhupāda and my professional practice because people have asked, and I am choosing to begin this series by addressing the rumors and falsehoods that have been spread about me and my practice amongst the devotees for many years. This will save some of you the effort of writing uninformed comments and spare others from having to read them. Actually, I will disable comments from these videos. I’m quite tired of being maligned by those I formerly regarded as dear family. If someone would like to be in touch with me, PurelyPrabhupada.com, PurelyPrabhupada.org, and my professional site, WorkofanAngel.com, all have contact forms.
In regard to the second generation of devotees, it is not that everyone wants what I can offer, nor do I have an interest in those who believe that their inheritance is the organization and that they are meant to be the leaders and directors of it as time goes on. I am meant to work with those who want to inherit the mission of Śrila Prabhupāda, which I am forced to differentiate from the organization of ISKCON, and be torchbearers and placeholders for the upcoming generations of pure souls to carry forth the dynamic preaching outreach of Śrī Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
I have a natural health care and energy healing practice that I started in 1994. I have an international practice with many satisfied clients, and enough worldly credentials to fill quite a letterhead. I have worked with many people who have been ill or dysfunctional for many years and for whom the medical profession could offer no solution, with very good results. The results came, though, when the underlying old belief systems and trauma patterns began to release. I can’t claim 100% success, but then, no practitioner can.
I have no need to advertise, as the word-of-mouth referrals are excellent. Krishna owns my appointment book. It is all under His direction. I have devotee and non-devotee clients who are very satisfied, but some devotees have chosen to unduly and dishonestly criticize my work and spread falsehoods to suit their own agenda.
I am addressing these things not in a mood of defense but to offer some preliminary clarification. Of the four animal propensities, defending is the strongest. However, I have no personal need to defend anything. I am covered in imperfections, as is any soul in this world. Even the greatest maha-bhagavata, out of his or her great humility, will not claim to be free of imperfections, so I certainly cannot make that claim.
For those of you who have started the falsehoods, I know who you are, my goal is not to reveal names, and I can only ask, of what are you so afraid that you have to propagate these things to try to discredit me and keep the devotees from hearing what I can offer? And for those of you who have heard the lies, believe them, or spread them, do your own research, trace the falsehoods back to their source, make your own decisions if you feel the need. Don’t inadvertently prevent others who might benefit from my work or insights to shy away. ISKCON has become gossip central, please don’t participate. It compromises the devotional atmosphere.
The falsehoods seem to involve three main things, the daughter of one very dear godbrother and godsister who had a medical emergency many years ago, a young man in West Virginia who was very mentally unstable and non-compliant, and that in general, I “plant” false memories in people’s heads. Let’s clear this up.
There was a young devotee lady in Europe who was having a serious medical emergency. Her parents were trying to get proper care for her, and one of my clients wrote to her suggesting my services, which she did not know were inappropriate considering the acute and life-threatening nature of the complaint. However, my name became involved in a very negative way. What was spread was that this young lady in Europe was my client and if she had listened to my counsel, she would have been dead. Essentially, that I almost killed a client. Here is my email correspondence with her father, personal health information and name removed to protect client confidentiality.
Subject- A Concern
July 18, 2013
Dear —— Prabhu,
Please accept my obeisances. All glories to Śrila Prabhupāda!
I hope that you are doing well. It was nice to get your association recently, ————–
I need to address a concern. I have heard from several sources that you said that I advised that your daughter did not need medical care for her recent life-threatening illness. There is no basis in fact for that. I was never consulted by you, your wife, or your daughter herself on the issue of her emergency. She was not my client during this episode.
I was asked by you if I could schedule her for some emotional/energetic support, and as you know, I was not able to fit her into my schedule and suggested that her friend, ———-, might be a suitable person for that type input. Even if I had been approached by your family, I would not have been involved for several reasons, the first and most important being that she had a medical condition and I am not a medical practitioner.
