Varnashrama Manifesto, split from the Love Hurts thread Options

[Milla]

Varnashrama Manifesto did get into wrong hands in Russia. If I remember right, there was a freaky fringe political party with Aryan/Vedic ambitions that seized a copy and used some of it in their party program. These people were not ISKCON devotees but one or two individuals had a (brief) past in the movement.

I tried to jog my memory and succeeded! The party was called The Sankirtan Party and the ring leader was Mamu Thakura, an early Harikesha disciple in Russia. Many of those who joined during the Communist years were quite radical, I remember how enthusiastic some of them became during the putsch in Russia in 1992, longing for the good old times of danger and risk when everyone was 100 percent Krishna conscious. I think that Mamu Thakurji was more extreme, but not by very much.

Speaking again of extremism, Dhyana, do you remember the mass suicide threat in 1998 by a group of Russian HK disciples led by Premavati?

[0Oneiros0]

Neither I nor Ek have heard about it.

Some devotees in the Danish temple (not Harikesa disciples) told me about it. Apparently it happened not too long after Bhaktivedanta died. But, it may just be a rumor.

[0Open Mind0]

I have not seen that sort of Gita, however, several HK disciples told me in private that actually Bhaktivedanta Swami wanted HK to be the successor acharya (maybe this idea comes from the fact that once ACBS called Harikesa "the best grandson of Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati"). In Sweden, amongst the pictures usually published in BBT books I have seen a painting depicting HK sitting on a lotus flower like some kind of deity.

[Dhyana]

I tried to jog my memory and succeeded! The party was called The Sankirtan Party and the ring leader was Mamu Thakura, an early Harikesha disciple in Russia. Many of those who joined during the Communist years were quite radical, I remember how enthusiastic some of them became during the putsch in Russia in 1992, longing for the good old times of danger and risk when everyone was 100 percent Krishna conscious. I think that Mamu Thakurji was more extreme, but not by very much.

Speaking again of extremism, Dhyana, do you remember the mass suicide threat in 1998 by a group of Russian HK disciples led by Premavati?

I certainly connect the name Mamu Thakur to "big trouble", but remember no details. It seems to me that the political party freak I have in mind was not initiated.

It could be that you and me remember various parts of the same elephant.

Yes, I do remember Premavati's threat -- but it eludes me what her problem was, that particular time? Maybe that the Georgians weren't immediately allowed to go see HKS when he was recovering in Abentheuer that year?

Oneiros: such a book may have been published. I did not join the BBT until 1992.

Open Mind-- I believe I have seen that HKS on lotus flower pic too. There was a similar one of Bhaktisiddhanta.

[Milla]

I found the original suicide threat e-mail in my 1998 folder. They threatened to commit suicide after the GBC passed the first resolution suspending Harikesha temporarily as a guru. I remember that they did it the day before Janmastami.

Syicide for Sri Visnupad's glories

Respected members of EC GBC!

We, disciples of Sri Visnupad, personally, Brahmananda Puri d, Jagadyoni dd,
, Kamalamala d, Premavati dd, Vakta d, Bhramika d, Sannyasa d, Hararata dd,
Akrya dd, Vajracinha dd, Yajna dd, Caturti dd, Vaikuntha d, Guilmanova
Guzel, Rangadevi dd, Ratiprita dd trying to follow strictly the direction of
the sastras and loving so much  our spiritual master, want to sacrifice our
life and our bodies for to show the level the abominable action which you
have undertaken against our spiritual  master and our eternal relations. And
now we are ready for suicide because our beloved spiritual master was
accused and betrayed like Jesus Christ. This is the right decision of a real
disciple. Our spiritual master was obstructed by those who are so cruel to
him and to the whole ISKCON too. But before - we'll fight till the very end.
If you don't apologize before Sri Visnupad and before his disciples and
don't cancel your resolutions we'll fulfill our plans.
Please leave your occupied positions!!!

