New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

The nonprofit corporations managing land in what is known as New Vrindaban own 1135 acres of mineral rights. The overall acreage of McCreary’s Ridge where these 1135 acres are located is well over 4000 acres, meaning that New Vrindaban only has about 25% of the mineral rights on the ridge.

What is important to understand is that these 1135 acres are NOT contiguous, which is to say it isn’t all in one block. It is a patchwork of parcels mixed in with more than 3000 other acres.

At the time New Vrindaban managers were contemplating whether or not to sign gas leases, 55% (over 2,200 acres) of the ridge was already leased, and more private landowners were on the verge of signing. This meant all of New Vrindaban’s properties were going to have wells drilled next to them whether we signed leases or not. For example, the first well drilled on the ridge, the Snyder 1H, is on a neighboring property right next to Bahulaban.

The existing leases were split between two companies, Chesapeake Energy and AB Resources. Which ever company we signed with would become the dominant Lessee of gas rights and would in all likelihood trade leases (from different ridges) with the other company to get a solid block. FYI, the Snyder 1H well is an AB well, on a lease signed over 4 years ago.

At the time we were contemplating signing, the new leases being signed on the ridge were with Chesapeake.

The Palace is at about 1200′ elevation. It is a 400’ drop to Wheeling Creek where the water wells that supply the Temple and Palace complex are located. The water wells are 200 feet deep, which means the water source is 600’ below ridge level. The gas companies drill about 6000′ deep from the top of the ridge, not in the hollows.

Gas well bore holes are cased with metal pipe. To help seal it, the first part of the bore hole is also cased with concrete. Chesapeake’s leases say they will double case the drill bore with concrete to 300′. AB agreed to double case the bore hole to 1000′. Ergo Chesapeake would have ended the double casing 300’ ABOVE the water source and AB will go 400′ below the water source.

Being aware of the publicity about Marcellus gas drilling contaminating water wells, we felt that this possibility needed to be considered. It was deemed that signing with AB was a preemptive move to prevent Chesapeake from gaining enough leases to take over the ridge.

Drilling on the ridge was inevitable; there was nothing we could have done to stop it so we attempted to get the best possible situation with some leverage over drilling practices, i.e., getting 1000’ of concrete casing from AB instead of Chesapeake’s 300’. If we hadn’t signed with AB, Chesapeake would have taken the ridge. Signing with AB minimized the potential of damage to the water system.

Here was a case where inaction in the form of not signing gas leases would have had a potentially worse result than if we signed the lease with the more environmentally responsible company.

In our next report we will discuss the Rule of Capture, whereby gas companies can take the gas from underneath your property even if you haven’t signed a lease with them.

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EVERYONE IS INVITED TO COME AND TO BRING A YOUR SPECIALLY PREPARED BHOGA OFFERING FOR LORD NITYANANDA

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 16th

5:45 pm ABHISHEK

6:15 pm DISCOURSE ON LORD NITYANANDA

7:00 pm GAURA ARATI

7:30 pm DRAMA

8:00 pm SPECIAL PRASADAM FEAST

HOPING YOU CAN ATTEND AND HELP MAKE IT A SPECIAL EVENT

by Tapapunjah das

So, you wanna be a farmer, huh? You love nature, don’t mind hard work and consider yourself pretty “spiritual.” You even know a young couple, Jimmy and Jeanette, who invited you up to their New Hampshire farm where they’re making a living raising pigs for the expanding organic pork market in New York City. You won’t be directly involved in the slaughter of the pigs, which they perform as humanely as possible. You’ll help feed the little oinkers, and eventually drive the refrigerated pork to market. You’ll also get some experience in their organic vegetable garden and help out with their expanding CSA. It services the needs of 64 families with a choice selection of organic poultry, eggs, homegrown pork cuts and the usual array of pesticide free veggies. Sounds doable, huh? They pay isn’t much but it’s the experience that counts. You’ll commit for six months and walk away with some cash and enough working knowledge to strike out on your own homestead someday. Go for it!

Before jumping into your Subaru and zooming off, you might want to reconsider. Could your decision, you know, your expression of free will in the here and now, come back to negatively shape your destiny later? What about the slaughter thing? It’s OK, so long as you’re not the one actually killing the animal……..right?