Even if I had been qualified in that way to offer natural support to her, she was in Europe, I was in Florida, and even if we were closer, she would have needed support, care, and monitoring that is beyond my scope to offer. It was an emergency, and she needed emergency care. That is the purpose of the medical profession, and that is, even on an esoteric level, what she needed to experience.
While it is true that natural methods have reversed many serious health issues, there has to be consideration that it takes a longer time than medical means, and that natural support methods may have to be intensively applied to get the results that one wants. In other words, not just taking a few herbal capsules a day…. If natural methods can be applied in a given circumstance, and a healthy lifestyle and diet is adopted, then the results can be very effective and long-lasting. But, again, an emergency is an emergency, and must be dealt with appropriately.
As I was misrepresented, your claims may also have been misrepresented, so I am addressing this now because whatever the rumors are, they are costing me clients. On a devotional level, who cares, reputation is a hindrance, but I also have a need to earn a living and this game of “telephone,” or whatever it is, is interfering with client flow.
Thank you for your attention, and I am glad that the surgery went well for (your daughter). I hope she is recovering well.
Thank you for your inspirational service to Śrila Prabhupāda .
Your servant,
Kamra devi dasi
His reply,
Jul 19, 2013
Dear Kamra Mataji,
Please accept my respectful obeisances. All glories to Śrila Prabhupāda.
Thank you for your note of concern and inquiry about my health. Actually the —— problem has cleared up 90% and will probably be completely gone in a month or so. I am slowly coming back to my normal health and greatly appreciate your time and attention to my condition.
About your concern, it probably came from a letter below from —— to (my daughter). In (my daughter’s) case there was no right or wrong…we only tried to gather as much information as possible about her condition and then make an intelligent decision. I fully appreciate your understanding of treating medical emergencies as just that and that is indeed what she had. After the doctor removed her ——-, he said it was very inflamed and infected and she must have suffered a lot.
A more holistic approach as ——— suggested may have worked but we will never know. I am sorry some people have chosen to interpret her opinion in a negative light but you know how negative katha has a life of its own and also how it eventually (sooner the better) dies. In the meantime we apologize for any fault on our part.
Hoping you are well.
with gratitude
your servant,
——— das
Karen E. Silberstein CCI, CS, PhD
Jul 20, 2013
Dear ——– Prabhu,
Please accept my obeisances. All glories to Śrila Prabhupāda.
Thank you for letting me know what may have started the misunderstanding. I can see that what ——– wrote to (her friend, your daughter), maybe not recalling the full context of what I had said to her (as I wrote to you in the first e-mail), added to the confusion around an already stressful situation. Your family gave proper consideration without much time to spare, and I am glad it worked out well.
Your servant,
Kamra devi dasi
His reply,
Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 1:06 AM
Thank you Kamra Mataji for your understanding. Hoping all is going well with you.
your servant,
———- das
OK, next rumor, the mentally unstable young man in West Virginia… I would not have accepted him as a client at all except that the GBC specifically asked me to. It was probably the only time I had taken a client over-riding my own inner sense not to. I knew it was going to be very iffy. I was working with him by phone for some time, and there was improvement as long as he stayed on his supplements. I then had him come to stay in North Carolina so I could work with him in person daily. I had to hide all sharp objects in my home when he came for appointments. He was definitely unstable, and a danger to himself and others, and the main thing was that he was non-compliant with his supplements for financial and other reasons. He barely was taking half of what I recommended, and sometimes not at all. I hardly got paid for caring for him, but I did it because the request came directly from the ISKCON authority system. When I saw that there was really nothing I could do, I canceled clients for a few days and my husband and I drove him to Gita-Nagari where Bhakti-tirtha Swami said he would personally take care of him. I had to keep the child locks on the car doors so that he would not jump out onto the highway during the long drive. That trip cost me at least $1,000 dollars. It seems that some time later, he was found in some city wandering unclothed and out of his mind. And I got the blame for his non-compliance and disastrous outcome, and word spread all over the place.
