Kamrā devī dāsī Autobiography Part 10
The same envious, evil energy that we have already described is directly involved in the unwarranted and unauthorized changes to Śrila Prabhupāda’s books. It is the utmost betrayal of Śrila Prabhupāda’s heart. It is so evil that it is hardly able to be conceived. It was one of my most difficult recollections and realizations, seeing that some of the personalities most directly involved in the changes to Śrila Prabhupāda’s books were, and maybe still are, involved in the darkest of the dark energies and activities. It was some of the deepest processing I have ever had to do, seeing the agenda to try to destroy that which Śrila Prabhupāda gave to us as his greatest gift to humanity.
It is a direct attack on what is most pure. It is an intentional attack by the most demonic of personalities. The entire presentation that Śrila Prabhupāda made, from top to bottom, has been under attack by the insidious forces. The books, the devotees, the temples, the entire mission. It is predicted that Śrila Prabhupāda’s books are to be the lawbooks, the guiding principle, for all society, for the next 10,000 years. So, it is not just about Śrila Prabhupāda being misrepresented, it is about the depth of the attack on the part of the deep underground on the very teachings that will afford people the potent access to real spiritual life. They tried to destroy everything. They almost did. The bigness of all this could make you faint. The level of evil, the insidiousness, is unreal. The Divine vs the demons. Their asuric goal is to destroy anything Godly or that leads others to Godliness. That is the summary of their intent.
As far as book changes, yes, some things in the “pre-1978” books, for example, need to be edited to present what Śrila Prabhupāda actually said, not what those who misunderstood Śrila Prabhupāda’s accent mistakenly transcribed from the dictaphone tapes. Or that some of those books were produced by scans which were not corrected. But not beyond, under the evil influence that they know what is better for the world than Śrila Prabhupāda himself.
The issue of offenses became a very good excuse for not hearing from those who saw the insidious evil that was going on. I have addressed this before. Oh, you are offensive to the devotees. You are banned. You are shunned. How convenient to contrive rumors and falsehoods to protect the masses from such a horrible “offender.” You know, condemn the whistleblower by making up all sorts of stuff. Just like the rest of the world. No sincere devotee wants to make offenses to those who are true to the path. To make offenses to the devotees, to blaspheme those who have dedicated their lives to the propagation of the Holy Names, that is the first offense to chanting the Holy Names. It is very serious. Proper etiquette, Vaisnava etiquette, it is at the heart of the Lord, the heart of the devotees, the heart of the Vedic culture, the heart of the preaching mission. I had to examine how to reconcile what I experienced, the horrors, the heartbreak…. Was it my offense to them for cursing them out ln proper sailor vocabulary as I entered my healing process, or was it their offenses to Śrila Prabhupāda, to the devotees, the rapes, the murders, the brutal evil rituals, the subtle mind control and indoctrination, the attempt at the erasing of individual creativity and inspiration unless it suited their agenda, the hijacking of the mission?
Śrila Prabhupāda wanted us to become independently intelligent, not a blind follower. But the organizational leadership could not risk teaching that because they had too much of their own personal interests at stake. I gave power in the past to their self-appointed and their peer rubber stamped social positions. I cooked for almost all of them at great expense to my own personal well-being, at the time considering that I was serving great devotees, although their behavior later came to be known as anything but devotional. I still sit in wonderment how I got so caught up in it, that I cooked for all of them, even as their godsister, knew all their special diets, even peeled the Beast’s grapes for him because his so-called disciples were too inept even to prepare a meal, painstakingly made Tootsie Roll carob burfy on a wood stove for Hypocrite das Goswami at his request. I sent people to them for counsel, when in retrospect I see that I was qualified to give it myself. And they accepted my service arrogantly, like it was due them, because now they sat on some raised seat of hypocrisy. Proper Vaisnava etiquette is essential, and kow-towing to an ill instated farcical social position is detrimental on all fronts, including to the one who is accepting the worship.
So many of my godbrothers and godsisters left ISKCON affiliation after Śrila Prabhupāda departed, seeing that the organization was no longer run by him. I thought about leaving many times, but I was a single mom and I kept choosing to try to keep my sons in devotee association. It was a sacrifice, and I did it, always staying close to the boys, not sending them away, but yet there was abuse going on under my nose and I did not see it. My sons’ spiritual well-being had always been the decision maker for me, so I stayed. I did not see that I could give them proper Kṛṣṇa Consciousness in a more separated environment. I made the conscious choice, I cannot put the responsibility on anyone else for what I opted to do. But in order to stay, I had to suffer in the system that I could see was getting more and more off track. To leave would have deprived the boys of the possibility of devotee association, and to stay was also a gamble. I had no personal resources.
I had been a professional horse trainer before coming to Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. There was plenty of opportunity for good employment for myself in some of the most prestigious stables in the country, but I was concerned for my boys’ schooling and devotional association. The professional horse field is not the cleanest of association, in many aspects. My boys had to be raised in devotee association. I did my best. There was a price. And they were still hurt. My motherhood was betrayed, and so was my devotion to Śrila Prabhupāda and his mission.
Many years ago, at a Vyasa-puja festival for Śrila Prabhupāda, I watched one of the organizational leaders calling up different disciples of Śrila Prabhupāda to garland his murti form and receive garlands from the murti in return. I felt like a complete outsider, watching the social structure, the hierarchy in play. I stood by the temple room door, unnoticed, and then I realized that I could no longer dance to anyone else’s choreography except Śrila Prabhupāda’s directly. I left the temple that day, and never went back, and I received reciprocation for that revelation in blessed ways that need no public disclosure.