You stand at the ethical crossroads. Your gut instinct is that killing is bad. Another voice in your head says, “Yah, but everyone’s gotta make a living…. and besides, the way Jimmy and Jeanette raise and slaughter the pigs is way better than the brutality animals undergo at large scale confined animal feedlot operations.“

Where do you turn for guidance? At one end of the food revolution are the die-hard animal rights activists. They come-off as kind of urban and really snooty. At the other end of the spectrum are salt-of-the-earth farmer/spokespersons like Joel Salatin. You remember seeing Farmer Joel in the blockbuster documentary, Food Inc.

During his on-camera interview, Salatin was enunciating the glories of the local foods movement while stuffing live chickens down a metal funnel and casually severing their heads with a knife. Joel was smooth and obviously emotionally removed from the act of decapitating live birds. He could have just as easily been shelling peanuts with the same poise and swagger.

Hey, there’s your role model, Farmer Joel Salatin. Or is there more to the picture? One of the peculiarities of the modern sustainable food movement in the West is how little attention is paid to the law of consequence, especially when it involves the taking of life to feed or financially support ourselves. You might say there’s a major disconnect—a Grand Canyon gap—separating the rationale for slaughter from the liability for slaughter.

Is there a universal law that protects innocent animals from harm?
Is there an exemption clause for those who raise and slaughter animals under more humane conditions? Who knows? Who decides? By what authority do we claim innocence or assign blame? Here’s the Vedic perspective:

If you live in a barren place where vegetation is scarce, e.g. an arctic or desert wasteland, taking animal life to maintain human life is permissible and non-reactive. If, however, you’re surrounded by fertile fields capable of producing ample cereal grains, fruits, and vegetables, slaughter is strictly forbidden.

According to the ancient Indian ethical codes—codes that were operative in rural India before the British began building slaughterhouses and before the current Monsanto invasion—slaughter is never an option. Not only are cows off limits, but all life is to be respected and treated as sacred.

And there’s more. Vedic injunctions warn that even the slightest act of complicity with slaughter infers culpability. Included in the list of “co-conspirators” are those who give permission to slaughter, those who finance the slaughter, those who conduct the slaughter, those who transport the carrion, those who sell it, those who buy it, those who cook it, those who serve it to others—and finally, those who eat it.
All the above participants stand nude and must line-up to taste the bitter fruit of culpability.

The choice you make—to kill or not to kill—is your free will. The reaction is not. When you knock over a piece of fine china in an expensive boutique shop, you must pay for it. The rule is clear. You break it, you own it. Whether you’re capriciously taking life to slake your tongues urging for flesh or whether you’re dutifully satisfying your CSA shareholder’s investment by packing their weekly pick-up boxes with a succulent chunk of pasture fed beef, you are responsible for that broken life. You own the reaction.

Maybe we need two definitions of sustainability: one definition that applies to Joel Salatin and his customer base, and another definition for vegetarians and others hung-up on the ethics of slaughter.

The problem with this strategy is that it flies in the face of physics and morality. Gravity has one definition. What goes up must come down. Death has one definition also, the end of a sentient being’s life. You can’t paint a happy face on involuntary death. Death is final. Death caused by kinder people, who raise and kill animals humanely and death administered mechanically by a corporate stun gun is death by another name.

Likewise, you can’t pretend that “the karma thing” is optional. Either we have to grant the Farmer Joel Salatin a kind of “diplomatic immunity” or admit that nature protects its innocent from mankind’s greed with an axiomatic law called karma. You can’t have it both ways. The notion that sustainability is an exclusive dialogue about the physical world of forests and compost piles and that the farmer is magically and morally separate from the fray is plain wrong.

Here’s the bottom line: sustainability is genuinely sustainable, if, and only if, it protects the farmer from karmic vulnerability just as it protects the land for erosion, and the watershed from pollution.. Universal codes of conduct—karmic laws—are universal because they function in all times, places and circumstances. You can’t vote on them. Karmic influence may be subtle and not immediately apparent but it looms timelessly over all relationships be they human to human, human to plant or human to animal.

In case your wondering how Judeo-Christian doctrine deals with this issue, it barely does. Western theologians send very mixed messages when it comes to precisely defining mankind’s purported “dominion” over God’s creation. What’s emphasized are biblical passages which exhort gratuitous, self-serving compliance with God’s edict to “prosper and multiply.” How convenient. What does it mean to “prosper and multiply?’ At whose expense? By what means? At what cost to the environment?

Meanwhile, lurking in the bushes, poised and ready to pounce upon the wary sinner, is an 800lb gorilla named Karma. Karma is clutching a stone tablet on which a biblical passage reads,” As you sow…so shall your reap.” Wow! What’s up with that? God’s throwing a temper tantrum, or what? Don’t fret, that’s Old Testament stuff. Jesus spared us from all that hoopla about karmic justice. And besides we all know Jesus ate fish, right? If you ever wondered why sober Western minds seek shelter in Eastern traditions, wonder no more.

