New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

New Vrindaban’s Transcendental Throwback Thursday – 04/10/14.

Each week we highlight an earlier era of ISKCON New Vrindaban.

From the Holy Scriptures we hear about the sacred nature of all things in Vrindaban, both animate AND inanimate.

Here’s a photo of a public pay phone that, for many years, faithfully served the New Vrindaban residents, pilgrims and guests.

This week’s challenge: What was the location of this phone and when was it there?

What to do: Post your guesses and share your memories on the “who, what, when, where & why” in the comment section at the New Vrindaban Facebook Page.

Technical stuff: We share a photo Thursday and confirm known details Sunday. Let’s keep it light and have a bit of fun!

Special request: If you have a photo showing New Vrindaban devotees in action, share it with us and we’ll use it in a future posting.

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Video of Agnideva dasa leading New Vrindaban’s 24 Hour Kirtan – June 15th, 2013.

With Their soft flower-petal hands Sri Ra?dha?-Krishna carefully watered the trees and vines from the time of their first sprouting. They nourished them and made them grow and, at the proper time, married each vine to an appropriate tree . When They saw new flowers beginning to blossom, They became delighted and spoke many playful joking words. Let us bow down and offer our respectful obeisances to these trees and vines of Vrinda?vana forest.

[Source : Nectarean Glories of Sri Vrindavana-dhama by Srila Prabodhananda Sarasvati Thakura, Sataka-2, Text-11, Translation.]

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Greetings from the Garden……

It has been another busy week in the garden.  Unfortunately, the April showers are keeping us from doing much planting and tilling. In the teaching garden post have been put in for the new fence. The plan for the teaching garden is to have 1/3 flowers, 1/3 greens, and 1/3 perennials & herbs.  In the Garden of Seven Gates we planted Cayuga and Mars grapes this week. They are genetically the most resistant to black (also called brown) rot the bane of Eastern grape growers.

Some of the perennial plants to look forward to in the Garden of Seven Gates include: blueberries, red raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, bush cherries, grapes, honey berries, elderberries, and asparagus.

The newest addition to the perennial fruits in the garden are goji berries. The picture above is of goji berries, they are also know as the wolfberry. Goji berries are often used in traditional Chinese medicine. They are usually cooked or dried before eating.  The berries are high in nutrients and are believed to have many health benefits. You can grow goji berries in your home garden they grow well in containers and in your garden soil. They can be pruned as bushes or trained to grow on a trellis.

Over the next few weeks we will be planting fruit trees, flowering bushes, perennial fruits, and hopefully if the rain holds off spring vegetables.  Until next week, happy gardening.

by Madhava Smullen

Lilasuka with glasses.

Since moving back to New Vrindaban three years ago, Lilasuka Dasi has used her people skills to inspire residents to care for each other and communicate positively with one another. This, she feels, is the key to the community’s recent attempt at rebuilding and growth.

Originally from Toronto, Lilasuka first lived in the rural West Virginia community between 1980 and 2000, teaching at the day school there.

She then relocated to Pittsburgh until New Vrindaban president Jaya Krishna Das, who calls her “the mother of New Vrindaban,” invited her back to head up the communications department.

From the way she talks about the community, it’s clear that Lilasuka loves New Vrindaban deeply. And that makes her ideal for the job.

“I know the ins and outs of New Vrindaban, and am friends with just about everyone, because I lived here for so long,” she says. “It’s ideal for a deep spiritual life, and is full of interesting people. I just like people, so I like studying them and figuring out how to work with them.”

Initially, the goal of Lilasuka’s department was to establish communications amongst a variety of external groups like the media, the local municipal departments, and the academic community.

And she does nurture a relationship with some, like the Marshall County Tourist Board, whose website advertises New Vrindaban’s festivals and lists Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold as one of the top six tourist attractions in the county.

But her first priority, she felt, was to focus on internal communications amongst New Vrindaban devotees and nearby ISKCON communities.

“A lot of people didn’t know what was going on in New Vrindaban — even those who lived here!” she says. “Now many devotees tell me that they are glad to see the regular updates about what’s happening.”

