New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Community Vision and Planning Group Discussion

Tuesday 27 September 5:30 pm Lodge

Prasadam is 5.30, discussion starts at 6.00

The Intention of the discussion is to refine our Vision Statement.

We’ll review our Values Statements, Vision statements,and further refine our Vision for New Vrindavan Community.

Please come!

Dear Vaishnavi’s:

The completed schedule, with presenter’s names and times, is now posted on Vaishnaviretreat.org.

The titles of each presentation will be added as soon as each one of our presenter’s gets back to me with their information.

The menu plan will also be posted shortly. In addition to the particular items mentioned, breakfast will include each day incredible granola, fresh fruit, homemade yoghurt, and hot teas of your choice. By the same token, lunch will include brown rice, steamies and salad, along with the menu de jour. Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings will feature hot soup, bread rolls, teas and Caffix w/ fresh NV organic ahimsa cow’s milk.

We hope you are all making plans to arrive in time for the opening session at 11:30 Friday, Sept. 30th!

Hari bol!

malati dd

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bu Gaurnathraj das

New Vrindavan is a place of inspiration and worship. The mercy of their Lordships spreads far and wide. Trying to spread this mercy of the Lord five devotees from New Vrindavan headed to Ohio University.

We conducted two programs there. One was a class of 20 students who were studying global leadership. They are actually writing a paper on New Vrindavan under the guidance of Professor Greg Emery. Greg Emery visits New Vrindavan very often and has had the association of H.H. Radhanath maharaj.

When we went to the class the students were pretty blank so to speak, not knowing much. So I encouraged them to ask questions. The first question was why New Vrindavan? And that started it all. We covered almost all aspects of Srila Prabhupadas teaching beginning with the soul , devotion to Krishna and ended with a discussion on “Simple living High Thinking”.

The students listened very curiously and asked many questions. Finally after some hard hitting philosophy it was time for the real thing. I told them that the path to spiritual realization is full of happiness and joy and one can attain that joy simply by chanting . We just started chanting and then we started dancing and we asked all the students to come up and they did, one by one.

In a few minutes the entire class was on the dance floor chanting Hare Krishna in ecstasy . We kept on going for the next half hour until the session ended. The students quickly asked for our contact information which we were happy to give because they said they would like to visit New Mandarin. They are already scheduled to visit us on September 24.

Our Next stop was College Greens, the forested area from within the campus. We had a student contact by name Tyler and he invited us to do a Harinam. We started with 2 students and gradually as we sang we attracted students passing by and joined us. Bhakta Brandon then suddenly started dancing and all students joined him. The dancing continued and the holy names kept growing louder and louder.

My throat became sour after 45 minutes and I asked my wife Sundari to lead and she did so beautifully. We continued with electrifying pace , loudly chanting for the next 30 minutes. It was totally ecstatic.

Then we handed out halwa prasadam to all. Not only that all passersby were given a cup of sweet halwa. The response was tremendous , we could see the mercy of Sri Sri Radha Vrindavanchandra flowing. Radha Vrindavan Chandra Bhagavan Ki Jay !

by Jayadevi dasi

I suppose Krsna heard me when I told Jaya Krsna that I loved gardening, and he said I had come to the right place. Shortly thereafter, I began working with Gopalasyapriya at the Palace gardens.

Anybody who picks flowers should know the process from beginning to end. It takes weeding in icy sleet and cold rain; preparing the soil by wheelbarowing loads of mushroom manure to enrich the soil, and sweating in the greenhouse while sorting through all the Canna Lillies, starting the seeds and transplanting them into flats, then the final process of transplanting into the prepared beds.

Having gone through all these processes, I can fully appreciate picking and making garlands for the Deities. The peak experience of picking culminated at the Puspa Abhisheka, when I watched the Pujaris pour Queen Anne’s Lace  and many other flowers over Sri Sri Radha Vrndavana and then the other Pujaris throw the petals in the air at the feet of the Deities.

I also have the pleasure of picking from neighboring gardens and along the lake the beautiful vase flowers, some that I’ve nicknamed “swan weed.” I meditate on Srila Prabhupada’s statement that Krsna appreciates what is grown and picked locally 100 times more than commercially grown and purchased garland and vase flowers.

