“If there are enough Gurukuli-plaintiffs who want to give back to ISKCON after the settlement, then, by being the majority of the plaintiffs, they can change the method of how the suit is filed in the first place.”

Letter to Raghunatha Anudasa
By Atma-nivedana dasa

I like Raghunatha Anudasa's plan to encourage as many Gurukulis as possible to join the suit and return their gains to ISKCON -- that is, as long as it seems most probable that individuals will hold to their original plan to give the gains back to ISKCON once they get them.

However that doesn't solve the problem that Windle Turley will get thirty or forty percent (I don't know the number) of the gains, which will have no benefit to either the victims or to ISKCON. Should he really be the person who is hired to represent the Gurukulis? Listen to what he said in his last reply to Raghunatha Anudasa: "In the end it is my hope that some healing can come to both victims and to ISKCON." When someone sues a society for $400,000,000 and will claim almost half of the settlement, while saying he hopes that the society will be better off afterwards -- can he really be trusted since he knows that a loss of that much money would devastate the society? What use is it to any of us to give this insensitive and greedy man all of the money -- in the form of ISKCON properties, etc., that, among others, so many completely well intended devotees have given their lives and souls to establish?

Without opining on whether the lawsuit should or should not be filed in the first place (a moot issue, since it is being done), why not reconsider who will be the attorney that represents you and who will take away so much fortune without necessarily doing anyone any good? As Turley said, the outcome will be determined by facts of who did what - not his own manipulation or intelligence.

Turley is no one special except for that he can smell money. Why not get a lawyer who is a devotee who would also want to help ISKCON with whatever gains he would receive? Since the facts of the case will determine its output, why not choose a lawyer who cares about all of us represent the case? If possible, I recommend that you fire Windle Turley while you can. If there are enough Gurukuli-plaintiffs who want to give back to ISKCON after the settlement, then, by being the majority of the plaintiffs, they can change the method of how the suit is filed in the first place.

Your servant,
Atma-nivedana dasa
Former Boston book distributor
Brown U., Providence, RI

© CHAKRA 7-October-2000

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