Bhaktin Protector – USA: One time I spoke with a devotee who had left a temple that Badrinarayan Das (GBC) was in charge of. She has since gotten initiated but was a bhaktin at the time. She nonchalantly told me she was one of Badri’s girls in the course of the conversation. I asked her what she meant by Badri’s girls?
She told me when you come to the temple you need protection right? A women always needs protection. Yes, I told her, I agreed, just to hear what she had to say. So, she said, as long as you are not married you need a MAN to serve, right? Yes I said. And what better MAN is there to serve than an Advanced Prabhupada Disciple like Badrinarayan?
She continued on, When a new bhaktin comes to the temple they are given a choice of who to serve, there are three Advanced Prabhupada Disciples(!) in the temple who are all married or were, so they choose who they get to have as one of “their girls” in order to engage them in Krishna’s service. Now the rest of the men don’t understand this, so there is no need to tell any of them, besides they would all be envious if they found out so we keep it a secret. Badri had Bn1, Bn2, and Bn3 as his main girls most of the time. I was his for a little while, then Advanced Prabhupada Disciple 2 became tired of one of his Bhaktins and traded me for her, then later on Advanced Prabhupada Disciple 3 traded 2 of his Bhaktins for one of Advanced Prabhupada Disciple 2’s and so on.
So how do they protect you? I asked.
Oh, lots of ways. She said. You get to associate with them intimately at night, for example, by having pizza parties and eating cake and you get to confide in them confidentially and inquire about things and it isn’t sexual at all, and they get you out of any kind of service you don’t want to do because it might just be too austere for you! Also we had our own special nickname for him, Badri the Bod.
Badri the Bod?
Yes, because he has such a good body. I was lucky I had him to serve for a while, because he has been saying for years that he wants to take sannyasa! And don’t believe his wife if you happen to talk to her because she said he was falling down with her the whole time and she is such a prostitute that she had sex with five men in two weeks just after they broke up in order to prove it!
I don’t know when or even if Badri stopped doing this, but there were 8 or 9 women being used in this way by the leaders at the time she said. That is all I can say on the subject, but if you could find some women who also had this happen to them you could get more information from them.
The poor women who join don’t know anything. The men think they are less intelligent and exploit them instead of protecting them. And the women go along with it because they get an easy life with more facility for sense gratification than they otherwise would as single women. Especially when there were an abundance of women at the temple at the time. As far as the men who wanted to get married, they were discouraged at every step and as far as the women went, they were told all sorts of horrible things about the men, how unqualifed they were, or they just wanted to use them for sex and things like that.
So if these things are still going on it makes me very much want to stop them in order to really protect these women. They are being led wholesale to the slaughter house of being used by the temple authorities as concubines and don’t even know it.
I remember also hearing that Badri was attracted to this one girl (young of course) who joined with her husband some years ago. He immediately started preaching to her how degraded her husband was, and how advanced she was! Eventually the husband became very discouraged and left his wife who became Badrinarayana’s personal assistant. The rumor was, according to the same devotee who told me the story about his having a small harem to himself, he wanted to marry this girl, who was very pretty.
Also the way this may have all started is one day Badrinarayan was very excited about something and ran up to tell some of the men about what he had heard was going on in New Vrndavana. It is old news now but some of the men were using the women as prostitutes in order to get them to go out and collect more money. The New Vrndavana men were also doing Sankirtana at strip clubs (nudie bars), because that was the best place to earn money, since men are just throwing it away there anyway and some of the women were starting to do it too.
“That gives me an idea!” said Badri, and he went off with the other Advanced Devotee Men in the temple to discuss things in private. I am not sure who the Advanced Prabhupada Disciples(!!!) were that were all involved, but at the time I think she said Guna Grahi was on the board, but he couldn’t do it because he was already a sannyasi, Mahatma Das the singer was allowed several of the women, Dharmasetu Das the head priest who has a reputation for being a strict pucca brahmana had a few, and the rest might have been under the “protection” of Srutadeva, the Advanced Prabhupada Disciple(Yippee!!!!) who either had sex or at least molested his own daughter for several years before I think she told on him.
