New Indraprastha Dham, a Gitagrad Community in Russia

 

Outdoor kirtan at New Indraprastha

During the first two weeks of April I visited the New Indraprastha community in north Rostov Oblast, almost due east of Lugansk, Ukraine. The winter snows were finally gone and there was a slight hint of spring in the air. After the first spring rain the hint of green was visible in the gently rolling hills to the south. The New Indraprastha community was founded by Vaikunthanatha Dasa and his wife Kisori Murti Devi Dasi along with their daughter Nama Rasa some three years ago. 

I first met Vaikunthanatha and Kisori Murti in May of ’09 at the vyasapuja ceremony of their spiritual master His Holiness Indradyumna Maharaja. They had approached Maharaja for his blessings for their endeavors to establish a Krishna conscious village according to the vision of Srila Prabhupada. By Sri Krishna’s arrangement I was with Maharaja just at that time and he instructed them to work with me. We sat and talked about community development and I was impressed by their understanding and approach. And to my delight they not only understood the concepts of Spiritual Economics better than anyone else I’d discussed them with, but they had genuine realization on the subject. We immediately became very close.

I had wanted to get to New Indraprastha last October. It was my desire to settle in there for the winter and write volume two of Spiritual Economics. However, there were repeated delays in our efforts to get a proper invitation that would allow for a one-year stay in Russia. As it turned out I obtained the visa only in January this year, and made a brief first visit to New Indraprastha during the snowy and cold month of February before going to Rostov for another two weeks.

New Indraprastha in February

After studying Srila Prabhupada’s books for almost two decades Vaikunthanatha concluded that the most important thing needed push on Srila Prabhupada’s vision was to create a village community. At that point in time the immense country of Russia had but one village community at Kurgenova, further to the south, but it was something of a retirement community where devotee pensioners retired. Vaikunthanatha saw the need for a dynamic spiritual community dedicated to living the principles of the Bhagavad-gita for giving shelter to the Lord’s devotees. Daringly alone, they set out to establish New Indraprastha in a village that they had visited before, about 3 hours drive north of Rostov-on-the-Don.

The cows are coming home

At New Indraprastha there is a very well developed program for introducing potential members to the community. First of all they have a great deal of introductory material at the website. Upon reading over the website if someone expresses a desire in the community they are given access to further information at the website and they begin a dialogue with Vaikunthanatha and/or Kisori Murti. Progressing from that step, they are then asked to listen to a number of lectures on specific aspects of Krishna Consciousness, Srila Prabhupada’s desire for village communities, Varnashrama Dharma, etc. If after that step interest continues then the candidate is asked to view several videos giving yet further detail about village communities as the solution to problems at many societal levels. After all of this, if the candidate desires he is invited to spend some time at the community for some real life experience.

The Nature Sprites of New Indraprastha

New Indraprastha is a Daiva-varnashrama community, meaning that they follow the Isavasyam principle, that everything belongs to God, and the members are caretakers, not owners, of whatever is in their possession. They follow the principles of Spiritual Economics in that all work is done as devotional service without consideration of fruitive results. And as the community grows they intend to fully implement the Daiva-varnashrama culture, including the establishment of the social orders of life, the varnas.

As with almost every new community the membership waxes and wanes. Last summer there were as many as 25 people staying at New Indraprastha . This spring there were seven members present with an additional family coming from Israel after their infant child is a bit older. Additionally, a family from Germany that has been receiving training via the internet visited early in April and decided that, yes, this was the place for them. So they will be returning later this year to make New Indraprastha their home.

I am personally enthusiastic about New Indraprastha community because their leaders are serious about implementing the philosophy of Krishna Consciousness as a matter of daily living. I look forward to spending more time there to help these dedicated devotees become well-established in both theory and practice of Daiva-varnashrama dharma as an example for the rest of the world how to live a happy life in Krishna Consciousness.

 

From right: Dhanesvara, Vaikunthanatha, Anton, Kishori Murti, Andrei, 

and in front are Tanya and Nama Rasa 

Check out their website: www.pravednost.net. Although it is in Russian Google translator will give English-speaking people a bit of a glimpse into what the community is all about, and the wonderful devotees of Krishna who make it up.

