by Karen Jonson
I had no idea what to say to Kate. We were silent for a few minutes, and then I started talking about something else.
That was the last time Kate and I talked about it, until we reconnected after the Trinidad incident. Somehow, for all of those years, I had pushed the memory back into my subconscious, where I chose to not examine it.
After we reconnected, Kate and I talked about it and I cried. I was distraught that I had not done anything for her back then.
“What could you have done?” she said, trying to comfort me. “Nothing would have changed, except that you probably would have been told to leave.”
I knew she was right. But I still cringed with disgust, wondering how my moral compass could have been compromised. I had always been horrified by stories of child sex abuse. Yet, when an underaged girl told me about untoward advances from an older man, I had failed her.
Like so many brainwashed men and women, I allowed what I wanted to believe about my guru to override the cold, hard truth of his actions.
72
The Girls Speak Out
Breaking Their Silence
IN AUGUST, AFTER THE TRINIDAD INCIDENT, an innocent email to Kate from Adam, the son of devotees, kick started a whole new problem for Prakash.
“Isn’t that stuff with Maharaji in Trinidad bizarre?” Adam wrote to her.
Kate had no idea what he was talking about. So she did a Google search, and started learning Kripalu’s secrets, just as I had a few months earlier. Although her parents, sister, and brother still lived in the ashram, they had never said a word to her about Kripalu’s arrest. She immediately shared the news with her younger sister, Vesla, and another woman, Shyama, who had also grown up in the ashram.
Hearing about Kripalu’s arrest, the girls became angry. Years ago, Kate and Shyama had tried to tell their parents about their own abuse at the hands of Prakash. He had kissed them on the mouth and breasts, and fondled them all dozens of times over several years when they were children. But no one would listen to them. A few adults told them if Prakash was touching them he was simply giving them grace.
Since their parents did not take action, the girls eventually processed their molestation in their own way, as children do, and went on with their lives. Now they realized by keeping silent for so long about their own abuse they had potentially put other girls in danger. Kate told me, “By not speaking out sooner and trying to stop Swamiji, we allowed him to continue abusing other children. We know now that we cannot stay silent any longer about our sex abuse.”
The powers-that-be got wind of the girls’ decision to speak out, which they translated into: “Kate was causing trouble.” Though I supported the girls fully and was in fact in touch with them, I panicked a little. Even though I knew I was leaving. I still had not completely shaken off the years of cult conditioning.
Kate and I arranged to speak on the phone. Our first conversation lasted three hours. It was like two lost souls reuniting and understanding each other’s pain and turmoil without having to provide any backstory. We were both in shock and outraged about the secrets that were tumbling out. She shared her experience about growing up as a child in the ashram with me in greater detail. It was far from the idealized childhood the adults wanted to believe. She told me some kids at school made fun of her and the other ashram children, even calling them “devil worshipers.” She said there were always dozens of adults sticking their noses in her business, telling her how to dress and how to behave. Plus, her parents pressured her to go to satsang and to spend time with Prakash. With all the criticism directed at her, she felt like she was never good enough.
Then Kate told me more about the sex abuse at the hands of Prakash, including the many times he got her alone in his bedroom, and how he rubbed her breasts and tried to French kiss her. “I always kept my teeth clamped tightly closed, so he would just rub his tongue over my teeth,” she explained.
Once, when she resisted, he asked her: “Don’t you like it when boys in school do this to you?” It was a bizarre question for an adult male—nevermind a so-called saint—to ask a child.
After the first time it happened, she stayed in her bedroom for three days. Her mother, Sondra, grew suspicious about her behavior and read her diary, in which Kate had written about her experience. Sondra took the diary straight to Prakash—not to confront him, but to warn him. Then she called Kate and asked her to talk to Prakash and “work this out between them.” Kate didn’t have much to say, while Prakash insisted he “won’t do it again.” But he did.
There was also a harrowing incident where she was made to sleep in his bedroom one night. Her mother and Prabhakari helped arrange the sleepover. They placed a mattress on the floor next to his bed. Kate said she laid on it while he worked. When he was finished working, he told her to go brush her teeth and then get into his bed. He proceeded with his usual ritual of touching her breasts and trying to French kiss her. “I thought, if he tries anything else, like touching me below my waist, I will know for sure this is wrong.” After more kissing and breast touching, he told her to go back to her mattress. In the middle of the night, he woke up once and made her get him a glass of water. Later, the preacher named Diwakari handed her diary back to her—with all the pages that mentioned Prakash torn out.
After learning about Kripalu’s arrest, Kate reached out to other women and children who she believed had been touched by Prakash. A few spoke to her, but most refused to discuss it. Kate’s abuse was already over the 10-year statute of limitations for child molestation in the state of Texas. However, the abuse of her sister and Shyama had not yet reached the statute of limitations. They decided independently to report the molestation to the Hays County Sheriff’s Department.
Kate and I continued our correspondence, with me filling her in on what was happening in the ashram. In fact, She knew so much that one time, during a heated exchange with her father on the phone, she told him: “I know they are calling us demons.”
He responded with exasperation: “Where are you getting your information, Kate?” But she did not reveal her source.
