EVERYONE IS INVITED TO SPECIAL FRIDAY SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM CLASSES AT 8 A.M. AT THE TEMPLE

…where we will discuss Srila Prabhupada’s letters written about New Vrindavan.

Each Friday morning from 8 AM to 9 AM at the Radha Vrindaban Chandra temple, we will be discussing, one by one, the letters that Srila Prabhupada wrote to various devotees regarding his vision and instructions for New Vrindaban.

They will not be lectures, but rather round-table type discussions where everyone’s participation is welcomed.

The discussion for the last 2 Friday classes has focused on a June 14, 1968 letter written to Hayagriva.

Next will be an Aug. 1968 letter.

Everyone is invited to read these letters, which are attached below through links, in the mood of trying to  understand what Prabhupada’s point is, what his emphasis for New Vrindavan is, and come and discuss this, if you’d like.

Hare Krsna

14 June 1968 S

Hayagriva — Montreal 17 August, 1968

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Diwali prayers at Number 10 Downing St.

Nov. 30, 2012

The Prime Minister David Cameron MP hosted his third annual Diwali celebration at 10 Downing Street, inviting professionals, organisations and religious representatives from across the Hindu community, including Manor President Srutidharma das.  That evening the famous residence of the Prime Minister was transformed into an “Indian temple”, with divas, rangoli patterns, ornaments and a beautiful framed picture of Bhaktivedanta Manor’s deities, Sri Sri Radha Gokulananda. To start the evening’s festivities, the Prime Minister requested Srutidharma das to perform Vedic prayers and at the moment the Hare Krishna mantra was chanted, an historic moment had come to pass.

Prime Minister with devotee of Krsna

A beautiful framed picture of Bhaktivedanta Manor’s deities Sri Sri Radha Gokulananda was placed prominently in the Prime Minister’s abode. 

Sri Sri Radha Gokulananda at the Prime Minister's house

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by Jesse S. Hanson (Sr.)

With Christmas shopping upon us, I could only think of the frustrations we’ve had in my family over this wonderful holiday gone bad, so to speak. The commercialization has gotten so bad that there’s no point even discussing it. Everyone knows but everyone goes to spend the almighty dollar on the holy presents and the sacred economy is saved. I thought Christmas was to celebrate the “Holy Presence”, not the “holy presents”.

So I thought of calling to mind, once again, a little book from the hoary past. No, it’s not a holy scripture. But I believe it should be required reading for all of us living in this age of consumerism, or the “Poly Yuga” as I like to call it.

http://www.amazon.com/Small-Is-Beautiful-Economics-Mattered/dp/0060916303. I’m not working for Amazon.com or anything here, but they have 51 copies for under 4 bucks.

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL: ECONOMICS AS IF PEOPLE MATTERED—What more can I say.

Buying gifts for people is a nice thing. I’m not saying it isn’t. Some devotees of Krsna have told me that giving and receiving gifts are two symptoms of love shared between devotees. Maybe we’d prefer to do it spontaneously, but even the event of exchanging is enjoyable and kind of heart-warming, provided there is recognition that this holiday is first the birth of one of our most Holy beings. Shopping is not a required ritual pilgrimage for our spiritual advancement.

So this Christmas, I would say forget the so-called economy. If we’re going to buy things, let’s buy them from each other. Let’s support artisans and crafts persons who generally put far more love into their works than they do thoughts of profit.  Let’s bring some sanity back to the thing.

BlueHome Artworks Gift Shop

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by Sukhavaha dd

In the 1970’s there was a small farmhouse located at the Madhuban property (across from Sankirtan and Ruci’s house), where Lord Jaganatha resided for many years with Mother Hladini and others taking care of Them.

Srila Prabhupada also visited this site and was very pleased with the small “Prabhupada huts” that were made out of rammed earth.

Now, in 2012, due to  ECOV’s vision to create an ECO village, work has begun to prepare the area for low impact lifestyle. There will be an ox barn, water catchment, gardens, orchards, and renewable energy use in houses which will be built out of recycled materials and earth sheltered..

Many trees have been   cleared on the hillside facing the Palace and a new planting of fruit and nut trees has been started.  Eventually the whole hillside will be replaced with food bearing trees.

In addition Varsana Maharaj has been working on the site to make a gradual road down into the lower plateau where the village is planned.

Varsana Maharaj has a D-7 dozer and attached to it he has a huge D-9 blade. This gives this machine tremendous power to move large amounts of dirt and rock. This dozer is specifically meant for making roads that no little dozer could do, especially because there was a lot of bedrock and a huge plate of rock that was right in the middle of the road. So, this large bedrock had to be moved down the hill and dirt from one level had to be carried to the lower level to make the steeper slope more gradual.

