Kangacow Now?


Did you hear? The cow is under criticism for global warming because of the methane produced by the dung and digestion. So the fools in Australia are trying to improve on God's creation and make the cow more like the kangaroo. Oh my God! From the Taipei Times: 

Both animals are herbivores and both eat grass that is fermented before entering their main stomachs. But while cattle belch enormous amounts of methane to digest food, kangaroos release virtually none — they burp only harmless acids that can be turned into vinegar.

Athol Klieve, a (so-called) expert on bovine stomachs, has fiddled around with the ruminants’ diet to make them less gassy. He is leading a team of microbiologists and genetic researchers to make cattle guts behave like kangaroos’.

“Feed additives can lead to incremental decreases in methane,” Klieve said, standing inside a nearly complete high-tech chamber where cattle will be brought in to have their methane burps measured precisely.

“But we’re trying to do other things that might give us a quantum leap, and that’s why we’re looking at kangaroos,” he said.

At any given point, after munching and regurgitating grass, tens of millions of Australian cattle, as well as sheep, are belching methane gases nonstop. With methane considered 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere, the burping has given ammunition to environmentalists, vegetarians and other critics of beef while initially putting the meat industry on the defensive.

Now the industry is fighting back. Along with the government, it is financing a US$24 million campaign to reduce burping. Researchers are looking at measures like adjusting diet, managing manure, recalibrating stomach organisms and selectively breeding animals that burp less.

Tragically modern people have not heard of, or perhaps don't believe that this world is already perfect and complete. Om purnam ada purnam idam. It was created that way by the Supreme Intelligence, Sri Krishna. There is nothing else needed in this world and nothing that can be taken away without upsetting the balance. What kind of horrible creature will they create? 

Even more unfortunately this is all being done following a ruse: global warming is simply a myth. A lot of hype created for ulterior purposes. We pray to God that these clowns will have no success with their research.

Jurassic Park here we come! Google "kangaroo cow" and you will find too many hits :-(

The Taipei Times article can be found here. And an Examiner article is here.


When I tried to add the following comment to The Examiner article it triggered the spam filter and was not accepted! What don't they want to hear? That global warming is a scam or that not eating meat will help the environment?

"The cow is NOT a problem. Global Warming is a ruse to increase control by the powers-that-be, and to make more money for Al Gore and his friends. A kangaroo cow is the work of atheists who can't imagine that God created a wonderful world that does not need improvements. Fiddling with nature is simply going to destroy the good qualities of the cow and the wonderful milk that she produces. 


"For those that really want to reduce methane simply stop eating the cow. That is the SINGLE most valuable thing that you can do to help the environment due to the huge environmental costs of meat production."

What We Can Learn From The Bulls

"All living bodies subsist on food grains, which are produced from rains. Rains are produced by performance of yajïa [sacrifice], and yajïa is born of prescribed duties." (Bg. 3.14)

"One who performs his duty without association with the modes of material nature, without false ego, with great determination and enthusiasm, and without wavering in success or failure is said to be a worker in the mode of goodness." Bg 18.26

Bhakta Petras, is the teamster at the Gitagrad community New Gaudadesha, in Lithuania. He has made a commitment to simple living and has focused his attention on growing grains by utilizing the bulls. Krishna Earlier in the year, Katha Dasa, the leader of New Gaudadesha, purchased one cow and two bulls, all newly born, and of a breed indigenous to the region. Padma, the cow arrived first. She is cared for by Bhakta Narada. In quick succession, about a month apart, came Balai, and then Kana, who are cared for by Petras.

When the bulls were about four months old Petras began training them to respond to voice commands. Every day he would take them to a ring and sitting in the center instruct them to walk around the perimeter, gently encouraging them with a touch to their flank with a branch.

In October this year ISKCON’s minister of cow protection, Balabhadra Prabhu (ISKCOWP) visited for three days to give Petras and Narada further lessons in caring for and training the animals. Around this time Petras began to yoke the bulls together and train them to work as a team. Most recently they have begun to pull a wagon or sled, with an increasingly heavier load.

Last week I asked Petras what he was learning by working with the bulls. Here is his reply:

1. they do not learn quickly; he must go slow as they learn slowly day-by-day
2. therefore great patience is required. A local man told Petras early on that he would have to be patient, but that man himself did not even know how patient one must be. Srila Prabhupada has said that patience is the most important quality.
3. as you are training them, they are also teaching you.
4. because they are very regulated in their actions, they force you to be regulated in yours.
5. the bull teaches you sattva; he is an animal of a sattva nature, and he will not go to rajas—you cannot make him get passionate. Instead, you yourself must come to sattva if you want to work with him. Moreover, he will bring you to sattva.
6. working with the bull may be compared to working with children or women, in that, if you get angry with them they will refuse to cooperate with you. If you are calm and reasonable they will work with you.
7. rajo-guna (increasing speed) and tamo-guna (negative reinforcement—hitting them) does not work with these animals.
8. Petras recently read from very old records how if a person had been drinking and the bulls smell that they will refuse to work with the man. Indeed, they will even try to gore him. They don’t want to associate with such people.
9. the bulls and man are a team; they work together. Unlike driving a car or tractor, where the driver simply controls the machine. With the bulls one must learn to cooperate and work as a team.
10. there is mutual dependency between the bulls and the teamster; the bulls depend on the man to feed and care for them, and the man depends on the bulls to provide necessary power for accomplishing things.

Petras’ comment gave me many realizations. The first is that Petras himself is not just training the bulls but they are training him. By his effort he is receiving valuable personal training in sattvic qualities, conditioning him to sattva-guna. Such training is difficult to come by in a world that is driven by passion and ignorance. Srila Prabhupada has taught us that we must come to the platform of sattva before we can progress to suddha-sattva, or the transcendental plane. How valuable are the cow and the bull to help us stay fixed in sattva-guna.

I also realized how our dependence on the cow and the bull teaches the entire human society sattva, and keeps them in sattva. Having abandoned the bull we have lost our tether to sattva and are the entire human race is drifting inexorably to rajas and tamo-guna, with the attendant terrible consequences that we are now beginning to reap, economically, socially, politically, etc.