P. S. We were forced to come to this decision because human arguments have
no effect on those totalitarian rascals.
Pay attention at the ISKCON revival Manifesto! We are not asking them to
leave their bodies but we asking to resign their positions because they are
not appropriate leaders ant must not be called leaders of spiritual society.
They mustn't represent spiritual organization!

[Dhyana]

O-my-God.

ISKCON revival manifesto -- is this the Varnashrama Manifesto?!

[Brainiac]

I hear 'Reverend' Jim Jones calliing...

I am guessing/hoping that they never carried out their threats?

[Dhyana]

One person on the list committed suicide a little later -- a year perhaps -- but not in connection with the threat. I knew him personally and I felt very sad when I heard about it.

His career in ISKCON and as HKS' disciple was not completely irrelevant to his feeling compelled to take his life. But it would be going much too far to assign blame.

[Milla]

The suicide threat was a bluff and it was meant to blackmail the GBC. But one of the big shots in Harikesha's zone rightly remarked that while those on the list are very unlikely to carry out the threat, some small temple devotee might do it. But nothing happened as a consequence to this letter.

[jatayu]

I have not seen that sort of Gita, however, several HK disciples told me in private that actually Bhaktivedanta Swami wanted HK to be the successor acharya (maybe this idea comes from the fact that once ACBS called Harikesa "the best grandson of Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati"). In Sweden, amongst the pictures usually published in BBT books I have seen a painting depicting HK sitting on a lotus flower like some kind of deity.

This is totally wrong, Harikesa had strong feelings of rejecting Prabhupada and openly expressed it. In Paris 1975, when he was Prabhupada's secretary, Prabhupada chastied him and he replied, I quit. When he spoke about the incident you clearly saw that their was a real heavy friction between him and Prabhupada. Prabhupada told him, no, you cant quit, I fire you! On other occasions he told how Prabhupada forced him to preach against his will in eastern Europe and that Prabhupada always said to him he would be puffed up although he himself knew he wasnt. When you are close to a person for more than 10 years you know his inner feelings, Harikesa had a very contradictory relationship with Prabhupada.

[0Oneiros0]

I have not seen that sort of Gita, however, several HK disciples told me in private that actually Bhaktivedanta Swami wanted HK to be the successor acharya (maybe this idea comes from the fact that once ACBS called Harikesa "the best grandson of Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati"). In Sweden, amongst the pictures usually published in BBT books I have seen a painting depicting HK sitting on a lotus flower like some kind of deity.

This is totally wrong, Harikesa had strong feelings of rejecting Prabhupada and openly expressed it. In Paris 1975, when he was Prabhupada's secretary, Prabhupada chastied him and he replied, I quit. When he spoke about the incident you clearly saw that their was a real heavy friction between him and Prabhupada. Prabhupada told him, no, you cant quit, I fire you! On other occasions he told how Prabhupada forced him to preach against his will in eastern Europe and that Prabhupada always said to him he would be puffed up although he himself knew he wasnt. When you are close to a person for more than 10 years you know his inner feelings, Harikesa had a very contradictory relationship with Prabhupada.

Actually, Bhaktivedanta did indeed call Harikesa the best grandson of Bhaktisiddhanta. It was said in connection with Harikesa's success with publishing and distributing Bhaktivedanta's books. While it is true that the two of them had a rocky relationship, Bhaktivedanta did say this.

I remember how Tripurari would try to explain this statement away--it was meant only as encouragement, etc.--while he himself would, at several other occassions, bring up that Bhaktivedanta called him a pillar of ISKCON (perhaps only as encouragement, one could not help but wonder).

[Dhyana]

This is totally wrong, Harikesa had strong feelings of rejecting Prabhupada and openly expressed it. In Paris 1975, when he was Prabhupada's secretary, Prabhupada chastied him and he replied,  I quit. When he spoke about the incident you clearly saw that their was a real heavy friction between him and Prabhupada. Prabhupada told him, no, you cant quit, I fire you! On other occasions he told how Prabhupada forced him to preach against his will in eastern Europe and that Prabhupada always said to him he would be puffed up although he himself knew he wasnt. When you are close to a person for more than 10 years you know his inner feelings, Harikesa had a very contradictory relationship with Prabhupada.

