New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Respected Devotees:

His Grace Nitai dasa, beloved husband and dearest friend of Mandali devi dasi and nephew of Nityo Dita Prabhu, departed this world in a vehicular accident on the night of Jan. 31 outside of Jacksonville, FL along with two other young men, Yadu and B. Tim.

Please pray for Nitai and his young friends on this grievous occasion.

Please pray for Mandali devi and the parents of Nitai that they will consoled by Krishna’s mercy.

Nitai dasa was one of the movements bright loving souls whose presence will be deeply missed. Further information and a memorial will be announced shortly.

yr, malati dd

http://www.facebook.com/people/Nitai-Das/724282453

FYI, the auto link to his Employer on his Info page is incorrect. Here is the correct link to Krishna Kitchen.

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Just a few more yards and we’re there.

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The drywall is about to be hoisted up to the second floor of the asrama, where renovations are well under way. The drivers received maha cookies for their efforts.

Beam me up!

Wed. Jan. 25, 2012 under the Lodge

We had some special guests at our recent Community Vision and Planning Team presentation on Wed. evening, Jan. 25.  There were three teachers and seven students from  (Morgantown) WV University.

Their Community Design Team , coordinated by Jenny Selin, will be working closely with our Vision and Planning Team to make the Master Plan dream come true. Her husband, Steve Selin, is a professor and an active participant. Jenny will  bring in interested professors and their students, with  individual levels of expertise in community development and conservation, including landscape architects, rural health practitioners, economists, engineers, parks and recreation experts, forestry majors, and public policy analysts.  

The meeting began with Jaya Krsna welcoming everyone, and  introducing the seven team leaders or their substitutes, followed by an overview by Gaura Sakti, who let us know that the plan is due to be completed and presented to the Board of Directors by Gaura Purnima on March 8, 2012.  Gaura read to us the overall Vision for New Vrindavan Community, which is:

“New Vrindavan is an intentional spiritual community centered around the practice of Bhakti Yoga, expressed as the Brijbasi Spirit, emphasizing simple living and high thinking, vegetarianism, agriculture, cow protection, places of pilgrimage and the propagation of the teachings of the founder-acharya of ISKCON, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.”

Gaura mentioned the Master Plan team is following the instructions that Srila Prabhupada gave for New Vrindavan, along with general guidelines.  This process focuses on two parts, namely HOW to prepare a master plan and WHAT to include.

In this regard, there is a good report from Gaura Shakti from Aug. 2011 when he was just beginning to put together the Master Planning concept.  I am quoting from this report below as it clearly covers the HOW and WHAT concept mentioned above, and anyone who is interested can easily refer to the related documents.

“Together we have decided to use Srila Prabhupada’s specific instructions for developing New Vrindavan as our “laws” for planning.  Additionally, we are using a document developed by the state of New Hampshire entitled “How to develop a master plan for your community” as the framework.  This guidebook can be downloaded by any of you at: http://www.nh.gov/oep/resourcelibrary/referencelibrary/m/masterplan/preparingamasterplan/

“This is a rather extensive document.  I encourage each and every one of you to carefully read and understand it, as this describes in simple language the methods we will employ to develop ours.  As this document was specifically developed for the state of New Hampshire, there are topics and laws that will not apply to us.  Skip these, but get a strong understanding of the process, as this will be our guide.

“Additionally, we will use Srila Prabhupada’s specific statements regarding his visions and desires for his New Vrindavan community.  The Vaishnava website vanipedia.org has many letters that Srila Prabhupada wrote about New Vrindavan.  They can be viewed here: http://vaniquotes.org/wiki/Category:New_Vrndavana

“This is a very nice compilation of 59 pages of quotes by His Divine Grace regarding his New Vrindavan community.  I urge you all to carefully read each of them, and try to gain an understanding of his vision.  This will be our guide for this master plan.” Open Letter from Gaura Sakti das Aug. 13, 2011.”

