Vyapaka Dāsa – US: An Open Letter to Bhakti Caru Swami
Hare Krishna Maharaja,
Please accept my blessings. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Thank you for your quick response to my latest email detailing the value of the plane and various expenses forced upon me in order to recover the costs related to my loan. The action to contact you was encouraged by Iskcon Resolve and your disciple Guru Gauranga dasa.
Your reply to my email is as follows:
From: Bhakti Charu Swami <[email protected]>
To:rjco—@xxxxx.com
Cc: “Brahmatirtha (das) ACBSP (Gainesville, FL – USA)”<[email protected]>; GBC EC <[email protected]>;[email protected];[email protected]
Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2011 2:40 PM
Subject: ReplyDear Vyapaka dasa
Please accept my best wishes. All glories to Srila Prabhupda.
I received your letter and read its contents carefully.
I find it quite strange that you are trying to implicate me in this affair
of yours where I had no involvement at all.When you were having difficulty in getting the aircraft from the Skyvision,
because the director of that company, Sudipto Mukherji, was refusing to give
you the title of the aircraft, Brahmatirtha Prabhu, from the ISKCON resolve,
requested me to help convince Sudipto, who happens to be a disciple of mine.
And I did. As a result of that you got the aircraft. Besides that I did not
have any involvement in this affair. Therefore, please do not try to
implicate me in this.You know vary well that I did not have anything to do with this loan that
you gave to Skyvision. Although from Brahma Tirtha Prabhu I got to know
that you are a disciple of Srila Prabhupada, but apart from that I do not
even know who you are. What to speak of getting involved in your personal
affairs.If you do feel that you have a further claim after the settlement, then
please communicate with those who you have given the loan to.As far as my understanding goes, you secured the loan with the aircraft as
the collateral. The company went bankrupt. You litigated against them to
receive your collateral. I even helped you in that and eventually you got
your claim. What more do you expect from me? Anyway, please do not try to
implicate me in your business where I had no involvement at all.Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada,
Bhakti Charu Swami
And then shortly thereafter another email arrived from you:
From: Bhakti Charu Swami <[email protected]>
To:Robert Cope <[email protected]>
Cc: “[email protected]“< [email protected]>; GBC EC <[email protected]>; Rakesh – NJ <[email protected]>; “GG dasa”
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 10:52 AM
Subject: Re: ReplyPlease contact my attorney, Mr. Rakesh Desai, for any question and concern
you may have, and he will deal with them on my behalf.His email address is <[email protected]> and his postal address is:
Mr. Rakesh Desai
528 Market Street
Newark, NJ 07015In the service of Srila Prabhupada,
Bhakti Charu Swami
You will understand my aversion to contacting your lawyer as my legal fees to acquire the collateral (plane) given towards my loan totaled one hundred thousand dollars. Your disciple, Sudipto, explicitly remarked that though he was unable to stop the seizure of the plane, that he would ruin me financially in the courts.
You are correct in your assertion that you we not involved in either soliciting or securing my loan to Skyvision. However, you offered a personal guarantee to both myself and to BY Prabhu in the following email.
> > From: Bhakti Charu Swami <[email protected]>
>> To: a bose <[email protected]>; BYoga das
> > <by—–@yahoo.ca>; Sudipto Gaura Vigraha prabhu
> ><[email protected]>;
>> [email protected]
>> Cc: [email protected];[email protected]
>> Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 8:06:00 PM
> > Subject: Re: Treatments of the accounts> > …. Please also assure all the devotees to whom we woe money that, although
> > due to the present critical situation we have been defaulting in paying
> > them back and it may take a little longer, nevertheless, their money is
>> safe and they will get it back with interest. I personally am standing
> > guarantee for that (added emphasis).
>>
> > Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada,
>>
> > Bhakti Charu Swami
> >
Isn’t it remarkable that you are able to order disciples to give away airplanes when you have no involvement in their business.
You also instructed your lawyer to pressure the Sun in publishing “An Open Letter from Bhakti Charu Swami” detailing your depiction of events, as if you have had no involvement in the McPharr Geosurveys business. Your claim seems to contradict the various emails listed below detailing your involvement in the whole mess. They are being reproduced here in an effort to freshen your memory.