Next I realized that the reason that Petras has had so many wonderful realizations because he made room for, and a commitment to Dharma (the bulls) in his life. He gave the bulls a place in his world. Giving them a place means giving them a duty, and that is the birth of yajna (yajna is born of prescribed duties), as stated in the quote from Bhagavad-gita above. Only interested in what they can take from others, modern man does not realize what the cow and bull have to give to us. Neither does modern man understand sattva-guna or the tremendous benefits that accrue to society as a whole by giving these animals their place in human society. Indeed, that is the case with all living beings in this world since, Om purnam ada purnam idam, this world is perfectly equipped as a complete whole.

Instead they think they can do better by killing the bull and exploiting the cow. You may know that we have a very old bull here, Nandi. The neighbors ask why we bother to keep an old bull. They tell us we should kill him. Such an  impoverished mentality of selfishness does not allow them to recognize the value of the bull, dharma, or reap the benefits of associating with these animals.

Bhakta Petras has found a goldmine—following the instructions of Sri Krishna Himself, as well as that of our acharyas, protecting dharma by giving the bulls engagement. There is no question that he will receive the blessings of that Supreme Cowherd. Later, in his maturity, after decades spent in learning from the bulls, he will have a wonderful future traveling around and instructing others how to heal the damage done to Mother Bhumi by employing the services of Dharma, the bull. There is no other place in today’s world to acquire such benefits.

Srila Prabhupada instructs us: "What is their economic progress? That means busy fool. Fool, they do not know how to satisfy the economic problem. That is recommended in the Bhagavad-gita, You grow food grains. Then all economic questions are solved. But why you are not producing food grains? Why you are producing iron stools and instruments and motor and tire and collecting petrol far away from Arabia? That is... Krishna never says that “You do all this nonsense.” He said, “Grow food grains.”. . . No, that is waste of energy. Because you are eating the bulls, therefore you require a tractor. Otherwise you don’t kill the bulls. This animal will do the business of tractor."

October 19, 1975

My Path to Simple Living

My having become accustomed to simple living, it is sometimes easy to take for granted the changes that one must go through to get there. This was brought home to me by Suresvara’s response to the earlier post “Simple Living – the Path to Happiness and Personal Fulfillment?”  (See the last post).

In response I was considering some things that might be helpful for those trying to make the transition, and reflecting on that began to think of my own progression. The transition to simple living is as much a story as how we came to Krishna Consciousness, because it is indeed a transition in our ways of thinking and living.

  

Typical Indian village scene

As recently as 2003 I never thought of leaving the United States to live somewhere else. But that changed when I met someone from India online that wanted to create a spiritual alternative to modern culture. I wanted to be a part of that work. So I organized myself to leave for a year in India. Now India in and of itself is an immense cultural shift. The density of people, the noise, the smells, the very stuff of life is all open to plain sight—life and death, all of it. And it is nothing if not a huge contrast to America. As it turned out I was not condemned to live in the midst of all of all, say in mid-town Mumbai, but managed to find accommodations in a village not too far out of Jagannatha Puri. Quite an idyllic place actually. I stayed on the second floor of a house, and outside of my room on the flat roof, was a coconut tree that provided a shady respite from the sun. I called it my “coconut office” and would spend hours on the roof reading and writing. The village, as all villages, was relatively quiet, save for the blaring speakers of distant revelry or worship, and the language barrier kept me from distinguishing precisely between the two. And life in the village was s-l-o-w.

My "bathroom" in Puri

The rest of it was quite like other Indian villages. There was no running water, the kitchen was what people in America would call a hallway, with most preparation done on the floor, and cooking done over a gas stove supplied by a balloon tank. Neither was there a bathroom, and bathing was done in a ghat, a small pond. That provided one of my first major cultural challenges: they don’t use soap to cleanse themselves but fresh cow dung! Hmm, intentionally take the stool of an animal and smear it all over your body just as you would do with soap. Wow. Too much for me, and for a good while I purchased and used soap. However the idea was brewing within. Still...it took some time for me to warm up to that idea, despite the fact that that was what everyone else did, and that the Vedic literature states very clearly that the dung of that amazing animal, the cow, is purifying. But I did it, holding my nose at first, and then in time, after experiencing that the result was the skin felt very clean and fresh, and becoming accustomed to the odor, I was able to handle the daily bath with the gusto of any native.

Why did I do that? Very simply I was motivated to experience a different culture, and the best way to do that is by doing what the others do, eating what they eat, wearing what they wear—actually, living as they live.

You can see the "steps" to the chariot
in this photo. 

A important aspect of India that was essential to my journey to simple living was the cleanliness, or lack thereof. In America we live at a particular standard of cleanliness. Everything must be clean. That’s how I was raised and that typified the majority of my living experiences. But in India I learned that a little dirt was not a death sentence, nor even a certain infection. During Jagannath’s Rathayatra in 2004 I was blessed to be able to ascend the Lord’s chariots and embrace the Deities along with a crushing throng of other select devotees. On the way up the roughly-hewn wooden ramp I bashed my foot and took a large sliver in the sole. My shoes were long-since gone and I had no choice but to walk the streets of Puri with an open wound on my foot. Gangrene was certain I supposed, but the loss of a foot was perhaps a decent trade for the opportunity to embrace the Lord of the Universe. Much to my surprise the anticipated infection never arrived! Food and water were another matter however, since thousands of people do die each year of infections and diseases from these sources. Through it all I learned that I could indeed live with other than the ideal cleanliness of America.

After being in India for almost a year I decided to go the countries of the former Soviet Union to preach my message of Spiritual Economics. I had no idea what was there, what to expect, or if I could survive. But having managed in India I figured I could handle most anything else. There I was given lessons of a different sort. The countries of E. Europe (Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova) are all quite similar to each other in that the Soviet legacy was everywhere visible. Most of the buildings, and especially the low and hi-rise apartment buildings are quite depressing in appearance. Although the tenants did their best to improve their own flats, the common areas were sorely neglected. Going up the stairwells of any building was like visiting the slum areas of America. It was repulsive and many times I chided the devotees that they had to clean and improve the appearance of their stairways. But that was not, and still is not, apparently, a part of their culture.