Then, one by one, each of the seven team leaders presented the one year, three year and ten year plans for their group.  The seven groups and the devotees who spoke, as well as each official team leader, are listed below. If anyone would like details of any of the committees’ goals and visions, please contact these people directly: 

1 AGRICULTURE, COWS AND SELF-RELIANCE presented and headed by Jaya Krsna.    

2 EDUCATION, ARTS AND CULTURE presented by Jayadevi and the team leader is Krpamaya.

3 COMMUNITY DESIGN AND FACILITIES presented and headed by Gopisa.

4 REVEALING THE DHAMA presented by Gaura Sakti and the team leader is Varsana Swami.

5 DEVOTEE CARE AND RELATIONS presented by Gaura Sakti and the team leader is Sukavaha.

6 OUTREACH, PREACHING & PILGRIM CARE presented and headed by Yugal Kisora.

7 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT presented and headed by Jaya Krsna.

After the seven presentations, the WVU students individually introduced themselves and expressed the aspects of our Master Plan in which they are interested.  Their responses were very positive and they all seem eager to participate.  

Finally, the meeting was opened up to questions and a lively yet friendly discussion ensued. Some of the questions that came up were:

Who will prioritize and decide which of our goals are to be met and which ones pushed until a later date? 

Is there an interest in reviving old New Vrindavan?

Will we be developing educational and historical walking trails throughout the community? And, if so, how will we deal with neighbors who may try to cut into our land? 

We’re looking forward to the ongoing improvements and developments according to the Master Plan, and hope everyone will be engaged more and more in meaningful devotional service, Bhakti Yoga, thus fulfilling Srila Prabhupada’s transcendental vision for New Vrindavan.

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O CHAMPION

Writing Team: Visakha Turner(Leader) & Joshua Fintel

O Champion of devotees, O Advaita
You pleaded for the Lord to incarnate.
By your grace He came
As the Golden Volcano of divine love.

O Champion of devotees,
O compassionate Savior,
By your grace we have been rescued
From the ocean of misery
By this lifeboat of the holy name.

O Champion of devotees,
We should teach everyone to chant Hare Krsna,
And stop this cycle of samsara.

O Champion of devotees,
Although Paramatma’s in the heart of all,
We must uncover Him by melting away their sins
With the warmth of the Golden Volcano
Of divine love, Lord Caitanya.

O Champion of devotees, O Advaita,
Let the holy name be heard in every town and village.
Let the world relish the holy name.

O Champion of devotees,
By your explosion of compassion,
You melted our sins with the glorious holy name.

For that we thank you.
We are eternally indebted to you,
O Champion.

COMPASSION

Writing Team:
Brinda Turner (Leader) & Balaji Curran

Advaita Acarya felt immense compassion
because no one was chanting the Holy Name.

Advaita Acarya felt enormous compassion
because everyone was engrossed in material activities.

Advaita Acarya felt tremendous compassion
because no one was serving Krsna.

Advaita Acarya felt vast compassion
for the people because no one wanted
to hear about Krsna.

Advaita Acarya felt humongous compassion
for the people,
so he called on Lord Krsna to appear.

Advaita Acarya felt great compassion
for the people,
so he offered Tulasi leaves and Ganges water
to please Lord Krsna.

And because Advaita Acarya offered
Tulasi leaves and a palmful of water,
Lord Caitanya appeared
and liberated all the conditioned souls.

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Dear Brijabasis,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

New Vrindaban has received notice of the new addresses which have to be applied within one year after which the old address will no longer be supported.

The new street address for the temple is as follows:

3759 McCrearys Ridge Road

The rest of the address remains the same:

Moundsville, WV, 26041

Please use this address for all future mailings, brochures and documents.

The address change is due to a Marshall County wide readdressing program for 911. Every address on the ridge has been changed.

Hare Krishna.
Your servant,
Jaya Krsna das

The North America Temple Presidents meeting was held  in Dallas, TX on the weekend of Jan. 13 to 15 this year.

(New Vrindaban Temple President Jaya Krishna das and New Vrindaban GBC member Tamohara das)

An overall very positive and uplifting mood prevailed last weekend at the North America Temple Presidents’ meeting in Dallas.  There were more than fifty leaders from Canada and the U. S. present. Some of the young Dallas school children opened the weekend with kirtan and prayers.