One day, her parents and half-sister Prabhakari drove to Seattle at Prakash’s request, and appeared at Kate’s door. They tried to convince her to stay quiet about her allegations. But it was too late. The girls had made their decision.
In November, Vesla and Shyama flew to Austin to give Hays detectives their testimony about the sex abuse they’d experienced at Prakash’s hands.
73
The Demon Speech Trilogy
The Fear of God
AFTER KRIPALU’S ARREST IN TRINIDAD, we began to hear that were among us demons for the first time.
Out of the blue, Prakash and his people were telling us about how saints on Earth faced “opposition from demons.” In fact, there were three “demon speeches” within five months. Prakash gave the first speech in Los Angeles on 5 June 2007, about three weeks after Kripalu’s arrest. At that time, Kripalu was stuck in Trinidad, because the court there had taken his passport. Meanwhile, Prakash was in the U.S., trying to raise money to get him off. The second demon speech was given at Barsana Dham by the preacher Diwakari on August 26th. Prakash gave the third speech in Barsana Dham the night he returned from India on October 15th.
These speeches were the organization’s new way of explaining why some people—including the girls and a handful of ex-devotees—had become openly negative about the gurus. I was not surprised by their reactive behavior. It was typical. But I was amazed at how low they had sunk in their treatment of former, once-faithful, generous devotees and children who had grown up in the ashram.
Prakash’s first discourse on demons was recorded on a CD entitled: Divine Descension and Material Opposition. He began his twenty-five-minute-long diatribe with the usual devotional spiel. About eleven minutes into the speech, he described how, when Bhagwan Ram appeared on Earth in about 5,000 B.C., a demon named Ravan appeared to oppose him. When Krishna appeared 500 years ago, Kans and other demons emerged to oppo
se Him. Prakash said the demons appeared with the incarnations of God, because “that is the nature of maya; when a big power comes, another power tries to oppose.” He said if a smaller divine power appears, it experiences weaker opposition. “Big divine power, big opposition.”
Then Prakash segued into a discussion about Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who, when he appeared on Earth 500 years ago, did not encounter demons like Kans. But there were “lots of demons in human form” who revolted against him. “Demonic powers (appeared) through those people who have evil hearts. Through them, those evil powers of maya, they revolt against the supreme power. That is natural to happen. It has to happen with every great power.” He added, “Descended supreme divine personality, great opposition.”
He said thousands of devotees were longing to love and serve Chaitanya directly, but couldn’t go near him because he was a sanyasi. Chaitanya thought to himself as he was leaving this world: “I’ll come again. All the souls who love me, I’ll liberally give them my association then—in my speech, physically, (and) in my writings.” According to Prakash, Chaitanya returned to Earth in October 1922 AD in the form of Kripalu.
Next, Prakash talked about Kripalu in hushed tones and somewhat breathlessly. He said he was innocent, “like a child. That’s a very great thing. He’s giving his love by all means. By speech, by physical association, by talking to people. Sometimes he sits among us and does some chanting. He’s so great.”
Then he returned to the topic of demons. “Those evil powers they do their work opposing Maharaji. Let them do their work.” He chuckled and the audience laughed. “We have no concern with that. They are doing their work. We are doing our work. Good people do our work. Let them do their work.”
Then he put the fear of God into his audience: “He’s here. And that chance is extremely rare. In billions and billions of years, it has come once.”
Just before concluding his speech Prakash added another tidbit about the alleged demons among us: “In the world, the other evil powers, they keep on playing. This is the mayic world. Don’t even look to those people; what are they doing or what they will do.”
Demon speech number two occurred one evening when we were summoned to Prakash’s sitting room. Diwakari, the ashram’s president at that time, told us the Hindu scriptures lay out the guidelines for the behavior of a true devotee. She listed five or six guidelines, emphasizing one in particular, which we had hear many times before from Prakash: Devotees should never think, speak, or listen to anything negative about the gurus. She added that some former devotees had been actively opposing Kripalu and it was “our duty as good devotees” not to talk to them. She said these people were actually “demons.”
Then, in October 2007, on his first night back in the ashram from India, Prakash delivered the third demon speech. Just as in his June speech, he began by saying there are no demons like Kans on Earth these days, who were Divine entities in demon form. Instead, “there are demons in human form” here now. He said many of the demons among us started out as sattvic (pure) devotees, but had turned into tamsi (impure) demons. According to Prakash, any devotee can flip from being a good devotee to an evil one in a nanosecond.
Prakash added that there were people in India and the U.S. who were once Kripalu’s devotees and some who “used to be children in this organization,” but who now opposed him. They are “out in the world causing trouble for JKP.” He said he knew one of these girls in her childhood, and she used to have visions of Krishna. But the last time he saw her she was “married and completely worldly.” He added that no one should communicate with any of these demons in any way. Then he stated: “If any of these evil-hearted people are members of your family, you should consider them dead.”
The next day, I talked to a naïve devotee while cooking with her in the kitchen. She was genuinely afraid that her son, who was not a devotee, could be a demon. She said he openly opposed her activities in the organization. “I wonder if Prakash is talking about. I might need to get him out of my life.”
