Siddhaswarupananda/Svarupa, Information Please Options

[0liladasi0]

Information, especially history and any first-hand knowledge about this Guru, who now is based in Hawaii. Some of the organizations affiliated are: Science of Identity Foundation and Chaitanya Missions. Information especially desired about schools for youth in the Philippines. (Formerly known as Chris Butler, this man joined ISKON in early 70's and then left.)

[0Amrita-dohani0]

He's been based mostly in Hawaii for a long time. He used to be a sannyasi.

[Babhru]

I've known Siddhasvarupananda since before he moved in to the Honolulu ISKCON temple late in 1970. He was a well-know yoga teacher in the Islands in the late '60s, known as Sai (a name he told me he heard as he returned from a trance). He had a meditation center on Maui and another on the North Shore of Oahu. When he joined ISKCON, he brought some money, a couple of properties, and dozens of disciples (maybe as many as a hundred), a few of whom stayed in Honolulu, and the rest of whom went to ISKCON centers in LA, New York, San Francisco, and various places in India.

Siddha lived in the Honolulu temple, and traveled to the other islands to preach, throughout 1972-71. He, Turiya das, and I began the door-to-door preaching program one Sunday afternoon in the winter of '71. Siddha later established a center on Kauai. When Srila Prabhupada came to Honolulu in May of '72, he gave Siddhasvarupa sannyasa, naming him Siddhasvarupananda Goswami. He travelled with Srila Prabhupada to the Philippines and India in October of '72, and in '73 he went to South America to work with Godbrothers and -sisters there. When Goursundar closed the centers in Hawaii in 1973, Siddha, along with his friends and siksa disciples Tusta Krishna and Sudama Vipra, gave up his sannyasa vesha. They all took it back early in 1974. Siddha preached wherever he was appreciated but was based mostly on Maui for a while. In 1976, Srila Prabhupada asked him to assume responsibilities of the Honolulu temple president, but institutional politics made this unfeasible. (He also ran into much trouble during a preaching tour in the summer of 1972.) Also in 1976, his friends and followers started a political party called Independents for Godly Government, which ran candidates for local, state, and national offices.

Some time after Srila Prabhupada's passing, it became clear to him that his relationship with ISKCON was no longer useful, and he simply kept preaching independently. Since then, he and his associates and students have established pockets of devotees of the holy names aroudn the world. His Polish followers, and Tusta Krishna especially, did much to help ISKCON when it was dragged into court there. Generally, though, his followers tend to keep to themselves and not mix much with devotees from other groups. He is rather withdrawn nowadays, although he continues to preach to and through his followers.

I don't know a lot about the schools in the Philippines, but I do know of devotees here in Hawaii who have taken their previously homeschooled children there.

[Tapati]

While I think that's as much specific information as any of us have about Siddhaswarupananda (other than that I used to listen to his tapes in the early 80s) the larger issue is what Liladasi's family might do about the involvement of a young girl in their family with this group? It appears the girl is meeting secretly with members of Siddha's group now. Of course once she is no longer a minor she'll do whatever she's going to do.

My own take on it is to participate in her meetings with the group so they are no longer taking place in secret, talking to her to find out how she feels about their teachings, what she values, etc., and keeping the lines of communication open. I feel the more one pushes against it, the more the girl will cling. She's trying to establish her own identity and values. Fighting that will make her rebel even more.

Does anyone have other advice for them?

Maybe it would help if some of us who joined the movement when we were young talked about our experience with our families. My own really fought it and simply criticized anything connected with Krsna Consciousness, which of course made me think they were prejudiced and clueless and against me. The more they talked about how misguided I was, the more offended I was that they didn't respect my intelligence and judgment. They really pushed me further away. I don't think that there was any way for them to prevent me from joining--but if they hadn't forced me to burn my bridges with them in order to join I might have left sooner. Who knows?

But in the end I am doing fine, went back to college, got my degree, and I'm happy. So no lasting harm was done.

