My Life behind the Headlines of the
Hare Krishna Movement
by Nori J. Muster
University of Illinois Press, 1997
Other Book Reviews
"I don't want to read a book that's not written in blood. This book is written in blood."
- John Hubner, author of Monkey on a Stick: Murder, Madness, and the Hare Krishnas.
Sex, drugs, embezzlement chant today's Hare Krishna
AsiaTimesOnline.com
By Sujor Dhar
25 July 2001
Kolkata -- Sex scandals and embezzlement charges that have knocked the image of the Hare Krishna cult are now being compounded by street battles and court arbitration between its rival groups.
Last month, internal dissensions became public when rival factions fought over which of them would lead the annual Rathyatra (chariot-pulling festivals) through the streets of Kolkata and New York.
In April, meanwhile, the shaven-headed, saffron-robed cult members abandoned their drums and dancing to pelt each other with stones outside the temple of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) on Kolkata's Albert Road, forcing police to intervene and arrest several feuding devotees.
ISKCON is better known as the Hare Krishna cult, because its adherents are best known for chanting it ritually. Krishna is a spiritual leader said to have lived in northern India 5,000 years ago, but is deified as a god. The rival groups within the cult are the ISKCON Revival Movement group led by its expelled Kolkata chapter president Adridharan Das and the ISKCON Governing Body controlled from the United States.
ISKCON, founded in New York in by one-time professor of philosophy Srila Prabhupada, rapidly grew into a world movement. It attracted celebrities like Beatle George Harrison who incorporated the trademark Hare Krishna chants in his music. When Prabhupada died in 1977, he left behind a translation of the Bhagvad Gita (The song of Krishna), an ancient Hindu text which, among other things, explained the laws governing transmigration of the soul and its ultimate liberation.
But Prabhupada also left behind a worldwide empire with more than 100 temples, centers and schools run by 3,000 full-time members - and over which an intense struggle for control has grown. By the Nineties, a string of sex and money scandals had overtaken the movement with a large number of its devotees leaving the fold in disgust.
The biggest blow came in 1988 when Nori J Muster, ISKCON's public relations secretary and editor of the organization's newspaper, left and went on to write "Betrayal of The Spirit", a book which thoroughly exposed the organization. Muster's book detailed a sordid story of drug dealing, weapons stockpiling, deceptive fundraising, Nori J Muster, and murder within ISKCON - and the schisms that forced 95 percent of the group's original members to leave.
"The root of the present problems with ISKCON is the proliferation in number of gurus," alleged its expelled president Aridharan Das. "Our founder, Srila Prabhupada, had set up a system within ISCKON which allowed him to remain the diksha [initiating] guru for new disciples for as long as the society exists," he added. "After his departure in 1977, his leading disciples unauthorizedly stopped this system and set themselves up as the new initiating gurus. Today there are some 90 gurus who are creating all the problems, many accused of sexual offenses and many languishing in jails," he claimed.
"Our first and foremost mission is to restore our founder as the only guru and disenfranchise the other 90 gurus who are actually enjoying the assets of ISKCON," Adhridharan Das said.
Countered Dayaram Das, member of the ISKCON Governing Body at Mayapur, 100 kilomters from here, "Throughout Srila Prabhupada's written and spoken instructions, he consistently stated that after his departure his disciples would become spiritual masters."
The Governing Body insists that it operates on the guidelines set forth by Prabhupada and that Das has siphoned off funds and misused the order's property. "This is all rubbish," the expelled president said.
Fissures within the cult reached a flashpoint recently at the world famous annual Calcutta Rathayatra procession on June 23. Armed with a court order, a rival group of the Kolkata chapter, which owes allegiance to gurus mostly based abroad and wield local clout through the global headquarters at Mayapur, hijacked the Rathyatra this year.
Said Adridharan Das, "I have performed this festival without a break for the past 20 years. It has grown to be the largest Rathyatra festival in the world with some 1.5 million people of the city taking part annually."
Das had appealed to the Kolkata High Court to stop his rivals from taking out the Rathyatra procession, but the court ruled against him. The court observed that he has been expelled as the president of the Kolkata unit. "We are armed with the court order. We will now ask the court to evict Adridharan Das from the Albert Road temple of Kolkata," they said.