By contrast, the Sanskrit literatures of ancient India’s Vedic culture are explicit about what it means to be involved, but not bound by the world of action and reaction. They guide us past the perils of being needy—we do have to eat after all!—without being greedy beyond keeping body and soul together.

The sobering results of choosing diets and occupations which unnecessarily encroach on the intrinsic rights of other beings—be they embodied as plants or animals—are not to be ignored.

That’s why the patriarchs of our modern organic farming movement, Sir Alfred Howard, Rudolph Steiner etc, as well as early American Transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, all turned to Indian thought and practice before writing their treatises.

Humans are collectively and individually responsible for their environmental footprint. Plants and animals do have souls. Compassion for animals can’t be turned “on” and “off” like a water faucet because kindness gets-in-the-way of income. There is an ethical blueprint for sorting out these issues and finding refuge from the storm.

Jimmy and Jeanette are good people. Like thousands of other earth bound entrepreneurs across America, their struggle to make it on the land is meritorious. Consumer demand for organic meat is real but so are the consequences of choosing that path of economic development. Their good intentions, you might say, are natural. The sand in the sweet rice, to use a Vedic analogy, is their assumption that good intentions override universal law. They don’t. Good intentions are the maidservants of universal law.

What Jimmy and Jeanette need—nay, what the whole sustainable agriculture crowd needs—is a crash course called Cosmology 101, with a minor in Ahimsa, non-violence to other life forms. When you ignore the spiritual underpinning of true sustainability, you set yourself up for a stampede by the wild horses of destiny.

And then there’s Farmer Joel Salatin. Yes, he’s expert, articulate and entertaining. His charm and cavalier approach to sustainability sells books and shoots him out the farmhouse door, keynoting his way to fame and possibly fortune before hundreds of admirers. He’s spreading the gospel as he sees it…….. but, as predictably as the cock crows at dawn, he will come face-to-face with an 800lb gorilla named Karma. Get ready Joel….by the way, gorillas are vegetarians, ole’ buddy.

Lord Krsna made a wonderful arrangement today.

Around 12:15 today, Chaitanya Jivan Prabhu, Prabhupada disciple visiting from Philadelphia happened to go over to see the goats at the barn.
He saw that Zsa Zsa the white goat was laying down and listless.

He told Tapahpunja and we went over to see the goats. Zsa Zsa was bleating in distress and couldn’t move. We brought her some blankets and chanted to her. Then Tapah sat down and put her head in his lap and held her and chanted the Holy Names of Sri Krsna as she left her body. (We pray that she was thinking of Lord Krsna and not Tapahpunjah at the moment of death.)

There was no such thing as left over prasadam at New Vrindaban with Zsa Zsa around because she had a huge capacity to eat whatever leftovers were given to her. Zsa Zsa has eaten more prasadam in her lifetime then any hungry brahmachari and was greatly loved by all the residents. She brought immense delight to all the visiting children and their parents. We pray for her continued progress back to Home, back to Godhead.

Your servant, Kamalavati dasi

Lord Nityananda Appearance Day

Wednesday February 16th. 2011

Fast till noon

5.45 pm Abhishek
6.15 pm Discourse on Lord Nityananda
7.00 pm Gaura Arati
7.30 pm Drama
8.00 Feast

Dear North American Leaders,

Please accept my obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

New Vrindavan has begun a new phase of development and is looking for talented individuals who could contribute to a Master Planning team. We are seeking trained and experienced architects, engineers, city planners, etc. who may have the time and interest to join a professional team with a strategic approach to community planning.

Many congregational members have such experience and expertise but are connected to temples that cannot take advantage of those talents. This may provide them with the opportunity to apply their skills in devotional service to Krishna. We expect to build a team composed of volunteers and paid professionals.

Our search is an occasion for temples to identify talented members to participate in building a Hare Krishna community. Direct participation while applying personal experience and skills in devotional service could lift an ISKCON member’s local commitment to a higher level.

Questions or Interested parties please contact: Jaya.Krsna.sns@pamho.net [Community President] and gopisa108@gmail.com [Board Chairman].

Please post and promote this opportunity. Thank you.

Your servant, Kuladri das

On behalf of the New Vrindavan Board of Directors

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“The report by WVU’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research, done for the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, said more than 2,800 state permits have been issued for Marcellus wells and that drilling is under way in 45 of the 55 counties.”

