New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Srila Prabhupada meets his old friend Kaliya (the cow) on the path to the New Vrindaban farmhouse, 1976

“That’s the First Cow of New Vrindaban, Srila Prabhupada.”

Radhanatha Swami recalls a 1976 visit Srila Prabhupada made to the old farm quarters in New Vrindaban. Prabhupada had lived in that primitive woodland setting for a month in 1969 when it was the entire New Vrindaban. Although he had frequently visited the growing New Vrindaban project, Prabhupada had never gone back to the old farmhouse.

“If you can clean this place up, I will bring him up,” said Kirtanananda Swami, but later he changed his mind. “We are not going to bring Prabhupada up here. He’ll say it looks like a jungle. It is not proper.” Radhanatha was disheartened to hear it, because he was the pujari of the Deity Radha-Vrndavananatha, who resided in the little temple farmhouse. He had been feeling it would be the perfection of his devotional service to Radha-Vrndavananatha if the pure devotee, Srila Prabhupada, would come to associate with Him. He decided to at least bring a picture of Radha-Vrndavananatha for Srila Prabhupada to see.

One day during Srila Prabhupada’s visit, Kirtanananda Swami introduced Radhanatha to Srila Prabhupada and told him he had been making Srila Prabhupada’s sandesa.

“Very nice,” Srila Prabhupada replied. Radhanatha then showed Prabhupada an eight-by-ten picture of Radha-Vrndavananatha. Srila Prabhupada looked at Them silently and meditatively for about a minute. Then he began glorifying Lord Krsna. He said Krsna in Vrndavana is the sweetest. When Krsna stays in Mathura, Dvaraka, that is city beauty, but when He is in the village of Vrndavana, His beauty is the sweetest. While saying this, Srila Prabhupada continued to glance at the picture of Radha-Vrndavananatha. He then spoke of how Krsna goes out to the pasturing ground with His buffalo horn and flute to herd the cows and play with His friends. Krsna and His friends would get so absorbed in their play that mother Yasoda would have to go out and get Krsna to bring Him home.

“Where are these Deities?” Srila Prabhupada asked Kirtanananda Swami.

“They are at the original farm,” said Kirtanananda Swami, “the place you stayed many years ago.”

“You can take me there to see Them?” asked Srila Prabhupada.

“It is very difficult to go there,” Kirtanananda Swami replied. “The road is very bad. It would be uncomfortable for you.”

“You have a jeep?” Srila Prabhupada suggested.

Seeing Srila Prabhupada’s persistence, Kirtanananda Swami said that they would make all arrangements for his going there.

When the brahmacaris from the old farm heard the news, they were ecstatic. They tried their best to clean and make ready their backwoods temple and planned how to greet Srila Prabhupada. Radhanatha emphasized that Kirtanananda Swami said it was important that the recording of the “Govindam” prayers begin as soon as Prabhupada walked through the doorway to the temple. Therefore, the tape recorder should be cued and placed strategically. A guard should stand down the road and another near the house to signal Prabhupada’s advance toward the temple. Radhanatha, the pujari, would stay poised by the recorder, ready to press the button at the right instant.

Meanwhile, Srila Prabhupada traveled three-quarters of the way to the farm by pickup truck but then decided to walk the last part as his daily morning walk. As he walked, all the “guards” went to join him. Passing a black cow, one of the devotees said, “That’s the first cow of New Vrindaban, Srila Prabhupada.”

“Yes, I know Kaliya,” Srila Prabhupada replied. Finally he walked up to the temple and entered. Somehow, the other devotees were all detained outside and Srila Prabhupada entered the temple room alone. He stood with palms folded, looking at the surprised Radhanatha. A bit belatedly, Radhanatha pushed the button, and “Govindam” began. They then opened the curtains, and Srila Prabhupada stood to one side, looking at Radha-Vrndavananatha. He nodded his head approvingly to the Deities and then to the pujari. After a few moments, Prabhupada went to the rear of the room and sat on the rustic-looking vyasasana. Sublimely and naturally, he began to give the morning Srimad-Bhagavatam class.