They used the term “Advanced Prabhupada Disciple!” whenever they referred to one of themselves among the women they protected to show them how lucky they were to get to serve them. The rest of the men were just “ordinary devotees” and didn’t sound like something you would want to marry.
Another story about Badri and how he protected the devotees under his care. It is hard to believe but true. He had this philosophy that if the men and women devotees got married they would fall into maya and stop doing service at the temple. Bhagavan wanted his disciples to marry, so they would fall into maya together and stay in the temples together and New Vrndavana controlled people by offering them wives but not Ramesvara’s zone. So the devotees had been waiting for years to get married and one day things came to a head and all the women refused to do any service unless Badri told the truth. (As if he ever would) so he said they could do it at the morning class.
Class time came and one of the women sat on the Asana and pitifully cried her heart out, saying she had been trying to get married for years, and it was hard enough to control the senses, and they promise you a husband when you come to the movement, and then nothing happens, and you have to depend on the temple to get you married, and if you try to make your own arrangements they will kick you out and tell your guru you are in maya! (On top of that, Badri secretly had all the women thinking half the men in the temple were gay and wanted to stay that way and never even get married anyway). All the rest of the women chimed in and agreed and others started to cry.
Now it was Badri’s turn. He admitted that he had lied and never had any intention of getting any of the devotees married but he said it was all Ramesvara’s fault, it was Ramesvara’s orders not to allow the devotees to get married.
The next morning at mangal aroti time HALF THE DEVOTEES HAD BLOOPED. And the temple never recovered. The devotees who left had gone permanently, and the temple room seemed empty. One devotee was so distraught he jumped in front of a train and committed suicide, and when Badri found out he ran to call Ramesvara. The devotees already had heard it as a fact from someone who had seen it, but when Badri came back he announced to the temple, “It’s ok, he didn’t commit suicide, he just got pushed in front of the train as people were lining up to catch it.” This devotee had been labeled as “envious” just because he didn’t believe “Srila Ramesvara(Yipee!!!)” was a pure devotee! For that reason he was kicked out of one temple to another, and definitely was on the ban list for getting married.
One could be initiated, that was alright, but you could never get married, because only a person advanced enough to liberate his wife, children etc. can get married. But the Advanced Prabhupada Disciples could marry one woman after another since it was good for the woman (especially if she was young and pretty). She needed to make advancement. The Advanced Prabhupada Disciples had important business to do too, so they could not engage in mundane affairs such as raising laxmi to live in their apartments, the grand disciples were meant for that. Just like the Advanced Prabhupada Disciples surrendered everything to Srila Prabhupada, now it was time for the granddisciples to surrender everything to the Advanced Prabhupada Disciples, because they are seen to be on the level of one’s guru, and so they must be served without any reservations.
In the eighties the temple came up with a scheme to make more money than by selling books in the airport. They would sell fake coffee and cookie Prasadam along the highway at non profit rest areas. In order to do this, they converted an apartment into a bakery, illegally. Why they could not use the temple kitchen I do not know. They did not want to kill roaches so they put raw cookie dough out for the roaches, citing the example of Srila Prabhupada’s father who left raw rice out in small cups for the mice so they would not eat the cloth he was selling. The roaches multiplied at an incredible rate, being baked in the cookies and running all around contaminating everything. This was known laughingly among the devotees as “The roach kitchen.”
At the same time the temple was forced by the Health Department to buy a walk in refrigerator. They felt they did not need it and the health inspector was in maya being a less intelligent karmi so they continued to use the garage they rented across the alley from the temple to store most of the bhoga in. This garage was infested with mice. There were more mice than boxes of vegetables, bags of rice, flour, and so on. This was lovingly referred to as “The mouse garage.”
The walk in was used for storing the free vegetables that the devotees pulled out of dumpsters, old, rotten and slimy, and also for whatever milk and prasadam and whatever good bhoga there was that needed refrigeration.
