by Karen Jonson
A: That’s correct.
86
A Rapist’s Rituals
Kripalu’s Modus Operandi
SOME RITUALS ARE SACRED TO SOME HINDUS—Kripalu had many of his own creation—some performed publicly and conducted only in private.
Rather than performing the complicated pujas and ceremonies of most Hindu sects, his public rituals were much simpler. For example, one daily ritual in his ashrams was to make devotees line up each morning during satsang to bow to him and pay a cash seva ($2.50 in India and $10 in the U.S.).
My first clue to Kripalu’s private rituals came when I read one of the first reports about his rape of the young woman in Trinidad on the Trinidad and Tobago News Blog, in an article entitled: “Visiting Guru Held on Sex Charges.” It stated:
“He was arrested by police at a house in Palmiste late Friday night. According to a police report, at around 11:30 p.m. on Friday, the woman went to the home of the man (Kripalu) to reportedly get spiritual healing. The man, the report stated, told the woman to take off her clothes. He then sprayed a liquid on the woman’s entire body, then sprayed himself with the same liquid. The woman claimed that the man then began to fondle her and ordered her not to move. The woman told police she was then made to perform oral sex on the man after which the man had sexual intercourse with her for approximately one hour. She was then instructed to leave the house.”
I remembered this story once I started hearing other stories about Kripalu’s sexual activities—they were all highly ritualized. From my research, I arrived at the conclusion that Kripalu’s modus operandi for sex at this stage of his life (in his 80s) included three basic rituals. The first was when he had sex with willing adult female devotees during private time. The second was his bath seva ritual. And the third was when he forced himself on underaged girls.
For sexual encounters with willing female devotees, the ritual went like this: If it was the woman’s first time, she was prepped for the encounter by one of the gurus’ preachers or helpers. They would tell the women something to the effect of “This is your chance to be with Kripalu intimately, like the gopis are with Krishna.” The women were instructed to take a shower, shave everything, trim their nails, and take off their jewelry. (I later learned that “shave everything” included pubic hair—something Kripalu was introduced to by Western women, and which he really liked and began requesting.)
When they were presented to Kripalu, he would tell them to lie on the bed. He would frequently spray them and himself with perfume. Then he would proceed to French kiss them and paw at their clothing. If he could not easily get their clothes off, he would tell the women to take them off. Once they were either partially or completely undressed, he would indicate for them to perform oral sex on him. At some point, he would initiate copulation. If it was not a woman’s first time, he would get to the main event faster, either performing oral sex on her, getting oral sex, or having intercourse. One woman told me when she walked into his bedroom one time, he was already sitting on the edge of the bed masturbating. He gestured that she should take over the job.
When he was done with a woman, he would tell her he loved her. If it was her first time, he would add a warning: “Don’t tell anyone.”
Many women returned to these private encounters with Kripalu hoping things would get a little more cozy, and less quick and rigid. But as one woman finally realized, “Maharaji doesn’t cuddle.”
The basic structure of Kripalu’s daily bath ritual, which women paid $2,200 to perform, operated like this: Each day a woman would be selected for the ritual and prepped. Everything had to be just so, from the temperature of the water to the position of his rugs. He would walk in naked and sit down on his bath stool. Using a bucket of water, soap, and a washcloth, the woman, with his help, would wash his entire body, including his private parts. When he was clean, he would indicate that it was time for her to perform oral sex on him. When he was done he would stand up, indicating it was time for the woman to leave.
Then there was his ritual for raping underaged girls. A young girl would be told by a preacher or helper to take a shower and wear loose clothing. She would be taken into Kripalu’s bedroom and left alone with him. He would often spray the girl and himself with perfume. Then he would take off her clothing or tell her to get undressed. He’d then lie down on top of her and force his partially erect penis inside, guiding it in with his fingers. As with the adult women, when he was finished with a girl, he would indicate that she should leave, telling her he loved her and not to tell anyone.
Typically, the women who brought young girls to Kripalu the first time would wait outside the bedroom door. They would tell the girls things like: “This is a very special experience between you and Maharaji. He is Krishna and you are a gopi. Don’t tell anyone about it.”
Now I understood why a full-time crew of women changed the sheets on Kripalu’s bed several times a day, and why a large closet outside of his bedroom was filled with bottles of perfume.
87
The Moral Minority
Our Ex-Devotee Network
BEFORE LEAVING BARSANA DHAM, I read somewhere that the two most effective ways to heal from being in a cult are having a great therapist and the support of other ex-members.
After Steven J. Gelberg left the Hindu organization called the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), he wrote about his experience, including this insight on recovering from a cult.
“It’s hard to imagine an experience more wrenching, more potentially disorienting, than leaving a spiritual community or tradition to which one had devoted years of one’s life. This re-orientation to self and re-entry into the world is no small task, and it’s more easily finessed when one has the support of others who’ve travelled a similar path.”
