Bicycle! Bicycle!

In our college programs at Ohio University and U. of Pittsburgh, we invariably always meet up with the "Critical Mass" people. What is "Critical Mass"? It's not as dire as it sounds. Instead, it's the bi-weekly/monthly get-together of local biking enthusiasts to politely "take back the streets" from the gas-guzzling populace.

And as we can read from this interesting article, choosing to get about your life on a bicycle sends out many positive, practical vibes in today's increasingly unsustainable world.

Food is different...

"Food is different. We need to understand that people are willing to die for their right to farm, to grow what they want, to feed their families and communities. While few are inclined to make the ultimate sacrifice, we need to think about how important food really is. It is life and death. Good food, local food, food that supports the farmer, nourishes the eater and supports the community -- that is what Lee Kyung Hae died for"

Devotees know the importance of foodstuffs-we are a "kitchen religion" after all. What can we do to alleviate the corporate stranglehold on the worldwide production of food? How can we engage and enlighten the consciousness of not only our farming allies, but ourselves, so that natural, organic, and connected communities of self-sufficiency don't become a pipe dream?

For some inspiration, click here to read more about the sacrifice of Lee Kyung Hae

The Herdshare

(Photo from ISCOWP)

"Lovers of raw milk, ethical animal treatment and sustainable local industry are coming together to build on a concept called Herdshare. A herdshare is a co-operative of people who buy a herd of cows and then pay a manager to care for, board and milk their cows. In return, the cow share owners pick up their fresh dairy produce from their local farmers markets, for free."

Click here to head on over to ISKCON News to read more, or click here to head on over to the Herdshare website

This good be a great chance for responsible devotees to network and increase our own exposure as protectors of our dear mother cows.

The 10 Big Energy Myths

As devotees, we know that to remain in spiritual consciousness means to be clean internally and externally. Therefore, to pollute either ourselves or our surrounding environment is something we should never consciously consider.

As most of us are aware, there are various and usually heated debates over the seriousness of the scientific reality of climate change, and whether such alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power could ever fulfill the energy needs of the world's citizens.

It's common sense not to be a polluter, but to inform ourselves properly about these issues, as a tool for preaching and networking with allies to our cause of spiritual self-sufficiency, we should try to find out what is reality and what is myth when it comes to the issues of modern-day sustainability.

In this service to you, click here to read an article by Chris Goodall on the The Top 10 Energy Myths

Saving The Economy By Saving The Planet

This past weekend, we had the opportunity to cater and perform kirtan for a student environmental symposium on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh.

It was a celebration of a global awakening that is happening, based around sustainable environmental principles and the awareness that we are all connected together as living beings, and how to put this awareness into practice.

One interesting initiative was the Global Marshall Plan, which aims to redirect and reform the global economy in order to stabilize and improve the precarious environmental and social state we find ourselves in today.

Greenpeace has also offered a similar thought-provoking article that proposes similar calls-to-action for governments and common folk alike. The key theme is the urgent call to redirect our precious financial resources to saving and preserving the environmental heritage of the human species.

Whether or not one agrees or disagrees with the science behind climate change, as spiritual and progressive personalities it behooves us to support the initiatives that will reduce the physical and mental pollution that currently engulfs this earthly planet.

With the incredible and timeless potency of Vedic wisdom at our grasp, we must connect our realizations with the realizations of the people behind this "global awakening" movement. We can provide the sturdy spiritual framework that can lift a "greener" world to even greater heights.

If we can make this connection, then the benefits can truly end up being limitless and eternal.

"Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children!"

One side-benefit of the current economic crisis may be that it becomes easier for locally grown, organic foods to find their way onto the school lunch menus of our kids.

Click here for more info and how to even get your own hometown school hooked up locally and organically.

Actual Sustainability

What is actual sustainabilty?

Is it the ability to create and sustain a consistent supply of foodstuffs locally and organically grown for your family and community?

Is it living by responsible environmental codes and practices that properly respects and doesn't denigrate the earthly planet we live on?

Is it driving your hybrid, drinking your soymilk, voting for Obama, or donating to Greenpeace or Sierra Club?

Is it all this, or is there something more?