Lilasuka writes these updates herself and posts them once or twice a week on Brijbasi Spirit, an online newsletter started ten years ago which she has helped expand from an agrarian-focused publication to a broader community-wide news service.

“I post interviews with devotees, write articles about festivals, and announce seminars, new calf births and more,” she says. “I also write almost every day on the New Vrindaban Facebook page, and have helped to rewrite the community’s official website to make it more accessible.”

As well as keeping devotees informed, Lilasuka’s service has also naturally evolved into devotee care.

“My office has become like a revolving door,” she says. “People come looking for help or advice.”

Some come complaining about other devotees or management, too. Lilasuka encourages them to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. She offers to go with them to discuss their differences with other department staff, or with community president Jaya Krishna. She even helps couples who may be having difficulties in their relationships.

“A lot of misunderstandings come from miscommunications,” she says. She adds that her work has helped devotees embrace a positive attitude and has improved their support of New Vrindaban’s new leadership.

Lilasuka also provides practical care for New Vrindaban residents, and encourages others to help.

“It’s been snowing every day here for weeks, and some of the older devotees can’t even get out of their houses,” she says. “So I’ve been shopping for them or helping them to find rides. I have helpers too. One devotee drives some of the single women who don’t have cars into town to do their shopping every week.”

Lilasuka also recently arranged for the local Department of Health and Human Resources to give a seminar at New Vrindaban on how to apply for President Obama’s mandatory new healthcare plan. Around twenty-five devotees attended. Many expressed their appreciation for making the process a lot easier for them.

Lilasuka has also helped facilitate Canada-based homeopathic doctor Visvadhika Dasi to visit New Vrindaban every few months to care for ill devotees. All this kind of care and communication, she feels, is essential.

“New Vrindaban is such a big place,” she says. “Sometimes people can can get lost here, or feel like they’re not being looked after. There’s definitely a need for that, that I’m trying to fill.”

Lilasuka plans to continue building on this work. One of her most recent steps has been to join the New Vrindaban Community Advocacy Group, an organization formed in December 2013 and comprising of residents rather than management.

“We want to be advocates of devotees in the community who feel they don’t have a voice,” she says. “Our first topic is devotee care: we’ve already had volunteers help older devotees by bringing them basic necessities such as firewood and water.”

As far as communications is concerned, she’s working with North American ISKCON Communications Director Keshava Das on a new print and online newsletter, with news from New Vrindaban’s different departments.

She also hopes to add more staff to the communications department and to increase its outreach efforts amongst other local groups. Already, media communications for festivals is being handled by the aptly named Vrindavan Das.

Lilasuka is clearly excited by her service, and how it can help New Vrindaban in its current rebuilding phase.

“I think it’s making more people aware that working together cooperatively, caring for each other and communicating properly with each other is the key to helping New Vrindaban grow,” she says.

Happily picking many kinds of flowers from the trees and vines, Radha and Krishna praise the forest of Vrinda?vana. They bathe and sport in the lakes of Vrinda?vana forest and They play with the birds and other creatures there. Who would not serve Vrinda?vana forest, the supreme transcendental abode?

[Source : Nectarean Glories of Sri Vrindavana-dhama by Srila Prabodhananda Sarasvati Thakura, Sataka-2, Text-10, Translation.]

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Srila Prabhupada reading outside the original New Vrindaban farmhouse, 1969.

Srila Prabhupada Expresses “Great Hope” & Encourages “Gradual Development” of New Vrindaban – February 1972.

From a series of letters written by Srila Prabhupada outlining his vision for New Vrindaban.

Thanks to Vanipedia for the source material.

February 28,1972

My dear Satyabhama,

Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of January 24, 1972, and I am very much pleased that you and your good husband are developing the New Vrindaban land very peacefully, and I think that you both are perfectly suited to remaining there and managing things very nicely, and you may gradually bring that New Vrindaban property to its full potential by stages, and that will please me very much. I always had great hopes for New Vrindaban, and gradually we are developing, as I can understand from Hayagriva’s recent Cow Protection Report.