I already had the perfect therapist in Elise. She had helped me in many miraculous ways. But when I read Mr. Gelberg’s words, I assumed I would never have an ex-devotee support group. While many other people had come and gone in my ex-cult over the years, I did not know where they were. I had only few friends in the ashram, because Prakash discouraged it. Although Jane and I had not been friends in the ashram, we bonded once we got out, mainly because, at first, all we had was each other. We clung together like the last two survivors on a life raft. Our two-person support system was a long-distance relationship, since she had moved to a northern state. But we stayed in daily contact via email and occasionally had long phone conversations. It was a relief to know I had a kindred spirit in the “big bad world.”
In Austin I was alone, except for my long-time friend, Karen, whom I knew through work. Karen was a wonderful supporter, but she had not been a devotee and so had not “traveled a similar path.” As a result, she could not truly understand the devastation I was experiencing, and the feelings of fear and loss I was going through. Only another devotee would be able to understand.
A miracle happened when Kathi and I connected. We formed an impromptu network and slowly expanded our support system to include one dozen ex-devotees. Of course, Kathi’s husband Wayne was a member. He had decided he was done with JKP the day Kripalu gave him a cookie and told him it cost $2,000. But his wife took a few more years to disengage; basically because she felt like she loved Kripalu, as did many of the female devotees.
Kathi also connected to an Austin Indian couple, Deepak and Sushma, who had been going to Barsana Dham for years. In fact, they had moved their family from California to Austin in the 1990s to be close to the temple. But by 2005 they were beginning to learn about the gurus’ secret activities and slowly extricated themselves from the organization. They gave our support group a valuable cultural perspective on gurus and Hinduism.
A single man who had moved to Austin to be closer to the temple, and who had also been a faithful follower, had left the group about the same time. He was sick the abuse directed at him despire performing endless hours of free labor. But learning more facts from Deepak and Sushma sealed his decision to leave an
d never look back.
Kathi had already reached out to a woman who had not been a devotee herself, but had been married to one for many years. When Sue’s husband died shortly before Prakash’s arrest, Kathi offered her a hand in friendship. Sue’s other friends from Barsana Dham had abandoned her once they realized she had taken the girls’ side in the criminal charges against Prakash. While she couldn’t provide the insight of a true devotee, she was a lawyer and brought a much-appreciated legal perspective to our group’s regular discussions about Prakash’s arrest and legal machinations.
Our network grew to include several more people who were not in Austin, including two families in California, a man who worked in Washington D.C., and Suzy and her husband, who now lived in the northeast. We all stayed in touch via email and phone calls. Several ex-devotees declined the invitation to join us, preferring to keep one foot in— or to forget the whole experiece.
At our first gathering, Sushma looked around and said, “Is this it?”
We had assumed more devotees would be shocked and offended by the gurus’ illicit behavior and leave. But the sad reality was that the vast majority of people stayed thoroughly entrenched in the organization, choosing to believe the gurus were above reproach. We were disappointed. After all, there were children involved, who had been molested by these men.
Our Austin contingent came together regularly to keep each other informed on the latest news and to provide support. We were driven by a shared need to understand the twisted gurus and how we got caught in their trap. We were a small group, but, as it turned out, a formidable one. Eventually, our little network created a powerful force of advocacy for the girls and women abused at Barsana Dham. We had several stunning moments of success while doing our part to help expose the gurus’ crimes, including an email campaign that kept Prakash out of Barsana Dham until the trial. We rejoiced at every win for our side and witnessed some miraculous events along the way. The miracles started with Prakash’s arrest, and continued through his criminal trial. In fact, we often said to each other: “This must be guided by a divine force, because none of us could have created the miracles we are witnessing on this side of the battle for justice.”
While I was no longer sure what form God took, I could definitely see his handiwork in the nearly perfect execution of justice. One time I commented: “We waited in the ashram for the gurus to perform miracles, which they never did. Now all of the miracles are happening out here. If the people supporting the gurus want to see miracles, they need to get out of there.”
Of all the miracles we witnessed, we longed for one miracle above all: that Prakash be found guilty in a court of law.
88
Talking to Mary
The Former Sureshwari Surfaces
ONCE KATE REALIZED THE TRUTH about the gurus, she started contacting former devotees—and found Mary, the former preacher named Sureshwari.
Actually, Mary was one of the first people to join a private Yahoo! chat group that Kate had started. She had been Prakash’s main preacher for nearly thirty years and Barsana Dham’s president for nearly ten. Prakash initially gave her the name Meera Devi, but in the early 2000s Kripalu changed her name and that of many of the other U.S. preachers’ names for no apparent reason than, apparently, to make them “his.”
A few months after I moved out of the ashram, Mary agreed to speak with me. She told me how she came to realize JKP was an evil cult and described how her life had descended into hell. But she could not speak out publicly because she feared what the organization might do to her. She had heard, seen, and experienced a lot more than most people, and believed the gurus would retaliate if she spoke out. She had already suffered unimaginable abuses in the last couple of years in the cult. While she was afraid, I believed strongly that her story needed to be told—especially because so many devotees were devastated when she disappeared. I think many people would have believed and supported her if she’d had the strength to speak out. But she was too weak. However, I believe that she actually did want her story told. So I decided to tell it for her.