Gandhi on the Future of the Village And The World

"In the future set-up we shall have only two things, the village and the world. We have the names of the countries on the map for the sake of convenience, but in reality, there will be no intermediary between the world and the village.  All the authority concerning the material side of life will rest with the village. The village will have power to order its own life. The power of moral advancement of the whole world will rest in the world center. The districts of the States will only be the agents of the Village community. Thus we shall have the village at the base and the World Authority at the Centre. Human society will be organized on the basis of small village communities, of, say, 2 to 3 thousands souls each. There would be no private ownership. The village will be a model of corporate life. The world centre will be the ultimate co-ordinating link between these primary communities." -- Mahatma Gandhi

This is my vision also. As the world increases in sattva-guna, artificial and impersonal political structures will fall due to being superfluous. It is only due to the demonic nature of increasing control that "countries" were created to begin with (please see chapter four of Spiritual Economics for more details on this). Some NWO hack has even been quoted as saying something to the effect that "countries were never that good an idea anyway." Of course he has it in mind that we shall do away with countries and have a global government under the control of a demonic oligarchy. 

Well, if we do not have a spiritual revolution, that is indeed what will happen. But, it is Lord Chaitanya's desire that the world will swim in the nectar of the holy names of the Lord, and if He wants it, that's what we shall have. Still we have to do the work. 

After we clean out the crud of Kali-yuga and sattva takes hold, what need is there for a political structure that is beyond any persons ability to participate? None. And so we shall see villages, wherein everyone has a voice in those questions that affect him or her, as the standard of life everywhere. It is our  business to create these villages in the standard of the Bhagavat culture. This is what we call Gitagrad -- the place where everyone lives according to the standard of the Bhagavad-gita.

Just a few days ago a friend introduced me to the concept of the "Chaordic organization," created by Dee Hock, the man who created the concept of the VISA credit card. He is an extraordinary man as you can read briefly in Wikipedia. Chaordic is a word that he created to describe systems that are both chaotic and ordered. It is worth the time to read and learn these concepts and I am now studying them to see how they apply or describe the varnashrama social system. My gut tells me that what he is explaining is the varashrama system, or at least that the concepts can be applied to create the neo-varnashrama that we will have in the future. 

For example, here are a few of the characteristics of chaordic organizations. They:

• Are based on clarity of shared purpose and principles.
• Are self-organizing and self-governing in whole and in part.
• Exist primarily to enable their constituent parts.
• Are powered from the periphery, unified from the core.
• Are durable in purpose and principle, malleable in form and function.
• Equitably distribute power, rights, responsibility and rewards.
• Harmoniously combine cooperation and competition.
• Learn, adapt and innovate in ever expanding cycles.
• Are compatible with the human spirit and the biosphere [and Bhagavat principles :-)].

 This is a great match with the varnashrama ideal and Gandhi's statement: "All the authority concerning the material side of life will rest with the village. The village will have power to order its own life. The power of moral advancement of the whole world will rest in the world center. The districts of the States will only be the agents of the Village community. Thus we shall have the village at the base and the World Authority at the Centre." 

Daiva-varnashrama, Gandhi's statement and the chaordic method all turn the present world order on its head. And that is how life should be. And, except for those who now run the world for their own pleasure, the world would run like this, and it the future it shall.

I invite you to read and learn about the chaordic way from the Permaculture Institute's Wiki. They see the chaordic principles as a natural harmonious fit with the ideas of permaculture and are endeavoring to apply them to practicing and teaching permaculture practices. There are very good articles there from Dee Hock and others. Please check it out here. You will find not only permaculture, but many ideas that can be applied now and in the coming post-modern world.

Another Reason to Spend More Time with Your Favorite Cow -- Bacteria Found In Cow Dung Can Make You Smarter

Researchers from the Sage Colleges in Troy, NY, reported today their findings that specific bacteria common to our environment may increase learning behavior. Dorothy Matthews and Susan Jenks, who conducted the study, shared their findings with those in attendance at the meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego.

The bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, is well known to scientists, as the dead bacteria is being tested as immunotherapy for asthma, cancer, depression, psoriasis, dermatitis, eczema and tuberculosis. M. vaccae, so named because it was first discovered in cow dung in Austria, is naturally found in soil, and it is inhaled when people spend time outdoors, especially where there are plants and trees.

It was found in previous research that heat-killed M. vaccae had anti-depressant effects on mice by stimulating the growth of neurons and levels of serotonin.  Mathews and Jenks, however, were curious about the effects of live M. vaccae, and fed live bacteria to an experimental group of mice to see how it would effect their navigation of a maze. 

The mice that were fed the live M. vaccae learned the maze twice as fast as the control group, which had not received M. vaccae, and the experimental group exhibited less anxiety as well.

Some time later, the experimental group was taken off the bacteria and tested again against the control group.  This time, the experimental mice did not learn the maze as fast as when they were given the bacteria, but they were still faster than the control mice.