[Babhru]

Well, the question was framed rather generally without the context you've just provided. I think your advice is as good as it gets. The girl's no longer a minor, and they'll do her the biggest favor by not making her feel she has to cut her ties with her family to fit in with the group. It may help me give advice if I knew where the girl is, whether the parents are or were Hare Krishna devotees. Why does she feel she has to met them secretly? But generally, I'd advise the parents to stay her friend and not be too critical so the group doesn't become her only family by default. Many will find their expectations unmet after a time, as with any other group with an authoritarian leader. And in some places, this is just how this group will appear to many.

[Tapati]

Presently the girl is a minor, but is apparently meeting members of the group in secret despite their efforts to separate her from them. I don't know how long she will be a minor. Certainly they need to lay the groundwork for good communication before she is able to legally go where she will, so they can stay in touch with her.

My impression of Siddha disciples back in the 80s when I was ordering tapes from them is that at least they had it more together on a material level. In other words, they had businesses and jobs and didn't all move into an ashram somewhere. It seemed a great deal more benign than the average ISKCON temple.

But I never got directly involved with them so that's just my impression.

[Tapati]

Try the Rick Ross rumor mill:

http://forum.rickross.com/viewtopic.php?p=...801cad2a4ba2f16

Here's another discussion about Siddhaswarupananda:

http://www.hare-krishna.org/showflat/cat/H...llapsed/1/o/all

other links:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?titl...tity_Foundation

And here is at least one disgruntled former associate:

http://www.vnn.org/editorials/ET9809/ET30-2288.html

And a rebuttal:

http://www.vnn.org/editorials/ET9810/ET05-2318.html

[Babhru]

Oops! Got me! I misread your post. As I wrote, my memory was that she was no longer a minor, but I missed the "once."

I just remember Srila Prabhupada's advice that we should make friends with our kids by the time they're 16. That was pretty easy for us to do with our kids, I guess. These folks should, as you suggest, ask to attend meetings with their daughter and discuss their impressions as experienced friends, not Mom and Dad. Otherwise, they may lose her. I have a lot of respect for Siddha; he's an old friend who I believe is acting according to his realization. But there is a tendency among his followers to idealize him, as well as their sanga, as loosely conceived as it may be, which may often lead to cultish behavior among themselves. I base this on my observations as an outsider whom they welcome to their programs here because I'm not critical of him. I have no inside knowledge, as I have been outside that group since the late '70s. There was no falling out; I just did other things.

If the parents' politics are fairly liberal, they may be put off by many "conservative" threads in the group's interaction with the world. They should be aware of that.

[Tapati]

Yes, what the followers do is often not what the leader had in mind. I'm sure many things have happened in ISKCON that would truly horrify Srila Prabhupada.

Here's one article where Siddha speaks for himself, and sounds as I remember him from the lecture tapes I used to listen to. In fact, he makes a point against coercing anyone to serve God in this article:

http://www.vina.cc/stories/PHILOSOPHICAL/1...tarianism1.html

[Adrija]

I just remember Srila Prabhupada's advice that we should make friends with our kids by the time they're 16.

I realise this is straying from the subject, but wasn't he citing Chanakya ? ~ The full verse is :

Fondle a son until he is five years of age, and use the stick for another ten years, but when he has attained his sixteenth year treat him as a friend (!)
(Chanakya Niti Ch. 3 v.18)

[evakurvan]

I went to some of the programs of his disciples about a year ago. My impression was that this was a watered-down more kumbaya-style version of Iskcon. At one point they played a one hour lecture about i-am-godists which I realized is his word for mayavadis. The main example he used to illustrate why they are bad was this incident of bombings in the subway of an Asian country, (I think it was Japan). He said the people who were responsible for that were i-am-godists and that this is the kind of thing that this sort of philosophy leads to because you start to think that you are god and therefore that you can do whatever you want just like god. Has anyone heard this lecture? I found this a really absurd illustration and even more absurd that no one else found it absurd. I prefer Iskcon because I prefer mrdangas and karatalas to guitars.