You are experiencing some doubts, that you cannot believe that the Krishna from Krishna Book can be the Supreme Personality of Godhead, that it must be like some fairy-tale. To clear up these things the best remedy is to discuss amongst yourselves all members regularly all our books in classes, then these doubts will be killed. Without reading books it becomes hackneyed and such obnoxious ideas trouble us. Our thoughts are always changing, that is the nature of the mind, so you cannot expect that even the great saintly persons are free from thoughts coming and going. But after thinking there is feeling and willing, willing being the stage of putting the thoughts into action. So if we are able to employ our intelligence, then we kill the thoughts before they become manifest in activity, but because we are so much inclined to enjoy something unintelligently, we have to therefore daily sharpen our intelligence faculty by reading and discussing and preaching to others. In this way we are able very easily to defeat all challengers to our philosophy and everything becomes very clear as it is revealed from different angles of vision. Krishna makes promise to one who is striving to serve Him sincerely that He will give such devotee the intelligence by which he may come to Him. Therefore we should always pray that Krishna may kindly provide me the intelligence to kill all demons of doubt, and because He understands the heart of His sincere devotee, immediately He gives assistance. For my part, for example, I am absolutely certain that anyone who challenges me I can defeat you. Why is that? Because Krishna gives me the intelligence.

Your idea to start a nursery school in New Vrindaban is very good proposal and you may immediately try for it by cooperatively consulting amongst yourselves how to do it. But one thing, we are teaching Bhakti by practical attendance and by decreasing playing desire or drive. If the children simply do as their elders are doing, that is, regularly attending mangal arati, rising early, chanting, eating prasadam, looking at books, worshiping the __ like that, then automatically they will become trained up in right way and there is no need for special program for education. Children will always do as they see others doing, so if by the good association of their parents and the other older persons, they will come out nicely fixed in Krishna Consciousness, and because they are not spoiled by an artificial standard of sense gratification, they will think that performing austerities is great fun, just like in India we see the young brahmacaris are sent out to beg for their spiritual master to teach them humility and non-attachment, and they spend the whole day in the hot sun and come back at night, take a handful of rice, and sleep without blankets on the hard floor—and they take this type of life as very much enjoyable and great fun. This is how we train our children in Krishna Consciousness, just be keeping them always attending our regular program and associating with Krishna devotees, teaching them in spiritual realization by giving them the idea that sacrifice and tapasya for achieving the highest goal of life is a very nice way of life. Not that we shall give them many games for playing, these so-called scientific methods of learning are artificial, unnecessary, and on the whole I do not have much trust in this Montessori system or any other such system of teaching. Your idea for having altars to train the children in deity worship is very nice.

So far your Jagannatha deities which have become badly cracked, it is better to replace them, but if that is not possible then you may repair. The story of Lord Jagannatha is like this: Once King Indradyumna wanted to establish the picture in the temple of Krishna, Subhadra, & Balarama coming in a car or chariot during solar eclipse to Kuruksetra so he employed Visvakarma to carve them from wood, and actually the carving was going on behind closed doors, but the King was very impatient to see, so Visvanatha (Visvakarma) stopped, but the King was satisfied with them half-finished.

Hoping this meets you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

ACBS/sda

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Please worship and serve this effulgent transcendental couple enjoying transcendental amorous pastimes together in this grove of Vrinda?van, His complexion the color of sapphires and Hers the color of gold, He holding a splendid flute and She a red long-stemmed toy lotus, He with a splendid peacock-feather crown and She with long splendid braids, He dressed in splendid yellow garments and She in splendid red garments.

[Source : Nectarean Glories of Sri Vrindavana-dhama by Srila Prabodhananda Sarasvati Thakura, Sataka-2, Text-9, Translation.]

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Shankari hanging out in her OSU Veterinary Hospital recovery stall.

Early morning on the 14^th of March, Shankari, one of the milking cows in the New Vrindaban Goshalla, was found in the milking barn lying in an unusual spot. Lalita Gopi & Venkata Prabhus encouraged her to get up to no avail & knew something must be wrong. They gave her grain & water & kept a close eye on her for the rest of the day to see if she would move on her own. Later on in the day, she got up on her own & they observed that she had a bit of a limp. It was not immediately apparent what part of her was injured – the leg or the shoulder – as she was still putting her weight on it at that time & was let out to pasture which most certainly aggravated the injury.