As far as “planting false memories” in people’s heads, damn, I am not that powerful. Devotees ask, “How come everyone who goes to see Kamra all of a sudden starts remembering horrible things?” Maybe these things really happened and those clients come to me by Krishna’s arrangement so they could be set free and do their service? I simply facilitate people in their own process. People who have been violated usually feel safe with me and old, stored issues may surface in that environment. Unpalatable as it is, this “stuff” does happen, and it has permeated every organization in the world. But false memories? Nah, even I would have had a hard time believing some of the stuff if it had not also happened to me. And, as a professional, it is not my duty to believe or not to believe, but to facilitate the process of the uncovering of the soul for my clients. Sessions are more often than not quite silent. Many clients have come and taken facilitation and not said a word even in the session about what was coming up for them. And then I hear third hand that when such and such was with me, she remembered whatever. I can honestly say I had no idea what they were processing.
I don’t know what else devotees have spread other than that I am a witch. Big deal….
However, on the basis of the falsehoods that have been spread, I have heard that prominent devotees have told prospective clients to not seek my counsel, that my services are a disturbance to the community, to go to anyone other than Kamra for health care consultation. I heard from one client that when she recommended me to a devotee friend, the lady replied, “I would never take my child to her, I have heard such terrible things.” I don’t know this person, have never spoken to her, and would not recognize her if I ran into her on the street. Wow.
There were many times I met devotees in the stores and they turned their backs on me and walked away. All I could wonder was what was the latest nonsense being spread. I stopped going to the local springs for that reason, just didn’t want the discomfort of running into anyone. I even heard from several devotees that one GBC member, the same one who asked me to work with the young man in West Virginia, was telling the temple presidents to not invite me or welcome me at their temples for any reason. I must be onto something really good! And I don’t believe for a second that these organizational authorities are so pure and innocent that there is not some hidden motive.
Several years ago, one of my devotee clients started a blog site called PrayLikePrahlada.com. This site is still active, but is more representative of when we still thought that some serious issues within the organization could be taken care of by addressing them within the ISKCON authority system. I had written some articles, there was a video of one young lady making a very courageous presentation in Sri Mayapura dhama, and one devotee had posted links to some information on certain types of abuse. Within days of the site going up, one sannyasi in Europe criticized me throughout his zone for instilling false memories and defamed one of my best friends as insane and ghostly haunted. He had never met either of us. He sent warnings about me to his friends in the US. I got a call from a European client who asked me what was going on, that my name was “mud” there. Again, all I can wonder is what skeletons these people have in their closets that they are so threatened by me and would rather chum with the perpetrators of heinous crimes than right the organization to a standard of purity that would more properly represent Śrila Prabhupāda.
For me, I have had to step out. I have other work to do. I am addressing a devotee audience here for their own possible benefit, and so that I am not bothered by having to answer ridiculous correspondence as I move forward in my outreach. There is a world out there getting set up to hear Absolute Truth as presented by Śrila Prabhupāda.
I have written an essay entitled, “Not in His Name” that is available on PurelyPrabhupada.org and also recorded in video form by Jvalamukhi devi dasi and available on her site, Jvalamukhi.com and her YouTube Channel Jvalamukhi dasi. This essay explains a little bit of my own journey in Krishna Consciousness. Many devotees have expressed their appreciation for what I wrote, and I deem it as very important, Krishna having given the words and the inspiration. Please look at it if you will.
So, enough here. I have presented what was necessary in this video to clear the way for what I really want to offer, the pure teachings of Śrila Prabhupāda given in a non-compromising and personal and encouraging way, to reach the wounded and disappointed hearts of the inhabitants of this material world.
There are also other videos, essays, and podcasts available on PurelyPrabhupada.com, PurelyPrabhupada.org, PurifyMyLife.com, FloweringVineofTruth.com, and Jvalamukhi.com that provide basic information about the importance and practice of devotional service and the Vedic viewpoint on some critical issues in society today. Please take advantage of our small efforts, if you find them inspirational, and keep chanting the Hare Krishna Mahamantra, taking only Krishna prasadam (sanctified foodstuffs) and following the regulative principles of freedom, as Śrila Prabhupāda directed.
Thank you.
