New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Bhakta Justin has been baking some outstanding cookies to help the new devotees raise funds for traveling to Holy Places of Pilgrimage in India.

Special thanks to the devotees in the snack bar who undergo the austerity of long hours, hard work and meeting the demands of 100s of guests each weekend. The cooks are usually pujaris to Radha Vrindabancandra and the temple bhaktins do the cashier work.

We had a nice visit from the Warp Tour sankirtana devotees: Murti, Anandavidya, Dwarakesa, martanda, and Paramesvara Prabhus. Saturday night’s gaura arati with these compassionate devotees was ecstatic beyond belief thanks to the kirtana leading skills of Parampara Prabhu and the sankirtana enthusiasm. Look for a blog devoted to these Prabhus coming soon.

What a treat it is to have Ananda Tirtha prabhu in our temple! One cannot help but be awestruck at his memorization of samskara mantras and sweet exchanges with our visitors. Here Raj receives the cuda or mundam samskara (first cutting of the childs hair) accompanied by his parents Nivendra and Sandra.

Bullwinkle sells fresh vegetables from our “Garden of 7 Gates” thanks to the harvesting efforts of Tapahpunjah Prabhu, Luke, Julia, Haridasa Prabhu, Bridget, and many others…

Thanks Shanka Prabhu for another wonderful Sunday Feast!

Now this is what New Vrindaban is ALL about…

With the SSPT coming up we will have some very special speakers!

Tuesday: HG Gopinath Prabhu

Wednesday: HG Shankarananda Prabhu

Thursday: HG Sankirtan Prabhu

Friday: SSPT guest

Saturday: SSPT guest

Sunday: SSPT guest
The magnanimous Anandavidya Prabhu gave class on Sunday…

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This Was Taken Yesterday Afternoon. Now That The New Vrindaban Website and Gallery are Available Again, You Can Access the Regularly Posted Pictures of All the Deities Here, This Link should Take you Directly There, http://www.newvrindaban.com/gallery/  ,But if it Doesn’t for Some Reason, Just go to http://www.newvrindaban.com/ and on the Right Side, Click on “Gallery”.

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I want to start reading Srimad Bhagavatam front to back in the association of other vaisnavas. I was thinking to do it everyday after lunch prasadam? Please email me and let me know. Arya.Siddhanta.dg@pamho.net

Your Servant,
Arya Siddhanta dasa

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THINGS ARE HAPPENING IN NEW VRINDABAN

1. There is a core of surrendered devotees attending the morning programs

2. The community is getting together in an effort to plan upcoming festivals

3. Next weekend New Vrindaban dhama will host North American SSPT meetings
4. On thursday the pujaris all got together and ways to improve our standards of deity worship. Actually the minister of deity worship had nothing to say about how we can improve last time he was here because things have gotten so much better since his previous visit.

5. Cows are being milked and loved daily at the barn at 7am and all the milk is going straight into our kitchen for the Lord.
6. Tapahpunja and his various teams of helpers/devotees are constantly harvesting fresh food that is being offered to the Lord. He is also giving to local charities and promoting vegetarianism.
7. The New Vrindaban Management Team (NVMT) is daily coming together to address the needs of the temple and community at large.

8. A multimedia project is being developed in the office for guests to have an more enriched experience when they come. Part of that is developing tours, slide presentations of the history, Movies about our attractive features, etc.
9. The monthly newsletter just went out with the cooperation of the Congregational development team, NVMT and temple secretary.
10. Five Janmastami festivals are on the way.
11. Devotees are working on protecting the cows and serving the vaisnavas at the end of their bodily life.
12. 24 Hour Kirtana takes place next Saturday staring 9am with special guest Madhava Prabhu!
13. The Bhakta Program is running full steam

Bhakta Chris is a hard worker and wonderful person to be around!

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Greeting their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Vrndabancandra

Yuga Avatara Chants for Prabhupada’s pleasure

SB 8.20.3

Janaka Mahajana Dasa Gives Clas

“Proper exchange is the brahmana gives knowedge and the people in general give in charity” – Vedic Culture

“3 Steps of land! You couldn’t even grow a garden there.” – About Lord Vamandeva

“A demon in Vedic civilization is also quite civilized.” – About Sukracarya spiritual master for the demons

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By Srila Jiva Goswami dasa

(continued from Part 1)

To me, I was the cutting and slashing very greatest of the greatest when it came to driving. I just loved it. Towing another Sankirtan Van back from the Buffalo area late one evening, I’d been obliged to carry a few Devotees with me. Maru Deva, our Blacksmith, exemplary, and square jawed, sat quietly next to me on the bench seat of Dodge Rama dasa as we hurtled along on the night time highway. We were passing a line of cars and trucks in the slow lane.

Typically, I enjoyed sealing the right lane vehicles off as we came up and passed.

Maru Deva coughed politely, almost as if we were at tea. “Ah, Jiva,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed riding up here with you, and I can see now where you are at as a Driver.” He hesitated. I felt him regarding me. “Do you mind if I offer a little ah, constructive criticism?”

“Go ahead,” I said. Despite my antics, I was not in a good mood. I actually considered the carrying of Devotee Passengers to be invasive. I knew that was wrong, but that was how my heart worked then. I wanted Spiritual only on my own concocted terms and in my own wacky perception of ways. “What?” I was terse.

“Ah, that truck you passed, he was signaling like he wanted to get out in the fast lane.”

I waited.

“If you’d let him out, he’d have loved you the rest of the way,” Maru Deva declared.