Along with picking, I’ve increased my service to several lengthy and small garlands and know the difference between grabbing a handful of purchased carnations and roses to quickly string the bigger garlands and picking the seasonal peonies and pom-pom marigold appropriate for the length and the size of the Deity. I counsel the other garland makes to be patient with me as I try my best to facilitate everybody’s needs and make the garlands the right size and to provide everybody with enough flowers.

The ultimate joy of picking is being engaged in Srimate Tulasi Devi’s service to pick her leaves and manjaris. I travel to a different plane when I capture the clove-like scent of the freshly picked manjaris. There will only be a few short weeks left that I can relish this service, therefore I humbly seek the positive feedback of the Deities and devotees while I continue to pick, and view the world as a giant petal tray and flower garland.

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Hare Krishna!

The Vaishnavi Retreat is just around the corner, only a couple of weeks away! We have exciting, innovative presenters this year so we  look forward to all of you, far and near, joining together for our annual get together in New Vrindaban where we meet old friends and make new ones as we explore the sacred path back to Godhead from many angles of vision and experience.

Fri.Sept.30th, Sat & Sun, Oct 1st & 2cd are the dates to circle on your calendar.

There will be  healthy vegetarian prasad prepared by our creative chef, daily yoga
sessions, mantra meditation, shastric sessions led by advanced women who have practiced Bhakti Yoga 40 years or more, the Saturday night Campfire Bhajan Circle, and the extraordinarily intimate loving experience of being with Srila Prabhupada in his Palace on Sunday morning, learning and sharing inner secrets on the Path of Self Realization,  Krishna Consciousness.

Lose yourself in the serene setting of New Vrindaban wearing its new found autumn dress, fresh crisp air, sweeping starlit nights, organic gardens, surrounded by peacocks,  deer, swans and other charming creatures. This is simply not to be missed! It’s all happening for  you!

Go online to http://vaishnaviretreat.org/j15/ for further information. The schedule will be posted Thursday (Sept.15th) afternoon.

Contact: servingkrishna@aol.com
Call: 304-845-9591

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by LC

I’m sure this doesn’t apply to everyone but traveling is my therapy. It’s even better when the destination is as amazingly peaceful as the unincorporated (!) town of New Vrindaban, West Virginia (population of 352, according to the 2010 Census) – a remote community of incredible spiritually in-tune people, about 30 minutes from Wheeling, WV (twitter: @newvrindaban)

That’s a mighty random location for a Floridian-by-way-of-Brazil to visit, you might say – I was privileged to spend a couple of days in this sanctuary to celebrate the wedding of two of my favorite people in the world, my oldest and best friend – my brother – and his beautiful new bride (whose hometown is New Vrindaban).

No cell reception, no loud choppers, ambulances, cop cars or obnoxious drivers. No shoes (barefoot wedding!) no stress. Just bliss. It was the most genuine and touching wedding I’ve ever been to. Enjoy! (I can’t even tell you how much I did!)…

See the full story and see lots of photos here.

by Nityodita das

Srila Prabhupada wanted NV residents to live directly from the bounty of Mother Earth and Mother Cow. He especially wanted devotees to grow their own food to offer to Krsna. In the winter of 1974, I moved to New Vrindavan attracted by that simple vision and immediately joined the garden crew under Tapapunja.

My first service was to help construct a greenhouse at Bahulaban to grow food and flowers for the Temple. That spring and summer I worked outside in the garden and fields, planting, mulching, weeding and harvesting. Prabhupada gave us a vision that we have to be prepared for thousands of people coming to our farms! So we worked hard and made many mistakes wondering how we were even going to feed ourselves!

In the fall, I was transferred to the Palace crew and never looked back! Decades passed and although I organized and participated in potato harvesting marathons when I was Temple President, I was seriously out of touch with the earth. As Varsana Maharaja puts it, I was no longer an earthling!

This spring, having been liberated from hands-on management of the temple, I planted a small vegetable garden at my house. Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of my past gardening experience, I studied the principles set forth in a great gardening book called Square Foot Gardening.

I followed the step by step method of creating my little garden. I made drawings, built the raised bed boxes and then, made my own soil! Yes! I mixed 1/3 compost, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 peat moss and planted corn, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, basil, thyme, parsley, okra, etc!

