New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Kripa-Maya Prabhu shared this poem during his most recent Bhagavatam class, and it was pretty striking to say the least

In the always noble effort of sharing, here is the whole poem for you.

Living Graves

By George Bernard Shaw

(1856-1950)

We are the living graves of murdered beasts,
Slaughtered to satisfy our appetites.
We never pause to wonder at our feasts,
If animals, like men, can possibly have rights.
We pray on Sundays that we may have light,
To guide our footsteps on the path we tread.
We’re sick of War, we do not want to fight –
The thought of it now fills our hearts with dread,
And yet – we gorge ourselves upon the dead.
Like carrion crows, we live and feed on meat,
Regardless of the suffering and pain
We cause by doing so, if thus we treat
Defenseless animals for sport or gain,
How can we hope in this world to attain
The PEACE we say we are so anxious for.
We pray for it, o’er hecatombs of slain,
To God, while outraging the moral law.
Thus cruelty begets its offspring – WAR

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by mrupa

I’ve been following Laksmi’s progress and was encouraged a few days ago when it looked like she might recover. That she had such a rally is a miracle in itself. I am sure it is due to the care she is receiving. I was also struck by your comment about seeing ‘that’ in agriculture; meaning the cycle of life and Krsna’s mercy. And how the two go together with Krsna always trying to bring us Home and closer to Home.

It has made me flash on my time in the old barn at Bahulavana; not the one that’s falling apart from fire damage and age there now, the original one that came with the property.

I can still be adrenalinized if my dreams flash across the time I walked into the barn to do some service, and a pack of wild dogs were having a feeding frenzy on the body of a recently deceased cow just out behind the barn. Usually when a cow died, her body was taken out into the woods, but this mother had passed and was at the back yard entrance in to the stalls.

When the brahmacarinis moved down from Vrindavana Farm, I was given a lot of service in the barn. One reason told to me, was because it was felt that the association of the cows would help me with the difficult adjustment I was having to the ‘new’ environment. I wasn’t a Brahmin yet and couldn’t go on the altar, but an equally good place to experience the nectar of Vrindavana was in the barn in the service of Krsna’s cows.

Right after Tulasi arotike I would go out to the barn by myself and start shoveling out the stalls, put down grain and sometimes help fill the water trough, and brush cows or sometimes feed calves. There was always a soothing sense of atmosphere there early morning with the cows: some would be laying down, some standing. Something about the sound of their breathing, their occasional exhaling oofs, and movements, combined with their own general attitude of calm patience and endurance, their warmth and even their smell seemed to create a sort of time warp or consciousness-warp as you stepped across the threshold into the household of the cows. The sounds they made were as comforting and steadily encouraging as the early morning japa in the temple room.

You really get to know animals as persons, spirit soul, when you serve them. And it is especially so with Krsna’s cows. You experience their different personalities, and characters, each one’s differing traits like sound and timber of voice, gestures, even expressions of eye and glance, and natures. And you learn pretty quick that cows aren’t just plodding always docile cud chewers. They have a wide range of emotions, desires and moods.

One morning Kaliya (our first cow) really didn’t much want to be bothered with me mucking around in her stall. Normally, she was very co-operative about pretty much whatever anyone was doing for her. But this morning she clearly didn’t want to be bothered. I went about the shovel-out as gently as I could, but Kaliya’s stall was right at the end of the line where you shoved out all the stool and urine through the little doorway onto the cow dung pile outside the barn. It would usually take me a few runs through the trough to get the whole night’s deposits shoveled out through the wall there directly behind and just beyond Kaliya’s stance.

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by Hrishikesh

In September 1968, New Vrindaban acquired a small pair of bell-metal Radha Krishna deities from a devotee who recently returned from India.

Prabhupada gave instructions for their worship, “I am very glad to learn that Harivilas has given you a pair of Radha Krishna Murtis, so it appears that Radha Krishna is very kind on you, because you went to Vrindaban, to live there but circumstantially, you could not live there, and you left.

“Krishna has given you New Vrindaban, as well as He has, out of His good will, He has come to you. It is very surprising. So please welcome the Deity and install Him in a nice throne. I think Vamanadev will be able to prepare a nice throne, and you have seen the New York Deities’ dress and process of worship, so you can do in that way.

“There is nothing to be added new. The same principle should be followed, and the Deities should always be well-dressed in clothing and some ornaments and flowers and incense. The Deities should always be attractive. And the more we are engaged in decorating the Deities, washing the room, the more we are engaged in Deity worship, the more we become purified. That is practical.” (57)

End Notes

57. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, from a letter to Kirtanananda Swami dated September 22, 1968.

Here’s a link to a wonderful video on YouTube made by the students from the Global Leadership Center at Ohio University, showing many wonderful images set to George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord”.

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We continue with the ecstatic photographic highlights of the 2007 Govardhan Puja Festival, live with love from New Vrindaban Dham.

“The demigods are My devotees, and therefore it is not possible for them to forget My supremacy, but somehow or other he has become puffed up with material power and thus is now maddened. I shall act in such a way to relieve him of this false prestige. I shall give protection to My pure devotees in VÃ¥ndävana, who are at present completely at My mercy and whom I have taken completely under My protection. I must save them by My mystic power.”

All glories to the assembled sweets!

Jaya Giriraja Ki Jaya! Jaya Govardhan Puja Ki Jaya!

Please accept my obeisances. Jai Srila Prabhupada!