All went well until one day the non devotee who lived above the mouse garage saw some mice running out of it, lots of them. She said she couldn’t understand why she could not get rid of her mice but now that she saw so many coming out of the garage she knew why, it was the devotees! A man heard the commotion and said he had been trying to get rid of his roaches for a long time too and knew it was because of the illegal bakery! The police were called and the Health Department and devotees started running around trying to dispose of the slimy vegetables in the walk in and throwing things in the dumpster but the health inspector pulled out his thermometer and said these vegetables have just come out of the walk in, and they are rotten! The devotees then said they were going to throw them out anyway but the Inspector made them put them back in the walk in and locked it up.
The temple had to pay to have the entire block fumigated in order to kill all the roaches. I don’t know if they shut down the kitchen that time, but it was shut down not only for cooking for the public, but it was so bad at one point the temple wasn’t even allowed to cook for the Deities and had to go to different householders apartments in order to cook for Their Lordships and drive the bhoga offerings to the temple. At least this is the story that I heard.
Back when Kirtanananda was getting in trouble for racketeering instead of murder charges, which was easier for the Gov’t to make stick, Badri was afraid he might get in trouble for the same thing, being the leader who sent out all these devotees to perform illegal activities such as selling paintings, stickers, hats, etc. Book distribution was frowned upon for not being as lucrative. But the worst thing was all the granddisciples were told that in order to please the guru they had to please the temple president. The temple president said there were more than enough temple devotees so they wanted everyone to go out on Sankirscam. I mean sankirtan. And that meant many of the devotees’ lives would be ruined when they were arrested and jailed. I do not know how many were, but even one is too many.
And what would Badri do? Preach about how much of a sacrifice you made to your guru? I don’t even know but I do know he did not get in trouble but the records of those who got caught now say “solicitation without a license” or something and who knows how many devotees were arrested multiple times for that?
The preaching was that as a devotee you would never need to get a regular job anyway so it didn’t matter. Devotees are transcendental prabhu. We can do anything in Krishna’s service. Somehow or other by hook or by CROOK! So for a long while it was common knowledge that the new devotees were “keeping the temple going” while the Advanced Prabhupada Disciples(!) would stay at home and think of transcendental plans to engage the newer devotees in making money to support all the older devotees. It didn’t matter how long you were a devotee, as long as you were not initiated by Srila Prabhupada you were less advanced, the Prabhupada disciples were on the level of your guru, so you had to serve them for not only the rest of your life but ETERNALLY and it was your duty to do so whether the Advanced Prabhupada Disciples were following the regulative principles or not. Even if they say they aren’t they are just being humble, and besides “Srila Prabhupada said we don’t know if ANYONE is chanting their rounds!”.
So the Prabhupada disciples really had it made, everything was paid for and they weren’t even following anything, some of them, they just had to show up once in a while to show they were still around. The congregational members were also supporting the advanced Prabhupada disciples, who are eternally more advanced than anyone else just because they were initiated by Srila Prabhupada, whether they are following or not, but since the congregation did not understand this point, they were not to be informed of this, since they were envious of Srila Prabhupada and only came to the temple to worship Krishna instead. If they ever did find out that the money they were giving was being used to support the householders, no doubt they would stop giving money to the temple, because they foolishly thought they were devotees of Krishna too, so why should they give money to other householders? They did not understand that the godbrother of the guru is equal to the guru so they should be giving money to support all the godbrothers of the guru, whether they are following the principles or not, since they were only less intelligent Hindus and not real devotees after all, so don’t tell them.
I have another story too that I hesitated to add, there are so many. Here it is: for many years Badrinarayana would sit on his asana and give class and tell about how a devotee or devotees used to pick the neighbors flowers early in the morning while out on japa walks trying not to get caught, without asking for the flowers. When Srila Prabhupada heard about this he became very angry and said to stop doing it and ask for the flowers if you want them, and if the neighbors want you to have them they’ll let you. So the devotees did. He would also say Prabhupada said “The end justifies the means” in Krsna Consciousness, although I personally have yet to see that quotation or hear it from anyone else but him.
