From The Hing Editors:
Simmer down. Here’s a ska song about Jesus!

Dearest Devotees:

I have to agree with Appreciate reader.

A. C. B. was an old man from West Bengal when he came to America in 1965. All he knew was what he was taught from childhood. He had the attitude that was very common in India at that time [and still is in most part.]

Many young men were extremely attracted to his attitudes and still are. They love to treat women as less than equal. These same males like to act like little demi-Gods and lord it over the weaker.

Srila Praphupada, a “good as God Acarya” ….hardly. Sooner or later the current crop of devotees may come to their senses. Thank God a few have…but not many.

A.C. B. freely admitted on a morning walk in India that he loved the attention he was getting as the founder of ISKCON. I heard him say it. He had a big smile on his face.

He said that he had always hoped that it would someday come to him, like it had come to Gandhi . That one little remark did him more damage than he could ever have realized. It revealed him to be egomanical.

It forever proved him to be just another person like all the rest of us…..full of flaws. He also did some good things along the way.

Devak…..Hare Krsna…all praises to God.

Certainly, misogyny and sexism (along with racism and other pernicious social ills) existed long before Prabhupada came to America.

But, as someone who was supposed to be enlightened, spiritually realized, God-realized and, indeed, “as good as God,” Prabhupada really should have done better. Especially, knowing that his every word was being recorded and accepted as “absolute truth” by his naive and inexperienced disciples, he had a grave responsbility to do better.

Why, even in this week’s Time magazine, Mark Twain is being profiled for having “pioneered the sophisticated literary attack against racism.” Why couldn’t Prabhupada, an “as-good-as-God-Acarya,” have done at least as well?

But the fact is that he didn’t. He said horrific, abusive things about women and about black people and he ordered his disciples to send their tiny 4-and-5-year-old children away to Dallas and other so-called “gurukulas,” where they were violently abused and sexually molested.

And then, in ADDITION to all that, as you say, Kenny, “devotees brought their own hang-ups and sexism to Krishna Consciousness and twisted/took advantage of Srila Prabhupada’s words,” which have lent themselves to unfathomable abuse over the past four decades.

I agree, I have been saying this for a long time now. Prabhupada may have made things worse, but he was NOT singly responsible for the abuse of women and children in Iskcon. In our culture too there are men who would love, like large sections of Indian, Middle Easter and African men, be free to beat and rape women as they wished.

What I find amazing is that people like the poster YAS here, denounces rape of children but fails to make the connection that disrespect for women is the first step to abuse of children and other less self-defensible groups in society.

It certainly couldn’t be that the devotees brought their own hang ups and sexism to Krishna Consciousness and twisted/took advantage of Srila Prabhupada’s words for their own material benefit. Oh my no.

That darn Prabhupada! And ohhh those pure, innocent ISKCON devotees he corrupted!

And it was Prabhupada who, as quoted in the “Lilamrta,” criticized his male family members for “eating and sleeping like a bunch of women.”

So, the unfortunate reality is that as long as you choose to hang around ISKCON, you can expect the same abusive and dangerous mentality from those who accept Prabhupada to be “as good as God” and who accept his every word to be absolute truth.

YAS, this comment of yours is very abusive to women. Do you realize that this is actually a sign of hatred for women, the very kind of mentality that is at the root of rape of children? Disregard for women because of personal sexual frustration is very dangerous, way more dangerous than bad jokes.