Within the Iskcon movement...we do have the philosophical foundation to explain why and how spirituality is connected to sustainability and that there is no such thing as sustainability without spirituality. It is nothing but understanding the movement of the modes of nature, the permutation of goodness, passion and ignorance moving around. But the actual sustainability is that you are doing it for the pleasure and service of God. Therefore by Gods grace and his expansions or assistants, that arrangement makes everything co-operate with your effort to make nice devotional offerings. Thats actual sustainability.
Tapahpunja Das, 2008 Festival of Inspiration, New Vrindaban Dham

Deep

Rex Weyler of Greenpeacedrops the straight dope on the link between our ecological problems and our environmental problems, and what the solutions may turn out to be to put out "the big bonfire."

Click here to read more.

The Assumption of Civilization (Part 2)

"The demoniac are engaged in activities that will lead the world to destruction. The Lord states here that they are less intelligent. The materialists, who have no concept of God, think that they are advancing. But according to Bhagavad-gītā, they are unintelligent and devoid of all sense. They try to enjoy this material world to the utmost limit and therefore always engage in inventing something for sense gratification. Such materialistic inventions are considered to be advancement of human civilization, but the result is that people grow more and more violent and more and more cruel, cruel to animals and cruel to other human beings.

Such people are considered the enemies of the world because ultimately they will invent or create something which will bring destruction to all. Indirectly, this verse anticipates the invention of nuclear weapons, of which the whole world is today very proud. At any moment war may take place, and these atomic weapons may create havoc. Such things are created solely for the destruction of the world, and this is indicated here. Due to godlessness, such weapons are invented in human society; they are not meant for the peace and prosperity of the world."
(Purport to Bhagavad-Gita 16.9)

In our understanding of our philosophy and by our experience we know that it is not wise to trust or place our dependence upon those deeply entangled in the material modes of nature.

Today, those individual living entities who control the world's economic, political, social, and military structures are largely deluded by their own misguided vision of the "will to power."

Beyond this, the animal agriculture (slaughterhouse) industry creates untold suffering to millions of animals, disgusting environmental by-products, and a negative karmic roll-call on an always steady number of human heads.

It is any number of ways in which the brittle and fragile "status quo" we currently live in could collapse: stock market failure, nuclear conflict, disease, massive social conflicts between the "haves" and the "have-nots", etc.

Yes, of course, we preach and live in urban environments, and that is a vital part of our mission, but we cannot ignore or neglect the other half of Prabhupada's vision.

We have to have an URGENCY to create, via our rural communities, an alternative cultural set-up, based on the principles of daivi-varnasrama, for the benefit of devotees and non-devotees alike.

For devotees, these communities would be places of refuge and inspiration, a place to get their hands dirty and also to have the freedom to go deeply inward in their own devotional life.

If devotees in our urban communities suddenly find themselves refugees of some paradigm-shift, then we must be able to give them all facilities for material shelter in our rural communities.

It's not a matter of time. We need to create this infrastructure of our own alternative network of communities NOW! We need people to voluteer their inspiration and motivation and most of all we need the leaders of our society to step up and make this a top priority, providing us with financial and spiritual support.

It will be very difficult to rescue our society from our global house if the fire gets too hot. It is our vital duty now to create a real shelter for devotees and for the culture of devotion , and it is our humble opinion that this is the issue that will define ISKCON's growth and sustainability over the next 40 years and beyond.

"[We] in modern technological society [have] begun to be callous and disillusioned. [We have] learned to suspect what claims to be new, to doubt all the "latest" in everything. [We are] drawn instinctively to the new, and yet [we see] in it nothing but the same old sham. The specious glitter of newness, the pretended creativity of a society in which youthfulness is commercialized and the young are old before they are twenty, fills some hearts with utter despair. There seems to be no way to find any real change. 'The more things change,' says a French proverb, 'the more they are the same.'

Yet in the deepest ground of our being we still hear the insistent voice which tells us: 'You must be born again.'

There is in us an instinct for newness, for renewal, for a liberation of creative power. We seek to awaken in ourselves a force which really changes our lives from within. And yet the same instinct tells us that this change is a recovery of that which is deepest, most original, most personal in ourselves. To be born again is not to become somebody else, but to become ourselves."
Thomas Merton

The Assumption of Civilization (Part 1)

The history of the world has factually proved that attempts to increase economic development for bodily comfort through the advancement of material civilization have done nothing to remedy the inevitability of birth, death, old age and disease. Everyone has knowledge of huge empires throughout the history of the world — the Roman Empire, the Moghul Empire, the British Empire and so on — but all the societies engaged in such economic development (sarve 'rtha-kāmāḥ) have been frustrated by the laws of nature through periodic wars, pestilence, famine and so on.