The sex scandals involving its gurus have prompted long-time devotee Vineet Narain to set up the ISKCON Reform Group, which has branches in Australia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
Narain stated that disciples have been leaving, especially after one of the gurus, Loknath Swami, was involved in the molestation of a teenage girl in the United States. Several other self-proclaimed gurus fell from grace following serious charges of child abuse.
Several of the religious leaders are in US prisons serving terms on various charges. A group of former ISKCON gurukul (boarding house) inmates also filed a lawsuit in 1999, alleging sexual abuse when they were staying as students.
Book Review by Anuttama Dasa, ISKCON Director of Communications
Published in ISKCON Communications Journal
Betrayal of the Spirit is a troubling book for several reasons. First, because most of the decay and denial graphically described in the book's categorization of ISKCON during the ten years after the passing away of Srila Prabhupada, its Founder-acarya, is true.
Secondly, because the author's attempt to illustrate the society's discrepancies---and, perhaps, validate her decision to distance herself from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and her former position with the society's newspaper---largely ignores ISKCON's very significant and positive contributions in nurturing the lives of many, since its founding in 1966.
It is a helpful book in understanding ISKCON's early years. But, standing alone it offers a glimpse of the society that is neither balanced nor complete.
Muster weaves a colorful story of her decade of temple life within ISKCON, beginning with her first meeting Hare Krishnas as a college student at the University of California. She narrates her early ashram years, her years of editorial work at the society's newspaper (the ISKCON World Review), and her gradual disillusionment with the organization.
As a former member of the public relations department, she experienced particular angst, and thus focuses much of her book, on ISKCON's unwillingness to publicly address critical issues that arose from 1977 to 1987, the first ten years after Srila Prabhupada's "departure."
I empathize with the narration and dilemma that Muster vividly describes. As Director of Communications for ISKCON in North America since 1993, I am often beleaguered with the pressure of presenting a healthy institution to its constituents, while providing objective---and often harsh--internal critique to facilitate growth and reform.
At a seminar I attended in 1994, the Director of Public Relations from an Alabama Baptist seminary taught that institutions expect their communications people to be "a mouthpiece for the organization: to tell the good news." But, he warned, a communicator's most important job is to be a "mirror for the organization." To communicate from the outside in, how the larger society perceives, evaluates, appreciates, and faults that smaller community or institution.
In that capacity, oddly, Muster continues to serve ISKCON. Her (only slightly exaggerated) description of the eventual corruption (of an uncomfortably large number) of early gurus, ISKCON's skepticism towards non-devotee opinions and input, and the unwillingness to demand accountability at all levels of leadership, tell a painful story. In the Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krishna says that every endeavor is covered by some degree of fault. Or, as the common adage goes, to err is human. So, to some degree, we must forgive the mistakes of the past and move onward.
Real danger, however, lies with the close mindedness and lack of self-criticism that often accompany religious zeal. Documenting ISKCON's failures, then---and its unfortunate willingness to overlook them---is the book's strength.
As Larry Shinn writes in his foreword to Betrayal:
Muster's account shows that considerable personal and institutional denial took place among Hare Krishnas who were in positions of leadership and had the capacity to stop illegal economic activities or correct religious practices that were unethical by the Hare Krishnas' own standards. More circumspect leadership would have saved the group a half decade of public denial and internal conflict.
Betrayal of the Spirit is an interesting read. Few ISKCON devotees, friends, or observers will not find herein some previously unknown detail of the movement's tumultuous ten years after the departure of our Founder-acarya. Human frailty, sin, chauvinism, lust, greed, and envy are historically proven elements for a successful publication. Thus, they find here a prominent place. This overemphasis on the negative, however, is also the book's greatest weakness. Although Muster doesn't dwell exclusively on controversy, an objective reader familiar with ISKCON will recognize that the journalistic penchant for sensationalism and (perhaps) a need for "personal healing" has overshadowed the more important demand for balance and objectivity.