On Monday the 17^th, one of the community doctors came by to take a look at her. He advised the cowherds to monitor her leg closely by measuring it daily for signs of increased swelling, keep her confined inside, &  isolate her from the other cows to prevent them from touching her & thus aggravating her injury further. He said to call the local vet, if there was any sign of it getting worse.

On Tuesday the 18^th, Lalita Gopi noticed that the swelling had increased by a half inch & decided to call Dr. Moore, the cows’ usual vet, who was unfortunately not able to make it out until a few days later. In the meantime, Ananda Vidya Prabhu went to Wheeling to pick up another cow vet, Dr. Rana & some first aid supplies for Shankari. Dr. Rana identified that Shankari’s leg was fractured. With the help of Dr. Rana, they bandaged Shankari’s leg & gave her some cow-sized aspirin to reduce the pain & prevent her injury from getting worse until Dr. Moore could come out.

An x-ray of Shankari’s leg before the operation.

Dr. Moore came out on Friday the 21^st & x-rayed Shankari’s leg. He confirmed that it was broken. Dr. Moore contacted the doctors at the OSU Veterinary Hospital in Columbus & they said that surgery was the best treatment option for her. With just a cast alone, the doctors gave her 0-5% chance of recovery, whereas with surgery her chance at recovery was 50%. Typically this type of injury for a cow would be a death sentence, but by Krishna’s mercy, Shankari was fortunate to be in the care of devotees who would go out of their way to do whatever they can to aid in her recovery.

(left): Murti Prabhu looking at Shankari in the trailer after she was loaded up. (right): Shankari loaded up on the cow stretcher at OSU

On Saturday,the cowherds arranged a divided stall for Shankari in the milking barn to keep her isolated from the other cows & allow her to peacefully rest. By Sunday night all the logistics of transporting Shankari to OSU were worked out & first thing Monday morning Rafael & Murti Prabhu drove her out to Columbus to be treated.

An x-ray of Shankari’s leg after the surgery with all the pins, plates & rods in place

At OSU the surgeon decided that the treatment method that would give Shankari the best chance at full recovery was to put two metal plates/screws & a rod in her leg as the break had produced many fragments. The surgery was performed on Tuesday the 25^th.

(left): Malati Prabhu chanting Hare Krsna to Shankari (center): Malati Prabhu talking with Dr. Andy (right): Dr. Andy Neihaus, Shankari’s good surgeon

On Wednesday, Malati Prabhu & I stopped by to visit Shankari at the OSU where she was recovering from her surgery. We brought her some maha-water from Radha-Nathabara at the Columbus Krishna House. Malati Prabhu chanted Hare Krishna for her benefit, as well as, for the benefit of all the other fortunate souls at the veterinary hospital. We spoke to the surgeon, Dr. Andy Neihaus & he was very happy with Shankari’s recovery. He said she was eating & drinking normally & seemed pretty comfortable getting around in her cast. The doctor said her chance of recovery is 50% & the way things were looking Shankari will be able to go back home to heal peacefully in the holy dham within the next few days.

Shankari showing off her fancy red cast that Dr. Andy put on for her.

As of right now, Shankari is back in New Vrindaban & her healing journey has just begun. In six weeks she will have another x-ray to make a new cast & see how her healing is progressing. It will be many months before she is able to go out to pasture again. Please send a lot of love, healing energy & prayers Shankari’s way, so that if Krishna wills, she may resume her service to him for many years to come.

Shakari will be recovering in a special stall in the big barn, next to Ranaka’s office and the ox pen. She would love visitors to stop by & see her. For her safety please don’t feed her, go inside with her, give her garlands or anything else before contacting Rafael in person, by phone or email.

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Give up false identification with this wretched material body, identification that is the cause of the horrible cycle of repeated birth and death. Meditate on your spiritual form in Vrinda?vana. Millions of calamities may fall. Don’t be disturbed. Until all past karma is destroyed, reside in Vrinda?vana and always meditate on the pastimes of your two Lords, Sri Sri Ra?dha’ and Krishna.

[Source : Nectarean Glories of Sri Vrindavana-dhama by Srila Prabodhananda Sarasvati Thakura, Sataka-2, Text-8, Translation.]

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