1
Growing Up
Defending the honor of the religion is more important than protecting the children.
In 1968 Dasa was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a liberal college town considered by some as the âCalifornia of the Midwest.â Before they met in college in 1966, both Dasaâs parents were interested in Eastern and Native American religious traditions. They married one year later. Both were products of the counterculture, leaving their college studies to protest the Vietnam War. Dasaâs father went to Canada for a while to escape being drafted into the army. Dasaâs mother continued with her studies until his birth, and his father helped start a health food business with several old friends.
A few months after his birth, Dasa traveled with his parents to the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco, where thousands of hippies were migrating to take part in the counterculture. As Dasa described it,
When I was born in â68 they moved, at the end of that year, to California. A lot of people at that time were going to San Francisco, âwith flowers in your hair,â all that. It was there that they began running into [Hare Krishna] devotees and other religions. They were into Alan Watts and Eastern philosophy and religion. They met the devotees out there in San Francisco and would go to the [Sunday] feast. Thatâs where it started.1
Although they were involved in the Hare Krishna movement during their year-and-a-half stay in San Francisco, Dasaâs parents refused to move into the temple. At the end of 1969, Dasa returned to Michigan with his parents, where they shared a house with a couple who also were interested in Krishna Consciousness and subsequently were initiated by ISKCONâS founder and guru Srila Prabhupada. Within a short time, Dasaâs parents also became more involved in the practice of Krishna Consciousness, becoming members of the Detroit ISKCON temple. As Dasa explained, âSo I started attending the temple a lot then with my parents. They often would invite the devotees at the temple back to their house for kirtans and to chant. My parents were becoming increasingly involved at this time.â
Although his fatherâs involvement in the movement remained less intense and sporadic, Dasaâs mother more readily committed to ISKCON and its religious way of life. Consistent with her commitment, in 1972 Dasa was sent off at age four to ISKCONâS recently opened ashram-based gurukula (boarding school) in Dallas, Texas. But as Dasa recalled, his mother rather quickly became disillusioned with the school after visiting her son.
My mother was convinced enough to send me to the gurukula in Dallas. It was a short stay, less than six months. She sent me down there because people thought that was the right thing to do. But the separation was too much for her. And then she came down for a visit and saw that I wasnât being very well taken care of. There were some bruises on the back of my head, ears, neck, something. She pulled me right out.
Finding their son unhappy and not well cared for, Dasaâs parents became far less involved in the Detroit ISKCON community.
That was the break-off point for them from ISKCON. So when that happened with me in the gurukula, my mother was so disgusted. My mother was more the tie to ISKCON at that point than my father. When she was unhappy they just broke off their connection. After that it was just sporadic contact until â78 or â79.
In 1977, Dasa and his family faced a crisis that ultimately led them back to ISKCON. In the spring of that year, after falling into a coma and being hospitalized for three weeks, his mother was diagnosed with leukemia and given six months to live. Although she lived another eight years, she âknew she was going to die soon and thought she had better prepare.â As a result, she committed herself more strongly to her religious faith and decided to return to ISKCON.
In 1979 Dasaâs mother moved into the Detroit temple with Dasa and his four siblings. By now the temple had relocated to the Fisher mansion.2 Dasa and his oldest sister stayed in the homes of two different families. Because there was no âreal schoolâ in the Detroit community for older children, Dasa worked with a number of artists during the day. After a short period, however, Dasaâs mother was given a choice by the temple president: send Dasa to either the gurukula in Vrndavana, India, or the school at New Vrindaban, the ISKCON community in West Virginia. Dasa and his parents found the choice an easy one to make. âI had already heard about the Indian schools. Besides being so far away. So given the rumors [of neglect and abuse within the Indian schools], I just said, âSend me to New Vrindaban gurukula.ââ As it turned out, Dasaâs sister went with him to New Vrindaban to attend the girlsâ school, and in the winter of 1980 the two of them traveled to New Vrindaban by car with another devotee family.
