New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

By Madhava Smullen for ISKCON News on 5 Nov 2011

A New Vrindaban devotee’s efforts at organic gardening have inspired the general public, educational institutions, and leaders in the local town of Wheeling, West Virginia to support sustainability, eat local produce and consider spiritual motives for it.

Raised on a farm in Northern Michigan, Tapahpunja Dasa was attracted to ISKCON’s “simple-living, high-thinking” message and joined in 1974 in New Vrindaban, where he began growing organic produce. After some side projects over the years, such as missionary work overseas and starting North America’s first Food For Life program in 1982, he restarted his organic growing in 1996, and has been “focused on creating a connection between spirituality and sustainability” for the past thirteen years.

“I believe that if we want the rural, Krishna conscious lifestyle that Srila Prabhupada desired for New Vrindaban—not just generic cow protection or hobby gardening—it must be a centrally located, highly visible part of our outreach,” he says. “When I presented these thoughts to the New Vrindaban management, they kindly granted me a piece of property right in the center of the community, directly across from the temple, to turn my ambition into reality.”
To make the project more accessible to the general public and to secular organizations, Tapahpunja created his own 501 C3 charity organization called The
Small Farm Training Center, which names New Vrindaban as its “host community.”

Over the past six years, he has developed a vibrant apprentice farming program, which draws between eight and fourteen college students every season (from March till November), enthusiastic about getting their hands dirty and learning sustainability. They go through three levels of training: backyard gardening, market gardening—learning how to trade, barter and sell one’s produce at a farmer’s market—and mini-farming, which is performed on a six-and-a-half acre site called The Garden of Seven Gates.

“Rather than just grunt work, I want to give them a rich, well-rounded experience,” Tapahpunja says. “I’d like them to leave with a very solid foundation of why we should be sustainable, so that they can be articulate spokespersons on the issue.”

In return for their work, the students receive room and board, staying at the project’s Small Farm Guesthouse and eating prasadam. Many comment that they feel comfortable and cared for.

There is no pressure to go any further than learning the ABCs of organic gardening, but Tapahpunja does explain to the students that his Training Center’s host is a spiritual community with a beautiful temple, delicious vegetarian meals, philosophical classes, and the renowned tourist attraction Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold, which they are welcome to check out.

“We have a lot to offer to the worldwide dialogue on sustainability,” Tapahpunja says. “At the heart of it all is the fact that there is really no such thing as sustainability in this world—everything is subject to devastating time. The only true sustainability is our relationship with God. And it’s important to understand that as we attempt to live a simple lifestyle.”

Tapahpunja shows himself to be aligned with this understanding by growing a garden that is specific to the needs of New Vrindaban’s presiding Deities Sri-Sri Radha-Vrindabanchandra, and to the needs of Their devotees.

Providing for the community is a challenge, however. “Right now only about ten per cent of the produce used by the temple is grown in our own garden,” he says. “It’s difficult because New Vrindaban is a major pilgrimage destination, with 600 to 800 people visiting on festival weekends, making it hard to match field production with consumption patterns. On top of that, most of the devotees here are from urban backgrounds, and they want seasonal vegetables all year around, which is impossible. So a big part of my job is convincing the temple management that to support a farm culture we have to get used to eating seasonally.”

Still, Tapahpunja tries to grow a wide variety of vegetables. He’s helped by grant money from West Virginia State University, which is offered in return for data on his yield.

There’s even surplus, which he began delivering to Wheeling soup kitchens as a charitable donation five years ago. Today, he has developed a good relationship with cooks, administration and clientele, and delivers to six different kitchens over thirty times a year—unheard of by any other farmer or agrarian-based community.

“They don’t have a lot of funding, and most of the food they serve people are corporate donations of sugary foods and heavy starches—cheap calories that are going bad in large scale grocery stores and get donated for a tax write-off by large corporations,” Tapahpunja says. “So they are very grateful for our freshly-grown donations. They especially love Swiss Chard, a kind of large beet green, which I grow a quarter acre of each year, and lettuce, which I’ve developed a technique for growing even in the hot weather.”

The soup kitchens, as well as the city of Wheeling, are very appreciative because they can see that this effort is not a cynical photo-op, but a genuine concern for the quality of peoples’ diets.

This charitable work and networking is not only excellent public relations for ISKCON New Vrindaban, but it has yielded yet another exciting project.

“It got me in touch with some local Wheeling gardeners, and about a year ago we decided to team up and share resources, creating the ‘Green Wheeling Initiative,’” Tapahpunja says. “Our byline is ‘A Green Bridge Over Troubled Waters,’ and we regularly meet at the local community college to discuss how to increase our charitable distribution of produce, as well as new gardening initiatives.”