A more gradual grade will make it easier for oxen to pull on the hill, and ease it for pedestrians and bikes as well.

View from State road.

View from lower part of the road.

The rough work of the road was one phase. The next phase was dressing up the area and fine tuning. There were many stumps that were too short to be pulled and so they had to be buried with dirt. Maharaja took the dirt from a small hill near the main road and leveled that area more, while covering and leveling the area next to it.

After this, Nara Hari and Garrison mulched the area, which involved broadcasting (seeding) with white clover and rye grass seed to create a base that will grow fast and prevent erosion. After seeding lime and fertilizer were also spread. The final touch was mulching with hay which finished off the area very nicely.

Then the first layer of 2″x3/4″ gravel was laid to make it drivable by vehicles and make a base for the road.  The top coating on the road will be recycled milled asphalt.

After  Chesapeake drilled a gas well on our neighbor’s  down Stull’s Run (the other side of the ridge from Bahulaban) they fixed the road coming in from Route 250. They had a milling machine and  removed a lot old asphalt and we were able to get it.

We are grateful to all those of you contributed to having this project be complete.

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Transcendental Trail

or Govardhana Parikrama

by Lilasuka dasi

Recently, a special new event was held at New Vrindaban – Govardhan Parikrama.   The parikrama, a guided interpretive scenic walking trail,  took place during the occasion of Diwali and Govardhan Puja, which is a very joyous annual festival where devotees honor Krsna’s pastime of Govardhan Hill. They cook, and then pile up mountains up sanctified food, or  prasadam around a mini-replica of Govardhan Hill in the temple room.  It is in honor of the time when Lord Krsna and His cowherd boyfriends and their families paid tribute to the occasion of Lord Krsna saving all the Brijbasis from the devastating rainfall sent by Lord Indra on Vrindavan village.  Srila Prabhupada tells us that Krsna’s dear father, Nanda Maharaj, begins to worship Indra as there has been no rainfall to nourish his crops.  But Krsna reminds his father, “Let us not worship Indra. We have our duties to perform. Rain will come from the clouds above but not by worshiping him. Let us instead worship Govardhan Hill itself!”

That very same Govardhan Hill is Lord Krsna. So when Nanda Maharaj lovingly and affectionately agrees to His Son’s intelligent proposal, Krsna saves all the residents of Vrindavan and they all celebrate along with their cows,  with great joy and gratitude. This is Govardhan Puja.

This year In New Vrindaban, we went for a special hour long parikrama and guided tour.  We circumambulated New Vrindaban’s Govardhan Hill area, which includes replicas of such holy places as  Kusum Sarovara,  Radha Kunda and Lalita Kunda.

Many pilgrims braved the brisk weather but were nevertheless very enlivened by their experience.  One pilgrim exclaimed, “Our tour guide, Josef, was very cheerful. Lord Krsna Himself is always cheerful so devotees should be cheerful like Him, and like Bhakta Josef!  He made the parikrama an inspiring experience!

Another guest declared, “This was a very informative parikrama. I love New Vrindaban, and today, I learned things that I never knew before, such as the story of the appearance of Radha Kunda.  I learned many new stories about Krsna.”

There will be many more parikramas held at New Vrindaban to let everyone know more and more about Krsna.

Parikrama

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ECOV Board Meeting – Minutes 10-19-2012

  Called to order at 9:17 AM.

Members present: Krpamaya, Madhava Gosh, Navin Shyam, Ranaka; Advisors present: Jaya Krsna, Sukhavaha

1. 1.      Approve agenda

Jaya Krsna added a provisional item related to drilling a commercial well.

 2.      Review and approve previous meeting minutes

1. 1. These were approved over e-mail.
   2. We also revised the project publicity/minutes distribution procedure.

Old business

 3.      Budget categories

 Motion: Create two intermediate categories for projects, to supplement the current options of “Proposed” (no decision has been taken at all) and “Approved” (funding and responsibility have been allocated).

“Pipeline” – A proposal to which the Board has given tentative and conceptual approval.

“Pending” – A pipleline project that has been further developed and toward which the Board has expressed stronger tentative and conceptual approval.  Usually, only one missing piece is needed (e.g. a project manager, sufficient funding) to allow the proposal to be considered for final approval.

These designations serve two functions:

1)    They assure the proposer that it is worthwhile for him/her to research and pull together a formal, detailed proposal.