In all my correspondence, I have never alleged that you were involved in securing the loan to Skyvision Exploration. In fact, when giving the loan, it was emphasized that you were not to be informed of my identity. Unfortunately, that condition was never upheld.
However, your statement that you had nothing to do with these matters is bewildering. It was the GBC Executive Committee which appointed Iskcon Resolve to mediate matters between myself, yourself and your rascal disciple, Sudipto. Here is the letter from the EC:
From:Secretary (of the) EC (Executive Committee of the GBC)<[email protected]>
To:Robert Cope <xxxxx.com>
Sent:Fri, April 23, 2010 7:38:00 PM
Subject:From the Executive CommitteeDear Vyapaka Prabhu,
Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
The GBC Executive Committee has given careful consideration to the situation
involving McPhar/Skyvision and their creditors. This endeavour culminated in
the EC conducting a conference phone call with HH Bhakti Caru Swami on April
19th, in which Maharaja expressed repeatedly his group’s commitment to
repaying those who have entered into business agreements with them (added emphasis).The EC now feels that ISKCON Resolve, who are experienced in working out
detailed arrangements with parties in conflict situations, can communicate
with the parties involved to help them make concrete arrangements to bring
these matters to a satisfactory conclusion. ISKCON Resolve has successfully
helped many devotees resolve disputes in the past, and the EC is confident
they are the best people to take the process forward from this point on.Braja Bihari Prabhu, the Director of ISKCON Resolve, has agreed to take the
project on. He will be contacting all of you shortly.Hoping this meets you well.
Your servants,
Madhu Sevita das
Hrdaya Caitanya das
Bhakti Caitanya Swami
I have dozens, if not over a hundred emails and here are just two from Iskcon Resolve:
From:Bob Cohen <yyyyyy.com>
To:Vyapaka dasa<xxxxxxx.com>
Sent:Wed, January 12, 2011 6:38:17 AM
Subject:FW: creditors BCS issueVyapka prabhu,
BCS’s accountant is trying to assist in unraveling the various debts. He has asked for a 3rd party neutral inspection and apraisal document to justify the valuation on the aircraft. It is the value of the aircraft that determines the amount of your investment which has been returned. An estimate is not sufficient. With many debtors and limited funds, you can appreciate finally that an accountant in the BCS camp is demanding fiscal integrity. Wish this had been done years ago so that we would not be in this situation now.
Ys
bt
From:Bob Cohen<yyyyyyy.com>
To:Robert Cope <xxxxx.com>
Cc:GBC Executive Committee Secretary <[email protected]>; Braja Bihari BJD <[email protected]>
Sent:Tue, January 11, 2011 12:20:45 PM
Subject:RE: creditors BCS issueVyapaka
A little patience please. I wrote to you Friday and spoke to BCS yesterday. He is trying yet there is not cash available at this moment. Please provide me a current and neutral evaluation of the plane so your claim can be reviewed in context….
Yours in service
Bt
For the record, I’d like to express my thanks to Iskcon Resolve, especially Brahma Tirtha Prabhu, for their thankless commitment in partially resolving these matters. This is just one email from Iskcon Resolve detailing their dealings with BCS over this matter.
Maharaja,your email where you PERSONALLY guaranteed the debt to the devotees, myself included, is listed above; or the emails where you personally made offers to pay my legal fees in addition to the value of the plane can easily be reproduced.
There are so many more and they are not being shown here for the sake of brevity.
But to further illustrate, here is a letter from your aspiring disciple to the GBC EC where he details how you dealt with him in regards to a loan for these business matters:
From: S. M. <zzzzz.com>
Subject: Please Help Me
To: [email protected]
Cc: “bkgoswami”<[email protected]>
Date: Friday, March 19, 2010, 8:43 AMDear Members of the GBC EC
PAMHO
AGTSP
My name is S. M. and I was given this email address by HH Bir Krishna Maharaj. As you are aware of I have loaned $500,000 to HH Bhakti Charu Swami and his project of McPhar/AMG more than 3 years ago. I had received numerous calls from Maharaj at that time stating how this would help create a much needed financial basis for ISKCON and how this would please Srila Prabhupada. I was reluctant and needless to say scared of loaning so much money to Maharaj especially since my father had to take a lean on his house for that amount. Maharaj had assured me and my father that he would “guarantee” that the money would be paid back on time and be used for appropriately. It was with this assurance (of which I have a copy of this email from 3 years ago) that we proceeded to make the arrangements for the loan.