Thus all their attempts have been flickering and temporary. In this verse, therefore, it is said, kurvanti martyasya kiyat priyaḿ calāḥ: one may be very proud of possessing a vast empire, but such empires are impermanent; after one hundred or two hundred years, everything is finished. All such positions of economic development, although created with great endeavor and hardship, are vanquished very soon. -Srila Prabhupada, purport to S.B 7.7.39

It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine-a modern Southern sage

The assumption of civilization is based on three statements:
1) That, as a society of devotees (ISKCON), we are economically dependent upon the external, material, ugra-karma infrastructure for such things as foodstuffs, utilities, transport, and financial support.
2) That our awareness is limited that the ugra-karma infrastructure has a very tenous and temporary foundation and may collapse like the proverbial "house of cards".
3) That, as a society of devotees, we are not prepared for such a paradigm shift across the economic and social horizon. What will we do when we can no longer place our dependence for our sustenance on sources outside our society?

The points presented this piece will show that Prabhupada wanted us to create an alternative to this arrangement i.e Krsna conscious rural communities, not only for the spiritual benefit of the devotees, but also to provide for them materially in a way independent of the ugra-karma infrastructure.

In the microcosmic view, in our own immediate situation, we must be aware of the karmic situation of the global society, which to put it lightly, is not good.

We should not assume the support of the ugra-karmic infrastructure as it stands now is always going to be there. This could be potentially dangerous to the future of ISKCON

This isn't "conspiracy theory". The implications of this assumption of civilization lie in the hallowed print of Prabhupada's books all the way down to the gaudy but all-too-real headlines of today's news outlets.

The universe may not be dissolved, the world may not end, but the way we live and breathe and eat and function within these bodies may change in a drastic fashion, and it may come sooner than we plan or think. Are you, or we, prepared for this?

"Although the Krsna conscoiusness movement is a movement for brahmanas and Vaisnavas, it is trying to reestablish the divine varnasrama institution, for without this division of society there cannot be peace and prosperity anywhere" Srimad Bhagavatam 7.11.18.20 Purport

What Srila Prabhupada wanted was for his disciples and granddisciples and so on to create an alternative culture of devotion through which the entire Planet Earth could benefit from, materially and spiritually.

With devotee-led rural communities in the lead, Prabhupada wanted us to show the world how "Simple Living, High Thinking" could lead the suffering peoples of this world to ideal happiness.

Prabhupada wanted that daivi-varnasrama be establsihed as the central guiding principle in these communities, and he wanted that these communities creating this ideal would be able to be self-sufficient, or in modern terms, "off the grid."

This means communities producing their own foodstuffs, utilities, transport, and means of life without having to be dependent in any economic way from sources outside the community.

In today's ISKCON, we are still in a great struggle to bring to reality this vital portion of Prabhupada's spiritual vision for the world.

The creation of this simple, rural lifestyle ethic is as important a part of Prabhupada's vision as is sankirtana, temple construction, and book distribution.

HH Bhakti-Raghava Maharaja writes that "As early as 1949, Srila Prabhupada described his mission in a letter to the Hon. Sardar, Dr. Vallavbhaiji Patel, Deputy Prime Minister of India, outlining four movements. The first was the “sankirtan” movement of chanting and philosophical discourse that was to be introduced all over the world. Then came the “temple entry” movement; organising temples as centres of spiritual culture according to scriptures like Bhagavad-gita. Thirdly, he described the “spiritual initiation” movement, a movement that would be conducted under strict disciplinary methods to enable “mayajanas” to attain the perfection of human life. This would “be organized in such a manner that people all over the world may take interest in it.” Finally, he described the "classless society" movement or the "scientific division of the caste system as envisaged in the Bhagavad-gita”.

He continues "However, the establishment of a society based on the traditional village lifestyle has been neglected. Although one can still advance in Krishna consciousness living in the cities, the degraded influences of urban life place serious constraints on the progress most devotees can make. ISKCON must recognise the need to re-establish, develop, and maintain the ideals of village-based communities, the natural Krishna-conscious village lifestyle which was shown by Krishna and Balarama Themselves. Initially, perhaps only a few will want to take it up, but without it, Srila Prabhupada's mission in four phases or "movements", and ISKCON's preaching programs, remain incomplete. (Position Paper on Promoting Vrndaban Village Development in India)

The reasons for our lack of success are myriad and complex, but following in the example of Prabhupada's boundless determination to establish his vision around the world, it is our duty not to give up or claim that it is "hopeless."

