Child abuse in ISKCON

[Nityānanda dāsa]

I know we're trying to shed the baggage we have from our experiences in IGM. However, this is an important issue for anyone who may have any remaining connection with ISKCON.

Really great podcast taking the leaders to task for their continued abuse...

m.youtube.com/watch?v=4NHsLnZiiQw&feature=youtu.be

[meeno8]

My brightest and best Sanskrit student in the LA gurukula ended up commiting suicide. It could have been due to how he was treated by the organization.

[meeno8]

My mother was in Catholic schools and described the nuns' cruelty. At least they taught her calligraphy, which she used throughout her life.

[meeno8]

I guess the point is that child abuse is not exclusive to IGM, and may just be typical of organized religious institutions, but I think we all know that already. Can we even say that traditional CV is entirely free of it? That I personally do not know. As Harvard psychology professor Stephen Pinker points out in his books, the south is a much more violent culture than the north here in the USA, being more of an honor culture. So, corporal punishment in public schools is endemic there traditionally, but not in the north.

[meeno8]

I just have one more comment on this subject:

My own experience was that kirtan within ISKCON was never polluted by whatever else was going on. It was not really that powerful for me until I began traveling with Swami Vishnujan on the bus with the Radha-Damodar party of legend. Although I am a classically trained pianist and flautist, he could play that little harmonium reed organ far better than I ever could. When we had kirtan on the streets of Frankurt, they bought me a pair of white cloth gloves to play the flute outside in the cold. I never was very good at keeping a beat (my piano teachers always had the metronome ticking during lessons), so people would usually grab the khol or karatals away from me, and rightly so. Ha ha! With Vishnujan he had me playing the Chinese musette, basically the same type of double reed instrument as the Indian shenai. Bottom line: The maha mantra in kirtan and japa is infused with shakti, irrespective of diksha (as it would apply to the diksha mantras passed down in a parampara). Others may disagree on this, but that was my own direct experience.