The most exciting of these is an urban renewal project in which members of the GWI install gardens in vacant lots and former industrial deadzones throughout the city. They have installed seven so far, including one on the front lawn of the West Virginia Northern Community College, the biggest community college in the State.

“Working with their culinary arts department, we made a nice garden for them with lots of vegatables and culinary herbs, so that the students could get acquainted with growing their own produce, and realize how much better it makes food taste,” says Tapahpunja.

In return, the Community College arranged for Tapahpunja to meet with representatives of the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and the Hess Family Foundation, who were impressed with the GWI’s vision to turn Wheeling’s vacant lots into economic and health opportunities for its people.

“They also liked our mood of collaboration and inclusiveness, and our goal of empowering people to become food independent and build community at the same time,” Tapahpunja says. “As a result, they suggested that I write two grants, which I did. They then funded both of them—the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation gave $55,000, while the Hess Family Foundation gave $15,000.”

Tapahpunja says that the GWI’s work is making the citizens of Wheeling more aware of both the health and sociological reasons for becoming food independent. This naturally ties in with cow protection, since cow dung is essential to fertile soil for growing food; and with spiritual communities, where people support each other in a lifestyle closer to the land and the one who sustains us all: God.

In the future, Tapahpunja hopes to continue networking and reaching out to organizations such as PETA and Farm Sanctuary, and people such as young Indian couples, who, despite working in the technological field, are often not far removed from their village roots. He also hopes to launch a new initiative, VARA, which means “best” in Sanskrit and is an acronym for Vedic Academy for Rural Arts. Its mission will be to train brahminically-inclined devotees who can articulate a message of sustainability based on the Krishna conscious perspective.

“Once, while walking with his disciples on the outskirts of Atlanta, Srila Prabhupada took his cane and traced the outline of all the downtown skyscrapers,” Tapahpunja says. “Then he said, ‘Do you see this city? This city and all like it will be finished very soon. Do you know why?’ The devotees were at a loss, groping for all kinds of metaphysical answers. Finally Tamal Krishna Maharaja said, ‘Because they can’t grow their own food?’ ‘Yes,’ Srila Prabhupada replied. ‘Because they can’t grow their own food.’”

“Therefore,” Tapahpunja concludes, “I see food independence as one of our ISKCON movement’s most important missions,

Thanks to our reader Vajresvari who pointed out that the video was titled wrongly on YouTube and it is actually from 1972.  I have corrected the post title here at least.

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Dear Brijabasis,

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

I am happy to announce that Bhakta Adam has taken up the service as Promotion Manager. He started his service on Monday, November 7, 2011. The promotion manager is responsible to attract more buses and visitors to the
Palace of Gold and the New Vrindaban Community.

The Palace allows us to glorify the pure devotee of the Lord in a very unique way. It is planned to extend the Palace experience by a multimedia room and an exhibition center to further present Srila Prabhupada’s incredible contribution in Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s mission to the greater public.

Lilasuka devi dasi (Pittsburgh) will take up the service as Communications
Director on January 3, 2012. Her focus will be to inform the community members, the congregation, ISKCON worldwide and the media about the strategies, plans and activities of the New Vrindaban community.

Jesse and Lilasuka will open in room no. 8 under the lodge on May 1, 2012, an
arts and crafts shop. They will offer devotees in New Vrindaban and the region
to present their art and craft and market them locally, on a website and at
different shows.

Your servant,
Jaya Krsna das
Community President
ISKCON New Mathura Vrindaban

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• Experience with cows preferred but not necessary (training provided by International Society for Cow Protection ISCOWP)

• Familiar with and practicing Vaisnava behavior and principles.
• Motivated, Competent, Mature, Balanced, Self-Starter

Duties Include:

• Working with Oxen
• Transporting milk from barn to temple kitchen (serve as substitute milker)
• Hauling
• Forestry (logging, firewood, fence posts — working with chainsaw)
• Field Work (hauling, plowing, harvesting, etc.)
• Interacting with pilgrims and interns
• Teaching about Oxen
• Basic animal husbandry

References required.

Compensation Package: Salary & Accommodations

Current US legal residents given preference

Will work with ECOV, a New Vrindaban corporation dedicated to cow protection

Email Madhava Gosh at:

gourdmad at mountain.net

Dear Prabhus,

Please accept our respectful obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

On the request of H.G Malati prabhu, the venue has been changed from the apartments to Sri Sri Vrindaban Chandra Temple hall, so that we could all come together at the abode of our Dear Lordships Sr Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra.