Indeed, the future of ISKCON may depend on it.

Stau tuned for Part 2 on Wednesday.

Your Own Vegetarian Jesus

Rumbling under the surface of the crumbling mainstream world is more common sense bubbling up to the vision of the planet. Could animal rights be the next major social movement of our times? What role do we as spiritualists have to play?

Click here to read a very informative interview from Vasu Murti on some of the info from his book "They Shall Not Hurt or Destroy"

And as always, our good friend Satyahit Prabhu from Florida lays down the truth. Click here to check it out...

Damn You XBox!

A friend of mine told me to make these blogs positive and inspirational, but sometimes we just gotta share something that makes us shake our heads in disbelief.

As another friend of mine said, it's stuff like this that has to tick you off enough to really get you motivated to bring the positive change.

Click here to read all about it!

Simple Living, High Thinking #14

For the week of September 22nd-28th, 2008


Watch your step...oops! Yes, that's fresh tomato juice in between your toes. It's all part of a week's work at the Small Farm Training Center here at New Vrindaban Dham.

What we got done

-This week's Farm Circle was a ol-fashioned hoot of a time, as Devananda Pandit and a loyal crew assembled at the Radha-Kunda home of HH Varsana Swami to make some fresh apple cider. While the quantity of the cider was small, the quality was immense enough to make those store-bought cartons of cider hide their head in shame. Here's some pics...










Govind likes...


...apples!

HH Varsana Swami spoke on how the simple life that Prabhupada prescribed is very conducive to the most important thing in our lives, which is developing our relationship with Krsna. Without the teeming distractions of the life of urban decay, we can actually cultivate the art of always thinking of Krsna, and never forgetting Him.

-The season-concluding harvest continued up top at the Garden of Seven Gates, as we were able to finish off our crop of tomatoes and pull the remaining plants out of the ground. Where once they grew on vines to green and orange and red results now stands only the dirt and the occasional scampering mouse. After finishing the big job, Chris once again remarked that he felt "like a manly man."

We have a large stock of green and red tomatoes of varying varieties and sizes in the cooler. Please share in our harvest for you and your family's needs! See Tapah or Chris if you would like some tomatoes.

Also being pulled up and out this week were more and more green beans, okra, and bitter melon. We also continue to harvest our cayenne, jalapeno, and paprika peppers. Tapah is currently patiently and lovingly dehydrating the paprikas for use in the cool seasons ahead.

Looking ahead to next year, we've begun to have manure fertilizer laid down on our beds up top, with the loving donation of such revitalizing poop coming from our dear mother holy heifers in the RVC Goshalla. Thanks Mom!




Poop power

-Here's some news on our next meeting concerning community options on the natural gas drilling issue: There will be an open meeting for all devotees Tuesday evening, September 30 to share realizations about the drilling for gas lease options available for devotee private land owners and New Vrndavana corporations.

The meeting will be held in the bottom of the guest lodge.

The schedule is 6:15 pm kirtan, 6:30 pm open forum, 8:30 pm pizza and nectar drink prasadam.

Please come and share information, realizations and association! See you there!

What we realized
-As Phani prabhu was told this week, what it really boils down to is that we're between ice ages, so it's best to just get the heck off this planet ASAP (in a respectable, devotional way of course).

In more serious terms, we can debate and cajole and argue about the science of global warming, its causes and effects, its political and emotional and social costs, etc etc. If you want to become deeply absorbed in this debate, there's a place called the Internet which is perfect for you. While we should be educated in this regard, we must not lose sight of our common sense.

Our common sense is that as, devotees of Krsna, ahimsa stands as one of the key principles. Naturally, from there we should have a deep-rooted desire and ability to respect the Earth and its inhabitants, from our human neighbours down to the scurrying ant.

Al Gore's power-points may be entertaining and educational, but having a truly spiritual view of life means that it doesn't take much convincing to be environmentally responsible. Our common sense tells us not to exploit our fellow animal residents. Common sense tells us not that genetic altering of our foodstuffs, without due caution, is an unseemly enterprise. Common sense shows us the effects of industrialized pollution.

Disrespecting our Mother Earth is never pretty and never beneficial. We should live on the higher tip, practically as devotees, showing what it means to be connected to the dirt under our feet, and how to use that dirt in the most delicious and dynamic ways.

All the big bang boom of the industrial world is stifling the common sense of simplicity. Let us together bring back what was ours once and what we have now forgotten.

