Gold, Guns and God: Swami Bhaktipada and the West Virginia Hare Krishnas: Vol. 10: The Final Pastimes

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by Henry Doktorski

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Volume 10 of Gold, Guns and God covers a fifteen-year time span roughly from 1996 to 2011. Chapter 103 discusses the return of New Vrindaban to ISKCON, and some of the demands ISKCON placed upon the West Virginia Krishna community in order to once again be part of ISKCON. Chapter 104 deals with Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada’s eight-year prison term, and some of the difficulties he and his disciples endured during that time. Chapter 105 tells of Bhaktipada’s release from prison and his return to his joyous disciples at the New York City Interfaith Sanctuary. I attended this festive event; but also observed that not all the relations between my godbrothers and sisters were joyous. Bhaktipada himself helped create more chaos when he was accused of attempting to fondle the genitals of a visiting young man. The temple residents split into two camps: those who believed the allegation to be malicious rumor and those who believed the allegation as fact. Those latter devotees attempted to evict Bhaktipada from the building. Chapter 106 describes Bhaktipada’s abandonment of the United States, where most of his formerly-loyal disciples and followers had deserted him. Bhaktipada and his sycophant Radha-Vrindaban Chandra Swami emigrated to India where they were greeted by thousands of adoring disciples and followers, who believed the accusations against him were lies and falsehoods. Their faith in their “spiritual master” was firm and their conviction that he was a divine being who could save them from material calamity was fixed. Chapter 107 describes Bhaktipada’s last three-and-a-half years of life, living as an honored guest of his disciples in India, until his death on October 24, 2011. Yet his adventure was not finished, as Chapter 108 describes the mis-adventures his deceased body endured while his disciple and followers attempted to find a suitable resting place (samadhi) for their master’s corpse. For a time, Bhaktipada’s body lay in an ice-filled plywood coffin at a cow shed, as the Vrindaban Radha-Gokulananda Mandir (where his well-meaning but inept disciples hoped to construct a samadhi for their deceased master near the samadhis of the great Vaishnava acharyas Lokanath Goswami, Narottama dasa Thakur and Vishvanath Chakravarti Thakur) refused to grant them permission. Finally a property was found for sale and purchased to protect the remains of the Founder/Acharya of the Eternal Order of the League of Devotees Worldwide for all eternity, but it was hardly an auspicious site, as the property was situated between the Yamuna River and the Parikram Road and the property sometimes flooded during the monsoon season. In death, as in life, Bhaktipada was plagued by setbacks, many created by his own activities.

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