New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Here is one devotee’s personal realizations:

“This weekend I attended the 24 hr kirtan in New Vrindavan. From the very beginning of this festival I was trying to compare it to a previous experience only to come up with a blank. I also tried to compare it to some monumental occasions in secular or pop culture like (please forgive me) Woodstock, the advent of the internet, and so many other events. As you can guess the comparisons (at least those that were mundane) all came up short and extremely inadequate…”

Read more at:

inadequate analogies

Here is another’s:

“I and my wife went to New Vrindaban this weekend. I will try to sum it up in one word — BLISSFUL!

“It was one of the best kirtans i have ever heard. The tempo was always on the high with devotees dancing. My favorite kirtans were by Niranjan Swami, Radhanath Swami and Sivarama Swami. They were great. All the Florida and New york devotee kirtans were exceptional too. Overall it was endearing to the heart and joyful to the soul…”

Read more at:

24 Hour Kirtan Festival ki jay!

Videos and MP3s of the of the kirtan are being posted:

“Well the New Vrindavan 24 Hour Kirtan Festival is over. For those who were there, it was an experience that will be remembered for the rest of time.

“Our friend Sri Ram recorded the entire 24 hours (talk about endurance) so as soon as we receive the files from him, we will put them up for your listening pleasure…”

See and hear at:

24 hour kirtans

Dear Devotees: Remember, the Rathyatra Festival date is less then two weeks away, Saturday July 12th!

The Rath Cart is getting ready for transport to NV. Akhilananda Prabhu is very attentive to details for the pleasure of Their Lordships. The dimensions of the canopy when fully up will be 28 feet tall, the over-all cart will be 18 feet long and 11 feet wide when the decorative additions are included. Garua Nitai will be here as well, adding to the transcendental pleasure of all.

We will need a Decoration Crew early Saturday morning up by Rupanuga’s to put up garlands, balloons, and other festoons. Our wonderful community cooks are invited to make offerings at various stops during the parade for His pleasure.

Balabhadra Prabhu of ISCOWP has volunteered to provide the ropes that will pull the Chariot. Akhilananda will need the help of four strong men-folk for the “heavy -lifting” of getting the Chariot ready. It is slated to arrive on Thursday, July 10th to allow plenty of time for preparations.

I want to offer sincere thanks to Sankirtan Prabhu for his donation towards the Festival. A compete list of expenditures which can be sponsored is available upon request, but a partial list includes the following items that can be sponsored by generous hearted donors who will receive many blessings for doing so:

The Feast
Ghee
Vegetables (bhoga)
Fruits (bhoga)
Flowers
Ballons
Helium
Fireworks
Miscellaneous Decorations for the Rath Cart

Devotees are invited to contact Malati’s office and volunteer for various personal service to Lord Jagannath during the Rathayatra Festival or make a personal financial donation towards Festival expenditures. 304-845-9591 Thank you!

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July 4 2008, doesn’t just commemorate the declaration of independence of the USA. It also commemorates the Declaration of Dependence to God for His shelter when the most beautiful deity of Sri Gopal Nathaji (Krishna, the lifter of Govardhan Hill) was established in New Vrindaban, WV 25 years ago on this date.

The history is that the most auspicious moment for establishing the deity was 5-7 minutes before midnight on the 4th, and the big elaborate ceremonies, like the maha-abhishekam (ritual bath), took place on the morning of the 5th. This is in fact, consistent with Lord Krsna’s pastimes. He was born at midnight, but his grand birthday celebration took place the next day, called Nandotsava.

So this coming July 4-5, there’s gonna be a small festival for Nathaji at the community.

On the 4th, there will be an adhivas ceremony in the evening, where special items and ghee lamps will be shown to the deity to inaugurate the festival.

and then the next day..

Sri Nathji will be offered a dress made completely of flowers. There will be a traditional Chappan Bhog offering of 56 special food items offered at noon to Nathji. This is a special rite of the Pushti Marg Vaishnava sampradaya whose main deity is Srinathji.

At 4pm, there will be another maha-abhishekam for Nathaji, when the whole deity will be bathed in substances like milk, rose-scented water, juices, etc

Please give your blessings and prayers for the success of this festival. If you’re able to come in person, please do so and celebrate with us. If you can’t, then at least offer your prayers to Nathji on this special day. This is also consistent with Lord Krsna’s pastimes.
While Nanda Maharaj celebrated Krsna’s birthday in Vrindavan with all those who were present,

Lord Krsna’s actual father – Vasudeva, mentally observed the festival by giving charity to the Brahmanas, offering special sacrifices, prayers, etc.

“R: We have a lot of second-generation devotees that are vegans because they don’t want to see the cows slaughtered, and their parents are coming to us for milk, to get their children to have that milk product.

“HHSS: It just really highlights that point that we really neglected Prabhupada’s instructions and we’re painting ourselves in a corner in so many different ways because we have ignored such fundamental things. We are supporting a slaughterhouse industry. Talk about contaminated food and contaminated milk and all the karma that comes along with that.”

On the eve of the 2008 24 Hour Kirtan Festival here at New Vrindaban Dham, HH Sivarama Swami held an informal darshan to discuss the present state of Prabhupada’s vision of spiritual self-sufficieny in ISKCON. This discussion was geared to specifics regarding the success of the New Vraja Dham farm project in Hungary, and also to plans to restore Gita-Nagari as a functioning farm community.

We present to you the full transcript of the darshan, and we hope you find it enlightening, informative, inspiring, and even challenging. Click on Continue Reading.

