New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

June 21, 2007 

 

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June 11 was the first day of this year’s Bhakti Sastri course! Many devotees from around the US, the Caribbean, and from as far off as South Africa and even Mayapur have come to New Vrindaban to study Bhagavad-Gita in the Dham. His Holiness Bhakti Charu Swami conducted the classes for the first week.

Maharaja, being an international luminary in ISKCON, attracted many devotees to attend just his week of the course. Photo taken under the Lodge.

Archana Mataji typifies the bliss derived from sastric study!

Group photo of Maharaja and his students. Apart from attracting devotees to come to New Vrindaban, many NV residents have taken advantage of this opportunity, from stalwarts like Rupa Ramesvari, youth like Radhika, newer devotees like Bhakta Vaiko, Chris, Dan and Meghan, plus Syamasundara, Yugala Kishore, etc.

Click below for more pictures and description:

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( from May 18, 1975 Issue of the Brijabasi Spirit )

by Madhava Gosh dasa

“I think that we should all go to the forest known as Vrndavana, where just now there are newly grown plants and herbs.”—KRSNA BOOK

We took the first cutting of comfrey this week. The best time to take it is just when the buds form; if the flowers blossom out, then it has passed its highest value as food, feed or medicine9 and growth is slowed. This is the second year for our 100 plants, and they are producing more per plant, although they won’t reach peak levels until their third year.

We use lots of comfrey at New Vrindaban, both as a dahl green and as a medicinal tea. But one day Kirtanananda Maharaja came up and clued us to a new use. He had seen an ad in the Farm and Dairy (the local farm oriented newspaper that plugs us into the latest who, what, when and where) for a series of comfrey meetings throughout Ohio, in which the theme was comfrey as an animal feed.

Tapapunja and I got really excited about it and asked if we could go. Maharaja said we could, so we made plans to go to the one nearest New Vrindaban.

As it turned out, there was an auction the same day that was to begin before the comfrey meeting, and it was right on the way. There was a pile of black walnut boards to be offered, so Parambrahma came along also.

We got to the auction and the boards were just what Parambrahma had his eye out for to be used for some of the windows at Prabhupada’s Palace. We waited, but after a while, instead of the auctioneer coming over by where the boards were, they went down to sell all the sheep instead; if we waited for that to be over, we would have been late for the meeting and maybe missed it altogether. So Parambrahma put his faith in Krsna and just stayed.

Tapapunja and I went on ahead the last 20 miles to Carrolltown, Ohio, where the meeting was. You can just see how Krsna’s in control, because we weren’t there very long, talking to the farmers who had come and just ‘getting ready’ for the slide show to begin the meeting, which was late, when Parambrahma showed up. He said that the auctioneer came to the boards just after we left. He started bidding on them and got them for such a fraction of their value that instead of saying ‘sold,’ the auctioneer said ‘stole!’

The slide show and lecture dealt with the value of comfrey as a field crop. The moderator likened comfrey’s position today to that of soybeans 30 and ho years ago when nobody was growing them in this country because they didn’t know what to do with them. Now it’s one of the country’s leading crops.

Comfrey is a perennial that needs to be reestablished only once every 15 to 20 years, and is producing as high as 100 tons per acre per year in semi-tropical climates and it should produce as high as 50 to 60 tons in this area.

The moderator said that comfrey, when used as a large portion of the ration, will cure scours and’mastitis in cows. This is because of the presence of allantoin, a healing agent in the comfrey. I’ll be writing more about this in a later issue.

After the meeting, when we had asked all the questions about comfrey and talked about New Vrindaban, he gave us the book about comfrey that he was selling. Tapapunja didn’t miss the opportunity to preach a little bit, and the comfrey man ended up giving us a donation for a Krsna Trilogy.

We left the meeting and went back to the auction site, loaded up the black walnut and headed back to New Vrindaban and the lotus feet of Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Vrndavana Candra.

The next night Kasyapa and I were out working late trying to get the disc ready for the next day’s plowing, when the night guard came out and said there was a karmi looking for me. Turned out it was the comfrey man. Kirtanananda Maharaja was just coming out of the temple and invited him and his friend up to the cabin.