As Shinn comments,
Much as a disillusioned spouse looks back on his or her marriage with both longing and regret, so too, Nori Muster's story provides a selective remembering of her experiences within ISKCON...Therefore, many positive ISKCON news events are passed over for their more negative counterparts. For example, without additional sources a reader of Muster's book may be unaware that within a 30 year span, ISKCON has grown to include over 300 temples in 85 countries. Or, that most American temples minister to a predominately Asian Indian congregation. Or, that ISKCON's Food for Life project is the largest vegetarian food relief program in the world, having served 75 million free meals. Or, that the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, the ISKCON affiliated book publishing house, is reportedly the world's largest publisher of Vedic scriptures.
Nonetheless, much can be learned from Betrayal of the Spirit; especially by ISKCON leaders who should be vigilant to not repeat the mistakes of the past, while zealously pursuing a brighter future. As a member of ISKCON since 1975 I, like Nori Muster, am painfully aware of the society's historical shortcomings, and its often spastic endeavors for renewal. But, despite that, the contributions of ISKCON have far, far overshadowed its mistakes.
Shinn writes,
After Nori Muster left the movement [in 1987], reforms continued not only in the United States but also in India and throughout the world. It is not surprising that the Hare Krishnas who experienced major institutional setbacks began to develop mature spiritual and institutional reforms in response to these crises...It is important, therefore, to understand that Nori Muster writes about ISKCON in the United States during the 1980's, not the Hare Krishna movement throughout the world in during the 1990's. ISKCON does not choose to see itself as a "marginal religious organization," as some scholars describe it. It wishes to be an important spiritual movement, just as Srila Prabhupada envisioned his presentation of Srimad Bhagavatam to be "a cultural presentation for the respiritualization of the entire human society." (SB, preface) To fulfil its vision and its mission, ISKCON must continue to mature. Betrayal of the Spirit records many of ISKCON's past shortcomings. It is up to the current members and leaders of ISKCON to provide future writers and commentators with an accurate picture, a factual picture, of its renewal.
Joe Szimhart
Nori J. Muster was a member of the Hare Krishna sect, formally known as the International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), from 1977 through 1988. She recounts her decade of "devotional service" at the ISKCON public relations headquarters in Los Angeles in an honest and interesting account. Betrayal of the Spirit represents a personal insight into the behind-the-scenes propaganda machine developed by some of ISKCON's "gurus." As Nandini (Muster's devotee name) the author worked for the ISKCON World Review, the sect's primary PR and in-house newspaper. Circulation reached well over ten thousand throughout the world. World Review's purpose was to not only inform the members of the goals and gains of the group, but it also featured articles that amounted to damage control of the increasing scandals that plagued the movement. Muster writes of her years as a member during the most difficult period faced by the sect. She joined just after the founder, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (Srila Prabhupada), died and left his colorful organization with too many immature, confused and corrupt leaders. Woven throughout Muster's presentation of Hare Krishna corruption is her struggle to remain a good devotee according to the principles set down by Prabhupada. Her relationship with her father, Bill Muster, also provides a subplot that enlightens us even more about the "politics" behind the PR scenes. Bill Muster was an accomplished communications professional and businessman who sustained a close relationship with his daughter all the while she worked for ISKCON. He often advised "Nandini" and her boss, Mukunda, with valuable strategies. This did not mean that he approved of all the group stood for, but he did support his daughter's chosen spiritual path. He died of cancer not long after Nori Muster found herself outside of ISKCON in 1988. Muster was not seeking to quit ISKCON. The pervasive suppression of women's natural rights under Prabhupada's chauvinistic system and her desire to assert those rights, coupled to finally set her aside. In the end, Nandini could not convince her bosses to report the news of ISKCON's plights accurately. Despite talk of efforts to reform the movement, the male chauvinism won out; Nandini's efforts were dismissed. Back in the world as Nori Muster, the author tells us that she still sustains her belief in Krishna as her God. At times she participates in devotional activity at the temples and chants the mantra. At the end she says, "I admire Prabhupada....Were it not for Prabhupada's courage and sacrifice in coming to the United States in 1965, many more lives would have been wasted on drugs and fruitless searching." I find this last statement filled not only with loyalty