2)    They provide guidance to the Board in making future allocation decisions, as a background of other commitments that may be on the horizon.

Neither designation is binding; both (to different degrees) express more of a “good faith” interest.

Vote: Approved unanimously.

Motion: Future approvals may contain an expiration date, after which the funding will no longer be available.

For any approval that has not been expired, a supermajority will be necessary to defund it.

Vote: Approved unanimously.

4.      Grant application

 Motion: Approve the edited version of the grant request form.

Vote: Approved unanimously.

5.      Ahimsa milk brochure

 Navin Shyam will be soliciting feedback from various devotees.

No formal action was required.

6.      Grant request: Dham Seva Solar Pump

 This can be addressed through remaining balance in already approved funding for PV panels.

No formal action was required.

7.      Grant request: Gopal’s Garden

Vote: Approved unanimously.

8.      INMV loan request: Commercial water well

 Motion: Loan to INMV to finance construction of a new water well.

Vote: Approved unanimously.

Action steps: Ranaka and Jaya Krsna will execute an informal agreement establishing the loan status, but no strict schedule of repayment will be established.

9.      Purchase Gorsky’s 262 acres

Motion: Authorize Gopisa to negotiate to purchase the property.

Vote: Approved unanimously.

Action steps: Ranaka will investigate bank and/or seller financing.

Adjourned at 10:51 AM.

Krsna with Indra and his thunderbolt

THE GOVARDHAN PUJA MUSICAL WED. NOV. 14, 2012

The Brijbasis pray to Krsna

Krsna instructs Nanda, His father

The cast

Indra looks down in anger

Look. Krsna is lifting Govardhan Hill.

Warm up a cold autumn evening and please join us at a:

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by Jayadevi dasi

I recently visited the beehive I tend by the apartments to check on the status of the bees.  They were still very actively bringing pollen in and doing their waggle and circular communication to direct their co-workers where the flowers were.  However, there was another activity occurring which I had never observed before.

Every autumn, around the time of hard frosts, the female workers push the male drones out of the hive.  This type of contact was much more aggressive than the customary crawling over and touching antennae in communication;  the smaller female workers were literally dragging the drones over the edge of the hive and biting their wings as they attempted to come back in.

Here are some facts taken from “The Latest Buzz from the beehive” by Ross Conrad, featured in 2012 Old Farmer’s Almanac.

–  Honey is the only food that will never spoil when stored in an airtight container in its natural state (as found in the hive.)

–  A worker honeybee strikes, or stings, only in defense of itself or the hive-that is, when it feels threatened.  Its stinger is barbed like an arrow, not smooth like the stingers of many other insects.  When a honeybee stinger hits a soft, fleshy target, it remains embedded.  The bee dies shortly thereafter.  The queen, however, can use her stinger several times. (Drones, or male bees, have no stinger.)pp.72-73

The beehive is a complex society based on extreme efficiency.  The queen is guarded and fed royal jelly to keep her at optimum health for her only function of laying eggs.  Around the beginning of May, it’s time for the queen to be fertilized after the winter dormancy.

The newly hatched drones have one main purpose-to impregnate the queen for the new season.  The workers prepare the queen for her flight by nudging her to rid herself of her winter weight gain; sometimes they will even bite her if she is too lethargic!  The mating takes place mid-flight, and she can’t be too heavy to fly.

There is a much lower ratio of drones to female workers in the hive, as they do not forage for nectar and pollen or tend the queen.  It was once thought that mating with the queen was their only purpose, but they have been observed tending the young brood as they mature.

Drones are handsome little insects with larger bodies than their sisters, and, as mentioned before, no stinger.  They are identifiable by their large eyes, to see the queen during their mid-flight rendezvous.

When I watched the workers push the drones out by wrestling them and biting their wings, I remembered another story about the efficiency of the hive.

Sometimes, rogue workers will develop a taste for fermented nectar and attempt to bring it back to the hive.  In order to prevent contamination of the precious honey and pollen, special guard bees will chew off the offenders’ wings so they can’t leave the hive again.  It’s their method of bee-alcoholic reform.

Savage as it sounds, honeybees are diligent little workers who become familiar with their beekeeper’s pheromones and will make eye contact with them, (I even pet my bees who will crawl on my hand.)

Beekeeping as a hobby is fascinating to me, and if I become engaged in conversation about them, I find myself going on and on beyond the interest of my audience and force myself to stop from expounding the glories of the honeybee, as I will now.