The comfrey man is a representative of the Wonder Life Corporation, which sells natural animal medicines, supplements, a soil conditioner, and is now starting to preach comfrey and natural farming. After they had given us the rundown, Kirtanananda Maharaja waved his hand indicating the bowls of maha-prasad that had been brought up and told them to take prasadam, explaining that this was spiritual food, offered to Krsna.

Then he benedicted them with a nectarean lecture about New Vrindaban, Prabhupada and Krsnaa He said that, yes, we are also interested in doing things the natural way, but what makes us different is that we are asking Whose nature, and that no matter how-wonderful a system of farming or how wonderful a plant we have, we are still subject to birth, death, old age and disease.

When the comfrey man left, you could see he was impressed, and even a little awed, and all the devotees were again inspired by the association of, Kirtanananda Maharaja, who is so attached to Srila Prabhupada and the Sankirtan movement of Lord Caitanya, which is the only hope for all the suffering conditioned living entities in this age of Kali Yuga. And as soon as it quits snowing in Oregon, 5,000 comfrey plants will be heading towards New Vrindaban, to be used in the service of Krsna’s cows.

 

Jai Radhe, Madhava Ghosa dasa

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As of last night or early this morning, New Vrindaban has four new residents, pictured here with their parents.  The swans first started “setting” on the 12th of May.   

Everyone is invited to a five day seminar on the Mahabharata by Sankirtana das this Monday thur Friday (June 18-22). The sessions will be in the temple room right after the evening arati at 7:30 and run for about 45 minutes.

Sankirtana will be reading excerpts from the first five chapters of his work-in-progress. Along with the stories and themes of Mahabharata, discussions will also include literary and storytelling devices and presenting KC in the West.

By Srila Jiva Goswami dasa

Once, at Old New Vrindabana, just after the morning program, I came across Puskar who was known to me as a fabulous artist. He was sitting in the lotus position on the back of a flat bed trailer down at Bahulabhana. He was chanting quietly and his eyes were closed. He rocked gently back and forth in the early rose light.

I looked up at him as I passed. He reminded me of a huge flower, sitting there in his saffron regalia. Hearing his low pitched “Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare,” I reached for my own bead bag.

We nodded to each other as I passed below. We’d already made mutual obeisances at the morning program. I smiled to myself, for seeing Puskar’s mouth, it was probably me, or the light, but it appeared as if his tongue was repeatedly cupping and forming the letter “U.”

Puskar was known for his quick tongue. “Don’t be so obsequious,” he’d advised me sharply in the room adjoining the temple one morning.

“Obsequious?” I’d vibrated. “What’s obsequious?”

“You, a writer?” Puskar had responded. “You’re no a writer. How can you call yourself a writer?” He waved a free hand in dismissal.

“A writer must know what ‘obsequious ‘means?”

“Of course.” Puskar was undaunted. He arranged the folds of his dhoti and brushed at an invisible speck of dust.

“I want you to tell me what obsequious means,” I stated.

“Not now,” Puskar gave me a raised brow. He held his bag at me and shook it a little. “Hare Krsna …”

I agreed. “Hare Krsna.”

…Krsna Krsna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

Now, years later, passing below Puskar perched up on the trailer, in the morning light, I thought I saw all those “U’s” floating around in his sharp dark features.

“I’ll be leaving soon,” Puskar said.

I stopped at that. “Where do you think you are going?” I asked. I shaded my eyes with my right hand, conscious a little of making a salute.

“Florida.” Puskar’s response was terse.

I’d thought he was talking about Moundsville or Wheeling on a Town Run. That Puskar would emigrate to Florida mortified me. As usual, Puskar was fast with the words. “Don’t be so upset,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll get on fine without me.”

I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t like it. Puskar was to me, an important part of life there at Old New Vrindabana. For years we’d all been watching him sketch during the morning program, working with those pads with the orange colored covers. If you caught a furtive glimpse over his sheltering shoulder, for an instant you’d see very high quality work.

I was used to hearing his quick tones, somewhere in a crowd, making that piercing observation no doubt. In my opinion, the vision coupled with the vehicle for delivery, be that medium ink, paint, stone or even wheel is an inadvertent hallmark of the artist.