This is the first chance I’ve had to communicate via email. Kamalaati is slowly recovering the use of both arms. Each day there’s visible improvement but a lot of pain which the doctors call reinervation, a medical term which means that your body is relearning how to do something that’s been disrupted. As yet she can’t fully open her right hand or do the simplist of tasks like hold a glass of water or unscrew a bottle cap. The left arm is stronger but still in need or a lot of therapy.

Each day, the doctors, nurses and physical therapists visit and work on her as do I in the course of the entire day. Her spirits are high but again she’s in alot of physical pain.

 We had originally planned to return to the USA on Nov. 16th. Scratch that date. Before she can undergo the austerity of intercontinental travel, she needs to be more fully operative.

In the meantime, I’ve been transformed from farmer to male nurse, like it or not. Krishna has a great sense of humor.

 If anyone would like to communicate with her directly via email, please do so at greatnewshere@yahoo.com 

TP

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Here are the dazzling photographic highlights of the 2007 Govardhan Puja festival, live at New Vrindaban Dham, starring the Brijabasis!

The day began with ecstatic kirtan and a prema-inducing class led by HH Varsana Swami.

HG Balarama Chandra braces himself for the great task ahead…assembling a giant Govardhan Hill made out of sumptuous prasad sweets.

Time to make donuts for the Lord!

Is your mouth watering yet?

The assembled media admire each other….the real photographic acarya of New Vrindaban, HG Jaya Murari Prabhu.

That mango ice cream is effulgent!

Stay tuned to Brijabasi Spirit, for tomorrow comes the building of Govardhan Hill!

Dearest Brijabasis,

I am greatly enlivened by Mother Rupa’s excellent reminisces about the deities of New Vrindaban, and I wish to make a humble contribution of some small bits of information from my research to supplement her inspiring account.

Sincerely Your Servant,

Hrishikesh (Henry Doktorski)
Oakdale, PA

————–

Kirtanananda sees his spiritual master again

After the shoot out of July 16, 1968, Richard Rose was indicted for malicious assault. Despite his acreage, he had little cash. If the boy’s parents won the suit, he could lose his back farm. After some hemming and hawing, Rose reluctantly accepted Hayagriva’s proposal: four thousand dollars for a ninety-nine year lease. Exuberant, Hayagriva and Kirtanananda traveled to Montreal to discuss with Prabhupada the newest developments.

Although Hayagriva had seen Prabhupada only a few months earlier in April, Kirtanananda had not seen his spiritual master for ten months, since he left India the previous year on September 22. It had been such a long time since the two had seen each other face to face. The long-awaited reunion was highly emotional, and both Prabhupada and Kirtanananda cried tears of joy. Kirtanananda presented Prabhupada with a quart of blackberry chutney and one of raspberry jam, made from wild berries picked at New Vrindaban. Hayagriva wrote that Prabhupada “forgave his renegade disciples in Montreal with a garland of roses and a shower of tears.” (49)

Kirtanananda said, “Prabhupada was very happy to see us; he welcomed us. It was an emotional meeting for me. It had been nearly a year; he was very welcoming.” (50)

Prabhupada was pleased with Rose’s agreement to lease the land for ninety-nine years, but asked, “What happens to the property after ninety-nine years?” Hayagriva responded, “I don’t know. We won’t be around then.” “But the Society will,” Prabhupada countered. “There must be an agreement that at the end of the lease, the property will go to us.” He also specified that ISKCON should have timber and mineral rights.

While in Montreal , Kirtanananda Swami and Hayagriva acquired New Vrindaban’s first deities: a set of wooden Jagannath deities which they purchased from a import house. The deities, Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra, are abstract and colorful forms of Krishna, his brother Balarama and his sister Subhadra, which are usually carved from wood. According to the Skanda-Purana, the original deities were commissioned by King Indradyumna many thousands of years ago.

Prabhupada taught them how to offer mangal-aroti , the pre-sunrise worship ceremony of the Gaudiya-Vaishnavas. “I am very glad to learn, Kirtanananda, you are feeling so much happy in serving a beautiful Jagannath Murtis which you have taken from Montreal. . . . Jagannath Swami is very kind to the fallen souls, because He is the Lord of the universe, and all the living creatures are His subjects; therefore, Jagannath Swami will bless you with all the required intelligence needed for knowing how to satisfy Him.” (51)

End Notes

49. Hayagriva Das, “Chant,” Brijabasi Spirit (November 1981), 20.

50. Kirtanananda Swami, from a telephone conversation with the author on May 31, 2003.

51. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, from a letter to Kirtanananda and Hayagriva dated August 23, 1968.

Since Govardhan Puja is Sat. evening and I will have ongoing art projects to do in the Sunday School Room for any interested children.

We will also be finishing our projects from last Sunday which are carts for the Hill to fill with sweets.

Thank you,  Rama Lila

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Saturday 10th of November is Govardhana Puja!

We’ll be celebrating Dipavali (Festival of Lights) and Govardhana Puja with a series of seminars, kirtans, and feasts all day long. Stay tuned for a detailed schedule and mark your calendar for the celebration of New Vrindaban’s favorite community festival, Govardhana Puja, on Saturday afternoon!

On Saturday November 10th , the Govardhana Puja program will begin in the
evening. The schedule is as follows:

Go-puja (in the barn) 5:30 PM

A short talk on Giriraja, by HG Sankirtan Das followed by Giriraja Abhiseka 6:00 PM

Offering of Mountain of Bhoga to Giriraja 6:30 PM
(Please cook your offerings of Sweets and bring them to the temple, not later than 6 PM)

Govardhana Arati w/Kirtan Around the Hill 7:00 PM

Feast 8:00 PM