I remember we were in a station wagon. We had squirt bottle fights because [name of husband] was falling asleep and his wife was spraying him to keep him awake. It was a typical family, fun thing.⌠I remember when we first pulled into West Virginia, we crossed the border from Ohio, and we pulled into a gas station. And as we were putting in gas to go the final leg of the trip up the winding roads to New Vrindaban, another devotee pulled into the gas station.⌠For me, just the fact that I am in the middle of nowhere at a remote gas station and a devotee pulls up. It had never happened to me before. It made a real impression on me. It was like, âWow, I am in a whole city of devotees.â
After arriving at New Vrindaban, Dasa spent the first night in the guest lodge. In the morning he woke early to attend the morning program in the temple.
It was the first day that I actually made eye contact with all the kids, the boys, from the school. The temple was small; it seemed bigger because I was small. We were eyeing each other. But I didnât talk to anybody. I was just trying to take it all in.
Later in the day Dasa moved into the boysâ gurukula, which doubled as both a school and an ashram (place of residence). Over the next week he struggled to establish relationships with the other boys, most of whom were younger than he.
For the first week of school I wasnât really clicking with any of the other boys. There was a gang. I do remember that they were really mean and they would pick on you hard. It was a very abusive situation I was coming into. So they were defending their position in the pecking order, down the line. Verbally mean. Mentally mean. Even at some points, physically mean.
After about a week at the school, there was an incident that proved to be a turning point in Dasaâs relations with the other boys.
I remember we were playing out on the front yard. We were playing kickball. Somebody took the ball and just slammed it into my face really hard, to the point where I cried out. And [teacherâs name], who was in his classroom, heard it. He came walking out the front door and said, âAll right, whatâs going on here?â I said, âOh, we were playing kickball and someone accidentally kicked the ball and hit me in the face.â That was the turning point; they could see that I wouldnât squeal.⌠Somehow I was suddenly in.
Also during that first week Dasa was faced with an unwanted sexual advance. An older adolescent serving as a monitor for the younger boys in the ashram attempted to transform a wrestling match into something entirely different.
At some point during that week [name of the monitor] tried to make sexual advances toward me, trying to molest me. It was one of those situations where youâre in a room and youâre asked, âDo you want to wrestle?â âok.â You start wrestling. And itâs like, âOh, God, Iâm really hot; Iâm sweating. Iâm going to take my shirt off.â Suddenly youâre down to your underwear, and youâre wrestling around and suddenly a hand is in a place where it shouldnât be. I looked and said, âSorry, I am not interested.â He didnât initially take no for an answer. He kept trying. Finally I grabbed him by the hair or ear or something and pulled him up and said, âListen I am going to scream if you donât stop. Iâm not into this. Cut this out.â And so he stopped. He said, âOh, Iâm sorry.â Just backed off. At that point I believed him that it was just innocent. Later on when I found out the extent of stuff that was going on, I said to myself, âNo, he was making a move. If I had gone for it, he would have gotten more involved.â
With this definitive refusal, Dasa escaped the sexual advances that some of the younger children found more difficult to ward off. As he remembered, âReflecting back, that was the best move I could have made. The word was out, âThis guy is not into it. Heâs not easy.ââ
Following the morning worship program in the temple, Dasa attended classes until lunchtime, after which he worked in one of the communityâs businesses. His classroom teacher instructed the ten older boys in his ashram. Although their spiritual training was emphasized, the boys also were taught traditional academic subjects such as English, math, and geography. Yet because of his past academic training in the public schools in Michigan and because he was a talented student, the gurukula had little to offer Dasa academically.
So when I came to New Vrindaban, the academics were nothing. They had these books from the 1950s. I remember specifically the math books. They were little hard-back books. There was a yellow one, a red one, and a blue one. And I think the yellow one was the most advanced. When I did it, it was all review for me. But they made me go through it three times anyway. I had already gone past this level before I had even come here. So I sat in the classroom, and they made me go through this so I wouldnât cause a disturbance.
