Guest guest Posted July 7, 2001 Report Share Posted July 7, 2001 Dear Prabhus, Please accept my respects. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. After reading all this nasty skirmishing campaign against Acyuta Madahava das and Bhakta Amit in the net I decided not to stay silent and write what I know about this whole situation in Turkey. My name is Jaya das and I am originally from Turkey. In fact I have been involved in preaching activities in Turkey since 1985. I was encouraged by the former GBC Atreya Rshi das for translating Srila Prabhupada’s books in to Turkish language, and since my guru maharaja H.H. Lokhanath Swami had instructed me to do the same service I made this my main service and concern. In fact I was brought to California ISKCON Berkeley by Harivilas prabhu back in 91 in order to get trained and translate books. I translated many books during my years in Berkeley temple and also got sucked in to management responsibilities in which I ended up serving as a TP from 94 to 98. During this time Harivilas prabhu appointed Airavata das with a preaching responsibility in Turkey. Since we were supposed to cooperate, I tried to develop some friendship with Airavata das and wrote him many warm and friendly letters. But all the response I got from this devotee was extremely cold, secretive, and full of skepticism. Although I tried every way to convince him to cooperate with me for printing Srila Prabhupada’s books, it did not take me long to realize that this man had every intention to keep me out of the picture. Although there was nothing substantial going on with his preaching in Turkey he was consistently writing these elaborate Vyasa-puja offerings every year to Srila Prabhupada and describing his wonderful advances (which never took place) in that country. In the spring of 99 he informed me that he received $5000 donation (did not want to tell me who the donor was) for printing books. After a few days of planning we decided to get together in Istanbul in 0ctober 99 with an intention to print the Turkish Bhagavad-gita As It Is. I purchased my plane ticket and made all the necessary arrangements with my job, but Airavata das suddenly disappeared from the scene. In the meantime troubled from Airavata’s silence the donor Satya Narayana Prabhu approached me during the 99 San Francisco Rathayatra and expressed his anxiety and his skepticism over the credibility of Airavata das. Together we talked to Harivilas prabhu and I promised them to check the situation when I go to Turkey. Since I had lost my hopes for spending that donation for the printing of the books I was forced to raise laxmi in a very short time, because of this I ended up canceling my flight twice. Finally I managed to get $1000 donations from two generous devotees, my wife and I added another $2000 and I went there with $4000. By the help of the Lord, I managed to make a deal with a publishing company in Ankara to print 2000 Bhagavad gita and 2000 Chant and Be Happy in Turkish for $4000. These books were distributed to major book stores in the big cities. It was around this time I met Acyuta Madhava das in Istanbul. Although he was only 17 he had managed to find himself a good job in a Turkish magazine and he had developed contacts with many VIPs in Turkey. He looked like an intelligent and clean cut youngster with sincere intentions to serve the Lord. We had a nice talk and I praised him for preaching on such a tough land and encouraged him to carry on with his service. After questioning him about Airavata and if he printed any books Acyuta Madhava das told me that Airavata claims to have printed 80.000 copies of Beyond Birth and Death in Turkish, but he gave me an impression that eventually he had not seen any books printed or stored anywhere. The BBDs that they claimed to have printed were actually printed in Italy years a go by Madhu sevita prabhu with an intention of distributing them to Turkish community in Germany. Later on they were stored in Bulgaria when no one wanted to distribute them. Since I did not see any BBDs in the book stores in Turkey this only approved my thoughts about the tricky character of this man. Later on upon the complaint of Satya Narayana das, Airavata das was questioned by Sesa prabhu and found guilty for mishandling ISKCON funds and he was asked to pay $5000 back to Satya Narayana prabhu. After this incident young Acyuta Madhava das realized that it’s necessary for him to leave the company of Airavata das and carry on preaching through his articles in the magazine he was working and arrange nama-hatta programs. I tried to help him with his articles and encouraged him to carry on with his preaching. But since Acyuta Madhava das knew too much about the corrupt personality of Airavata das and the skeletons in his closet, and he was also capable of arranging much more effective programs then he is, he suddenly became a target for the vehement attacs of Airavata das. Pretending to be an Interpol officer Airavata das started sending threat messages to the magazine where Acyuta Madhava worked. As you have seen in these messages he even blasphemed to Acyuta Madhava’s employer. This is the proof that this man has a very nasty and abusive character and such a person should not be in a position to represent Srila Prabhupada anywhere in this world. Depending on the information I received from Acyuta Madhava das and many other devotees proves that Airavata das has a very nasty character and he tries to manipulate everyone around him; this is the reason that he has been kicked out of many temples including from his own country Azarbaijan. According to GBC Harivilas das, Airavata and his men are not authorized representors of ISKCON in Turkey. And they certainly do not represent Srila Prabhupada either. The only reason that Airavata and his men are staying in Istanbul is because he has been kicked out of every temple he lived, but he found a chance to have some title and so called leadership in Turkey, which would give him an opportunity to collect from ISKCON community in the name of Muslim preaching. I believe Airavata and his men has collected a lot of money with this excuse and lived on it, far away from the watching eyes of ISKCON authorities and ISKCON society. And