{"id":197,"date":"2006-06-21T14:11:52","date_gmt":"2006-06-21T13:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=197"},"modified":"2007-03-15T09:15:23","modified_gmt":"2007-03-15T08:15:23","slug":"letter-of-dhanurdhara-swami-to-the-devotees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=197","title":{"rendered":"Letter from Dhanurdhara Swami to the devotees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Devotees,<\/p>\n<p>Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.<\/p>\n<p>The recent suicide of Ananda, and Shakuntala&#8217;s letter, has brought renewed attention and scrutiny to my past mistakes. I deeply regret these mistakes and the harm they have caused. Though I can&#8217;t say I realize all the pain I have inflicted, I have witnessed the strong emotions of those I have harmed and know their wounds are deep. I&#8217;d like to reiterate my pledge to continue to meet gurukula alumni, beg for their forgiveness, and to offer whatever help I can.<\/p>\n<p>But despite my efforts to accept responsibility for my mistakes and the periodic reciprocation I receive from the victims, this controversy continues to brew and I now believe that only a radical solution will resolve the issue. Therefore I will step away from ISKCON and perform devotional service outside the institution. I do this as a service to Srila Prabhupada&#8217;s Society and to ISKCON&#8217;s youth. I plan to live a simple, repentant life, where I hope my presence will not disturb others, taking shelter of the holy name and my godbrothers. I hope this will be a step toward mending the great rift that seems so destructive to our Society.<\/p>\n<p>I plan to continue to encourage my disciples to live and serve in ISKCON wherever their faith will be respected. I request the GBC and all devotees to consider their welfare when dealing with this issue.<\/p>\n<p>If the wounds of those so deeply affected can be healed and a new strength for Srila Prabhupada&#8217;s movement achieved, that would be a great blessing. I will continue to seek and help those I have offended, which is my most crucial work for this movement.<\/p>\n<p>With deepest regret for the trouble I have caused,<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dhanurdhara Swami<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;This letter is an independent letter from Dhanurdhara Swami and in no way reflects the views of the GBC body. The GBC body will issue it&#8217;s own statement within a matter of days&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Praghosa dasa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/lettser.jpg\" alt=\"Hare Krishna\" \/><strong>By Dhanurdhara Swami<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Though I can&#8217;t say I realize all the pain I have inflicted, I have witnessed the strong emotions of those I have harmed and know their wounds are deep. I&#8217;d like to reiterate my pledge to continue to meet gurukula alumni, beg for their forgiveness, and to offer whatever help I can.<!--more--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion","category-ongoing-debates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}