and devotion, but also with irony and a touch of denial. I find little in Muster's book about Prabhupada's mixed messages he sent to his leaders about selling books and fundraising. Muster does not write of strong indications in letters by Prabhupada that speak of an insatiable need to have his books distributed and his name recognized globally. Hare Krishna devotees, whether in or out of ISKCON, might admit to corruption within the managerial ranks, but few dare criticize Prabhupada who they see as the "pure devotee" worthy of a godlike worship. The hyperactive response in ISKCON to recruit new members and raise money, even illegally and unethically, had to grow from the founder's instruction. As Muster indicates, "Prabhupada said" was as good as a word from Krishna Himself to many of the devotees. Many Hare Krishna's and their agents knew that Prabhupada was pleased with all the money they brought in from major drug sales. Prabhupada made a point to disapprove of selling drugs, but the successful drug sellers were the ones who could "catch the big fish without getting wet," which was a Prabhupada saying. To her credit, Muster does not flinch in recounting the facts about the corruption. The book's greatest value, I think, rests in its sensitive exposure of the intricate guru system Prabhupada unwittingly left behind. It becomes clear that Prabhupada retained ultimate leadership in himself through his writings, and he did not invest an equal rank to anyone, despite the claims of a few ISKCON gurus. Muster both describes and explains this power struggle within the ISKCON sect and self better than anyone has, to my knowledge. Exposures like hers are needed if Prabhupada's movement is to continue in its struggle to reform and to become a worthy home for devotees like Nandini, who Nori Muster once was.
read the original posting - click here
In Reply to: Robert A. Morace, Ph.D.
'Former member Nori J. Muster offers an inside look into the Hare Krishnas'
Magill Book Reviews, EBSCO Publishing
original book review by Robert Morace can be located at northernlights.com
Professor Robert A. Morace wrote a scathing review of Betrayal of the Spirit, posted at Northernlight.com. My publisher mailed a print-out of this review a little while ago and by coincidence, the same day Dave Schiller send a copy by email. All books get good and bad reviews and I've been lucky to have many good ones, but I've wanted to comment on this one, so perhaps this forum is a good place to post my rebuttal.
In this review Morace says he cannot understand why a reputable university press chose to publish my book. Well, for some reason, the publisher loved my story. There's a file in my closet with about 150 rejection letters from literary agencies and publishers for this book and two of my novels. It's a good collection that any writer would be proud of. Any piece of writing can find a publisher if the writer keeps trying.
Morace says, 'The author's feminist critique would be more convincing were it not so superficial, the target so easy, and the author less adoringly dependent on the advice of her father, a public relations professional who helped save the steamboat Delta Queen and sell cluster bombs.'
First of all, I disagree that I even set out to write a "feminist critique." The reviewers of Feminist Bookstore News were more accurate about my intention when they said: 'It may not be feminist but it does offer a rare look into the world of those women dressed in orange who put flowers in your hands at the airport in search of spare change.' That's exactly what was on my mind when writing. It's certainly not feminist because the book defends the Hindu customs of celibacy and chastity, while pointing out how those values differ from the culture where I grew up (Los Angeles during the 60s and 70s), and even differ from what ISKCON practiced. Actually, ISKCON had it's own belief system and code of morality, only loosely based on Vedic (or Hindu) culture, which the book describes.
He implies that my book attacks ISKCON. Actually, it's a story about ten years of my life, rather than an attack on anything. It's written in the tone of a debriefing and emotional discharge of that experience. Also, I disagree that ISKCON's an easy target. It's actually an exceptionally deceptive target. In ISKCON, the worst perpetrators wore religious robes and claimed to be spiritual leaders. They have gotten away with their crimes for decades, simply by enforcing a rule that it's a spiritual offense (blasphemy) for anyone to criticize them.
Regarding my father. ISKCON advises (at least it did in 1978, when I joined) new members to cut ties with their 'material' friends and relatives. The fact that my father could be involved was a relief to him and the rest of my family who would have otherwise felt that they had 'lost' me.
On this one point, I do admit that I talk too much about my father. However, he did a lot to help the Krishnas' various public relations campaigns. He was listed on the ISKCON World Review masthead as a consultant during the last three years of his life. He also helped us in our fight for an open editorial policy during those years. Including him in the story line, I hoped to pass along some of his wisdom.