To many of the followers, Mary epitomized the perfect devotee. She was the only preacher who seemed to live the principles Prakash recited to us. In fact, without her by his side all of those years, Prakash’s mission would never have grown to the level it had (which, in comparison to other Hindu organizations that came to the West, was not very large). Many of us assumed she was just a hair’s breath away from achieving God realization—if she hadn’t already. But, in the end, she realized she had been just another victim of these two conmen, along with everyone else.
In February 2004, she left the ashram and the organization. Both gurus called her repeatedly to win her back. She refused their calls and attempted to begin healing and rebuilding her life. But just before she was scheduled to start a new job, she second-gussed herself and thought to herself: “What am I doing out here? I’m a sanyasi and I should be with my gurus.” She decided to give the gurus another chance. She wrote a letter to Prakash asking if she could return. He told her to go to India. Then he put her in a mental hospital, where she received severe treatment, including shock therapy. They were trying to wreck her mind so she could never speak out against the gurus.
As soon as she could, she left again—this time for good. Her departure left a lot of devotees with questions—which were never answered by Prakash. The only thing he ever did was have Peter S. tell us she left because she’s crazy, and that she had been crazy for a long time. However, this story made no sense, because if she had been crazy, why had Prakash let her run the ashram as president and continue to be his primary preacher?
JKP’s gurus never bothered themselves over important details like this—and their followers never held them accountable for inconsistent and outlandish statements and behaviors.
89
Hell on Earth
Saving a Soul
EVERYTIME I LEARNED NEW SECRETS about the gurus’ secret lives, I fell into a deep, dark depressed for days at a time, sinking into deeper depths of hell from which I always struggled to return.
Each time I thought I had heard the worst there were always new shocking details exposed. I eventually came to the conclusion that there was no bottom to these two gurus’ depravity. For example, Kathi told me about how female devotees who were looking forward to private time with Kripalu would get waxed “down there” before visiting him. Apparently, once he experienced Western women with waxed privates, he liked it. As one woman told another: “Maharaji doesn’t like hair down there.” I was floored by this revelation. After all, I had worshipped God with these women—or thought I had. Meanwhile they were off procuring Brazilians for the guru!
Stories like these gave me nightmares for several nights. In one nightmare, I was surrounded by devotees and trying to inform them one at a time about the gurus’ secrets. I finally got one man alone and whispered to him: “The gurus are raping children.”
The next day I was having lunch with Nancy, my former best friend in the ashram. She was still living there and we hadn’t talked in months. She had decided she didn’t want to communicate with me after I left, because I had “gone negative” about the gurus. But several things had happened within the ashram since then that made her increasingly suspicious. She called me one day and said, “I’m ready to hear the truth.” We planned to meet for lunch in a few days.
We sat down in the restaurant facing each other. Despite the fact that we had been best friends in the ashram, now we were awkwardness together. She looked resolute but afraid to hear what I had to say. I didn’t know where to begin. She was the first person I had talked to from the ashram who had not come to the conclusion on their own that JKP was an evil cult.
Then I blirted out the words: “The gurus are raping children.”
She stared at me with her eyes wide open and her lips pursed. She did not say a word. I talked almost non-stop for the next twenty minutes, filling her in on one gory detail after the next. When her eyes gl
azed over, I knew she couldn’t take anymore, so I shut up.
When we parted that day she was still in shock. I did not hear from her again for another six months—after which she called to tell me she had moved out of the ashram.
Occasionally, over the next few months, she would want to talk and was open to hearing more. But she would always reach her limit pretty quickly. It was as if her mind was resisting the dark reality of our former spiritual path. She pushed it away for another two years. It was frustrating to witness a person resist the truth for so long.
Finally, she was strong enough to accept that the two men we had worshipped as representations of the highest form of God were, in fact, nothing but pedophiles, rapists, and conmen.
90
My Awakening
God Realization in the Blink of an Eye
WHEN I RECEIVED GOD REALIZATION, it happened in the blink of an eye—and far from the gurus’ grasp.
One afternoon, about three months after I left the cult, I went to see Elise. I was depressed that day. I believed there must have been some serious flaw in my character that allowed me to make such a grave error in judgment. I asked myself repeatedly: How could you put yourself in a situation to be so cruelly tricked and taken advantage of? It did not fit my image of myself as a smart, independent person, with a reliable gut instinct. How could I have let myself down so horribly?
As I drove to see Elise, I was convinced that nothing could snap me out of my bleak state of mind. I told her about my despair over having wasted a chunk of my life in the hands of these two spiritual conmen. Thankfully, she gave me some insight that helped me see the situation from another perspective.
“It’s not unusual to desire something beyond being human. When we begin searching for that thing, we search outside of ourselves. We look outward thinking someone else has the thing we do not have, and we believe that person will save us. However, it’s not anywhere else: It’s within us. The hardest place for us to stay present is within ourselves.”