Blessed bee

(see below for a little bio on the author)

About the Author, Jayadevi dasi

Jayadevi dasi  has done a variety of services before coming to NV, such as  helping to run a preaching center in Kent, Ohio in 1987, teaching a cooking class at Oberlin College, and helping with the Food for Life in Cleveland.

In 1980, Jayadevi moved to N.V., where she  raised her three sons. Her first son was actually  born one year before she moved to NV, but her other two sons were born in N.V.

Jayadevi was able to bring her professional skills of a degree in elementary education to her devotional life when she taught kindergarten in N.V. from 1984 to 1986.  She has also enjoyed attending the births of several devotee children.

Jayadevi’s current favorite service is looking after Tulasi devi, which she began in 2011.

Her hobbies include playing piano, and, of course, bee keeping.

When I asked Jayadevi, “Tell me one thing you’ve learned in your life that you’d like to share,” Jayadevi replied: “Don’t take anything personally.”

by Jesse S. Hanson (Sr.)

The reason is… bluehomeartworks.com is finally up and running. It’s a website—it’s an online store—it’s a blog/newsletter!

And it’s now open; please come and visit. There, you can read “About”, all about us, and you can shop—easily. And Jesse has just posted the first blog, which tells the story of how Jesse and Lilasuka conceived of the shop and how they made their move back to New Vrindaban.

You can read the entire article at this link: http://www.bluehomeartworks.com/bluehome/blog/the-bluehome-blog/3-creativity-gets-a-new-home-called-bluehome-in-west-virginias-.html but here we’ve just included those parts that are quite relevant to the current status of the shop and to its consignors and customers. As many of you know, the BlueHome Artworks consignment gift shop first opened in May 2012, for the weekend of the New Vrindaban Festival of Inspiration.

Some notes about and to our Consignors:

The BlueHome Artworks consignors are wonderful people. They are the people who design and create wonderful things and bring them to us to sell. They are artists, artisans, crafts persons, writers, musicians. Lilasuka and I want to take this opportunity to thank them—to thank you and to tell you how valuable you are to your community—your communities, wherever you are located. As if in affirmation of this, an incident came about that I would like to mention.

Unexpected Blessings

We’d only been open for a short time, when Nityodita ji came into the shop bringing Maharaja Radhanath Swami with him. For anyone who is unfamiliar, Radhanath Swami is one of the very beloved Gurus/Spiritual Teachers in the Krishna Conscious movement. American born, he has received international attention, in part through His selfless service of creating an organization in India that feeds millions.

Though we’d only met before by way of introduction, and scarcely spoken, he treated me like an old friend, even gave me a hug. He remarked that the shop space had a special feeling to it and went on to say that He felt that we would create a renaissance.

We’re Just Getting Started

In this regard also, I would like to continue to address the consignors and potential consignors. I would like to ask for your patience and continued cooperation in this effort. In the very short time that the store has been operating, there have been the typical ups and downs. Some items have sold well, while others have not. Some have sold well for a time and then not so well for another period. These fluctuations are natural, but Lilasuka and I believe that the shop will flourish, given time and a great effort on our parts to put all the pieces of the strategy together—promoting and advertising (both through local and regional venues as well as online), continuing to make improvements in the appearance and efficiency of the physical store, receiving a continuing supply of quality of products, having a great variety of products, etc. This website, itself, is literally an online store that, if we handle and promote it well, can be a great tool for marketing and selling your products on an ongoing basis, whereas the physical location is currently, as we all know, hot and cold with the fluctuations of traffic to New Vrindaban. So hard work and patience is the virtue here, I would say. If we say, “Well the season is over,” that will not help to perpetuate the development of BlueHome Artworks. But, if instead we remain positive and continue to provide the shop with new creations and replacement items for the ones that we sell, I think perhaps the sky is the limit.

To our Dear Friends and Customers

This brings us to the customers who’ve already shown much interest and support for BlueHome Artworks. Of course, we’re rather nothing without you. As already mentioned, this first blog post is, in part, to announce the opening of our website and online store, bluehomeartworks.com. Although you all love traveling here for weekend getaways and festivals, not so many of you actually live in the vicinity. So now we invite you to continue in your support and love of art and craft, as well as in your support of the maintenance and growth of the New Vrindaban community. When you’re thinking of gifts for friends and loved ones, or as you shop for items for your home, we hope you will remember BlueHome Artworks and come to bluehomeartworks.com, even when you can’t come physically to New Vrindaban. With your continued support, the shop can grow and thereby do its part in furthering the development of the New Vrindaban Community. We believe that in this way, by your supporting the arts and crafts, the shop will also help to enhance the experience of your visits to our beautiful area and our beautiful spiritual community.