The contrast with America was particularly striking during my first year, and to be honest it was, and is, hard for me to see such neglect. My natural instinct is to want to fix things—but, it’s the whole country! This experience did however have one advantage—I no longer needed so much eye candy as is present in America. Less than perfect became the normal sight, but if something was decent or even  nice it was definitely noticed and appreciated.

My first village house in Ukraine was rather nice

This is not to say that everything was bad. Indeed, there are many nice features in every city. For example, the main streets are almost always divided and lined with trees and strolling lanes. Additionally there are many nice parks to walk in, and they are always filled with people out to enjoy the day or evening. And gradually, since people have been freed from Soviet central-planning and authority, attractive buildings were being built everywhere, until the economic bust of 2008 that is. One cannot expect such things to change immediately, or even in just one generation. They take time.

The villages in those countries however are much more reasonable. There are not so many depressing sights, and although the houses is simple and of a lower standard, they are adequate. One of the major challenges in the villages however, like India, is cleanliness. It is harder to be clean without cement walks, electric washing machines, and running water, and in most cases one must settle for less than ideal circumstances. Of course this all depends on how much of the city is brought to the village. I have been to villages in Hungary, Belarus, Lithuania, France, India, Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova. They are all reasonably similar in their construction (save for India), and in the manner of living that they support. Having had such a variety of experience there is no longer an immediate shock due to the contrast of city conditioning when going to such places. I now understand it as “village life.” The mysteries have been solved and I know how life works there.

A typical village kitchen
in India

Undoubtedly my experience is far different from that of the average city dweller. I have gone through many experiences that have allowed me to now easily adapt to village circumstances of almost any standard. Unquestionably everyone who determines to take up the village way of life has to “downsize” their expectations and adjust to the circumstances of their proposed new way of life. Unless they are bringing the city with them to the village, most people cannot do that “cold-turkey,” in one step. I dare say that I could not have either. The best approach is to make periodic visits to the village for several days or weeks. It’s like going camping. The differences in living are appreciated and tolerable as long as one knows that it’s only for the weekend.

The village log house in Ignalinus, Lithuania where I am staying now
(and it looks exactly like that, snow included!)

The idea is not that we have to learn to live with dirt, or with a standard inadequate to meet our needs. We need to find the balance between what is necessary and that which allows time for life. The idea is to simplify our lives, become group-dependent,* to make time for the things that are most important to us—our relationships to God, family and friends, and our personal growth and development. And, as we make progress along our spiritual journey simplicity will automatically manifest within our lives. It is a concomitant factor of spiritual growth. As that happens we want to be able to reduce the demands of the body, but, let us note, that is much easier to do in the village but almost impossible in the city.

One thing that I want to make absolutely clear is that I am no less happy when I live in the villages. Indeed, it is now quite the opposite. Free from the crowding, pressure, turmoil and noise of city life I am much happier in the village, and yes, despite the dirt. Real happiness, after all, comes from within. **

We want to create in the village community the circumstances that support our needs for growth and spiritual development that don’t demand too much of our time. Moreover, village life affords us the opportunity to grow our own healthy food, something that is becoming almost an impossible luxury in the city. The villages give our children a place to grow free of restraints and undesirable influences and characters. And, everyone can find a place from which to grow and develop in the village community. These benefits are much more subtle and less immediately noticeable than the difference in household facilities, the dirt, or the increased labor, but they are the things that make life better.

We need to find the balance, and finding that balance is an art, the art of living.

* self-sufficient is impossible. The ideal we want to strive for is to be group-sufficient, or group-dependent—dependent on the members of our community.

** (although I do confess that my quality of life does increase with a hi-speed internet connection J)

Comment by my friend Suresvara Dasa, who wrote

Thank you for your latest piece on the Varnasrama conference about village life. As a survivor of several attempts to "live simply"--from New Vrindaban to Gita-nagari to the Bhaktivedanta EcoVillage near Udupi to Prabhupada Village in North Carolina--time and again I've born witness to the "guna test." We always flunk. As an Amish friend near Gita-nagari once remarked: "We started with horses and never left 'em. You started with cars, and you're trying to go to oxen? Whoa!"

My comment: Indeed Suresvaraji, the transition of the gunas is something that must be anticipated and dealt with. After all, we are souls conditioned to the modes of passion and ignorance, and from that perspective goodness is "well, nice, but not for me." Going from traveling at 60-80 mph down to 2 mph is not something that everyone can deal with, without becoming very impatient and bored. Perhaps a horse is a good interim step! Counseling would also be helpful for those moving to the simple life, to help them understand what to expect both at the beginning and the end, and to work through it. Additionally one should have a transition phase to phase in adjustment to the simple life over a series of months, or even years. This would help to us to focus on and appreciate what the simple life gives instead of what it lacks. Hmm...although I didn't plan it this way, it seems this is a good segue to the next piece I want to write for this blog - my own transition to simple life. Coming soon.

Simple Living – the Path to Happiness and Personal Fulfillment?

In response to the recent posts about people living simple lives, one of my friends, the devil’s advocate, wrote to me to ask how “living in a one room cabin off-grid relates to the performance of devotional service and the development of Daiva-varnashrama Village? Without such commentary, the reader may think that living off grid in small cabins will somehow solve the greater problems of the day, which, of course, won’t.” Well that is a fair question. It brings attention to the fact that I have yet to write much about Varnashrama Dharma or Daiva-varnashrama on this blog, and that is way over-due. But since Daiva-varnashrama is a long and deep discussion we won’t get into it fully here, but will use the question as a segue to the discussion.