(On the left, New Vrindaban GBC Malati dd)

The seminars then began with Srila Prabhupada disciples relating some  instructions that Prabhupada had personally given them regarding management and preaching.  One devotee said that Prabhupada told him “a temple president is blessed to be given the honor to serve the devotees. On the other hand, if anything goes wrong in his/her temple, then it is the president’s fault!”

One reason for the positive spirit at the meetings is that the Youth Fund settlement case that had been hanging over all of ISKCON for many years has come to a close.  Devotees can now move on in a big way to fulfill their goals for preaching and serving.  As a matter of fact, the movement is gearing up for ISKCON’s 50^th anniversary in 2016.

Many “bhakti vriksha” groups have been established throughout the country. These are outreach programs organized in people’s homes so that small groups can come together and learn about and discuss topics about Krishna as well as chant together. New Vrindavan’s traveling preacher, Yugal Kisora Prabhu has organized fourteen such bhakti vriksha groups throughout many states.

Some new officers in our movement have been appointed, such as the child protection officer who is Lilasuka dasi from Alachua, FL, and the Divisional Director of Accounting and Regulatory Compliance officer, who is New Vrindavan’s Kuladri das. The new North American Communications Director is Kesava Prabhu, a very fired-up devotee from Toronto, where the average age of the congregation members has interestingly changed over the last few years from 50 years old to 25 years old.

There are many college outreach programs running successfully in Gainesville, Toronto and L.A. to name a few. It was brought up that such youth-oriented activities are important for creating the future leaders of our movement.

The distribution of Srila Prabhupada’s books is increasing all over the country.

The care of devotees is very important and there were discussions about the most effective ways to do this.

A highlight of the weekend was a drama headed by Bhaktimarga Swami about Jagannatha Lila.  Maharaja had 3 new actors in his small troup and they did a fantastic job.

The weekend closed with a short memorial for Yamuna Dasi, who continues to inspire us to carry on our service to Srila Prabhupada in a sincere way.

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Tapahpunjah will be on WKKX 1600 AM on the Sherrie McCutheon Show Friday Jan. 27th at 10:30 AM.

Tapahpunjah will be representing the Small Farm Training Center (SMTC),  Danny Swan with be representing East Wheeling Community Gardens, and Ken Peralta will be representing Green Wheeling Initiative.

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Fridays are special days for the residents of the Dhama who take lunch prasadam at the temple. Last Friday’s all-American-fare lunch was cooked by our Friday cooks, namely Lalita Gopi, her daughters Visakha and Brinda, and also Maha Laxmi.  It was quite gourmet and it went quickly so that those who came late missed out on the pleasure of trying the main course….a shame indeed.

Most of the maha (the special foods directly from Krishna’s plates), sadly, was left behind, untouched!

I noticed, too, that more people tend to come to lunch on Fridays than on other days.  Hmm! I wonder why that is.

There were black bean with salsa burgers served on home-made buns, with guacamole on top.  The menu was creamy tomato soup, good old-fashioned sweet potato fries and Brinda’s famous sweet-can’t-be-beat hot chai tea.  A nice veggie side of simple cauliflower, broccoli and carrots topped off the repast.

A meal fit for the Lord!

We can’t wait for next Friday’s special!

Yes, the “kitchen religion” is alive and well in New Vrindavan.

Hare Krsna Devotees

Tuesday, 24 January will be a Community Vision and Planning discussion in the Lodge.

Prasadam is served 5.30-6.00 pm

Presentation is from 6:00 onwards.

There will be 8 students from WVU attending, along with their professor. They are interested in how our community is doing the master planning process; the Madhuvan Village project undertaken by ECOV; forest management; and human-wildlife interaction.

Jaya Krsna asks that the various group leaders present their 1 year plans/ideas for review and understanding, and asks you to prioritize them.

Please come and participate!

YIS
Gaura Sakti das

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