Everyone is invited to come and join us for the last day of Kartik month to celebrate the festival of Krsna Rasa-Yatra, Marriage of Tulsi and Salagrama, Appearance of Nimbarkacarya. It is also the birthday of His Holiness Varsna Swami and he will be joining us to speak on the glories of Krsna’s Rasa-Yatra festival. Festival will be followed by full dinner prasadam. Following are the details of Program.

Date : Thursday, Nov. 10th 2011.
Time : 5:00pm-8:00pm
5:00-5:30pm – Kirtan
5:30-6:30pm – Lecture by H.H.Varsana Swami.
6:30-7:30pm – Offerings.
7:30-8:00pm – Arati & Damodar Ashtakam.
8:00pm – Prasadam.
Venue : Temple Hall

Please be in time.

Thank you very much.

Your servants,

Krsnanand, Premanand,
Govinda Priya Devi Dasi &
Shankaranand Das.

October 29, 2011

Photos by J.W. Johnson Jr.
Crews work on the roof of the Palace of Gold, the…

As the number of members living on the campus has shrunk in the nearly 20 years since Bhaktipada left the community after a conviction on racketeering charges, only a handful of the current 250 members were around, let alone alive, when Bhaktipada’s actions brought the community into the national spotlight. However, those in charge of the community said they will always remember the past and work to move New Vrindaban forward.

Moral Deviations

Under Bhaktipada’s leadership, New Vrindaban grew into what at one time was the nation’s largest Hare Krishna community. In the late 1960s, Bhaktipada and his lifelong partner, the late Howard Morton Wheeler, formed New Vrindaban. They started with about 132 acres and eventually acquired nearly 5,000 acres, becoming a destination for pilgrims in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON.

Bhaktipada took over the community in the 1970s but was in trouble with ISKCON by 1987, when the governing body expelled him for ”moral and theological deviations.”

“He was a strong leader, but suddenly there were these charges that he had deviated from our standards,” said Jaya Krsna Das, community president for New Vrindaban.

That included murder charges, complaints of child abuse, fraud and racketeering charges. Former U.S. Attorney William Kolibash, who brought federal charges against Bhaktipada in the late 1980s, said his office received tips of what was going on at New Vrindaban and eventually found evidence of Bhaktipada’s actions.

“He was not a pleasant person,” Kolibash, a Wheeling attorney, said.

In 1987, Kolibash accused Bhaktipada of ordering the killings of two devotees who had threatened his control of New Vrindaban. One dissident, Charles St. Denis, was killed in 1983 at New Vrindaban. Another, Stephen Bryant, was killed three years later as he sat in his van in Los Angeles.

Bhaktipada denied any involvement in the killings, though another man was convicted of the murders and testified that the swami ordered him to commit the slayings.

Prosecutors also alleged that Bhaktipada had amassed more than $10 million through illegal fundraising schemes, including the sale of hats and bumper stickers bearing copyrighted and trademarked logos. Kolibash said many organizations, including Major League Baseball and Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip, helped in bringing charges against the swami.

Kolibash said the practices encouraged by Bhaktipada were occurring across the country, with devotees following a standard pitch line at sporting events and concerts.

“They would come up to you and say ‘you are under arrest for having too much fun,'” he said. “Then they’d say for $5 you can buy this sticker and be let go, and they did this all over the country.”

Bhaktipada appealed his 1991 racketeering conviction, then pleaded guilty at a second trial in August 1996 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. A judge reduced the sentence to 12 years in 1997, citing Bhaktipada’s poor health.

Decades of Separation

During the course of his legal troubles, Bhaktipada lost the support of his New Vrindaban followers and left the community entirely in 1994. Shortly afterward, the community petitioned to rejoin ISKCON, and it was restored to full membership in 1996. Kolibash said ISKCON and other members of New Vrindaban played a crucial role in bringing charges against and eventually convicting Bhaktipada.

“They were very cooperative with us, and they obviously had a stake in it because this man disgraced them as a community,” he said.

Krsna Das said after Bhaktipada left the community, he also ceased communication, which allowed for members to look ahead and begin to distance themselves from the disgraced former leader.

“As a community, we know this is part of our past, and at that time we committed to a new direction,” he said.

Part of that new direction included bringing in new members and returning to the moral and spiritual traditions of ISKCON. John Curran, a 29-year-old Kansas City native, joined the community earlier this year and said he is aware of the community’s past.

“I had visited this place a number of times for festivals, and I had always liked it,” he said. “I knew about the past, but I also knew the spirit of this place and so I didn’t let the past interfere with my decision.”