Please help us out! Your hands, heads, and hearts can help us restore Srila Prabhupada's vision of self-sufficency here at New Vrindaban Dham. We're out shining and even in the rain in the Teaching Garden across the street from the RVC Temple, or up the hill at the Garden of Seven Gates. See HG Tapahpunja Prabhu for all the details.

Click here for more info on the Small Farm Training Center.

Stay tuned for next week's update! Hari Haribol!

Simple Living, High Thinking #13

For the week of September 15th-21st, 2008

The chill of the fall night soothes and refreshes the soul. Let us refresh your browser in the same way with this week's updates of the goings-on here at the Small Farm Training Center here at New Vrindaban Dham

What we got done

-Click here to read this week's report from our Farm Circle gathering, as we canned tomatoes at Yudhisthira's one-of-a-kind stone cabin. Here's some more pics of Yudhisthira's humble woods abode.








Yudhisthira cranks it


At next week's Farm Circle, we will be heading up to Radha-Kunda, in the association of HH Varsana Swami, to share wisdom and freshly pressed apple cider. Here are some of the pics of the cider press, rescued from Bahulaban and now being oiled, washed, and repaired for next Thursday night.





-The fall harvest continues to abound up top at the Garden of Seven Gates. We need help and hands to finish off our green bean patches, chard patches, and to pull some of our tomato plants out of the ground to prepare the way for next year's growing season. See Tapah or Chris if you would like to help, and they will be more than happy to share the seva.

-In what is becoming a project akin to building the Great Pyramids, we put into place a big, 400-lb log this weekend in our Workshop Extension, moving one step closer to being able to begin construction on the roof. The whole shebang included skinning the bark off the log, in which Chris remarked that it made him "feel like a manly man", and then hoisting the log using the combined brainpower, willpower, and musclepower of Tapah, Tom, and Jay Murari. Big thanks to the Glendale flea market for providing the large tripod that also did some of the actual lifting. Here's some pics of the death-defying ordeal.









-We were asked what was the position of Club 108 on the proposal to allow natural gas drilling on New Vrindaban owned land. Right now, like the rest of our community, we are cautious and trying to educate ourselves as to the benefits and side-effects. Above all, at the present moment, we would hope a final decision isn't rushed into without considering all the possible angles.

Here's some links to websites with information on the process and effects of such drilling:
http://www.earthworksaction.org/LOguidechapters.cfm#CHAPTERS
http://catskillmountainkeeper.org/node/290
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08090/868880-109.stm
http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/46288.html#Information

And click here to read the notes from our community this past Monday, the 15th, on the drilling issue.



What we realized

As Yudhisthira put it, his place and his life is "back to basics". To most "civilized" people, ensconced in IPhones, Obamamania, and Vogue magazine, the basics seem primitive, alien, and a big fright. But Prabhupada said...

That is our mission: Cow protection and agriculture and if there is excess, trade. This is a no-profit scheme. For the agriculture we want to produce our own food and we want to keep cows for our own milk. The whole idea is that we are ISKCON, a community to be independent from outside help. This farm project is especially for the devotees to grow their own food. Cotton also, to make their own clothes. And keeping cows for milk and fatty products.
Our mission is to protect our devotees from unnecessary heavy work to save time for advancing in Krsna consciousness. This is our mission. So there is no question of profit, but if easily there are surplus products, then we can think of trading. Otherwise we have no such intention. We want a temple, a gosala and agriculture. A community project as in Europe and America. We are making similar attempts in India in several places. (Letter to Yasomatinandana dasa, 28th November, 1976)

In creating a culture of care, we must support and take part in our rural projects in Srila Prabhupada's vision, if only to serve our fellow devotees by making their path back to Godhead easier. For devotees of this generation and generations going forwards, to create transcendental village atmospheres will give the sublime alternative of lifestyle choice as opposed to the utter entanglements of the ugra-karma world. It's our duty!

Please help us out! Your hands, heads, and hearts can help us restore Srila Prabhupada's vision of self-sufficency here at New Vrindaban Dham. We're out shining and even in the rain in the Teaching Garden across the street from the RVC Temple, or up the hill at the Garden of Seven Gates. See HG Tapahpunja Prabhu for all the details.

Click here for more info on the Small Farm Training Center.

Stay tuned for next week's update! Hari Haribol!