Finally, as to whether my dad sold cluster bombs. My dad never actually sold bombs, so let the record stand corrected. He produced an informational video for a client that described cluster bombs. It was a paid job for a military defense company. Perhaps that's a form of selling one's soul, which could be compared to what I was asked to do for ISKCON. The point was that I was making by citing his example, was that I felt cheated because I sold my soul to protect the crooks in ISKCON, and wasn't even paid.
Morace says, 'Despite its titillating subtitle, Muster's memoir of her 'life behind the headlines' provides few insights and no evidence whatsoever of what Michael Novak has called the 'profound religious struggle . . .' The reviewer is right, there's no trace of Michael Novak, but I delivered behind the headlines material. For example, the book describes what was going on in ISKCON behind the George vs. ISKCON trial, the Berkely guru's gun busts, the Laguna Beach Mafia-murder and drug bust cases, New Vrindaban's FBI raid and grand jury investigation, and a host of other news stories that made headlines. The book also describes what was going on behind the headlines of ISKCON World Review.
Morace says, 'The reader learns little about ISKCON in general, and not much of substance about the Los Angeles and West Virginia temples with which she is chiefly concerned. Insight into the cult phenomenon . . . are virtually non-existent.'
Perhaps the reviewer misses the point. Los Angeles and West Virginia temples were involved in illegal activities. At least those people who were "in the know" were. The rest of us, ordinary, blind followers, thought everything was on the up and up. That's what was happening. The organization was shallow and unspiritual, except for those who actually chanted our rounds every day, followed the four regulative principles and attended the morning programs.
Any devotee could write an interesting book about their experiences, and I predict that more will. For example, I would love to read an honest book by an ex-GBC member, ex-sankirtan devotee, or ex-gurukula student. If they write honestly about their experiences, their stories will help future generations avoid making the same mistakes. Think of how much healing an honest book about New Vrindaban would bring.
My book is simply a slice of life: Watseka Avenue as Nandini experienced it in the 1980s. The book is about how the leadership's crimes collided with my spirit, and why I decided I had to leave. I was in ISKCON for ten years and this is what it was like, these were the things I saw, these were the main characters, this is what I learned from my research after leaving the organization. My experience mirrors hundreds of other "ordinary" members' experiences. I wrote the book to give them a factual behind-the-scenes look at the organization they belonged to during that terrible time.
Rediff.com
The Darker Side of ISKCON
Two of the books on the Hare Krishna movement stand out for their detailed narration of the power struggle and corruption in some chapters of the movement. The sordid events -- child abuse, sexual corruption and murders at New Vrindaban are the subject of the book Monkey on a Stick by John Hubner and Lindsay Gruson.
The controversial Hare Krishna leader, Kirtanananda, aka Bhaktipada, was fined $ 250,000 and slapped with a 20-year-old federal prison sentence for racketeering and conspiracy in two murders about four years ago. He was expelled from the Hare Krishna movement much before he was found guilty.
Nori J Muster joined ISKCON in 1978. She lived in the Krishnas' western world headquarters in Los Angeles and worked for 10 years as a public relations secretary and editor of the organization's newspaper, the ISKCON World Review.
Her book, Betrayal of the Spirit, discusses international drug smuggling, arms caches, airport fundraising, child abuse, and assassinations within the mysterious group, as well as the dynamics that forced most of the group's original members to leave.
Muster's book is about the public relations nightmare of the decade following founder Swami Prabhupada's death. Disillusioned over continuing internal strife, in 1988 Muster left the world of saris, brass cymbals and institutional male chauvinism and returned to mainstream American life.
Her story reads like a non-fiction suspense novel while she shows how an organization can quickly fall into dishonesty, deceit and hypocrisy.