Everything grew nicely and I had very few weeds! In studying about enriching soil with compost, I learned that proper composting kills weed seeds by the high temperature generated in the process and therefore is a safe way to enrich the soil.

When I was making my soil mixture, I asked devotees if we had any compost at NV. I was disappointed to learn that although yearly we have tons of manure and tons of kitchens scraps and leftover prasadam, we do not have a single community compost pile or system. And although we have old piles of manure around the farm, they are sure to be loaded with thousands of unwanted weed seeds! Thus my interest in composting for Krsna was born.

Last week Tapapunja Prabhu and I drove a half hour into Ohio to visit a commercial composting facility. We were greeted by Stanley, the owner, a wizzled old hippie from the 70s, who proceeded to enthusiastically give us a tour of his facilities. He has known Ranaka for years as NV used to buy grain from him for our hundreds of dairy cows years ago. He explained that years back he was also running a 400 cow dairy. To deal with all the manure, he had purchased and set up the equipment to efficiently process hundreds of thousands of gallons of raw cow manure to make what he called, the BEST compost!

The process is simple but requires mixers, pumps and an expensive unit called an extractor. The extractors job is to squeeze the water out of the manure because manure is 85% water! What’s left after the extraction process is the essence, a stackable form of the original cow manure. That is then moved and piled in long rows called windrows.

Over the next 4 months it sits there and is occasionally turned using a skidster to oxygenate it. With the action of millions of microbes the manure turns into beautiful compost, perfect to enrich any soil used in gardening, farming or landscaping! It needs no further screening because the cows stomachs have already done that work.

And what happened to all that nitrogen rich water that was squeezed out of the dung? Stanley leads us to a pond that used to hold hundreds of thousands of gallons of the effluent where it was held until it he sprayed it onto the fields. This manure tea is a better fertilizer than raw manure as it has NO weed seeds in it BUT all the nutrition!

A very nice process, indeed.

When Stanley decided to get out of the cow milking business, he realized there was still plenty of money to be made in…….. compost….but with no manure, what to do?

Well, Stanley…..knows that compost making is basically nature’s process that takes “useless” material such as manure, leaves, sawdust, food scraps, paper waste, grass clippings, branches, etc and turns it into a USEFUL soil amendment, the foundational building block for Eco Logical sustainability.

So Stanley made deals with major grocery stores in WV and other sources of “useless” waste and trucks in tons of raw material to his farm. With a mechanical grinder, he blends these materials together, piles them in windrows, turns them over and lets nature take her course. Then he screens out any larger pieces and produces enough first class compost to be THE major supplier of compost for all the local nurseries, landscaping companies, parks, coops and serious gardeners in the area! In fact NV Community and individual devotees have bought compost from him for years!

Now Stanley is willing to help NV set up our own composting operation. Of course, he would like us to buy his retired equipment at very reasonable prices. If we are seriously interested, he is willing to come to NV, assess our present facilities and equipment, advise and guide us and even engineer the whole operation! He is very qualified to do so, having an engineering degree from OSU and many years of hands on experience.

He and his wife have also recently received Lord Jagannatha’s mercy. At last years NV Rathayatra festival, after hearing how it would bring him good luck to pull the Lord’s cart, he and his wife rendered service to Lord Jagannatha by joining the parade, taking up the ropes of the Ratha Yatra cart and chanting Krsna! Krsna!

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Dear Brijabasis,

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

Sacinandana Swami will be conducting a 3-day retreat this weekend.  The topic is “Sacred Space: The internal chamber of the heart.”

Please attend as much or as little as possible!  The retreat is free of charge. It will be held partially in the temple room and partially under the lodge.  Here is the schedule:

Friday, September 16

6:00 – 8:00 pm             Introductory lecture

Saturday, September 17
8:00-9:15 am               Discovery lecture 1

11:00 am-1:00 pm       Workshop 1

1:00 – 2:00 pm             Group Japa, Kirtan

6:00 – 8:00 pm             Katha & Kirtan

Sunday, September 18
7:00 – 9:15 am             Discovery lecture 2

11:00 am -1:00 pm      Workshop 2

1:00 – 2:00 pm             Final session

2:15pm                        Sunday Feast

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Dear Brijabasis,