Inside the Farm Circle #6

Thursday, September 18th, 2008

We gathered in the chilled woodsy September air inside Yudhisthira's one-of-a-kind, "back to basics" stone cabin across the creek from the RVC Temple. His humble abode, carved, built, and assembled by hand (or in his words "built using no money...OK, maybe $25"), is truly a model of exactly what we're talking about.

Yudhisthira lives in communion with Krsna and Mother Nature, and he is a gracious host, a sincere and practiced devotee, a wondrous storyteller, and a true friend to Vaisnavas alike. Here's some pics of his abode...








Is that Prof or a tree, neither or both?

Devananda Pandit gave a informative talk on the art of tomato canning. You can click here to check out an article we did with Devananda a little while back all about this sublime, self-sufficient process of vegetable preservation. Be informed and can those tomatoes!

We'd like to thank Lotus, Micheal, and Grey for cooking a wonderful feats of rice, spinach and lentil dal, a corn, pepper, and tomato subji, and applesauce. All of it homemade and locally-grown. We wouldn't have it any other way.


Thanks Lotus!

Next week, we're making homemade apple cider up at Radha-Kunda, the humble abode of HH Varsana Swami. It will be hands-on and heart-warming. Stay tuned here for all the details.

Simple Living, High Thinking #12

For the week of September 8th-14th, 2008

The season's are a changing, the groundhogs are fat and sleepy, and we're back with our weekly look into the world of the Small Farm Training Center here at New Vrindaban Dham. Come along!

What we got done
-The New Vrindaban Community was blessed with the presence last week of HH Bhakti-Raghava Maharaja, who is devoting his life to practically bring about the other side of Prabhupada's mission, varnasrama-dharma Click here for a article on his enlivening Farm Circle talk.

Our series of Farm Circles is drawing to a close, but not before the real excitement kicks in! This week we'll be hosted by HG Yudhisthira Prabhu at his palatial and humble forest home for a whole shebang on canning tomatoes, herbal medicines from the forest, kirtan, prasad, and maybe even some good' ol "End Times" preaching magic. We leave with shuttle service from the Teaching Garden at 6pm on Thursday, the 18th. See Tom, Chris, or Tulasi for all the details.

Whereever the Farm Circle is, there's a man, a devotee man, named Devananda Pandit, with a guitar and a song to warm your soul


-Our varieties of tomato crops have been fully harvested up top at the Garden of Seven Gates, thanks to the help of a number of our community devotees, and we are in the process of freezing them and preserving them for winter stock as we did our green bean crop from earlier in the summer.

Next up are figuring out what to do with our oat crop, as we begin to slowly transfer over to the growing of grain as a key aspect of providing a reliable supply of foodstuffs of community. We'll have an update next week on our oat collection.

-Here's a clarion call to one and all for your hands, hearts, and assistance. As we begin to wrap up this growing season and harvest, we have to prepare the grounds and beds of both the Teaching Garden and the Garden of Seven Gates. We need your help in doing this, so that we're not out in the December cold trying to make sure the ground is ready for next year's beet crops and all.

Your service to us is our livelihood and the warmth of our green heart. Ask Tapah or Chris what you can do to help us insure that the 2009 year is abundant with local, organic magic for one and all.

-Those with intrepid eyes have noticed that our Workshop Extension, after countless hours of tire-smashing and gravel-handling, is now starting to rise from the ground. Our local wood supply is now coming up and being drilled and hammered together to form the foundation for the full construction of the buildling, and work on the roof will begin as quickly as you can eat a fresh laddu. Tom, despite the rickety ladders, with help from Madhupati Prabhu, is hard at work daily making the dream come true.

Here's some pics of the progress, and we'll have a full report next week about the construction's progress over the next few weeks and months.











-As well, we need excited people power to help us in the 2009 season as well. Click here to check out our Small Farm Training Center brochure, with all the info you need to join us, and hey, do us a favor and spread our brochure around by e-mailing to it your favorite green thumbs around the world.

What we realized

Often it feels like we go in circles. We agree on the concept, right?...Prabhupada wanted rural, Krsna-Conscious centered living as a key aspect of his mission. And we see now in this gradually post-industrial 21-Century world that more and more people want to "get back to the land". So what a great opportunity we have here in New Vrindaban and in our other rural communities within ISKCON. Not only can we help people get their hands dirty, we can also get them back to Godhead at the same time. Goloka has some pretty first-class foliage, don't you think?