My heart broke for her. Clearly, she didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes. But I could not share the facts or reveal my true feelings, because I was still living undercover. I realized her terror, like so many, was part of the collateral damage of the gurus’ cult behavior and cover-up.
In the end, I knew exactly who the real demons were.
74
Preemptive Strike
Creating Their Defense
ON LABOR DAY 2007, I spent a rare day away from the ashram from sunrise until after sunset.
Patty and I had gone to the Schlitterbahn water park in nearby New Braunfels to relax and enjoy water rides all day. As we were unloading my car back at the ashram, Katie W., an ashram board member, appeared out of nowhere.
“I was looking for you earlier,” she said to me pointedly, taking me by surprise.
“What did I do?” I said. It was never a good thing to have Katie W. looking for you.
“Nothing. I’ve been talking to devotees in the ashram about a situation and I need to talk with you too.”
Just then Patty came back outside. “I need to talk to you as well, Patty,” Katie said. I felt a little better knowing I was not the only person she needed to talk to.
We sat in The Girls’ House living room. Katie read from a notepad clipped to a brown clipboard. During the entire discussion, she was basically reading from a script that had been provided to her. She started by telling us that she and three others on the Barsana Dham board were instructed by Prakash to talk to all of the devotees and tell us about a situation that had developed. The reason they were sharing this information was that any one of us could be contacted by some people who were causing trouble, and they wanted to warn us.
She turned to me and said, “Especially you, Karen.”
“What do you mean especially me?” I was alarmed. Nothing good could come out of being singled out of the pack during this crazy time.
“Well, you used to be friends with the girls.”
“That was years ago,” I said, hoping to throw her off my scent.
Katie went on to tell us that Kate had grown extremely negative about Barsana Dham, because Prakash had once “hugged and kissed her.” She said this young woman was now taking her anger out on her parents by accusing Prakash of assault. She added, sounding quite insincere, “Of course we love her and wish her the best. In fact, I wish I could just take her in my arms and hug her until she feels better.” She added that Kate’s younger sister had joined her in her insinuations.
“Vesla?” I said, faking surprise.
Katie glanced at me. “Yeah, I know,” she said, as if shocked, too. Later, a recurring theme I heard was how surprised some devotees were that the mild-mannered Vesla was speaking out. Almost no one was surprised that Kate was involved, as she was viewed as outspoken and considered a bit of a rebel.
Katie had also said Kate was engaging in a wide variety of destructive actions, including contacting people and talking negatively about Prakash, filing a complaint with the Hays County Sheriff’s office, starting a private online Yahoo! group for ex-devotees, and filing a warning with Child Protective Services (CPS) about a thirteen-year-old girl who stayed in the ashram on a regular basis.
Katie said someone had shared with her some of what people were writing on Kate’s Yahoo! group. “I’ve seen it myself. It’s not good,” she stated.
Katie went into some detail about the CPS situation. The girl’s parents did not believe the allegations and were angry with Kate for lodging the complaint. She said it had torn their family apart for several weeks while they were under investigation. The father apparently said, “I trust my mother-in-law and daughter. And if they say nothing has happened, then nothing has happened.”
Katie also told us about the parents and Prabhakari traveling to Seattle to try and sway the girls, which I had already heard from Kate. In Barsana Dham’s version, Kate had told her parents: “Choose us or choose Barsana Dham.”
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br /> One of the parents had said, “We cannot choose. We love you and we love Barsana Dham.”
So Kate allegedly said: “Then our family is over.”
But Kate told me quite a different story. It was her parents who had indicated that their relationship would be over if the girls didn’t stop their plans to speak out.
During the course of my discussion with Katie, she called Kate a “troubled narcissist.” She said Barsana Dham was going to get a lawyer and was considering suing Kate for libel. They never did follow through on that threat. One of the many interesting things about Katie’s disclosure was that in all my years in the organization, the powers-that-be had almost never shared anything with the devotees who were outside of the inner circle.
For them to have revealed this much of the situation with us was a big deal—so why were they sharing now?
75
Gaining Shakti
My First Radha-Krishna Experiences
IN THE MONTHS AFTER KRIPALU’S ARREST, I felt like I was living in a modern-day Mahabharat War—with the two opposing sides squaring off to do battle.
The Mahabharata is the story of a famous conflict in Indian history that was fought on the battlefield of Kurukshetra sometime between 6000 BC and 500 BC by two rival dynasties—each claiming to be the rightful heir to the kingdom in North India. The battle created complex conflicts of kinship and friendship, with instances of family loyalty and duty taking precedence over what was right, and vice versa. Every Indian child grows up hearing about this famous battle in an epic poem of over 74,000 verses called the Mahabharata.
The heart of the story is the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna engages in a profound spiritual conversation on the battlefield with Arjuna, a great soldier. In the scene, all of the kings, princes, gurus, and soldiers are gathered on the battlefield, with opposing sides facing off on each other, ready to advance. Arjuna looks around and sees family members and friends on both sides, and tells Krishna: “I cannot fight these people; they are my family, friends, and spiritual leaders.”