Kirtanananda SwamiWithin ISKCON he is now known as "Kirtanananda das", as he is regarded as long-fallen from his sannyasa vows of celibacy. (; September 6, 1937 – October 24, 2011), also known as Swami Bhaktipada, a convicted criminal and child rapist, styled himself as a Gaudiya Vaishnava guru, the co-founder of New Vrindaban, a Hare Krishna community in Marshall County, West Virginia, where he served as spiritual leader from 1968 until 1994.
The first sannyasi in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), he also served as an initiating guru in ISKCON from 1977 until his expulsion in 1987.
Early life Kīrtanānanda was born Keith Gordon Ham in Peekskill, New York, in 1937, the youngest of five children of Conservative Baptist minister Francis Gordon Ham and his wife Marjorie. Keith's older brother, F. Gerald Ham, would go on to fame as an archivist. Keith Ham inherited his father's missionary spirit and attempted to convert classmates to his family's faith. Despite an acute case of polio which he contracted around his 17th birthday, he graduated with honors from Peekskill High School in 1955. He received a Bachelor of Arts in History from Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee on May 20, 1959, and graduated magna cum laude, first in his class of 117.
He received a Woodrow Wilson fellowship to study American history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he remained for three years. There he met Howard Morton Wheeler (1940–89), an undergraduate English major from Mobile, Alabama who became his lover and lifelong friend. Later Kīrtanānanda acknowledged that, before becoming a Hare Krishna, he had a homosexual relationship with Wheeler for many years, which was documented in the film Holy Cow, Swami, a 1996 documentary by Jacob Young.A clip of Kīrtanānanda with the court transcript in which he was asked, "Back in the 1950s and early 60s, were you homosexual?", and his response ("Yes.")
The two resigned from the university on February 3, 1961, and left Chapel Hill after being threatened with an investigation over a "sex scandal", and moved to New York City. Ham promoted LSD use and became an LSD guru. He worked as an unemployment claims reviewer. He enrolled at Columbia University in 1961, where he received a Waddell fellowship to study religious history with Whitney Cross, but he quit academic life after several years when he and Wheeler traveled to India in October 1965 in search of a guru. Unsuccessful, they returned to New York after six months.Hayagriva Dās, The Hare Krishna Explosion (Palace Press, New Vrindaban WV: 1985)
As Kīrtanānanda
In June 1966, after returning from India, Ham met the Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava guru A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (then known simply as "Swāmiji" to his disciples), the founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), more popularly known in the West as the Hare Krishnas. After attending Bhagavad-gita classes at the modest storefront temple at 26 Second Avenue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Ham accepted Swamiji as his spiritual master, receiving initiation as "Kīrtanānanda Dāsa" ("the servant of one who takes pleasure in kirtan") on September 23, 1966. Swamiji sometimes called him "Kitchen-ānanda" because of his cooking expertise. Howard Wheeler was initiated two weeks earlier on September 9, 1966, and received the name "Hayagriva Dāsa".Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Srila Prabhupāda-lilāmrta, Vol. 2 (Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, Los Angeles, CA: 1980)
Kīrtanānanda was among the first of Swāmiji's western disciples to shave his head (apart from the sikha), don robes (traditional Bengali Vaishnava clothing consists of dhoti and kurta), and move into the temple. In March 1967, on the order of Swāmiji, Kīrtanānanda and Janus Dambergs (Janardana Dāsa), a French-speaking university student, established the Montreal Hare Krishna temple. On August 28, 1967, while traveling with Swāmiji in India, Kīrtanānanda Dāsa became Prabhupāda's first disciple to be initiated into the Vaishnava order of renunciation (sannyasa: a lifelong vow of celibacy in mind, word, and body), and received the name Kīrtanānanda Swāmi. Within weeks, however, he returned to New York City against Prabhupāda's wishes and attempted to add esoteric cultural elements of Christianity to Prabhupāda's devotional bhakti system. Other disciples of Prabhupāda saw this as a takeover attempt. In letters from India, Prabhupāda soundly chastised him and banned him from preaching in ISKCON temples.Letters From Srila Prabhupada, Vol. 1 (The Vaisnava Institute in association with the BBT, Culver City, CA: 1987)Letter by Bhaktivedanta Swami, November 11, 1967 to Brahmananda, "I do not want crowd of Kirtananandas but I want a single soul like Brahmananda, Mukunda, Rayarama, and Satsvarupa. The same example is always applicable that one moon is sufficient for the night as not thousands of stars ... Without being empowered by Krishna, nobody can preach Krishna Consciousness. It is not academic qualification or financial strength which helps in these matters, but it is sincerity of purpose which helps us always. Therefore, I wish that you will remain in charge of New York, let Satsvarupa be in charge of Boston, Let Mukunda be in charge of San Francisco ... Letters quote
The New Vrindaban Community
Kīrtanānanda lived with Wheeler, by then known as Hayagriva Dasa, who was teaching English at a community college in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. In the San Francisco Oracle (an underground newspaper), Kīrtanānanda saw a letter from Richard Rose Jr., who wanted to form an ashram on his land in Marshall County, West Virginia. "The conception is one of a non-profit, non-interfering, non-denominational retreat or refuge, where philosophers might come to work communally together, or independently, where a library and other facilities might be developed."Richard Rose, The San Francisco Oracle (December 1967)
On a weekend free of classes (March 30–31, 1968), Kīrtanānanda and Hayagriva visited the two properties owned by Rose. After Hayagriva returned to Wilkes Barre, Kīrtanānanda stayed on in Rose's backwoods farmhouse. In July 1968, after a few months of Kīrtanānanda's living in isolation, he and Hayagriva visited Prabhupada in Montreal. Prabhupāda "forgave his renegade disciples in Montreal with a garland of roses and a shower of tears".Hayagriva Dās, "Chant", Brijabasi Spirit (November 1981), p. 20. When the pair returned to West Virginia, Richard Rose Jr. and his wife Phyllis gave Hayagriva a 99-year lease on the 132.77-acre property for $4,000, with an option to purchase for $10 when the lease expired. Hayagriva put down a $1,500 deposit.Lease available for viewing at Marshall County Courthouse, Moundsville, West Virginia
Prabhupāda established the purpose and guided the development of the community in dozens of letters and four personal visits (1969, 1972, 1974 and 1976). New Vrindaban would highlight five key elements for ISKCON: Cow Protection and local agriculture, Simple living, Holy pilgrimage, Spiritual education, And above all, loving Krishna.