The vibe we've gotten is that it's time to start talking about it, which we've been doing for years, and just get down to it, depending on Krsna and hopefully our communities and larger institutions. Our Farm Circles next year should be entirely focused on the practical community-building aspects of all of our self-sufficient projects. We have to realize the urgent nature of our duty to Prabhupada and put aside our personal differences, politics, and profit margins.

Here in our holy hills, we can either take New Vrindaban further and further away from Prabhupada's vision or we can step forward into His Divine Grace's guidance and wisdom and heal the heart of our community. Krsna is in control, but he does leave the decision making up to us.

Please help us out! Your hands, heads, and hearts can help us restore Srila Prabhupada's vision of self-sufficency here at New Vrindaban Dham. We're out shining and even in the rain in the Teaching Garden across the street from the RVC Temple, or up the hill at the Garden of Seven Gates. See HG Tapahpunja Prabhu for all the details.

Click here for more info on the Small Farm Training Center.

Stay tuned for next week's update! Hari Haribol!

If you don't eat your meat, how can you have any pudding?..

High Chief Al Gore may not be saying it (correct us if we're wrong), but the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is saying it loud and hopefully proud.

People should have one meat-free day a week if they want to make a personal and effective sacrifice that would help tackle climate change, the world's leading authority on global warming has told The Observer

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last year earned a joint share of the Nobel Peace Prize, said that people should then go on to reduce their meat consumption even further.

His comments are the most controversial advice yet provided by the panel on how individuals can help tackle global warning.

Pachauri, who was re-elected the panel's chairman for a second six-year term last week, said diet change was important because of the huge greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental problems - including habitat destruction - associated with rearing cattle and other animals. It was relatively easy to change eating habits compared to changing means of transport, he said.

It's better than a Prius! It's the vegetarian lifestyle!

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Inside the Farm Circle #5

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

This week's program was all kinds of special, as we were graced with the presence of our esteemed guest and keynote speaker HH Bhakti-Raghava Swami, who spoke about his vast experience and wisdom in helping to implement the other 50% of Srila Prabhupada's vision, varnasrama-dharma.

One of Maharaja's main points was that Prabhupada very clearly stressed the implementing of daivi-varnasrama, with self-sufficient rural communities as a key practical application, as one of the vital aspects of his mission.

Varnasrama is vast, complex topic. It boils down to simple living, but the path to simple living is very complicated, especially in the West.

We don't know all of the aspects, sacrifices, and joys of simple living, therefore we have the tendency to become unconvinced of its merits, especially in our ultra post-modern world. The true test, the true challenge, is to understand and apply what was in Prabhupada's mind regarding the task of varnasrama.

Maharaja is trying, with body, mind, and soul, to serve Prabhupada with his utmost sincerity and ability in this task. He has helped establish a rural community in Indonesia, which began as a hostel program with university students in Sumatra. Land was bought and developed to expand and preserve the community.

Standing on 150 acres, there are now 27 families living there, and its complete with asramas for unmarried men and women, a town hall, a guest house, and all the time-tested amenities, such as fresh wells for each family. And of course, no electricity.

But who would want to live in such a primitive way? If we have this limiting attitude, then we miss the real abundance and wealth that Mother Bhumi has to offer. When we are in tune, we understand in gross and subtle ways what Bhumi has to offer.

The devotees in Indonesia and also living in similar communities in India that Maharaja has visited, such as New Gokula Dham in Karnataka, are bringing it all back home with traditional village technology, such as weaving their own cloth, using ox power, and creating their own herbal medicines.

Maharaja read about Prabhupada's Four Movements, which he mentioned in a letter to a Gandhi supporter in 1949 and also in his "Essay on Gita Nagari" from a 1956 version of BTG (which can be found in the Folio). The four pillars of Prabhupada's movement are 1. Sankirtana, the distribution of the Holy Name 2. Temple Worship 3. Spiritual Initiation, spiritual training 4. The Classless Society, or daivi-varnasrama, where everyone is a devotee.

The need to establish this pillar of the Classless Society is a visionary one, and the need is for visionary devotees. Prabhupada stressed numerous times that the natural, village way of life is the best way to come to this state of devotional society.

Simple living brings the highest spiritual opulence and also real material opulence (grains and cows), free of all-consuming greed and envy.

Maharaja has written a few books on the subject, such as "Make Vrndaban Villages" and "Varnasrama Education", and you can learn all about it at his website www.varnasrama.org

Inside the Farm Circle #4

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

Bhakta-Tom, our fearless garden assistant, stonemason, and construction whiz, held an enlightening talk on alternative building design and how it is manifesting in our own community in the Workshop Extension in the Teaching Garden.