Dasaâs ashram teacher, who was responsible for overseeing the boys outside the classroom, was a Vietnam veteran. He favored a military approach to dealing with the boys in his charge. In the morning he would awaken the boys by turning on the lights and announcing:
âYou have exactly five minutes, forty-two seconds, to be in the vehicle, or else you will be walking to the temple.â And he would sit out in his vehicle and he would time it. It didnât matter if you had one foot in the vehicle. He would just put it into gear and drive away; body hanging out of the vehicle. There must have been fifty kids in this building. There were only ten kids in our ashram, but there was only one shower and one toilet. I remember sometimes there would be five of us standing in the shower with our arms raised trying to get a trickle of water on our body. Sometimes we would skip out on the shower altogether so we could be in the vehicle.
Although there were hardships, there was also ample time for fun and recreation during his early years in the gurukula.
During the day we would play games. We would have rock fights. Draw a line; you go here and others go there. You would just pick up rocks and start throwing them at each other. Sometimes we would call it the battlefield of Kuruksetra [a site recorded in the Bhagavad Gita]. Kurus on one side and Pandavas on the other.3
With respect to sports, the boys were limited, as the only sport officially allowed was soccer, because ISKCONâS founder Srila Prabhupada had sanctioned it.
The only sport we could play was soccer. Prabhupada had said, âNo frivolous sports,â but another time he said that soccer was ok. So they would give us a soccer ball, and we would play kickball or whatever. Everything had to be authorized by some quote from Prabhupada. That was the only thing they could ever find. So soccer was the only thing we were ever allowed to play.
After six months, Dasaâs mother decided to move the rest of the family from Detroit to New Vrindaban. She hated living away from her eldest son and daughter and wanted to reunite the family. She therefore thought moving to New Vrindaban would allow her time to see Dasa regularly. But as it turned out, she ultimately had few opportunities to spend time with him, as the boys in the gurukula were actively discouraged from interacting with their parents, especially their mothers.
It was coming from the philosophical teaching of that time; families were the basis of binding people to the world. So family was bad. Any interaction you had with a family member was only going to bind you. That was very heavily preached from the top down.
One day, after his teacher inadvertently cut off much of his shika (tassel of hair on the back of an otherwise shaved head), he questioned Dasa in a way that revealed his negative attitude toward mothers.
âYouâre a brahmacari [renunciate monk] right? Because brahmacaries donât tell their mother things. You donât talk to your mother. Are you a brahmacari or are you a momma-cari?â Of course I said, âI am a brahmacari.â He was manipulating me so I wouldnât tell my mother anything. If she had been told, she might have reacted. There just wasnât communication going on with parents.
The prevailing negative attitudes toward parents ultimately led Dasa to ask his mother to stop visiting him at the school.
I remember my mother who would make attempts to come. So when it was âparentsâ day,â she would be there every time. I remember the pressure because the teachers made fun of your parents for coming to visit you. Also, the ill feelings it would create among your friends who didnât have parents there who could visit, or wanted to. The unpleasantness that it caused was such that I remember having a conversation with my mother saying, âDonât come anymore.â I told her, âItâs just too painful for me. Itâs just easier if you donât come.â Her crying and saying, âIf thatâs what you want, thatâs what I will do.â I just didnât want to deal with the aftereffects. It was just easier for me to survive. Suddenly you are dealing with your mother, and all the feelings are there again. Youâre opening it up again. That on top of some kid making fun of you. Or the teacher going, âDid you talk to your mother today? Why did you talk with her?â All those things combined. So letâs just avoid the situation to begin with.
In 1980, Varnashram College was established at New Vrindaban to train the older boys. At the same time, the leader of the community, Bhaktipada, formally known as Kirtanananda, decided to send some of the older boys he deemed brahmanas (spiritual leaders and intellectuals) and ksatriyas (administrators and protectors) to ISKCONâS gurukula in Vrndavana, India. The remaining boys, including Dasa, remained at New Vrindaban to receive training as vaisyas (agricultural producers) and sudras (skilled/unskilled workers). At first there were only eight to ten boys involved, but in time the Varnashram College grew to nearly one hundred adolescent boys. The training offered little academic instruction, since the boysâ primary work was jobs in the community. Often this was fixing up the house in which the boys were living, before moving on to the next house in need of repair.
