Dynamic New Vrindaban
I was feeling sleepy during japa this morning, but then I remembered that Tapahpunja Prabhu had mentioned how the teaching garden was a good place to peacefully chant rounds. So I moseyed on across the street and slipped through the side gate into my little get away. What a variety of loving devotion I found in that garden. So many different types of leafy vegetables, little red bulb-like tomatoes, 3 kinds of mint, okra, even bitter melon existed there. I walked around for about 15 minutes softly chanting, “Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna…” when suddenly… “Mooooooooo.”
I had heard the announcement at mangala arati a few times inviting everyone to see Radha Vrindavanacandra’s cows getting milked at 6:30am, but now I could not avoid going over and checking things out.
Just inside the humble stable I found Jaya Prabhupada prabhu, 4 mothers and 2 calves. The cows were licking bowls of what appeared to me to be fine grain as their calves happily nestled their noses in mom’s utter. After hanging out for a while I watched Jaya Prabhupada attempting different methods for getting the milk out. I never realized what a chore it was to induce the mothers to give milk. He told me, “the calf is really the thing that gets things going.” I asked about what happens if the humans don’t milk the cow and he explained that the milk inside gets rotten and they get sick. Amazing! What a co-dependent relationship. Our brains can’t survive without their milk and they can’t survive unless we extract that white nectar. I began to develop a relationship with one cow who Jaya Prabhupada had said was only recently separated from the bulls. I was hugging her neck and rubbing behind her ears when Jaya Prabhupada said, “she’s giving more milk now, because she likes that. These cows really just want to be loved and taken care of,” he said, “but we have about 80 cows and there’s only a couple of people watching out for them.” Wow! 80 gigantic cows and this Prabhu was nearly taking care of them single-handedly. What a great example and a wonderful place to live. Won’t some brahmincally inclined person come and protect our mother with Jaya Prabhupada? I’ll do my part too.
Your Servant,
Arya Siddhanta dasa