Srila Prabhupada takes darshan of Sri Radha Vrindabanatha at the original New Vrindaban farmhouse, 1976.

Radhanatha Swami, interview. Prabhupada showed more than once how he immediately felt quite at home in New Vrindaban, and the Prabhupada-lilamrta describes this in telling of Prabhupada’s first visit there. Although he was accustomed to big cities, as soon as he came to a place like New Vrindaban or to the farm in Hyderabad, he was at ease and quite happy with such primitive living conditions. In India, Prabhupada had also spent most of his early years in the cities: he grew up in Calcutta, had his business in Allahabad, and he traveled as a businessman. But his attraction to such simple forest settings is transcendental. He also told us that Krsna is attracted to such a setting in the original Vrndavana. Prabhupada always became enlivened at the prospects of varnasrama-dharma, village life and cow protection when he came into these settings. It enlivened him to see the Krsna conscious farm developed in a simple setting.

Radhanatha Swami tells that on one occasion in New Vrindaban, Prabhupada said the devotees should stay in New Vrindaban and be satisfied. It was the same thing Kirtanananda had been repeatedly telling the devotees. Now that Prabhupada said it, it became a great confirmation for the devotees there. Prabhupada was satisfied to stay at their farm community and they should follow that example.

– From Prabhupada Nectar by HH Satsvarupa dasa Goswami

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The countdown is almost over!

Tomorrow is New Vrindaban’s annual Ratha Yatra Ceremony.

It starts at 11 A.M. at Vani and Rupanuga’s house and will end up at the temple for a big kirtan and vegetarian feast.

See you there!

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Please put this date on your calendar!

There will be a Barn Closure Ceremony at Bahulaban on Sat. Oct. 5, 2013.
Especially if you were born in the barn (pun intended) or lived there for any time, you will want to attend the ceremony.
In June of this year, the ECOV Board resolved to help improve the over-all appearance of New Vrindaban and, whenever possible,  recycle/reuse the materials in various projects around the Community.  So it was resolved that the Board approved up to $10K for clearing the Bahulaban barn site, to include dismantling of the barn, re-use of the timber, disposal of the remainder, and removal of the adjacent dung pit.
You can read more about the barn in the New Vrindaban Bloggers article below.
http://walkingthefenceline.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/deconstructing-the-bahulaban-barn/

No other details about the ceremony are available at the present time.
We will keep you posted.
Hare Krsna.

Barn at Bahulaban

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Here are some pictures of Lord Jagannatha, Lord Balarama, and Lady Subhadra’s bathing ceremony (Snana Yatra) two weeks ago, Sat. July 6, 2013.

The follow-up is their RATHA YATRA two weeks later, Sat. July 20, 2013, coming up.

Lord Jagannatha, Lord Balarama and Lady Subhadra are recovering from their Snana Yatra (bathing ceremony) and will make a big comeback this coming Sat. July 20, 2013 at 11 AM at New Vrindaban’s  RATHA YATRA.

Everyone is invited.

If you’d like, please bring an offering for the Lord.

JAYA JAGANNATHA!!!!

2013 New Vrindaban Ratha Yatra

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Video of Vishvambar leading during New Vrindaban’s 24 Hour Kirtan – June 15th, 2013. Thanks to Bhakta Vatsala Dasa for posting them on Youtube.

Down With Affluenza? ECOV’s Got the Cure.

by Madhava Smullen

Contrary to what advertisers would have us believe, stuff doesn’t make us happy. In fact, it could be just the opposite.

According to a study of Commerce Department data cited in the Wall Street Journal, U.S. consumers are set to spend $1.2 trillion in 2011 on non-essential goods including pleasure boats, jewelry, booze, gambling and candy. Yet 121 million people around the world, and 18 million in the U.S., suffer from depression, and suicide rates have increased by 60% worldwide in the last forty-five years.

Meanwhile, we are polluting the planet, causing climate change and loss of biodiversity, and leaving our children a toxic legacy. And despite our addiction to spending, even the economy is collapsing.