At this point Dasa became a monitor in the school, responsible for six of the younger boys. His job was to ensure that the boys in his charge got up in the morning, showered, and got to the temple in time for the morning program. He also had to see that the boysâ living spaces remained neat, their clothes were washed, and each one carried out his daily chores.
The living conditions at the school were primitive or, as devotees might say, âaustere.â New Vrindaban was known across the movement for its austere living conditions, a fact that dissuaded many from moving there. As Dasa described it, the boys in the Varnashram College faced harsh living conditions, especially during the West Virginia winters.
The furnace never worked well, and it was always cold in the house. I remember there were times when it was warmer outside than inside the house. So we opened the windows, even though there was snow on the ground. All the pipes were frozen in the house, so we had no water practically all winter. There was some water in the basement, and we could get three buckets a day for bathing purposes, for everybody. I remember that you had to save some of the water [in the bucket] because it was so cold out on the porch that your feet would freeze to the ground. So you had to pour water on your feet to free them so you could rush to get back inside.
In September 1980 Dasa was initiated by his spiritual master, Bhaktipada. When he was living in the Detroit temple, Dasa watched a videotape on New Vrindaban, which showcased Bhaktipada. Dasa remembered thinking, âWow, this guy looks cool.⌠It showed Bhaktipada standing up tall, looking across the mountains, saying that Krishna is here in the land of New Vrindaban.â So I said, âI like that guy. He is the one that I want to be my guru.â
Unlike his parentsâ generation, for whom initiation was a significant turning point in their devotional lives, for Dasa and his peers, initiation had little meaning at such an early age; it was just a matter of âgoing with the flow.â
When youâre eleven or twelve, itâs hard to know how seriously to take it. I know the day I was initiated I didnât chant sixteen rounds. So thatâs how serious it was. There were times when I was in a sincere mood where I was chanting sixteen rounds for long periods. But how dedicated was I to chanting sixteen rounds for the rest of my life? The first day I didnât even follow it.⌠I never really aspired to it.
During this period Dasa began taking part in the communitywide practice of âgoing on the pick.â âPickingâ was a practice that ISKCON used during the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s. It involved selling products such as record albums, artwork, and stickers and hats supporting sports teams to members of the public. It also entailed soliciting donations for nonexistent charitable causes. Picking generally did not require revealing oneâs identity as an ISKCON member. Albeit controversial, the practice provided a significant source of funds for New Vrindaban and many other ISKCON communities (Rochford 1985:182â84; Rochford and Bailey 2006). Dasa described some of his early experiences of picking.
The first time I went out was the summer of â80 when I was twelve. I went out with [name] in a brown K-car station wagon. We went gas station to gas station selling records, pretending we were from some rock-and-roll station. Selling records for $10, $15, or $20 a pop, whatever we thought we could get. We also went to grocery stores. There we claimed we were collecting on behalf of some abused local children. Whatever the line was, some child cause. Other times we would ride around in a car. I didnât like doing it, so he made a deal with me. I was to act retarded. He would pull up to people and say, âHi, I am collecting on behalf of some retarded school, blah, blah. Would you give a donation?â For every person he hit up while I acted retarded he would give me a dollar toward my score [overall amount of money collected in a day].4 I would just sit there scrunched up trying to look like what I thought was retarded.
Although the adults were pressured to go on the road collecting funds, Dasa and his peers normally stayed close to the community. Occasionally, he and some of the other boys were taken to Pittsburgh to distribute books and other religious literature. These experiences were memorable because of the negative reactions they often received. As Dasa recalled, âPeople would be gawking at you and saying nasty things. And you are trying to walk up to people an...