[Vanguard]

Some years ago, BV Narayan Maharaj gave 2nd initiation and a new name to the manager of Siddhaswarupananda's Phillipines temple. It caused quite an argument between the two groups at the time, I am not sure how they regard one another now.

[0Oneiros0]

I prefer iskcon because I prefer mrdangas and karatalas to guitars.

I prefer the didgeridoo and dreamtime.

[babu]

I have a lot of respect for Siddha; he's an old friend who I believe is acting according to his realization.

what level of realization is it that brings one to the level of intense homophobia? the only universe he is the guru of is his own little one

[zanardi]

I have a lot of respect for Siddha; he's an old friend who I believe is acting according to his realization.

what level of realization is it that brings one to the level of intense homophobia? the only universe he is the guru of is his own little one

And they not play didgeridoo in that universe. Coming back from the library today I happened to see a guy playing didgeridoo in one streetcorner. Nice instrument!

[Vanguard]

I preceive that certain politicians who are initiated by him are not disclosing their religious affiliations to the public, and as someone who was maligned and discriminated against in a government setting due to being a Gaudiya Vaishnava, I was saddened that these senior devotees with ambitions to serve the public choose to feign Christianity and not to follow the cause that Tusta Krishna prabhu made some attempt to do several years before his passing.

[0Oneiros0]

Coming back from the library today I happened to see a guy playing didgeridoo in one streetcorner.  Nice instrument!

It is a wonderful instrument. Here is a picture of me, smeared in ochre, attempting to play the didgeridoo:

 13777613255202l.jpg ( 18.94K ) Number of downloads: 118

[Babhru]

what level of realization is it that brings one to the level of intense homophobia?

I think this is a fair question. I've discussed it with some devotees, and they seem to fall back on some "Homosexual Agenda" cliche. I think it's an unnecessary distraction from what they could accomplish if the realization were broader (I"m looking for an appopriate euphemism, I guess, and with limited success).

[Babhru]

I preceive that certain politicians who are initiated by him are not disclosing their religious affiliations to the public, and as someone who was maligned and discriminated against in a government setting due to being a Gaudiya Vaishnava, I was saddened that these senior devotees with ambitions to serve the public choose to feign Christianity and not to follow the cause that Tusta Krishna prabhu made some attempt to do several years before his passing.

Your perception is exactly correct. And I agree with you that it limits the real good they may be able to do. I moved from the Big Island to Maui in 1976 at Siddha's personal request to help him and his followers establish a third party and run the campaigns of several candidates at all levels throughout the state. When he asked me to help, he said that the project was starting out sort of low key and undercover (although it wasn't under very heavy covers) and would become a progressively overt mechanism for presenting Lord Chaitanya's teachings. I think there's a wide perception throughout the state now that his followers involved in public service have yielded to a cultural bias that they could actually have turned around to some degree.

[Tapati]

I read one of his diatribes about homosexuality and he also of course goes off on bisexuals. (We are supposedly trying to simply double our pleasure. If only he knew that suddenly we become very limited in the number of same sex people who are willing to date us and often the wrong type of straight people want to date us for the wrong reasons...it's really not as fun as he seems to imagine!) He seems really preoccupied with this as a societal problem. I don't see why he doesn't view it as simply one more type of material attachment to overcome (according to GV) rather than some sort of special sin. Whatever.

Does anyone know his current mailing address? One of the things I'm suggesting is that the family write to him directly about the behaviors of his followers that disturb them. I found an address but I don't know how current it is.

What I have is:

Srila Jagad Guru Siddhasvarupananda Paramahamsa
P.O. Box 27-450
Honolulu, Hawaii 96827

I think it may be that he isn't aware of all the things they do and if they are behaving in a coercive manner he ought to know about it. If he doesn't intervene, then that is a good indication of where he's really at. But I'm betting that he'd be unhappy to know that they are pursuing a minor in an aggressive fashion. Even on the level of wanting to preach it's counterproductive to risk such bad publicity. I'd think they'd want to present themselves as very different from ISKCON with its pushy tactics.