To begin with, let me answer by saying that without the Daiva-varnashrama culture, simple living cannot be established in a significant way in the present world. And without simple living there is no solution to the problems resulting from concentrating millions of people in densely populated areas, that threaten the ecosystems, and everyone’s mere survival, what to speak of their mental health or happiness. In other words, the Daiva-varnashrama culture must be established in order to save this world from its present suicidal course.

Daiva-Varnashrama Culture

In order to make that connection I will first summarize the idea of Daiva-varnashrama and then explain the relationship between it and simple living. Please note that I use these terms Varnashrama Dharma, varnashrama culture, and Daiva-varnashrama interchangeably herein. While there are differences between them those differences are not pertinent here.

One of the objectives of Gitagrad is to create a place of transcendental culture, where all activity is done for the pleasure and satisfaction of the Supreme Lord. In fact that is the meaning of the word “Gitagrad” – the place where we live according to the Bhagavad-gita. Such a way of life, due to its connection with the Supreme Fountainhead of all that be, should be satisfying, abundant, rewarding, and the ticket to spiritual emancipation at the end of life.

That culture, the Daiva-varnashrama culture, is the culture given to us by God for our well-being and a spiritually progressive life. Many aspects of that culture are prescribed in what are called the dharma shastras. Shastra means scripture. Dharma can be translated as duties. The dharma shastras thus prescribe the many do’s and don’ts for human beings, and those duties are best carried out in the context of the complete varnashrama culture. Acharya Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur explains the function of varnashrama culture in his “Sri Chaitanya-sikshamrita”:

The social rules are divided into two parts: varna and ashrama, or varnashrama. People in such a society have two aspects: their basic nature and their stage of life. Their nature is fixed by their mental and physical qualities, and their stage of life determines their role in society. From the individual’s nature arise the rules of varnas, and from the progressive stages of life comes the ashramas. As people act in these roles their individual mental and physical qualities do not disappear [as some may think is the result of spiritual practice], but rather, are nourished.

When bodily and mental tendencies gradually develop by cultivation, they attain a fixed stage, where one quality dominates all others. That quality is the human being’s nature. There are four natures [varnas]: brahmana, ksatriya, vaisya and sudra. These four varnas have arisen on the basis of the positive qualities of men. With the display of negative qualities, the outcast from the social system arises. [In a fully-functioning, widespread varnashrama culture] A person in such a situation has little alternative but to give up those negative qualities [in order to be accepted into society].

Formerly the varnashrama social system was soundly established around the world, and remnants of it are known to us in the West as the medieval social system. However, due to the degrading influences of this age the varnashrama culture has been lost. Details of how the past social order was deliberately replaced, and how society came to be organized by money alone is explained in Chapter Four of the first volume of my book on Spiritual Economics.* But, it has been the desire of the recent Vaishnava acharyas to reestablish that social organization for the progressive benefit of all society. Srila Prabhupada has said that it is one of the aims of his Krishna Consciousness Movement is to establish this Daiva-varnashrama culture.

There are several significant aspects to note in our efforts to establish the Varnashrama culture. The first is that the economic basis of the varnashrama culture is agriculture and cow protection. Not money, nor industrial enterprises, because these act to undermine the culture itself. (For further details on this subject please see my post “Money and Varnashrama Culture” at http://spiritual-econ.blogspot.com, or www.dandavats.com). The second point is that the varnashrama culture that we seek to establish will be significantly different from the varnashrama culture of the past in terms of spiritual practices. Instead of following the Vedic-marga, with the rules and regulations given in the four Vedas as was formerly done, we will incorporate the spiritual practices of the pancaratrika-marga and bhagavat-marga, the practices of modern day Gaudiya Vaishnavas. Specifically we shall incorporate the yuga-dharma, or religion for the age, the chanting of the Hare Krishna Mahamantra: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. These practices give very quick results to the serious practitioner allowing the supreme objective of spiritual emancipation to be achieved in just one lifetime.

It was Srila Prabhupada’s desire to establish the varnashrama culture, and it was so significant to him that he considered it to be fifty percent of his life’s work. That work is left for us to do as he was not given time to accomplish it. In his books and teachings to his disciples he spoke endlessly about Varnashrama Dharma. He gave many instructions to his leading disciples to establish Varnashrama colleges in each temple leading to the implementation of the varnashrama social system and culture. Despite his many admonitions to that effect the work has hardly been pursued within the society, and we speculate this is because it is not well understood. The fulfillment of this desire of our spiritual master is the goal of our efforts within our Gitagrad communities.

In his instructions to his followers for how to live in this world Srila Prabhupada often used the phrase “simple living and high thinking.” He wanted us to live simply, constructing simple dwellings with local materials for habitation, produce our own food directly from the land, and, combining that with delicious milk products from the cow, to have delicious and satisfying food. With the time saved from having to run hither and thither as everyone must in modern society, one can hear the sacred texts, chant the Hare Krishna Mahamantra, and participate in the spiritual culture with drama, dance, singing, music, art, sculpting, woodworking, weaving, writing, etc.

The Spiritual Aspect is Paramount

Above all other aspects of the culture, the spiritual aspect of the varnashrama culture is its most significant, because it can give the participants the happiness and satisfaction so desired by all people in life, without which people cannot be satisfied with simple living alone. The Srimad-Bhagavatam states (1.2.6-7): “The supreme occupation [dharma] for all humanity is that by which men can attain to loving devotional service unto the transcendent Lord. Such devotional service must be unmotivated and uninterrupted to completely satisfy the self. By rendering devotional service to the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna on immediately acquires causeless knowledge and detachment from the world.”

Thus when properly performed devotional service brings about not only detachment from material objects, but also gives the practitioner full satisfaction. This is a paramount point and the connection between Daiva-varnashrama and simple living—It is due to becoming detached from sense gratification and being satisfied within oneself that one can live a simple life. Without this we see in practice that it is next to impossible for people to live the simple life for any length of time. The villages of the former Soviet Union have been emptying out since the fall of communism and the end of the collective farms that once sustained them. People are enticed by the sense gratification available in the cities with its alluring passionate influence. That is to say that simple living, in an of itself, is not sufficient to give people a satisfying life. Of course the Western countries are so much more “advanced” in this regard that 97 percent of the people now live on 3 percent of the land, urban and suburban.