Now it is 3 years later and our situation has become dire since Maharaj and McPhar have done everything they can to avert paying devotees such as myself the due amount and never called or emailed to explain why. Rather they have “turned their phones off”. However, the banks in USA are on my father’s back to get the money paid back. They have been threatening to take over the possesion of my father’s home to reliquenish the outstanding loan. I have been trying to help by working 80 hours a week to just pay the intereest on the loan but the bank now wants principal also paid.
I don’t know what to do but it makes me saddened to know that Maharaj would use his $4million dollar land in Ujjain as a bank guarantee (of which i have papers for also) to get money for McPhar/AMG. Why didn’t he use that money to pay back the devotees who gave so unselfishly to Maharaj so long ago. I haven’t received one phone call from Maharaj saying sorry or anything of such sort. WE are suffering while Maharaj and others continue on their “preaching” mission. Is this the character that ISKCON is trying to instill in its neophyte members.
I used to chant 16 rounds and try my hardest to give that favorable impression of ISKCON to my parents and newly married wife. But this has severly hampered if not severed the relationship they have with ISKCON.
I implore the members of the GBC EC to have Maharaj pay my father back the money we desperatley need to pay back the bank. WE want to get our lives back in order and I want my spirtual life back on track.
If that doesn’t happen in the near month or so, my father will have to go ahead with his legal team to retrieve his money. That would involve the suit against ISKCON since Bhakti Charu Maharaj is a high ranking member of GBC and he represents ISKCON in his dealings. Also, our lawyers would need the records of Maharaj’s contributions to ISKCON, including the $400,000 donation last year or year before to the Turley case (in reference to where that money came from).
I am desperatly trying not to go that route but we need justice and now. We have been hearing too much rhetoric and we need something done. Sudipto and Maharaj may promise you that they will make payments monthly to us next month but I assure you that we have heard that the last 2 years and have received one or two payments. WE can’t continue that way and our banks don’t allow us that freedom of foolish rhetoric.
I never imagined this to happen to me since I always spoke so highly of ISKCON and its members.
I would have loved to donate to the building of Srila Prabhupada’s dream temple in Mayapur but instead am fighting to get money back. How unfortunate.
Please Help me.
Sincerely,
Mr. S. M.
So you solicit loans for a company you have nothing to do with; have your disciples surrender assets from a company which you have nothing to do with; promise repayment of loans for a company that you have nothing to do with; negotiate with me over legal fees and repayment of the loans for a company you have nothing to do with; succumbed to a GBC investigation over a company you had nothing to do with, etc. The list is much longer but let us stop there.
Many might have difficulty in accepting your statement of non-involvement in these affairs after reviewing these emails. The reason for my contacting you with the plane appraisal and list of related costs was due to the encouragement of Iskcon Resolve and your disciple, Guru Gauranga (G. Duncan), who personally brought the case to a group of your disciples in South Africa, who were considering paying back some of the business losses. An email from Guru Gauranga Prabhu can be produced if you don’t believe me.
Also, Iskcon Resolve informed me that the loan mentioned above to Mr. S.M., or at least a portion of it, was repaid by disciples of yours in South Africa. If memory serves me well, that is also in my email files somewhere.
And in addition, one of the Chief Financial Officers of McPharr verbally noted that you were involved in all the decisions regarding the company.
Therefore, it is difficult for me, and likely anyone reading this email, to believe in your non-involvement in McPhar Geosurveys and related companies. Funds for Skyvision were supplied by Ambarisa dasa but he had no role in the company and it was administered and run by McPhar. That is the likely reason why your disciple signed the plane over to me.
So your implied legal assault against me is not well received and reeks and reeks of the earlier assault in regards to the plane.
Much more can be said and we are prepared to publish many more letters directly from you and from others about your alleged affairs in these matters, if you so desire.
Regards,
Vyapaka dasa
