SpiritualOn December 15, 1974, a Sunday morning like any other, some seventy devotees were eating breakfast at Schloss Rettershof. Between spoonfuls of hot halavā and sweet yogurt, stories of the latest saṅkīrtana adventures made the rounds.
Most of the book distributors had arrived the night before after another successful week of distribution. And after unloading their vans and taking showers, they had joined a tumultuous kīrtana in the castle’s main hall and enjoyed many hours of ecstatic chanting and dancing. The next day they would launch into the last week of book distribution and fundraising before Christmas, usually the week with the biggest results of the year. But at eight o’clock that next morning, a well-dressed man in a dark coat knocked on the front door. He was the state prosecutor, Mr. Schomberg, and he was not alone. Accompanied by eighty policemen, he entered the Schloss and presented a search warrant. For the next few hours, the police checked everyone’s identification and searched the building. For many months Schomberg had gathered apparently incriminating evidence of fraud and other illegal activities. An increasing number of citizens, doubtful that their donations were being sent to India to feed the hungry, had been going to the police.
Around noon the devotees were taken to the police headquarters in Frankfurt for interrogation. The officers took their pictures and fingerprints, and a judge accepted the prosecutor’s demand to freeze the Society’s bank accounts.
*** Śrīla Prabhupāda was in Bombay when he received the news of the raid by telegram almost a week later. He was informed that bad publicity, not only in Germany but also all over the world, was marring the public image of his movement. Prabhupāda asked Brahmānanda Swami to fly to Frankfurt and get him a detailed report.
BHAKTI GAURAVANI GOSWAMI: Some of the devotees thought the raid was a direct backlash to the publication of Leben kommt von Leben, because I had left Prabhupāda’s outspoken criticism of modern scientists unedited ― on purpose. The idea was to raise awareness, to apply a kind of shock therapy. When Brahmānanda Swami heard of this, he told me that to publish such statements was not a wise decision and that Prabhupāda did not approve of it. He recalled a similar situation in the early days of BTG. They had published an article criticizing Ramakrishna, and Prabhupāda had written to Brahmānanda who was in charge of the magazine's editorial content: So far as "Heroine Govinda Dasi'' is concerned, if she has stated directly Ram Krishna as nonsense and rascal, that should not be indulged in. We cannot attack anyone directly in writing. There is a proverb in Sanskrit that you can speak something one thousand times, but don't give it in writing. Similarly, we may use some strong words against all this nonsense, but if we write it in black and white, that will not be good. So instead of naming these rascals directly, you change the word to “mental speculators”. As became clear several years later, during the court hearings, the accusations against ISKCON reflected the public’s irritation with ISKCON’s fundraising methods, especially in connection to the food relief program in India.
When Śrīla Prabhupāda received a letter from the Stockholm temple president describing the questionable methods used by the Swedish devotees, who had also been trained by Hansadutta, he replied on January 6, 1975: Regarding dishonest means being used, I have never advised or taught anyone like that. That is not my idea. This record distribution has caused havoc. It should be stopped immediately. I have also asked Hansadutta to stop it. Book distribution is our real business. If we give them a record, they simply hear some magical sound and take it for sense gratification, but if they receive one of our books and read even one page, they get eternally benefitted. To Brahmānanda Swami, he wrote: “Hansadutta was giving stress to selling records using all tricks, by any means. The incident in Germany has caused havoc all over the world. It is hampering our reputation everywhere. I do not want this record distribution to continue. So, stop this record distribution immediately everywhere. And stress book distribution more and more.”
As devotees worldwide became aware of the disastrous consequences of dubious fundraising methods, an internal debate flared up: did the ends really justify the means? Rūpānuga, one of the GBC secretaries for North America, who defended a straightforward approach, turned to Prabhupāda for guidance and received the following instructions: Regarding the controversy about book distribution techniques, you are right. Our occupation must be honest. Everyone should adore our members as honest. If we do something which is deteriorating to the popular sentiment of the public in favor of our movement, that is not good. Somehow or other, we should not become unpopular in the public eye. These dishonest methods must be stopped. It is hampering our reputation all over the world.
Money collected for feeding people in India should be collected under the name ISKCON Food Relief. Not any other name. And every farthing of that money must be sent to India, or better yet, buy food grains there and ship them here and we will distribute.