Krsna Das said most members of the outside community recognize the change in direction New Vrindaban has taken, though there are a few exceptions.

“It is clear the remaining portion of people who have ideas about our past haven’t had a chance to meet with us and see what we are really doing here,” he said.

Curran said not much was made last week after the community learned of Bhaktipada’s death. He said the community expected the reaction that his death spurred from those outside the community, but inside the walls there was little to no conversation.

“There hasn’t been any formal gathering to discuss” his death, he said. “Everyone is internalizing it and letting it pass and looking forward to the future.”

A New Direction

Krsna Das said the community has plenty on its plate, with a 25-year plan recently created. That includes a complete restoration of the Palace of Gold over the next five years, a $4 million project.

Additionally, the community hopes to build modern apartments for younger families and returning members as they aim to grow the number of devotees. And, in the near future, officials are hoping to construct a hotel and seminar area to accommodate the more than 25,000 visitors that travel to the site every year.

The community signed over its natural gas rights in 2010 for $2,500 per acre for 4,000 acres, a $10 million up-front windfall that will help complete the upgrades.

“I foresee we are a growing community,” Krsna Das said, adding the community also hopes to eventually become entirely self-sufficient in food and energy production. Curran said he believes the potential for the community is “huge” and that he and other young people are the new generation that will help take it to the next level.

“I feel like I represent a new generation that wants to establish this place and lead it to new places,” he said.

Present: Bhalabadra, Madhava Gosh, Jaya Krsna, Jayadevi, Jaya Prabhupada, Lalita Gopi,

1. Refining the vision statement:

The New Vrindaban Community

• produces locally the necessities of life
• demonstrates a practical example of self-reliance and
• engages and protects the cows and the oxen.

2. Subsidies / Price Support:

Both the European GBC and the GBC have passed a resolution, which requests ISKCON entities to buy milk products, vegetables, and flowers from ISKCON farms up to their current purchases and at a price they can afford.

3. Decentralized production:

The temple would fix a contract upfront with the devotees to buy vegetables from them at a defined price (higher than the market price). The products would be delivered

3. How will the vision manifest in 10 years from now:

a. Mission/vision statement:  Produce the necessities of life for devotees,

animals and visitors.

Prabhupada stated there are four problems 1) food, 2) shelter, 3) cloth, 4) medicine.

1) Food- vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, berries, milk products, honey, maple syrup, sorghum, dried beans, seeds for future crops.  Establish a seed bank, possibly a future business.

2) Shelter-Housing/lumber could be used for building-clear former land used for farming that has been taken over by trees.  Mine sandstone for housing.  Straw bale houses would be dependent on freeze-thaw cycles.  Cordwood with mortar would be more applicable. Prabhupada’s clay, rammed earth brick making machine.  Recycled tires discussed as a possibility.

3) Clothing-Wool type three merino sheep. Llamas, alpaca.  Linen from flax plant.

4) Medicine-Herbs (wild and domestic) cow remedies.

b. Demonstrate a practical example of Self-reliance

Whatever comes to the Deity comes from the Dham.  Build a greenhouse, with an efficient heating system.  An earth-bermed greenhouse would be easier to heat.

Engage devotees in guest facilities (bed and breakfasts).

Living on the land, producing our own food, housing, and medicines.

c. Engages and Protects the cows and oxen

Integrated into community life-families.  Each village has its own oxen engaged in their own activities.  Establish an endowment fund for families to have a lifetime commitment.  Decentralized care would cost more.  Centralized-reform the way people care for cows.  Encourage small barns/farmettes.  Establish a trade/barter system-production is necessary.

Prototype design, bank barn-solar panels.  Oxen/cow plow dept.  4-6 calves a year,  10 oxen teams.

3 years-cows and oxen-composting and recycling systems.  New barn at Madhubhana.  Four fresh cows.  Produce hay and grains for cows.

1 year-Madhubhana-ox barn and one house for teamsters.  Milk production; buy, bred cows, cows that produce more milk.  Discussed bulls vs. artificial insemination.  Goal-buy bred heifers for spring 2012.

Palace Restoration Committee

Minutes Conference Call September 30, 2011

Present: Gopisa, Malati, Tripad, Jaya Krsna

Absent: Gaura Shakti, Ramesvara

1. Minutes last conf call ratified
2. Main roof – patches
   1. Companies who did the current rubber on the roof and the dome, have been contacted by Gopisa. Both companies proposed the product to be used for the patches.

A bucket of the needed product for the flat roof was brought by Gopisa to the Palace.  The product for the dome will be delivered next week.

The work needs a dry roof. Tripad plans to apply the material next week.