What are the keys and benefits of alternative housing designs, like the earthship and yurt? One who is so inclined can create a stable, eco-friendly design that acts as shelter for you and yours, for your animal population, and for other buildings like graineries and tool sheds.

Raising your own building from the grown up in a socially and envirnomentally responsible way is a first-class community builder.

The ethical responibilities to the environment include using lumber, stone, and clay from local sources, and in this similar vein, recycling and salvaging materials like metal and tires, like we are doing for the foundation for the Workshop Extension.

The wood we are using for the construction and the stone we are using for the Workshop floor also are coming from local sources in our community and surrounding small towns and villages.

The approach is simple: Take only what is needed to utilize. It's a K.I.S.S approach. Keep It Sweet and Simple.

Some practical examples of alternative housing include log-stacked homes, which traditionally use mixtures of dried moss and clay, wood ashes, lime, sand and chopped straw.

Here of course we are using a modified earthship design for the foundation of our Workshop, as mentioned above. Tires are a great renewable resource, and anyone of your friendly local tire stores are like a modern quarry, with plenty of free tires.

To fill the tires, 2.5 to 3 loads of dirt are needed to fill it, to a consistency of 300 lbs. It takes a lot of shoveling and smashing, but according to Bhakta-Chris, no service for the Lord is more blissful.

Tom is a goldmine of hands-on wisdom. Give em a hand of your own as he continues with the construction of our Workshop Extension in the Teaching Garden.

Simple Living, High Thinking #11

For the week of August 11th-17th, 2008

Cloud-gazing and green-bean razing, it's all in a week's work. Join us as we take a look into what went on this week in the Small Farm Training Center here at New Vrindaban.

What we got done
-Click here to read the wrap-up of a very enlivening Farm Circle we held this past Thursday on the importance of the role of women in agriculture and in creating varnasrama culture. You're sure to be inspired.

-Tapahpunja was gracious in his efforts to help out with our recent Kids Camp that was held this past weekend here at New Vrindaban. Hay rides and small workshops abounded, and as you can see below, we even got some of the kids to relish hand-washing their own clothes. Truly a marvel experience in our modern times.

-Construction continues at a steady pace in our Workshop Extension in the Teaching Garden. This week, Tom was working on placing the leveling out and placing of wood for silk plating, which will provide a bridge of support between our tire foundation and the wood to be used in the actual construction of the building itself. Tom has also been reinforcing some small sections of the tire foundation with concrete.

Tom will present a workshop on alternative housing in one of our upcoming Farm Circles.




Shawn get his saw on.
-Our harvest this week up top at the Garden of Seven Gates included healthy bundles of okra, green beans, and chard. All this, and more, including new items in-season such as karella (bitter melon), loki squash, and cucumbers can be purchased at our weekly Organic Farmer's Market under the yajna-shalla in the RVC Temple Courtyard. Our Market is open after breakfast until after the Sunday Feast.

-Paws Paws are a super-ecstatic local fruit delicacy here in West Virginia. Click here to check out a short account of the first excursion into the season's harvest with the paw paw acarya himself, HG Soma Prabhu.

What we realized
Varnasrama is not just self-sufficient farm communities in the Vedic model that Prabhupada prescribed for us. Of course, our farm communities can be the most honest and fruitful representation of varnasrama that we can create in this Kali-Yuga, but the real foundation of varnasrama is a strong internal culture of trust and devotion between devotees.

It is absolutely the most important task of our society of devotees to develop this strong internal strength, as individuals and as a collective. We risk getting lost in the essential externals of our seva if we do not have the proper, consistent development of coming in touch with the Lord inside our own hearts.

Our farm communities can be such a catalyst for this kind of internal development. Just the nature of the seva itself entrenches one more in a mode of pure goodness, away from the wireless radiation of the ugra-karma culture. Taking the time to pull the weeds from the earth can help one to really pull the weeds out of one's heart.

Please help us out! Your hands, heads, and hearts can help us restore Srila Prabhupada's vision of self-sufficency here at New Vrindaban Dham. We're out shining and even in the rain in the Teaching Garden across the street from the RVC Temple, or up the hill at the Garden of Seven Gates. See HG Tapahpunja Prabhu for all the details.

Click here for more info on the Small Farm Training Center.

Stay tuned for next week's update! Hari Haribol!