Because internal satisfaction is so essential to simple living, and because simple living is so essential to solving the devastating impacts of the consumer culture, it is crucial that we create the circumstances that will allow that pure devotional service to develop quickly. Fair enough, you say, but why does it necessitate simple living in a village?

There is a growing worldwide recognition that the consumer lifestyle constitutes a big part of our modern day problems—environmental and social especially. And with food prices escalating quickly, causing food riots around the world, consumers are hostage to the moneyed interests that profit by causing food prices to rise. The key element to note here is that city dwelling requires consumerism. How else can one live in the city? Therefore the “back to the land” movement that began in the late 60s and early 70s after fading is coming back. There are large numbers of people seeking ways to make village life a pleasant and happy experience. In Russia and central Asia the books of “Anastasia,” written by Vladimir Megre, glorifying the natural life have given rise to an entire movement of living close to the earth. This movement is spreading across the Asian continent, Europe, and continuing to America as well. Then there are the Transition Towns, who, taking Peak Oil as a very real threat, are attempting to alter their lifestyles to be able to live with less oil. They also are beginning to recognize city life as “the problem” to oil dependency. There are also many people who see a real and present danger of one form or another in modern life and who desire to be independent and off the grid, like Bill Powers (see earlier post) who go it alone in a simple 12 X 12 cabin based on their own inspiration.

Getting to the Village is Easy. How Do You Stay There?

There is one question that arises in relationship to all of these efforts, quoting the old song: “how you gonna keep them down on the farm?” Rural living may appear to be attractive, and the contrast with city life is at first exciting and pleasing. But how long can it last before it becomes boring and nothing but a lot of hard work? After some ten years the back to the land movement became a back to the city movement, albeit with some survivors—Steve Gaskin’s “The Farm” in Tennessee made it to the 21^st century, and of course some of the Hare Krishna farms, although many lost much of their previous vitality through the years. Some of the Anastasia settlements are even losing their once enthusiastic members after just a few short years. Let me give a few suggestions as to why this occurs.

Typically we see that most people don’t actually move to the country—they move but bring the city with them. That is they do not change their lifestyles, their economic support, or their culture. They keep their city jobs with its income despite the longer commute, they import the city culture via satellite dish or internet, and because they do not produce their essentials, they must continue to shop in the city for them which requires money, which is of course obtained in the city. Money thus becomes a city-village umbilical cord which people continue to depend on to survive. To become free from money altogether requires a fairly well-developed group of people who have the know-how, skills and tools to provide for themselves.

With my hosts Vyacheslav (Slavik) and Tatyana (Tanya)
the co-founders of the Dolyna Djerel community

An example of this city dependence is the Anastasia settlement Dolyna Djerel (Spring Valley) on the outskirts of Kiev that I visited several weeks ago. Of the fifty homes there, none of the people who lived in them were even trying to be self-sufficient, or even free from city life. Everyone commutes to the city to work. Although some of the homes were simple, judging by the other rather nice houses, they were not even attempting to live a simple life. It would best be described as an effort to create a comfortable community and “gentleman’s farms” where gardening is done as a hobby but is certainly not the main economic basis of living. This is also the case with several other Anastasia communities that I have visited, as well as many of the Hare Krishna farms.

There are some very important philosophical points that will help us to understand the inability of people to sever their city connection completely.

The first of these is what are called “the gunas” or modes of material nature. Again, in “Spiritual Economics” I treat this subject in detail, and here give only a very brief introduction. There are three modes of nature, goodness, passion and ignorance, under whose influence this entire material world functions. Things are created in passion, maintained under the influence of goodness, and destroyed by ignorance. Passion is very pleasing initially, but after some time brings distress and suffering. Goodness is unpleasant initially, but later is actually joyful. And ignorance is trouble from beginning to end. The city is under the influence of passion and ignorance, but the village is situated in goodness. It is very important to note that practically the entire world is now habituated to, or conditioned by, the modes of passion and ignorance (including our Hare Krishna devotees) due to city living. Due to conditioned behavior we feel comfortable with those modes of nature, and it is therefore very difficult to be satisfied in the village where those gunas are mostly absent.

So here is one of the big problems that stand in the way of successful transition to village living: a failure to becoming conditioned to the qualities of goodness, especially since goodness is unpleasant in the early stages, or until we become conditioned by it. Initially this new lifestyle may be pleasant due to the contrast with city life. Kind of like going on a camping trip. But after some time that euphoria wears off and the differences become magnified. The newcomers may be living in older dwellings, and in a house without plumbing, electricity or gas it will likely be impossible to have the same standards of living that they were accustomed to in the city. Especially if money is difficult to get, shopping is inconvenient and they must learn to do without, there will be at least some dissatisfaction. In these circumstances any appreciation of the benefits of the new lifestyle may be easily overlooked. Unless the newcomers can make it through this adjustment period and the shift in gunas, after some time they simply conclude that the country life is not for them and head back to the city where they feel “normal” again. Solving the necessary problems so that the contrast is not so great will do much to ease the transition in lifestyle. It will also help if our expectations can be adjusted before hand, since when our expectations are unmet we generally become unhappy.

The second thing to understand about the move to the village is that we all must have culture. We are social beings and as such we cannot do without culture. The question now is: where do we get culture in the village? Typically, as stated above, people bring the city culture to the village with them via the airwaves, satellite dish, electronics and recorded media. People have a cultural dependency that is typically not recognized and therefore not dealt with properly.

The best way to deal with this is for the villagers themselves to create their own culture, although there are challenges to this as well. In our modern lives we typically enjoy vicariously—through others. We are entertained. We are passive enjoyers of others’ performances. Thus we often lack the skills for entertaining ourselves, especially at the quality of the superstars that we are accustomed to hearing and seeing. But village culture is not vicarious, and that means that we must learn to enjoy by doing and participating in activities, rather than watching or listening to others. In order for such a village culture to develop there must be leadership that recognizes this need and encourages or even directs the effort. The villagers themselves must also take responsibility for dedicated practice to develop reasonably satisfying skills. The nice thing about this is that it can be great fun.