according to reliable information we got from Acyuta Madhava das, Airavata das has at least $50.000 stashed in his bank account now. When it comes to his claims about him developing a big community in Turkey as a result of his years of so called low profile, underground preaching, I would say “where is the proof”? Eight years of Airavata’s preaching has not created a single Turkish devotee with a commitment to take initiation, instead a young Turkish devotee Bhakta Gokhan has recently committed suicide as a result of severe depression he suffered after traveling to India with Airavata das. According to Acyuta Madhava das the sorrowfull mother of Bhakta Gokhan has been blaming this incident to his son’s association with Hare Krsna’s, especially with Airavata das. Despite my many requests for mailing addresses of this so called cultivated Turkish devotees, Airavata das has not given me a single address of such person. He either does not want me to get in touch with this people or he did not have created any community. Recently Bhakta Amit also realized that it would be the right move to leave Airavata’s company and work with me and Acyuta Madhava das under the supervision of Harivilas Prabhu. Together they invited Jay Advaita Swami and did some programs in Istanbul. Although Maharaja’s visit was probably beneficial to everyone who attended his lectures, it did only threaten Airavata and his company and also aroused their envy. Because every successful program these devotees would arrange could only prove their failure and give them a guilt consciousness. They were scared to loose their donors if these two devotees would go on arranging programs like this, and although nobody attacked them, they somehow felt threatened and they started attacking these young devotees in order to discredit them. I believe many of you have already realized, that this whole attack and smear campaign against these two young devotees is purely based on envy. In a way it’s been good, so now everyone knows what has been going on in Turkey. Unfortunately Airavata’s aggressive tactics have been successful and caused Acyuta Madhava das to loose desire to return to Turkey. While guys like Airavata das has been living on donations and doing such atrocities, guys like me who has been translating Srila Prabhupada’s books and trying to print them by spending his own money is being punished by BBT. BBT has been demanding me to pay $4000 royalty fee for those 4000 Turkish books I printed by spending $4000. According to GBC Harivilas das BBT supposed to ask only %10 of the total printing expenses. Although some BBT Trustees have promised me to discuss this issue in BBT meetings, nothing has been resolved yet, and I am being harrased to pay $4000 plus the late payment fees. I am sure Srila Prabhupada would have been very disgusted with this attitude, if he was present today. Since it’s very hard to sell books in poor countries like Turkey, I hope that BBT will come to it’s senses and start supporting people with a this kind of cause, instead of crippling us by asking such an outrageous royalty fees. If BBT does not change this shameful policy I am afraid I may not be able continue printing Srila Prabhupada’s books. I hope and pray that BBT Administrators will come to a sane decision on this matter. All I want is to carry on publishing Srila Prabhupada’s books in Turkey and put them at book stores. In fact we do not need anyone preaching there yet, we should just let Srila Prabhupada preach through his books. Bunch of nasty, tricky and aggressive characters would only turn people off from this movement. Who would put faith on a group of foreigners who keep fighting among themselves? For that reason, as a Turkish citizen, and as a senior devotee involved in preaching program in Turkey, I would kindly advise Airavata and his men to leave Turkey as soon as possible. It would be better for them if they get married and start raising a family or something, rather than pretending to be saints while they are not. They are only creating a potential treat to this movement in a dangerous country. If we go on printing books, people will read them and inquisitive ones will get in touch with us. Until a certain number of followers created, I believe it’s better to refrain from any kind of sankirtan or street preaching over there. Since I am born and raised in Turkey I know how fragile the situation is; there is a tremendous pressure on religion in Turkey, and I am terribly worried about Airavata and his men may become the cause of destruction of this movement on that highly paranoid and military oriented Muslim country. Anyway prabhus, thank you for taking time to read this information. Unfortunately it’s a nasty subject matter to talk about, and whenever we talk about nasty subject matters we ourselves sound nasty too. I hate to put down somebody and boast myself at the same time. But when we are dealing with the realities of management affairs one may have to act accordingly. Depending on my personal observance about mismanagement problem in ISKCON, I can say that it lies in the hands of incompetent (non ksatriya) administers failing to confront rotten personalities due to lack of soul power and fear of offending a devotee, so they usually watch them climbing on posts while elbowing everyone in the chest. As a result some ambitious persons get a post and in the end (due to many offences committed) usually makes a big mess of himself and the community that he is identified with. Srila Prabhupada’s society has greatly suffered from this kind of people and if we want to leave a decent community to our children we must start taking responsibility and standing up against rotten elements. Nastiness and self motivated manipulation are definitely included to such rotten elements. Srila Prabhupada left us a wonderful house built by his divine hands, but if we do not keep it clean, than no matter how rich or beautiful it looks it will not be appreciated neither by karmis nor by us and by our children. I hope this meets everyone in good health and blissful Krsna consciousness. Thank you for your time. Haribol. Your servant, Jaya das Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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