Every year at Janmastami the temple room would be gorgeously decorated with hundreds if not thousands of all kinds of exotic roses, banana leaves and other foliage all over the altar, the temple room itself and plenty more for the devotees for puspanjali. One would think the temple must spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on those items but in fact they were stolen every year! The devotees were asked by Badri to go to Balboa Park in San Diego in the middle of the night to their rose garden that they very lovingly and carefully cultivated with many rare and exotic kinds of flowers and they would pick as many flowers as they could and fill up garbage bags full of flowers. They also indiscriminately chopped down banana trees and other decorations for the temple, “liberating” them and “engaging them in Krsna’s service” because “they are just going to die anyway”. Then they would come back to the temple where the women took over.
The women devotees would grab the garbage bags and go right to work, making garlands and picking the best flowers for the Deities, placing roses on the ledges of the temple room, right down to picking the petals off the flowers that were falling apart to be used in the bowls for the devotees to offer. Not a thing was wasted. This went on for many years and apparently also was happening in Los Angeles where they would steal from a garden or park there and they even procured some lotus flowers for the Deities. It was all Krsna’s arrangement.
Until one day when the devotees were seen in the park and were followed to the temple. The police caught all the devotees red handed, still taking the flowers out of the van. The devotees tried using the excuse that was planned in case they were caught,”Someone just dropped off all these flowers, we don’t know where they come from or who does it, but they do it every year!” But it didn’t fly. The police had all the devotees come and “testify” together. Many of the newer men, not initiated by Prabhupada, had been out on these flower hunting parties and every time Badri had been the one who ordered the raids. And the women were obviously there waiting for the flowers with sheets to spread out at just the time when the devotees came back to use for making garlands along with needles and thread, bowls and so on.
Badri knew he had to do something in order not to go to jail. He had tried to blame it on just the few men who were caught actually stealing the flowers but when so many said he was in charge he said,”I’m not going to take the fall for this!”. After some quiet whispering between Badri and others the whole thing just went away. Somehow the police found out that Ramesvara was “ordering” Badri to steal along with the rest of his zone so perhaps Badri sold him out so the police would go after some bigger game.
The police left the devotees with a warning that they didn’t care who was in charge of this if it happened again all of the devotees would be arrested next time. After they left Badri went around asking who could have told on them and terrorizing the devotees a little with fear that they would be beaten or kicked out or both, and this looked really was going to hamper their service to the Deities. No remorse was expressed and no responsibility was ever taken by Badrinarayana. One devotee said if she was asked to participate in the dealings next year she would refuse, but she was a Prabhupada disciple and could get away with it. The grand disciples thought they had to do whatever the temple president said in order to please the guru or they would be kicked out anyway and Badri would tell all the temples in the guru’s zone not to let the devotee into their temples either, and Ramesvara knew the other gurus too, so don’t think you can get away with moving to any other temple in ISKCON either!
In Conclusion: So Badri thought this idea of the gurus having big asanas was maya. He wanted a big chair, but only for the Advanced Prabhupada Disciples! That way he and his friends get to sit on the big chair (look at his ebay lectures) like gurus while the grand disciples learn their place is eternally to be in a lesser position.
He wanted a farm he said, because he wanted to get away from all the people who come to the temple and aren’t in the same mind set as the farm devotees. He hinted that certain devotees would be more suited for the farm and some not. That the farm would be a special place for special devotees, leading some of the women to openly speculate who would be able to live with Badri once he left the temple to go live on the farm? Of course, Badri would always be in charge of the both places, but you’d have to be on the special list to get to live on the farm.
The very farm that now is being used for attracting Hindus with demigod worship? I don’t know if they built it yet or not. But I did visit the temple website and Dharmasetu looks like he is being paid to do weddings for any Hindu that wants him to, by the looks of the comments he’s getting. Things like, Dharma explained the wedding ceremony, I had no idea what it meant before and some other choice comments.
How much does he charge to perform Hindu wedding ceremonies, death rites, and so on? And does he use the temple to do it? He seems to be using the temple website as an advertisement? And he always made fun of Hindus and Paid Brahmanas.