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As the worms pop out of the dirt and say hello, we do the same to you, our loyal and beloved readers, and we let you know whats going on this week in the gardens of New Vrindaban Dham

And yes, the thinking was high up. For example…

As HH Radhanath Swami mentioned in a very inspiring talk on self-sufficiency this past week, we may not have to worry about elephants and leopards and snakes infiltrating our fences and destroying our crops and maybe even ourselves, but we have to keep on guard against the complacency that rears its poisonous head. And the lack of communication, the lack of inspiration…we have to become paradigm warriors, spiritual warriors in this great fight for our land and our souls.

Click here to head on over to the Club 108 blog for the whole scoop!

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Dear Devotees,

Please join us Sunday 6/29 at 11:00 a.m. for Lord Jagannatha’s Snan Yatra.

We anticipate Their Lordships may not be feeling well after the ceremony, so we plan to seclude Them in the Jagannatha Pujari Room for 15 days of rest.

During Their recovery, you are invited to bring offerings of tea, honey, juice, sweetballs, and of course, get well cards.

If you would like to read or sing softly to Their Lordships during Their illness, please contact Krsna Rupa dasi.

Hare Krsna!

Tridandi Goswami
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Founder-Acharya:
International Society for Krishna Consciousness

October 23, 1969

Jai Kirtanananda Maharaj Kijai!
Jai Kirtanananda Maharaj Kijai!

My Dear Kirtanananda,

Please accept my blessings. I am so glad to receive your letter dated October 20, 1969. Now I am very much hopeful that New Vrindaban will develop very nicely under your good care. You had a very successful meeting in the University, and that is wanted. As soon as you get some opportunity you should immediately go out with Hayagriva’s car and preach. Krishna will bless you more and more. Now you have got a good assistant, Yamunacharya das Brahmachary. I have sent his beads through Haya-griva.

Hayagriva and Shama Dasi will be constantly engaged in editorial work, so you take care of the boys and cows in New Vrindaban along with Ranadhir. All our centers are doing very nicely, and now your center, New Vrindaban, is also doing very nicely. The more we preach the Glories of Krishna, the more He will be pleased and there will be no scarcity. So follow these principles and keep me informed of your preaching success.

I hope this will meet you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

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New Vrindaban Community wishes to invite family, friends and well wishers to New Vrindaban’s Country Rathyatra on Saturday July 12th beginning at 11 am up on the Ridge past the Palace across from Nityo Dita’s log siding-home…come rain or shine we will pull the Lord in His rathyatra chariot!

Our honored guest will be H H Danavir Maharaja, who wonderfully dances and chants for the Lord’s pleasure. A good ol’ time “Love Feast” cooked in pure ghee will follow. Later in the evening, there will by a torch light Harinam to the ghat with a mystical Swan Boat Festival featuring the Lord of the Universe and fireworks.

Call Palace Lodge for accommodation: 304-843-1600 ext 111

Call 304-845-9591 for further information.

The following is an excerpt from Ravindra Svarupa’s blog wherein New Vrindaban is mentioned:

Any student of Srila Prabhupada will at once recognize the phrase “plain living and high thinking.” It occurred frequently and memorably in his discourse. It functioned as kind of motto or slogan to epitomize Prabhupada’s vision of a natural spiritual culture, an alternative to our modern, “soul-killing” industrial civilization.

Prabhupada had made use of the phrase even before he journeyed to America in 1965. In an essay (published much later by the BBT as the second chapter of the booklet Message of Godhead), Prabhupada had written that people nowadays are interested only in

behavior like eating, sleeping, defending, and gratifying the senses. The material scientists—the modern quasi priests who invoke such material activities—invent many objects to gratify the material senses such as the eye, ear, nose, and tongue and ultimately the mind, and there results a field of unnecessary competition for enhancement of such material happiness, which leads the whole world into the whirlpool of uncalled-for clashes. The net result is scarcity all over the world, so much so that even the bare necessities of life, namely food and clothing, become objects of contention and control. And so arise all sorts of obstacles to the traditional, God-given life of plain living and high thinking.

After arriving in America, Prabhupada quickly made known his desire to established self-sufficient rural communities to demonstrate this “God-given” style of life in practice. For example, he wrote in a letter to his disciple Hayagriva dasa in June, 1968:

So, if you seriously want to convert this new spot [in West Virginia] as New Vrindaban, I shall advise you not to make it very much modernized. But as you are American boys, you must make it just suitable to your minimum needs. Not to make it too much luxurious as generally Europeans and Americans are accustomed. Better to live there without modern amenities. But to live a natural healthy life for executing Krishna Consciousness. It may be an ideal village where the residents will have plain living and high thinking. For plain living we must have sufficient land for raising crops and pasturing grounds for the cows. If there is sufficient grains and production of milk, then the whole economic problem is solved. You do not require any machines, cinema, hotels, slaughterhouses, brothels, nightclubs—all these modern amenities.

Hayagriva himself, a one-time college English instructor, recognized the phrase “plain living and high thinking,” and wrote in an April, 1967, issue of Back to Godhead, “Thoreau made Emerson’s injunction of ‘plain living and high thinking’ famous when he set out to live outside Boston on an isolated tract of Emerson’s land surrounding Walden Pond.”

Read the entire article here.

Shortly before his departure from New Vrindaban Dham on Tuesday morning, HH Radhanath Maharaja took a short tour, led by HG Soma Prabhu, of Bahulaban.

As part of the Bahulaban Restoration Yatra, Soma Prabhu showed Maharaja around the old temple and the prasad hall, revealing plans for the restoration, taking advice from Maharaja on certain aspects of the buildings’ condition, and reveling in pastimes they shared as brahmacaris living in this hallowed part of the Dham.

Plans continue to move forward in the Restoration Yatra, with clean-up of the area set to begin in August.

Here are some pics of this nectarean experience.