So what’s the alternative? Members of ECOV (Earth, Cows, Opportunity, and Villages), a cow protection organization set in the ISKCON Community of New Vrindaban, West Virginia, believe they have an effective one. It’s an agrarian lifestyle in harmony with nature, animals and the earth, that focuses on simple living and high thinking.

This approach is based on the Vedic culture of ancient India—in which the cow and bull were the very backbone of society, and treated as part of the family. In fact, the cow was deeply respected as the mother of mankind, and the bull as its father. For just as a child is fed with its mother’s milk, the cow feeds human society her milk; and just as the father earns for his children, the bull tills the ground to produce food grains.

These ideas were exemplified in India, yet practiced all over the world to some degree until modern times. Even in the U.S., as recently as the 1950s, a person’s flock and grains was his life.

ECOV Adviser Varshana Swami, who has dedicated much of his life to the pursuit of simple living and high thinking, recalls the exact time in his childhood when it all went wrong.

“As a kid in the late 1950s, I used to visit my grandfather’s farm in New York State regularly,” he says. “It was in such a backwoods town that the tractor hadn’t completely taken over yet, and they were still using animal power for agriculture. Then the tractor came to the village. First, it killed the social life by replacing all the villagers who would come together for the planting and the harvest. Then, its presence caused overproduction to the point that the government stepped in and started paying the farmers to stop growing crops. It literally put an end to agriculture.”

Of course, the tractor can have its uses and Varshana Swami doesn’t think it needs to be completely prohibited—as long as it doesn’t replace the ox. However for him, the tractor’s arrival is a symbol for modern humanity’s consumer addiction, which destroys the natural prosperity and spiritual advancement that past generations enjoyed.

Searching for a word to describe this affliction, he came across the term ‘affluenza’ in the dictionary. Its definition? “Extreme materialism which is the impetus for accumulating wealth and for over consumption of goods; also, feelings of guilt and isolation from the dysfunctional pursuit of wealth and goods.” The dictionary even adds that “its antidote is simple living.”

“Affluenza creates an unsustainable addiction to economic growth and plundering, which upsets the natural order of things,” explains Varshana Swami. “Let’s continue to use the tractor as an example. It’s born by plundering economies for iron ore, which is smelted in factories that pollute the environment. Then forests of sandalwood trees, which are traditionally used for sacrifices, are annihilated to plant rubber trees for the tires. Next, you need petroleum, the life blood of the earth, which spews polluting hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. Finally, the tractor is used to spread chemical fertilizers, which are made from the same ingredients as explosives, and which kill the soil.”

These fertilizers create vegetables and fruit that look big and lush, but lack taste and nutritional value. What to speak of so-called ‘organic fertilizer’—blood meal and bone meal made of crushed bones and blood from cow slaughterhouses that render even our ‘certified organic’ foods non-vegetarian.

Thus under the influence of affluenza and petroleum dependency, we kill our mother the cow and eliminate our father the ox from his place in the field. “If the father of society is unemployed, how can there be any question of prosperity in the family?” says Varshana Swami. “And so our modern disease of affluenza promises wealth but brings scarcity, exploitation, and plundering of the earth’s very life support systems.”

This is in stark contrast to the ancient system of agriculture—working with the cow, the ox, and the land in a simple way that fosters community, loving relationships, learning skills, and spiritual introspection. This natural order is a synergistic system of bounty, prosperity, and devotion.

“My guru, Srila Prabhupada, who encouraged his followers to establish farm communities based on these principles, defined true wealth as cows, land and grains,” Varshana Swami says. “And in ancient Vedic culture, the cow represents the earth, who in turn is also considered our revered mother. In fact, the ancient text Srimad-Bhagavatam explains that the earth is God’s consort, and an expansion of Radharani, the female aspect of Divinity.” On a practical level, the cow produces milk, the miracle substance which, the Srimad-Bhagavatam explains, is not only vastly versatile and nutritious but also the only food which develops the finer tissues of the human brain, enabling one to understand the subtleties of spiritual dynamics, relationships and truth.

Meanwhile the ox is an even more valuable creature. In Vedic culture, he represents Dharma, or the natural order of things, and since he pulls the plow, he is also the symbol for agriculture. Both his and the cow’s urine has medicinal and insecticidal properties, while their dung is the only way Varshana Swami knows of to revive soils which have been killed by chemical fertilizers.