Kīrtanānanda eventually established himself as leader and sole authority of the community. In New Vrindaban publications from the late 1970s through the 1980s he was honored as "Founder-Acharya" of New Vrindaban, in imitation of Prabhupada's title of Founder-Acharya of ISKCON. Over time the community expanded, devotees from other ISKCON centers moved in, and cows and land were acquired until New Vrindaban properties consisted of nearly 2,500 acres. New Vrindaban became a favorite ISKCON place of pilgrimage and many ISKCON devotees attended the annual Krishna Janmashtami festivals. For some, Kīrtanānanda's previous offenses were forgiven. Many devotees admired him for his austere lifestyle (for a time he lived in an abandoned chicken coop), his preaching skillsBack to Godhead magazine published three of his poems and 14 articles between 1966 and 1986 and devotion to the presiding deities of New Vrindaban: Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra.Kuladri Das, "Vyasa-puja Homage" (Shri Vyasa-puja: September 4, 1978), p. 6.
Palace of Gold
Late in 1972, Kīrtanānanda and sculptor-architect Bhagavatānanda Dāsa decided to build a home for Prabhupāda. In time, the plans for the house developed into an ornate memorial shrine of marble, gold and carved teak wood, dedicated posthumously during Labor Day weekend, on Sunday, September 2, 1979. The completion of the Palace of Gold catapulted New Vrindaban into mainstream respectability as tens (and eventually hundreds) of thousands of tourists began visiting the Palace each year. A "Land of Krishna" theme park and a granite "Temple of Understanding" in classical South Indian style were designed to make New Vrindaban a "Spiritual Disneyland". The ground-breaking ceremony of the proposed temple on May 31, 1985, was attended by dozens of dignitaries, including a United States congressman from West Virginia. One publication called it "the most significant and memorable day in the history of New Vrindaban.""Government Officials Attend Ceremony," Land of Krishna, vol. 1, no. 5 (July 1985).
Assault and ensuing expulsion from ISKCON
On October 27, 1985, during a New Vrindaban bricklaying marathon, a crazed and distraught devotee bludgeoned Kīrtanānanda on the head with a heavy steel tamping tool.This was Triyogi dasa, who had come to New Vrindaban in September 1985 to attend the much-publicized "Prabhupada Disciple Meetings." After the conference concluded, he decided to stay at New Vrindaban for a time. His services at New Vrindaban were menial; he assisted in the kitchen and picked up litter around the Palace. He appeared to have some prominent personality dysfunctions, he was sometimes observed muttering under his breath to himself, and the New Vrindaban residents who knew him considered him mentally unstable. Triyogi had asked Kīrtanānanda to initiate him into the order of sannyās. Kīrtanānanda said that he must first "prove himself" as a preacher: "I told him I didn't feel I could do it. I didn't know him well enough. I told him to stay here at New Vrindaban for six months to a year first, and he became disturbed about that". (Kīrtanānanda Swāmi, quoted by Eric Harrison in "Violence is Focus of Krishna Inquiry", The Philadelphia Inquirer (August 21, 1986), 16-A.)
Triyogi was visibly upset and confided in another New Vrindaban devotee that "he felt he had to either kill himself, kill Bhaktipada, or leave". Later he told that same devotee that he would not kill anyone; he would simply leave. (Tulsi dās quoting Triyogi, cited by Terry Smith in "Krishnas May Investigate New Disciples", The Wheeling Intelligencer (October 31, 1985), pp. 1, 6.)
Some close associates began leaving the community. On March 16, 1987, during their annual meeting at Mayapur, India, the ISKCON Governing Body Commission expelled Kīrtanānanda from the society for various deviations.See http://www.dandavats.com/wp-content/uploads/GBCresolutions/GBCRES87.htm They claimed he had defied ISKCON policies and had claimed to be the sole spiritual heir to Prabhupāda's movement. Thirteen members voted for the resolution, two abstained, and one member, Bhakti Tirtha Swami, voted against the resolution.The Perils of Succession: Heresies of Authority and Continuity In the Hare Krishna Movement , Tamal Krishna Goswami
Kīrtanānanda then established his own organization, The Eternal Order of the League of Devotees Worldwide, taking several properties with him. By 1988, New Vrindaban had 13 satellite centers in the United States and Canada, including New Vrindaban. New Vrindaban was excommunicated from ISKCON the same year.
Criminal conviction and imprisonment