It is the intention to cover a good part of the flat roof with the new material; the necessary additional material will be available on request.

1. 1. Areas of the flat roof where we have soft spots could be covered with the necessary material.  Additional devotees are available if needed.

1. Intermediate gift shop
   1. Krsna Bhava Prabhu has accepted the proposal for the intermediate gift shop in the ghee factory after discussing with Gopisa and Jaya Krsna in separate meetings.
   2. Gus visited the Palace this morning, present with him Gopisa and Tripad.

1. i.      Stairs: both masons will come out next week and present quotes after the site visit.
2. ii.      Gift shop:

We will do the clean up ourselves (roof, wall). Gopisa has informed Gus about the investment he thinks is needed for the gift shop – $50.000. Included in the plan are two wheel chair accessible toilets.

Gus will meet with Krsna Bhava to see her current shelving in order to use them in the intermediate gift shop.

1. iii.      There would be two single bathrooms, one for ladies and one for men. We would have to build additional bath rooms once the current bathrooms will be closed down based on construction going on.
2. iv.      Timeline for the gift shop: beginning of March 2012.
3. v.      Total budget: $75.000 including the patches, the stairs and the gift shop, $37.500 for INMV and ECOV.
4. vi.      INMV has to find out how to fund the investment, as only $10.00 is currently part of the investment budget.
5. vii.      Gopisa discussed with Gus the reconstruction of the back part of the Palace building. Gus will think about options and inform us about his thoughts.

1. How to move forward on the overall restoration?
   1. Address the restoration of the domes and the roof.
   2. Get clarity on the back part of the Palace building.
   3. Go back to Gus and ask him for additional work on the domes.

1. Activity list
   1. Structure of the dome – Gus sees that structure can take another cover (except major concrete cover). The activity is closed.
   2. Story board – feedback on the second version expected for next meeting

1. Next call within one week – October 7, 2011, 4pm. Calls will be planned for 9am in the future.

1. Parampara Prabhu is proposed to be an additional member of the Palace Restoration Committee. The decision will be taken by email as not all members of the Palace Restoration committee participate in today’s call.

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Prabhupada:

(excerpt)

So we, our… One of the items of this mission, Krishna consciousness, is to establish real varna ashram by qualification. We have to pick up brahmanas from everywhere, throughout the whole world, not that we have to pick up brahmanas in India in some class. No. There are brahmanas jn every part of the world. We have to pick up.

Just see. None of these boys are born in India or a brahman family, but they have got the symptom. They have got the brahminical… They have either acquired willingly or by some way. So we have to pick up. Anyone who is truthful, who is controlling the senses, no illicit sex life… That is controlling senses. There are many other things. This is the most important thing.

Samo dama tattiksa They are tolerant. To these American boys, to take up another culture, which they are not accustomed from the birth, that is tolerance. This is tolerance. But it is not painful, but it is tolerance. I am asking the American boys, “Don’t smoke. Don’t take intoxication.” They are accustomed to this habit from the very childhood, but they are doing this. This is tolerance.

So these are brahminical qualification, tolerance, truthful. And sauca, sauca, this Sauca. Anyone who is chanting Hare Krishna, he is pure, bahyabhyantaram, inside and outside. So in this way, in this age, the chance should be given. Not that when the Satyakam spoke the truth of his life… So he was accepted. So you are being accepted as qualified brahmana, but keep your qualification. Then your life will be sublime. Keep your life. Yes.

So this is a chance given by the Pañcaratrika system. It doesn’t matter how he is born. Nobody is responsible for his birth, but everyone is responsible for his work. So you work like a brahmana, like a Vaisnava, and chant Hare Krishna, and chant this gayatri mantra, and your life will be sublime. So don’t neglect it.

You are being initiated according to the order of our predecessors, Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Prthivite ache yata nagaradi grama. We should have to preach this Krishna consciousness movement in every village, in every town of this planet. Therefore we have come to your country. You are kindly cooperating. You also spread.

I am old man. I may not live very long. Any moment I can be finished. But try. That is actually feeling. That is actually fellow feeling, that people are simply… Anadi bahirmukha krsna bhuli gela. They have forgotten Krishna from time immemorial. Athaeva krsna veda purana karila. Therefore this propaganda, this literature, Vedic literature, is there to remind them. Aham eva sarva-yajñana blokta ca prabhur eva ca. Krishna says, “I am the Lord of everything.” So we have to capture Krishna. So this is the… Namo apavitrah pavitro va sarvavastham gato ‘pi va. This is explanation of this verse. And now we begin our ceremony.

Read full lecture here.

See two hundred more pictures here