The next question that arises is: what is that culture going to be centered around? People generally do only what they know, which are activities of passion and ignorance, not goodness, which further maintains the ties to those influences. However our devotees are learning how to center such activities around Sri Krishna and His pastimes, thus helping them to stay on the transcendental platform of Krishna Consciousness.

In conclusion my thesis is that the simple life, in and of itself does not give the lasting satisfaction that will sustain a person’s effort, what to speak of sustaining a significant social movement away from consumerism. Only the Daiva-varnashrama culture has the ability to accomplish this. And thus, only Daiva-varnashrama has the ability to solve the consumerism problem, the environmental problem, the social problems and the economic problems of this world. It is therefore essential for the future well-being of this entire world. The only people who can bring this culture about are the followers of Srila Prabhupada, and it is therefore imperative that they take it up to lead the world out of their foolish ways of living under the influence of passion and ignorance. But are our devotees also too heavily influenced by these lower modes of nature? To averse to the initial unpleasant nature of sattva-guna in order to take up the simple life? Thus far it seems to be a serious challenge given the numbers who take establishing the varnashrama culture seriously. Indeed, I am often told by city devotees that village life is too difficult and unpleasant. Srila Prabhupada indicated that our Krishna Consciousness Movement can bring about a cultural conquest. But that will only happen when the devotees themselves begin to create, and live, that complete culture.

* “Lessons in Spiritual Economics from the Bhagavad-gita - Part 1 Understanding and Solving the Economic Problem” is available from www.spiritual-econ.com.

Simple Living with Gopaswami Prabhu
at New Mayapura, France

This past August I went to France to attend the Kulimela, the gathering of second-generation devotees of Krishna. The gathering was held at the New Mayapura Farm which was purchased by Srila Prabhupada in the early 70s. It was a real treat to visit this farm. At one time there were more than 350 devotees living or based there. The centerpiece of the several hundred acre property is the large and well-preserved chatteau, surrounded by large oaks, lovely pastures and forests.

Dr. Gopaswami emerges from his
simple home, his granddaughter standing nearby. The front window
of the house was formerly the windshield of Indradyumna Swami's bus

While there I had the good fortune to make some new friends from various parts of Western Europe, one of whom is Dr. Gopaswami. What makes Gopaswami Prabhu so unique is that he lives a very simple life in a self-built a cob house with a straw and shake roof, his home for more than 12 years. 

All materials for the house came from the surrounding forests, and the house is nestled into the edge of the forest facing a large pasture. The one-room house uses one small stove for adequate heat all winter long.

Side view of the house

Back wall with exhaust pipe for the wood stove
(removed during the summer)

The "flooring" is simply burlap bags on top of a clay floor

Besides the chatteau the farm has other somewhat modern properties that would have been much more comfortable for living with his wife and daughter. Nonetheless Gopaswami Prabhu has opted to live the simple life as instructed by Srila Prabhupada. Most of the earlier residents left the farm as well as the Movement after the fall of the leader Bhagavan Das in the mid-80s. Of those who remained the rest opted for more modern living on other parts of the property.





During the summer months the family spends most of their time at the chatteau, or out of doors with facility for wood-fire cooking, washing and bathing. In front of the house are simple log or wooden seats to accommodate guests.

Govardhana Hill replicated to the side of the house

This farm is now home to about 5 cows, one of whom iscurrently milking, and 2 teams of oxen, one older pair and one younger.  There is a modern barn with plenty of room for silage during the winter months. Gardening is done by one retired devotee who lives off of the property.


 Two young men who grew up at New Mayapura are in the process of returning to work with the bulls, work the land and live the simple life as well. These young men give hope that the farm may at some future time be restored to its former glory, providing natural shelter and simple living to hundreds of people.

We give praise to Gopaswami Prabhu and his wife and daughter for their determination for simple living and for giving a wonderful example to others.

A second similar building recently constructed serves as
the Doctor's office and guest house

Learning from his past, the new dwelling has
clay covered thatch as an interior roof