Now Puskar had suddenly declared to me that he was leaving. I thought I might be able to help him change his mind.

“I would miss you,” I said. “No one wants you to go.” I thought a moment. “But just why are you saying you are thinking about leaving?”

Puskar’s delivery was staccato. “You won’t miss me,” he said. “I’m not just saying I’m thinking about going,” (u, u, u) “I’m practically gone already.

“No you’re not,” I said weakly.

Puskar fixed me with one of his gazes. I had to laugh. He seemed to be saying, “Watch me.” I liked him so much. “I want you to do something for me,” he said.

“Do something?”

Puskar nodded. “Those sketch books I‘ve built up over the years?”

I nodded. We all knew of them.

“I want to leave them with you if that’s OK and then later, if I send for them I want you to send them to me.”

This was a breathtaking honor. Suddenly, I could see that Puskar was indeed in the very act and process of leaving New Vrindabana. There on the flatbed trailer on the trail where the lower and upper Bahulabhana drives came together, near Maru Deva’s shop and indeed Puskar’s own white church art studio, there he was saying good bye on that morning.

“Puskar, Prabhu, why?” I asked. Puskar was to me a particularly integral and stalwart component of life in Old New Vrindabana, in every real sense. “Why?”

“I can’t say,” Puskar responded.

Puskar? Not saying? This was not sounding right to me. What about the quick little bat tongue of the ubiquitous iguana or whatever is I’d supposed artist’s have in common.

“Why?” I asked again. Not, “Why are you leaving?” But more now, “Why are you saying you can’t tell me your reason?”

“Because it would upset your devotional creeper,” Puskar said.

“What?” I hadn’t been aware of any such a creeper about me. “What?”

“I don’t want to upset you,” Puskar said quietly. “I found out something and I can’t tell you.”

This from the artist? From one whose essential business is communicating? “You won’t upset me,” I declared.

“This would.” Puskar was firm. Puskar did leave almost immediately. I held his sketch books until he sent for them years later on after that. At first I had a difficult time finding them. I supposed I did not want to let them go.

We find it easy to do what we think we want to do.

‘Til Death Do Us Part

by Will Lewis

In the past few weeks we have planted basil, tomatoes, cucumbers, tomatillas, peppers, summer squash, winter squash, okra, green beans, lettuce, chard, and beets up at the garden of seven gates. Also, the asparagus we planted is growing well and we have been filling in the ditch with compost.

Down at the teaching garden we have been planted lettuce, amaranth, zucchini, more mustard greens and cilantro, okra, burdock, parsley, peppers, and tomatillas. We have
also planted zinnias in front of the garden and marigolds around the beds because they are a natural insect repellant.

From both gardens we have been harvesting kale, beet leaves, mustard greens, chard, radishes, lettuce, peas, basil, spinach, all of which have been going to the temple kitchen or for our feast at the farm circle.

The farm circles will be happening every Wednesday at 6:30 in the teaching garden or in the greenhouse beside the teaching garden. The farm circles include workshops and demonstrations, interesting discussions, and good fresh food.

We have also been doing a lot of weeding, mulching, watering, and trying to deal with the groundhogs. Up at the garden of seven gates, half of our tomatoes and all of our tomatillas have been eaten by the groundhogs. Today, we covered the tomatoes with row cover so that the groundhogs cannot eat them. We are now finding their holes and we will put a stick in these holes with a cloth covered with paint thinner to push them out of their holes. We will see what happens.

We have been drying lemonbalm, mint, and comphrey. We have produce for sale as well which consists of: peas, mustard greens, lettuce, beet greens, parsley, dandelion, sorrel, lovage, spinach, kale, radish, basil, and oregano.

(from the Bahulaban Deity Cookbook compiled in the 1970s)
1 gallon fresh whole milk   
1/2 tsp. ground cardamon
1 cup rice                         
1/4 cup raisins              
1 cup honey               
1/2 tsp. powdered saffron
Bring milk to boil, then add washed rice. Stir fre­quently to keep bottom from sticking. Add saf­fron, cardamon, and raisins. Keep at a constant boil for 45 minutes to 1 hour. When thickened and bubbly looking, remove from heat and add honey. Serve chilled.
Hare-Krishna.                          All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

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