I have heard about these incidents many times and I have no doubt they are true. But if the storminess of this relationship ever was a "bug", HKS turned it into a feature, big time. I have heard dozens of lectures and statements made in other contexts, where he quite clearly takes ACBS' repeated attempts at "rejecting" or getting rid of Harikesa, sending him away, supposedly treating him (when HK was ACBS' secretary) in a way that could almost be called harassment -- as pointing to the deep, advanced, and spontaneous (in the "ragatmika" kind of sense if I can use that word) nature of the relationship between the two.

Kinda "When I like somone, I give them everything; when I really love someone, I take everything away"... paradigm.

[Milla]

Prabhupada also told Harikesha "I am your intelligence".

When he left, I realized that I only know his version of the story regarding his relationship with Prabhupada. E.g. in one of "Memories of Srila Prabhupada" videos Pusta Krsna, who was on SP personal servants team together with Harikesha, relates one incident mentioned many times by Harikesha as an example of SP's tanscendental anger towards the servants, but Pusta's perception of it was entirely different. He related it as a sweet and touching incident.

Another peculiar thing about Harikesha's reminiscening about or quoting Prabhupada was that he would mention the things he heard from him during his time as a personal servant as the last word of Prabhupada on anything. What Prabhupada said before that time or afterwards simply didn't exist for him or wasn't as important. E.g. that Prabhupada begged forgiveness from his Godbrothers didn't count because two years before that he heard Prabhupada say how his Godbrothers were all useless.

I tried to get another perspective on these events from people like Hari Sauri who were also there and didn't have a vested interest in portraying Harikesha either as a mahatma or a demon. But as destiny would have it, I didn't get much out of it. Then I got into B.R. Shridhar Maharaja's books, and Harikesha's story moved permanently in the "irrelevant" drawer of my mind. I will always be grateful to Shridhar Maharaja for helping me break out of the mould narrow-mindedness that goes with being a disciple of an ISKCON guru.

[0Oneiros0]

Oneiros: such a book may have been published. I did not join the BBT until 1992.

I contacted a secondhand bookseller in Denmark. They have a 1983 edition of the Danish translation of Bhagavad-gita As It Is (translated as Bhagavad-gita Som Den Er) for sale, and confirmed that the disciplic succession listed after the introduction has a 33rd entry, namely "Harikesa Swami Visnupada."

[Dhyana]

Wow! That's almost a collector's item.

[0Oneiros0]

Wow! That's almost a collector's item.

Only almost. I am not planning to buy the book.

[0nabadip0]

When you read that book (VM), you can replace the words "devotees", "brahmanas" or "vaishnavas" with the word "Nazi" without a problem. It makes perfect sense as a manual for supremacy of one group over another, of fascism and state-terrorism. The then GBC forced the withdrawal of that book because it was so embarassing to the sect, and to the memory of its founder. Only mindless fanatics could take delight in ideas presented there.

[Ananda]

Didn't the North European BBT publish a BhagavadgItA with Harikesa's name listed after Bhaktivedanta's?  I heard that they were told to remove that line.

It's there in the 1982 edition of Bhagavad-gita in Finnish. I would assume it was directly translated from the Swedish edition.

The VM was available for sale up until 1996 in Finland, if memory serves, even a Swedish translation of it.

[Tapati]

I have to say, just the phrase "Varnashrama Manifesto" strikes fear into my heart.

I came to hate the idea of varnashrama as proposed in ISKCON.

[0Maryada0]

In the year before he left, Harikesh was working on another version of his ideas about varnashram, to be published under his new Sentient Press header, named On Social Issues. No clue how it differs from VM or what it particularly was about. Has anyone read it?

The book was printed in 1998. It is even harder to find than VM. Only one place on the net selling it for about $43.