ISKCON plot gets a poisonous twist

CALCUTTA, AUG 10: The founder of a worldwide religious cult lies in his deathbed, whispering' that he has been poisoned.' The whispers...

CALCUTTA, AUG 10: The founder of a worldwide religious cult lies in his deathbed, whispering8217; that he has been poisoned.8217; The whispers8217; lay buried in his last conversations that were taped. More than 20 years after the guru8217;s death, the tapes are dug out of archives and digitally processed for clarity at laboratories in the USA. The finding, according to a book just published in the USA, is that Srila Prabhupada, also known as Bhaktivedanta Swami, founder of ISKCON International Society for Krishna Consciousness was poisoned, but by whom is not yet known8217;.

The book, by Nityananda Das, a longtime American devotee of ISKCON, has rattled the schism-ridden fraternity as never before. For, although it doesn8217;t pin the poison8217; charge on anyone conclusively, it does offer a list of suspects who include some of the guru8217;s closest8217; disciples. And all the suspects hold very senior positions in the order8217;s hierarchy.

And the book, titled Someone has poisoned me, has come at a time when two ISKCON factions arelocked in a case in the Calcutta High Court where the final hearing is due this Thursday. The official group served an expulsion order on six disciples, including the presidents of ISKCON temples in Calcutta, Bangalore and Singapore, but the court had stayed the expulsions.

The London-based ISKCON Reform Group is also a party to the case and it has accused the official group of usurping the order in violation of the founder8217;s directives. In its interim order, the court has directed that all initiations into the order would be subject to the final verdict in the case. It was the court case that had engaged the rival factions for several months now. But the book, which an ISKCON devotee described as a bomb ticking for long8217;, has caused a veritable explosion8217; in the sect. The rebel group is naturally jubilant, though none would talk openly about it. To it, the book is a damning proof that those who took over from the founder had taken to foul means. The ISKCON gurus of today are all usurpers, the rebelsargue, because Prabhupada never approved of the guru system. To them, he was the only guru and his disciples could at best graduate to ritwiks priests.

It8217;s these ritwik theorists and the ISKCON Reform Group that are also behind the poison theory,8217; said Hari Sauri Das, co-director at the sect8217;s spiritual headquarters over the telephone from Mayapur in West Bengal8217;s Nadia district.

He dismissed the book as one full of conjectures and flimsy evidence8217;. We dont give it any credibility,8217; Hari Sauri Das, a British-born, snapped. But he went on to recall that the author Nityananda Das had been ex-communicated from the order way back in 1990 and had been subsequently arrested for drug-related offences in southern USA where his firm was also confiscated.