Bhakti Caitanya Swami Blocked Lokanath Swami CPO Investigation
On May 12, 2021, the GBC Executive Committee stated that Lokanath Swami would be suspended, pending a Child Protection Office investigation.
In this video, recorded on June 26, 2021, Bhakti Caitanya Swami who is the GBC Chairman spoke with Devakinandana, ISKCON lawyer from Singapore. Kamlesh Krishna referenced in the conversation is the Director of the International Child Protection Office. (Bhakti Caitanya Swami is misquoting Kamlesh Krishna.)
Bhakti Caitanya Swami used clandestine behaviour to meddle, interfere, and block the CPO’s investigation. He schemed to divert the case away from the CPO and have it be reviewed by a separate panel made up of GBC-appointed members, cutting out the CPO completely.
(This conversation was accidentally recorded on a Live Facebook session.)
(Bhakti Caitanya Swami talking to someone offscreen)
Oh! Okay. Leave it there. That’s right.
(Bhakti Caitanya Swami dialing)
Haribol Devakinandana Prabhu!
(Devakinandana talking)
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Prabhupada.
Uh huh. Yeah.
(Devakinandana talking)
Okay, well… me too. (laughs)
(Devakinandana talking)
(laughs) I don’t know. Only by Krishna’s mercy.
But, let me give you a report back. I don’t think you heard. Did you hear anything?
(Devakinandana talking)
Uh huh.
(Devakinandana talking)
Right.
(Devakinandana talking)
Oh yeah. Oh, there was tremendous value actually. Huge value.
Yeah well, finally sort of a little, I mean, it’s just a little but it’s a bit of better news, is that we presented to Kamlesh, you know, our idea of having the panel evaluate first, the history and everything, just the whole, the whole thing. And… and then we’ll just see what the panel says. And if the panel somehow says that, you know, whatever has been done is enough, then as long as the GBC accepts that, then that’s it. And if the panel feels more needs to be done by anyone, and then the GBC body accepts that, then that will be done. So, Kamlesh Prabhu was quite positive actually, he really was. And he said “Yeah that’s very reasonable” and he’s behind it.
He said ultimately, ultimately what he would prefer, would be what he called a 3-step process which would be, first of all this, that the review done by the panel, and yeah, first of all that. Then what he would prefer ‘cause he accepts whatever the panel says, he’ll go with, that’s the bottom line. But what he would prefer is that once the panel is finished, then assuming the panel does not think that everything is just okay, that there are some things that need to be addressed, then what he would like to do if he had his way he said, would be a 3-step program. First is this, this first step, we call it the “next step”
Then second he would like Lokanath Maharaj to voluntarily give up initiating. Anyway, you know, who knows, whether that….
So, but then, there’s a 3rd step, he would like the CPO to then get in, and get into it. Um, you know, and taking into consideration what the panel comes up with, and at least according to him. Not really get into it too heavily, but you know definitely he doesn’t want Maharaja to initiate any further. That’s for sure. But otherwise at least according to what he said, he could deal with his disciples, he can be a leader, he can give classes, lead kirtan. So we didn’t say, that okay we’ll do that. What we said is there’s a next step and we’re not saying anything until that step has been taken. And once that step has actually been taken, then we’ll just take it from there, which you know even though Kamlesh would like his 3-step process, but he said no problem. We’ll leave it at that and whatever the panel decides, we’ll go along with that. So that’s, yeah, that’s…
(Devakinandana talking)
Oh yeah.
(Devakinandana talking)
Oh yeah. It’s definitely an improvement. And his mood was definitely very positive and cooperative. And so in our meeting in 20 minutes or something, this will be the first thing we’ll present. So I wanted to ask you, how do you feel? What do you feel we should do and how should we present it?
(Devakinandana talking)
Mm hmm..
(Devakinandana talking)
Right.
(Devakinandana talking)
Okay. Well, you know there’s still a missing link. And that is the Indian Committee. We don’t know, anyway, we shortly, in the next maybe even this week or over the weekend or something we are going to have to speak to them about their cooperation, and…..
(Devakinandana talking)
Right. That’s true, that’s true. So maybe, maybe it’d be best to say that we’ve achieved a sort of what would you call it some sort of agreement or meeting of the minds, positively, with the CPO, and we’re happy about that. But we still and, and our basic idea should we say our basic idea is to go ahead with the panel? Should we mention that?
(Devakinandana talking)
Okay. Okay. We can keep it simple. We seem to have, we’ve had a good meeting of the minds with the CPO and yeah, what if they ask (laughing) what is the meeting of the minds?
(Devakinandana talking)
No, it’s not.
(Devakinandana talking)
Okay. Yeah, yeah. I think we’ll probably get him in to do that. Okay.
Anyway, it’s definitely a plus, after a long string of ups and downs.
(Devakinandana talking)
Oh yeah. If we hadn’t done… Yeah, it was definitely the right thing to do for sure. Yeah. Okay!
(Devakinandana talking)
It’s not me I tell you. We got such a good team. It’s amazing. And what to speak of your input.
(Devakinandana talking)
Right. Right. Right.
Okay, so we’ll see you there in, just shortly.
(Devakinandana talking)
Okay, thank you. Hare Krishna. Haribol.