Muze Annotation
The former director of public relations for the International Society of Krishna Consciousness (also known at the Hare Krishna movement) offers this behind-the-scenes account of her ten years as a member, and the scandals and inconsistencies within the movement that ultimately led to her departure.
http://www.addall.com/Browse/Detail/0252022637.html
ISKCON.net
Nori Muster, in her forthcoming book Betrayal of the Spirit, offers a perspective on the gap between religious proclamations and practise in ISKCON during her years in the movement throughout the 1980s that I encourage all of those in leadership positions in ISKCON today to take seriously. Though Muster's book may emphasise primarily the negative attitudes and events associated with ISKCON in America, it also reveals her longing for models of piety and integrity that gurus and ISKCON leaders purportedly represent. Her story reveals the deleterious effects of shallow religiosity, unethical conduct and self-deceptive proclamations by some of ISKCON'S gurus and leaders on the average devotee who simply looks to see how wide the gap is between what a person asserts about his or her authority as a spiritual leader and what he or she actually does. For Prabhupada that gap was quite narrow. That is his legacy, from which contemporary gurus can learn much.
http://www.iskcon.net/hktv/hktvshinn.htm
India West
Ex-ISKCON Devotee Vents In a Revealing Book
by Viji Sundaram
Nov. 21, 1997
In the 1970s and '80s, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness made reams and reams of press, a good part of it negative.
After its founder Srila Prabhupada's passing, some of the 11 gurus he had named to run the organization grew power hungry. Stories one would ordinarily not link to a religious institution--of kidnappings, high-handedness, non-accountability, drug deals, illicit sex and murder--were linked to ISKCON, whose reputation steadily plummeted.
In "Betrayal of the Spirit," Nori Muster, a 22-year-old graduate of U.C. Santa Barbara, who did a 10-year stint with the organization as secretary of public relations and editor of its newsletter, ISKCON World Review, uses her insider's knowledge in her tell-it-all book She describes what went on behind the scenes of an organization which, to the public mind, was one of white dhoti- and sari-clad hippie-types who made a nuisance of themselves at airports and bus terminals, and sang with frenzied fervor on the streets.
Free of malice, the book reveals how the young woman, who entered the movement filled with hope and idealism, eventually left thoroughly disillusioned, thanks to the very people she had hoped would guide her on the spiritual path.
'The ISKCON I joined was exuberant, joyful and confident,' she says, in the last chapter of the book. 'The ISKCON I left was scarred with scandal, enmity and disgrace. When I consider that difference, I cry.'
Acknowledging that the title of her book does indeed sound somewhat harsh, Muster in the preface says that 'most Krishna followers are gentle people, who observe the principles of celibacy, sobriety and vegetarianism.
'Millions have found peace through chanting Hare Krishna, and I believe A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada brought genuine spirit to the West. The word 'betrayal' refers to the attitudes and events that betrayed the spirit.'
That betrayal took the form of the male leaders expecting the female devotees to unquestioningly carry out their orders, uncomplainingly occupy the back rows at ISKCON conferences, and resignedly accept the fact that they were of 'lesser intelligence.'
In illustration of this, Muster writes about a male-dominated ISKCON conference she and a handful of other women devotees once attended in a New Jersey temple.
Toward the end of the conference, she writes, a woman in the back row stood up, shaking with self-consciousness and said: 'I joined the New York temple in 1968,' she began. ' . . . I've tried to do everything my authorities asked. I'm so fed up with the way I'm treated that I could cry.
'The women have the worst rooms in the building, and the plumbing is breaking down. When I told the temple president our shower was broken, he said to use a bucket.
'We never have a place to chant because the men won't let us in the temple room during japa time. Sometimes I think ISKCON is only for men and I'm just in the way.'
From a literary standpoint, the book is not a page-turner and one that perhaps will never make the best-seller list. It doesn't grip like 'Monkey on a Stick' --a book published in the late 1980s by a Bay Area journalist and a New York Times reporter--exposing the revolting goings-on at some of the ISKCON centers.
Nevertheless, Muster's book provides the curious with vivid glimpses of an organization that has since made serious efforts to redeem itself.
Betrayal of the Spirit is part of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In an email 23 July 01, Prof. of Religiou Studies Tom Tweed said: "My students found the excerpt from your book very helpful. And I am happy to know about the new paperback edition. Thanks."
Check out Dr. Tweed's book:
Retelling U.S. Religious History, by Thomas A. Tweed (Editor)
This collection marks a turning point in the study of the history of American religions. In challenging the dominant paradigm, Thomas A. Tweed and his coauthors propose nothing less than a reshaping of the way that American religious history is understood, studied, and taught. The range of these essays is extraordinary. - Amazon review
Publishers Weekly on the Paperback
Amazon.com Reviews
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