There are many people who opt for the simple life and find it rewarding. Here is the story of another one: Posted on Mon, Nov. 08, 2010 Meet the man who lived in a one-room cabin off the grid By JESSICA A. KNOBLAUCH Mother Nature Network (mnn.com) Recently, MNN sat down with William Powers, author of "Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid & Beyond the American Dream," an eye-opening memoir about the things that we gain when we go without. Q: What was it like that first night staying in a space no bigger than most people's living rooms? A: The first night was unusual because there's no instruction manual for living in a 12-by-12-foot cabin. I've spent some 10 years working abroad in developing countries, so I've gone through stretches of no electricity and roughed it quite a bit, but it was strange to be at the heart of the world's richest country and living with no electricity. I had just gotten back to the States and was becoming reaccustomed to living in a First World superpower and then suddenly it was like I was stepping into an "Alice in Wonderland" type situation where there were these people living a Third World lifestyle. There was this sense of nature pressing in around me. At first I felt quite alone out there, but soon I began to think, wow, there is another way. Q: You only brought your car and a backpack to the cabin. Is there anything you wish you had brought? A: Sometimes I would have loved to have had ice cubes! They're just so nice! But overall it was a great thing to strip down from all my stuff. While I was out there, I got rid of the car and rode a $26 bike. It was a beautiful thing, all that simplicity, because there was this whole new freedom. In my simplicity there was actually expansion because if you take away the clutter, you're left with this wide-open canvas of creativity and possibility. Those are times where you can find your own inspiration, your own purpose and authenticity, and express yourself from there. And it may be for other people that they would go into that situation and think about it completely differently than I did. But I think that once you've gone into this well of solitude and silence, it's hard to just live a superficial life. You'd maybe continue in the same path but do things a little differently. Q: During your time at the cabin, you met a lot of interesting people, many of whom you called "wildcrafters." Are they any different from the typical greenie? A: These people were more than just "eco." They were crafting their livelihood in harmony with the biosphere's limits by recognizing that the Earth is not just an endless supply of resources. As people we need to become the sum of our limits, not just the sum of our possibilities. Wildcrafters are a subculture that's really getting stronger. I was surprised to find so many people living off the grid, and not just off the electricity grid, but also off the grid culturally. That's not to say that tomorrow it's going to become the mainstream culture, but this is the way that social change happens, by these small pockets growing slowly. People start to feel meaning and purpose within, and then they just go gangbusters at a certain point and the movement really explodes. That's what I'm hoping, that there will be a tipping point, almost like in the 1960s when the counterculture became the culture. Suddenly there were millions of people rejecting consumerism and war and a superficial life and trying to explore other ways of doing things. Unfortunately the revolution never really took off, partially because there was no economic basis to it. In some ways the '60s revolution died out because people needed to get a job and hippies became yuppies. But if we can get a green economy based around this subculture, then it might stick. People are slowly waking up to the environmental crisis. They're like little cells of resistance responding to a disease. Q: In the book you seem to be really opposed to Thomas Friedman's "Flat World." Why? A: I think it's a problem with the story we're telling, that globalization is wonderful, that it's fantastic that the world is becoming a smaller place and all this technology is coming together. I'm not saying all of that is bad. But we really need to ask ourselves, what's an economy for? Life is not just about increasing its speed and efficiency. I think that the economy should be for creating happiness and well-being, not endless economic growth just the for sake of it. If you can live very well at a lower level, then why not do that? In Bhutan they call it living well. Instead of gross national product, they have gross national happiness. They're not trying to strive to have three SUVs in the garage and big houses. They're looking for family, friendship, nature and free time. It's a balance and once they reach it, they're done. It's so incredibly subversive and radical because it's totally against the typical work ethic. The flat world is creating a flat taste. We don't want to have this OneWorld Uniplanet where everything is the same. There's a monoculture developing and it's dangerous not just to the planet but also to our own individuality and our souls and spirits. I'm hoping that the book will be one of the little sparks that helps bring us back to humanity. Q: You argue that part of bringing us back to humanity involves becoming more like "free-range people." Can you explain what you mean by that? A: You look around and you notice a lot of times that we're not free-range. We're in these little cages, and we're being used for other people's purposes without even being aware of it, just like those industrial chickens in the factories. We often feel like we have a lot of freedom, but at the end of the day a majority of Americans are toeing the line, going along and being a part of the system, which in the end, let's face it, is suicidal. It's causing this huge extinction crisis and climate crisis. People often say, "Well, I have to keep doing these things to pay the bills." But isn't that the logic that the system is trying to get us to buy into? And do we have to buy into that? Q: Much of the book focuses on this idea of the "leisure ethic." Why should we reclaim the right to be idle? A: The leisure ethic focuses on this three-legged stool of having, doing and being. We have to have things. That's obvious. Possessions are necessary for life. We also have to do things because we're not rocks or trees. We're creatures that do things. But we're not human doings, we're human beings, so the third leg is being. Working abroad for the last decade plus, what I've seen around the world is that most countries put a premium on being and I think it's really what we're missing. We need to find ways to reclaim that. One way is to set aside an hour a day where you do absolutely nothing, whether it's idling in the forest or staring up at the stars. Just try to get out of your brain and feel the energy in your body. We're too hyperanalytical. It's kind of a craziness. And there's no doubt it can lead to economic success and building all kinds of wonderful things, but I think the reason why there isn't a lot of happiness in America is because we are too much in our own heads. If we're rich in mind then we're poor in time. Just try to find that space in your life in different ways. After all, what could be more eco than doing nothing? At least you're not burning fossil fuels! This book is not about saying you should live in a 12 by 12 off the grid and consume nothing. It's asking, what's your 12 by 12? How can you find a 12-by-12 space of freedom, of responsibility, of joy, in your own life? It's taking power away from this destructive corporate system and bringing it back to yourself. Other people may need more space, and that's OK. It's about achieving a balance.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/08/v-print/1914819/meet-the-man-who-lived-in-a-one.html#ixzz14txeRtaM

Living on $2 a Day

After reading my article “Becoming Wealthy on $2 a Day” in Back to Godhead Magazine, my good friend Prabhupada Das wrote to me saying that I was throwing down the challenge that the benchmark for simple living should be at $2 a day. He then asked when Gitagrad will reach that target of spending.


I posted the content of the BTG article on this blog almost a year ago, but if you want to see the BTG article, which has lots of photos from Gitagrad, follow this link.

Here’s my reply:

Well actually we are already at that goal, albeit prematurely, because we could sure use more income at the present. We take in about 600 hrn. (Hrivna, the Ukrainian currency) per month from selling paneer at the Sunday feast. This pays for some vegetables, grains and spices for the week, for phone expense (which we reduce by all using the same carrier, for which calls are free), and other miscellaneous items. One of our Partners-for-Life, Bhakta Jenya, takes care of the electricity bill each month. The other big need right now is firewood, but the men scavenge that from the nearby forests.

We reduce our food bill by purchasing no processed foods, and of course by eating what has been grown in our garden. Despite the fact that we lost most of the crops, we still produced quite a bit, and are now harvesting cabbages, beets, pumpkins, sunflower seeds, and green tomatoes. Right now, aside from food, we have very few expenses. 600 hrn. is about $75, for 5 people, for the month, which is about 50¢ a day, each, so we are way below the Millennium Development Goal target. For 5 people, at $2 a day, for 30 days = $300 for a month. It would be nice to have such income to develop our community. If we had more we would undoubtedly increase the standard of our Deity worship. And increased income would go to capital expenditure in the form of buildings, tools, greenhouses, animals, etc. So as long as we are below budget we can take this credit to offset other expenses, as they come up later, such as seeds, tools, etc.