Prabhupāda had also asked Bhagavān Dāsa to visit Schloss Rettershof. On receiving his report, Prabhupāda expressed his disappointment as follows: I am very much depressed by the recent incidences in Germany. It is now evident that some of our top men are very much ambitious, and there have been so many falldowns. In his last letter, Hansadutta said as follows: “I am exhausted, my brain is exhausted, I do not know what to do, so you can just tell me what I should do and I shall do that. I cannot understand your mind or actions; I do not know what your Divine Grace wants, or what you want from me. So, at this moment I am just going to sit and chant till I hear from you because everything till now has come out wrong, so please just instruct me what to do. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news again. Please forgive me, I am so helpless and spiritually weak. Please save me. What more can I say, please save me. In India, you said, ‘Every rumor contains a grain of truth.’ So the police, the karmis, the newspapers must also bear a grain of truth. I feel discouraged now. All my godbrothers and your Divine Grace are dissatisfied with me, so I have lost my enthusiasm».
Prabhupāda asked Hansadutta to join him soon in Hawaii. He would try to rectify his disciple and encourage him to be more careful and go on with his duties. This was not the first time one of his leaders had stumbled. But he never rejected any of them. He had always done everything to save the person. Prabhupāda kept the doors open and welcomed whoever repented his mistakes and willingly resumed the fight against māyā.
ŚUBHĀṄGĪ DEVĪ DĀSĪ: I was born in Germany in 1948 on Three Kings’ Day. My father, an expressionist artist, was religiously inclined and used to study the Bible every day. He showed me the importance of faith and taught me how to pray, and therefore I consider him my first guru. Being an artist by profession, he frequently took me to the countryside, to the cow pastures and cornfields, where he sketched wonderful sceneries of nature or depicted subjects from the Bible with Jesus and his disciples. After High School, I absolved a year of voluntary social service at the University Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland. Together with a friend, who was also a temporary nurse, we spent some of our free time with the old and often lonely patients, talking about God to enliven them a bit. In 1973, I met some followers of Guru Maharaj Ji and got involved in their so-called meditation that was to make us believe that we—being in possession of all the elements, the light, the ocean and divine amrita—were Bhagavān, the Supreme Lord. But then our Guru ‘Bhagavān’, at the age of 17, married his secretary, and that was the end of it for me.
Around the same time, I met Proshun, a young Bengali who had come from Calcutta to Hamburg to study and who would later become initiated as Sarvabhāvana Dāsa. He explained to me that it was impossible for anybody to become Bhagavān. He helped me to detach myself from Western thinking and its materialistic lifestyle, and he also showed me how to adopt an Ayurvedic healthy and regulated life.
In 1974, we got married. While continuing our studies at Hamburg University we began to practice yoga, got into vegetarian cooking, and tried meditation at home. One day we happened to see the cover page of a newspaper with the warning title: “Hare Kṛṣṇas pressure even old widows to part with their last coins. Beware!” Consequently, when a Hare Kṛṣṇa monk approached us sometime later on the street and tried to sell us a book, we gave the excuse, ‘We are students, we don’t have any money.’ Then we accelerated quickly our gait to get away from him, but one of the Hare Kṛṣṇa ladies came running after us and frantically tried to give us a magazine. She said, “You have to read this, it will change your life!” When we told her, “We have no money, we are students!”, she gave us the magazine, Zurück zur Gottheit, for free. Startled we gave her a small donation. Sometime later, my husband met the devotees again and bought a book about Lord Caitanya in English.
We were both Christians and wanted to dedicate our lives to God. We began to read the book daily and were impressed by the Vedic philosophy and Śrīla Prabhupāda’s clear explanations. Gradually, we began to implement the teachings in our lives. We gave up bad association, avoided accumulating unnecessary things, even took a vow to remain silent on Sundays, and changed our diet to complete vegetarian. We had regular meetings, cooked together and discussed God and life with Kishor from Kolkata, Kishor, with whom my husband had come per ship to Germany. Kishor later became Bhakti Charu Swami.
At the end of 1974, we moved to Berlin and joined the temple. My main services were to transcribe the German translation of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and to help Dīnaśaraṇa Mataji with the sewing of the Deity outfits for Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Madana-mohana.
In early 1975 we moved to Schloss Rettershof, the ISKCON Center near Frankfurt. That summer we were initiated and had a Vedic marriage ceremony. In October of that year, I gave birth to our son, Abhimanyu.