“I don’t care if he loves me,” I snarled. I liked the space craft look of our green fluorescent dash board gauges in the night.

Maru Deva coughed gently again. “Er, but, as you held him in, he had to slow up and down shift and everything.”

This wasn’t a movie, where the driver looks at his or her passenger as if the road ahead is out the side window. I took a quick glance at Maru Deva though. His chiseled profile was fixed in an earnest expression.

“So I held him in. I don’t care,” I said. “And I don’t care how he feels about me either.” This was as fundamental to who I was as it was wrong.

Maru Deva let it go. “Oh,” was all he said. Without an argument to joust with, I was left to consider the possibility that my position was that of an idiot.

But, despite the occasional question, I still fancied myself as one of the best drivers ever. The break down and reforming went on at a subtle but powerful, implacable pace and it was directed by Krsna through His Agents, the Brijabasis at Old New Vrindabana.

The young boy known as Kaliya, and later Maitreya, who drove the huge Mack Dump Truck, accosted me in the Temple just after the Morning Program. “Jiva, I saw you driving downtown the other day,” he said.

“Did you like that? I really know what I’m doing,” I announced blindly.

Maitreya hesitated. “No, not really,” he said.

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By Srila Jiva Goswami dasa

From child hood, I harbored a longing to operate construction machinery. The Heavy Equipment Department at Old New Vrindabana really whet my whistle. The passing of Pippaladha up on the huge Road Grader, or Varshana Maharaja for example, carefully moving along the road with a medium size house suspended intact between the jaws of two of his powerful bulldozers, always drew my wistful gaze.

Witnessing their Service was like hearing the chanting of Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

“Yeah,” I can drive, I assured my friend Pip. (Pippaladha Prabhu of the Heavy Equipment Department) “Can I operate the Payloader?”

We were over by the recently installed huge water tower, which was big enough to provide for the small town Old New Vrindabana was becoming, behind the house where Srila Prabhupada had once stayed on a visit. I was thinking and talking about something I wanted to do because it looked like fun.

Pippaladha was in listening mode. “I don’t see why not,” he said after a while. He stood up straight and dusted off his hands. Pippaladha sometimes manifested the laconic manner of a Gary Cooper.

In New York with me on a Mission, when Pippaladha Prabhu had met my Mother, She’d felt the Brother like bond between the two of us. Standing next to him in the sun on the sidewalk outside 935 St. Nicholas Avenue as if rekindling the ambiance of a common ‘50’s Kodak shot; the kind that accrues in value over subsequent years, She’d put Her head on Pippaladha’s honor-filled chest and smiled back at me. I was twirling a hand truck, the way I’d learned as a pastime back in The Service. Up on one wheel and spun by a single handle; the flash from the spin and the scrape of the dish on the concrete was kind of a call to get … Back to Work.

My Mother had been giving Pippaladha Prabhu the clothes She’d been saving for me. Excessive Pakoras precluded me from having a hope of a fit. Pippaladha graciously accepted my Mother’s offerings.

“Why couldn’t you have been more like him?” my Mother sang. She looked up at Pippaladha Prabhu and fluttered her lashes.

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I was feeling sleepy during japa this morning, but then I remembered that Tapahpunja Prabhu had mentioned how the teaching garden was a good place to peacefully chant rounds. So I moseyed on across the street and slipped through the side gate into my little get away. What a variety of loving devotion I found in that garden. So many different types of leafy vegetables, little red bulb-like tomatoes, 3 kinds of mint, okra, even bitter melon existed there. I walked around for about 15 minutes softly chanting, “Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna…” when suddenly… “Mooooooooo.”

I had heard the announcement at mangala arati a few times inviting everyone to see Radha Vrindavanacandra’s cows getting milked at 6:30am, but now I could not avoid going over and checking things out.

Just inside the humble stable I found Jaya Prabhupada prabhu, 4 mothers and 2 calves. The cows were licking bowls of what appeared to me to be fine grain as their calves happily nestled their noses in mom’s utter. After hanging out for a while I watched Jaya Prabhupada attempting different methods for getting the milk out. I never realized what a chore it was to induce the mothers to give milk. He told me, “the calf is really the thing that gets things going.” I asked about what happens if the humans don’t milk the cow and he explained that the milk inside gets rotten and they get sick. Amazing! What a co-dependent relationship. Our brains can’t survive without their milk and they can’t survive unless we extract that white nectar. I began to develop a relationship with one cow who Jaya Prabhupada had said was only recently separated from the bulls. I was hugging her neck and rubbing behind her ears when Jaya Prabhupada said, “she’s giving more milk now, because she likes that. These cows really just want to be loved and taken care of,” he said, “but we have about 80 cows and there’s only a couple of people watching out for them.” Wow! 80 gigantic cows and this Prabhu was nearly taking care of them single-handedly. What a great example and a wonderful place to live. Won’t some brahmincally inclined person come and protect our mother with Jaya Prabhupada? I’ll do my part too.

Your Servant,
Arya  Siddhanta dasa

Dear Residents of New Vrindaban dhama,

As promised here are my office hours and job description (also posted on my door).

Office Hours: 9:30am-12:30pm

Secretary for:
New Vrindaban Community
New Vrindaban Management Team
New Vrindaban Board of Trustees

helping you with :
ISKCON New Vrindaban Applications for residency
Offical letters from the community
General inquiry
Communication with management

When I’m not in the office I will be facilitating the needs of the community.

Your Servant,
Arya Siddhanta dasa

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