How do we get to such a low level of expenditure? For one thing we eat quite simply. We have some dairy but not much. Only several times a week do we use butter, and once in a week or two will we will have paneer ourselves. The only person taking milk on a daily basis is Sakhi Vrinda, the 5 year-old daughter of Ekanatha Bhakti and Rasamanjari. And the only sweets we have is halavah, about once in a week. Typically we have kasha (grain cereal of some sort) for breakfast, and kitari or soup, gretchka (buckwheat) or rice, and a subji of cabbage or potatoes or both. For salads there is cabbage salad, or potato salad, or beet salad. And because we have a paneer business, for drinks we typically have sweetened whey, or else apple compote from our trees, or water.

I believe that not having a refrigerator also keeps the food bill lower, because we simply bypass the entire dairy section of the store. In the winter months we can keep things cold on the porch. Dairy is fresh the day we use it from the cows next door. We make our own sour cream and butter as by products of the paneer business.

(Speaking of dairy, of our cow Kartika turns out to have reproductive problems. We have been trying to get her in a family way unsuccessfully for almost a year. The vet said that she was raised for slaughter which means that they fed her a diet high in grains and this somehow affects the development of the reproductive organs. He said there is a 50-50 chance she could conceive if given vitamin therapy, so we are giving her vitamin injections once a week. If that fails then we will purchase another cow this spring).

In our Gitagrad Charter, which is the written ideology of our community, I explain that those who come to live here must bring sufficient clothing for 3 years. They should not expect that we have funds to buy clothing. So the members either bring what they need, acquire it by donation, or by some other exchange. For example, the devotee who does the paneer trade is also an astrologer. Typically, as this is a brahminical activity, he does not charge any set fee for consultations, but accepts donations. Recently because he needed winter shoes he did astrological readings for several days to acquire the necessary funds. We do not include such income and expense in the community budget, since it is a private expenditure. But such purchases are rare. Our members will also purchase from the used clothing store to keep spending at a minimum.

Unusual for a yatra, the Kharkov yatra has three dentists who are devotees, and who joyously donate our tooth care. Another devotee in Lithuania who is an optometrist provides my eye care and contact lenses as a donation. When devotees come to visit they often make a donation of supplies.

Not having a motor vehicle keeps our expenses way down. Gasoline is expensive at US $1/liter. Another thing that keeps expenses down is not having a store in our village. Thus there is no running off to the store to get some item that we may have run out of. Instead we just do without. The closest store in the nearest larger village about 10 km away, and the bus only makes that trip 3 times a day, so a visit to town for anything means a half-day adventure. Therefore we don’t have many of those. One trip to the store on the way back from the Sunday Feast is typically all the shopping we do. We spend time instead of money to go around, by taking busses. Also, sometimes visitors come by car and we arrange for them to bring the heavier or bulkier things that are difficult to transport by bus.

At this point we have no funds set aside for health care, and fortunately everybody is mostly healthy. In the past I have contributed money for health care for my translator Jaya Mangala and his wife. Medicines are also less expensive here than Europe or America, and typically packaged in small amounts to be affordable.

I should point out that we target the $2 a day threshold for ongoing maintenance, not for development or infrastructure. Infrastructure has so far come from gifts from our Partners-for-Life, such as the houses we live in, the wood saws that we use (a table saw recently purchased for sawing firewood ($80) was donated), the well pump, etc. We need more housing though. There are more devotees who want to join us here but we have no housing for them. Next year we would like to raise $30,000 to build 3 houses, and repair the existing ones. We also need to build a craft building for a weaving loom, clay products, etc. And of course as the community grows will need to build a temple.

While we are talking about reaching the Millennium Development Goals, we should mention water. The EU has mandated that in just several years they are going to impose heavy fines for Europeans using more than 60 gallons of water each, per day. Where are we at there? In my house here are two large water containers that we fill every other day. One holds 80 liters, the other 50, which is the equivalent of 34 US gallons. For my bath I use a 12 liter bucket, twice a day. That’s 24 liters, with the rest of it being used for cooking for the community of 6, washing dishes, and cleaning the floors, etc. Everybody here bathes with a bucket since there is no running water, so for 6 people that is 144 liters per day for bathing, which is 38 gallons. All the cooking is done in my house, so other water use is minimal, except for Kartika who consumes about 20-30 liters a day. So that comes to about 85 gallons every two days for 6 people and a cow. Of course all of this water comes directly from the earth, costing nothing either for delivery or for discharge.

Now, one may say that if we factored in all of the donations we receive that this would bring our daily expenses above $2. Possibly it would. But that is not how we do our accounting. Sri Krishna, Who is the owner of everything arranges the care for His devotees. He has many ways at his disposal for dealing with that. We consider donations as gifts from Him, and we happily reciprocate by worshipping Him with love every day.

It seems we can give a good example to the EU how to live in a sustainable way, and be happy in Krishna Consciousness. Living simply by reducing the unnecessary demands of the body reduces stress and demands on time. It is pleasing, satisfying, and easier to be Krishna conscious because there are less artificial demands on the body, mind and ego.

We're Not the Only Ones Using Dirt to Clean!


Some time back I wrote how we are using soil to clean in the kitchen. Well it turns out that lots of other folks are using dirt to clean things too--in this case--water!

Thirst Relief International is building bio sand filters and teaching households how to use and maintain them, greatly improving the cleanliness of drinking water and all but eliminating diseases caused by contaminated water. Bio sand filters are built with the help of an iron mold. Concrete forms the base of the filter and its center is filled with layers of differently-sized, crushed rock. Two layers of gravel and then fine-grained sand create three levels through which water is poured over the course of three weeks. Slowly on the very top forms what is called a biolayer. Once that final layer has formed, the filter removes 99 percent of the bacteria in water that passes through it and is ready to use.

The drinking water slowly filters through the layers of naturally formed bacteria and sand at a rate of about 1 liter per minute and comes out clean and ready for consumption from a pipe that’s connected through the concrete from the bottom to the side top outlet of the filter. If properly maintained a biosand filter can be used for up to 12 months without the need for much maintenance.

This story is from the Worldwatch blog. Read the entire article here.