Again, you can help, see:

West Virginia Surface Owners Organization

and join the lobbying campaign for better regulations for Marcellus gas drilling in West Virginia, of which New Vrindaban is a part.

Lawmakers Discuss Gas Drilling Rules

CHARLESTON (AP) – The Legislature on Thursday began this session’s discussion of how to handle West Virginia’s share of the Marcellus shale natural gas field.

House Judiciary counsel Joe Altizer told a joint meeting of the body’s Judiciary and Finance committees that the reserves represent the state’s biggest natural resource development since the discovery of mineable coal.

The vast, mile-deep shale underlying several Eastern states promises to become the nation’s richest developable natural gas field “in our lifetime,” Altizer told his House chamber audience.

“I call it the gas gold rush,” Altizer said.

Analysts estimate that the field holds trillions of cubic feet of gas – enough to provide for U.S. needs for 20 years, according to Altizer.

An industry-funded West Virginia University study, released this week, says economic activity linked to Marcellus drilling created 7,600 jobs and almost $298 million in wages and benefits in the state in 2009.

The report by WVU’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research, done for the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, said more than 2,800 state permits have been issued for Marcellus wells and that drilling is under way in 45 of the 55 counties.

But with enormous potential profits come considerable costs. Companies spend $3 million on each well they drill and can have multiple wells at a given site, Altizer said, citing industry figures.

The high-tech, horizontal drilling also involves hydraulic fracturing. Also known as fracking, this process involves pumping large volumes of water mixed with chemicals into wells at high pressure to crack open rock and release gas.

These operations carry other potential costs, Altizer noted.

Area landowners complain of damage to well sites they lease to drillers, and to area roads traveled by heavy industry trucks. Other concerns include the chemicals used in fracking, the large pond-like impoundments that store water from the process, and whether the fracking water contaminates area drinking supplies.

One pending bill proposes rules meant to address these various concerns. Crafted by a House-Senate interim committee that studied the issue over the past year, it also proposes hefty hikes for drillers.

Permits now cost $400 or $650, depending on the type of well. The interim study bill would pay drillers $15,000 to apply for a permit, $10,000 to modify it and $5,000 to renew it annually.

The Division of Environmental Protection has also drafted a bill for this session also expected to propose an array of regulations and fee increases for Marcellus operations. House and Senate lawmakers each expect to draw from both bills to develop a final measure.

Senate President Pro Tempore Brooks McCabe said his chamber is also discussing separate legislation meant to embrace the economic benefits from developing the state’s share of the shale field.

“This would be a bill focusing on some of the economic development aspects, the opportunities that the Marcellus shale development presents to us,” said McCabe, D-Kanawha. “We are looking at how to help solidify that industry, to improve West Virginia’s competitive posture with the states around us in the near term.”

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From Radha Sundari (dd) RNS (Secretary GBC EC):

After much anticipation and repeated requests from the worldwide assembly of devotees, New Vrindaban’s world-class Bhakti Sastri Course will recommence this summer!

From June 20 to July 23, 2011, immediately following New Vrindaban’s world famous 24 hour kirtan, our team of learned instructors will join together to present an in-depth study of Sri Isopanisad, Nectar of Devotion, and Nectar of Instruction.

This year, our revered instructors will be:

HH Bhakti Charu Swami HG Nanda Devi Dasi (Mayapur Institute) HG Braja Bihari Das (Vrindavan Institute for Higher Education)

New Vrindaban is situated in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and declared by Srila Prabhupada to be non-different from Sri Vrindavana Dhama. With thousands of acres of beautiful forest, New Vrindaban is an ideal setting to immerse oneself in sastra. And what could be more inspiring than daily darsana of Srila Prabhupada’s favorite deities, Sri Sri Radha-Vrindavan Candra, along with ecstatic kirtans, unrivaled association, and the shelter of Srila Prabhupada’s puspa samadhi, the Palace of Gold? Please join us for this rare opportunity for a wonderfully Krsna conscious experience that will serve as an eternal inspiration.

Accommodation and prasadam will be provided in the beautiful Sri Sri Radha-Vrindavan Candra Temple. Additional accommodation options are also available. For further information, please contact Radha Sundari devi dasi
(Radha.Sundari.RNS@pamho.net).

This Wednesday  (2nd of Feb) we will have the opportunity to hear Varshana Maharaja speaking. (Health permitting)

Schedule:  Bhajan
Class
Prasadam

You are all welcome.

your servant
Madri dd
304 843 0122

Click here for a slide show with more photos from Jaya Murari.