Hridayananda Das Goswami

June 2018. In the second of two open letters answering the critic Sanaka Rsi dasa, he wrote: “when I heard that LM had been found guilty, I still did not get involved, because I still assumed the CPO had reached a fair decision. In fact, I became involved only when I read serious claims of faulty process. I cannot finally judge the claims, but they were credible enough to at least demonstrate the need for judicial review.” He argued that “the basic flaw of the CPO was to combine the two roles of advocate for the abused and judge of the accused”. Which body he addressed, and in what form, is not stated.

2022. In a letter of 7 November 2022 (copy posted by a critic), written to a devotee who had complained about the CPO’s handling of another case and “following up on Sivarama Swami’s clear, strong statement”, he wrote that he had “clearly demonstrated several years ago, and again this year, with clear evidence,” that the CPO director “grossly violated basic principles of justice in his handling of the Laksmi Mani case”, that “the GBC did nothing to discipline, remove, or seriously retrain the CPO director”, and that “Sivarama Swami is right. The CPO director should pursue another service for Prabhupada.” In a note of 8 November he wrote of the director and the case manager (“KKd and Gdd”) that they “NEVER apologize, NEVER admit mistakes” and were “actively enabled by ISKCON leaders”, and complained that they had said nothing when he and others “were being slandered … over the LM case”. In a December 2022 reply to the critic he listed ten principles of due process, said that two senior devotees had heard the director say he would rather punish innocent people than let a guilty person go free, and wrote that there were “also serious violations of points 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Again, impartial legal experts agreed on this.” The critic who posted the reply wrote that the director has repeatedly denied saying this and that the two devotees were friends of Laxmimoni Dasi.

The critic’s post presented the November letters as defending child abusers. In a public statement of 17 December 2022 on another case, that of the former Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami (Anirdeśya Vapu Dāsa), he condemned “the evil perpetrated by Anirdeśya Vapu Dāsa” and offered his “assistance to all those who were victimized”.

No GBC resolution found mentions a review of her case. Claims by critics that he sought to have her sanctions reduced or to have her exonerated are not supported by any of his own texts, and he denies them.