Yet the prime reason why protecting the ox is more relevant now than ever before, is that as the tiller of the soil he’s our alternative to chemical and petroleum dependency—the lubricant that oils the consumer machine, and facilitates our addiction to non-essential stuff and our aversion to the simple life that will actually make us happy and content.

“The fragile industrial systems we’ve created for ourselves are going to fail,” concludes Varshana Swami. “We don’t know if it’s going to be sooner or later, sudden or gradual—but they are unsustainable, unnatural, and they will fail. That’s why I see reinstating the ox in his rightful position in our society as an extremely urgent mission.”

ECOV invites all to help it with this mission, either by supporting it financially or by lending help in working the land and taking care of its herd of cows and oxen. Experiencing this simple life is the only way to cure ourselves of affluenza and find true happiness—despite what advertisers would prefer us to believe.

Mission Statement: ECOV (Earth, Cows, Opportunities & Villages) is dedicated to cow protection, sustainable agriculture, self-sufficiency and simple living — all centered around loving service to Sri Krishna, as envisioned by the ISKCON New Vrindaban Founder-Acharya, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

For more info, visit ECOV’s website.

For regular updates, we also invite you to “like” ECOV’s Facebook page.

BTG Cover – July 1968

The very first mention of New Vrindaban in the Back to Godhead Magazine!

Parts & Parcels

Back To Godhead Article – July 1968

by Nayana Bhirama Dasa

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Gita Nagari Farm

Click here to read the July 4th, 2013 newsletter from our sister community, the Gita Nagari Farm, in Port Royal PA.

Please visit and “like” the Gita Nagari Farm Facebook Page!

Rise and Fall of The Pink Building

Before the Palace Lodge, there was the Bahulaban Administration Building, aka the Guest House, known to some as the “Pink Building”.

Anyone who knows about New Vrindaban in the early 1980’s knows the “Pink Building”. This structure served many functions.  Upstairs were the guest house rooms and some residents’ rooms, as well as offices for some of the Brijabasis. The topmost floor was a men’s ashrama.  Downstairs was a big, marble-floored prasadam hall, the laundry room, the marble shop, bath houses, and a kitchen.  In other words, the pink building was the heart of downtown Bahulaban.

In the late ‘70’s and ‘80’s, the building was teaming with life.   Although there were not many guests in town, if someone’s parents ever came on a rare trip to spend the night, they would often get a room at the Guest House.

Rasalila dasi tells us, “We had regular short and sweet Bhagavad Gita classes before lunch in the prasadam hall in the pink building.  A great midday pickup.   And, in the mornings, during the Srimad Bhagavatam classes in the temple room, when your baby would kick up a fuss, the prasadam room was the place to go!”

Dharmakala spent some time in the “pink building”. As a matter of fact, she helped build it.

“One day, we had an administration building marathon.  Everyone had to stand in a long row, holding  up the wall of the pink building, while the construction crew came along and banged in the nails as quickly as they could. That’s how we put up the walls of the pink building!” relates Dharmakala dasi.

Dharmakala also recalls, “At a certain point in time, before we were allowed to have lunch, everyone had to go to the garden on the hill across the road from the temple, and work for a little while, clearing weeds or picking vegetables. We did a lot of work together. “

The Pink Building suffered a fire in  the late 1990’s, and it has been deteriorating ever since.  So, a decision has been made by the New Vrindaban Boards of Directors to put it out of its misery.  The demolition team will salvage as much of the building materials as possible to reuse and recycle .

Although it’s sad to see the Pink Building being demolished, it served Krsna and His devotees very well in its prime.  Pictures and pastimes of the activities in the pink building will remain in the hearts of many people.  It will be gone, but not forgotten.

If you have some Bahulaban Pink Building stories to share, please contact Lilasuka at 304 843 1600 ext 106 or lilasooka@msn.com

Pink House Under Construction 1976

Summer 1976 Bahulaban

Bahulaban Pink Building Demolition, 2013

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