In yet a third maze learning experiment, conducted after the mice had rested for three weeks, the experimental mice ran faster than the controls, but not fast enough to make a statistically significant difference. This suggested to the researchers that the effects of M. vaccae are temporary.

"This research suggests that M. vaccae may play a role in anxiety and learning in mammals," says Matthews. "It is interesting to speculate that creating learning environments in schools that include time in the outdoors where M. vaccae is present may decrease anxiety and improve the ability to learn new tasks."

Take a walk outdoors when you take a break.  You'll return more relaxed and smarter! 

Original article is here

A New Trend for the Cow Conscious

Fashionable or Freaky Hoof Footwear- Cloven Hoof Boots

Bovine footwear helps bring out the mooo in you. Check it out here.

The Peasant Commune in Russia: Rural Anarchy and Feudal Socialism

This is a fantastic article that I wish I would have had when writing the first volume of Spiritual Economics. Johnson explains in some detail how the communes of 19th century Russia functioned, and reveals that they functioned very much like that reported in other cultures. We are not surprised. What is surprising is how different the village life actually was from what we think it was. Please take time to read the entire article. It is well worth it.

By M. Raphael Johnson

The Russian peasant commune was an example of a real rural and Christian anarchism at work. The commune protected the peasantry from want, alienation, poverty and tyranny. By the end of the 19th century, the nascent capitalist classes were screaming for the commune to be destroyed, for peasants could not be dragooned into the cities or to work on the railroads or factories while protected by numerous layers of communal obligations, immunities and rights. In England at the same time, the capitalist ruling classes had already succeeded in tearing apart rural society, turning it over to landlords to exploit for personal profit, eliminating the small holdings and self-sufficient communities that were a threat to the stage, as well as to capitalism. By the beginning of the 20th century, English and American working class kids were being mutilated in the robber baron factories in huge numbers, with no advocacy or protections of any kind. The formerly protected rural peasants were turned into miserable proletarians. In Russia, the trend was precisely the opposite, as the Russian royal state introduced even more protections to the commune and immunities for workers. 


The institution of the peasant commune in pre-revolutionary Russia is one of the world’s unique institutions; and also one that is almost unknown. As Americans continue to work long hours for comparatively less pay, continue to see unions disappear, and see any kind of job security dissipate, maybe it is time to look at other models of economic organization.

It need not be said that the commune, for American historiography, is basically derided. This is largely for one important reason: the architects of liberalism and capitalism in Russia were the elite: the elite political and economic forces. For them, the commune was an irritant, a set of protections that permitted the average peasant a great deal of protections against exploitation. The destruction of the commune, then, was absolutely necessary for the Russian neo-Jacobins to impose constitutional capitalism on royal Russia. (cf. my The Third Rome: Holy Russia, Tsarism and Orthodoxy for a more detailed argument in support of this thesis.)

In the commune, the Church calendar was the primary medium for telling time. This meant that the work year was extremely short, for the calendar of traditional Christianity saw four fast period yearly as well as hundreds of feasts, either local, national or pan-Orthodox. One of the main reasons the liberal bourgeois in Russia hated the commune was that it sanctioned the traditional agrarian practice of only working about 2/3 of the year. The rest was made up in fasting, feasting and cultural pursuits. Therefore, the protections, immunities and traditions of communal life were absolutely incompatible with capitalism, “constitutionalism” and liberalism.

In a powerful and seminal article from Boris Mironov, “The Russian Peasant Commune after the Reforms of the 1860’s.” (Slavic Review, Vol. 44, Number 3 (Fall 1985)), is extremely important for the understanding of the peasant commune. Its significance lies in the fact that it takes its data from the survey of 816 communes between 1878 and 1880, sponsored by the Russian Geographical Society and the Russian Free Economic Society. Its results were astounding, and largely supported the claims of the pro-agrarian and pro-monarchist elements in Russia, then and now. The Russian peasant had it better in Russia than likely anywhere else in the world. This data proves it.

It is important to keep in mind the structure of the Imperial Russian state around the middle of the 19th century. The tsar’s power was basically limited to foreign policy and general taxation. He, of course, was the chief spokesman for the nation and the defender of the Orthodox church. However, at the agrarian level, where 90% of the population lived, royal authority was basically invisible. The peasant commune was the only relevant authority the peasant had to deal with.

Therefore, it is accurate to say that Russia was not a single, unitary state, but rather a collection of thousands of independent agrarian republics, held together by rather weak cords to the central monarchy. Professor Charles Sarolea, who visited Russia regularly, wrote in the 1925 issue of the English Review:

On closer examination we find the [Imperial] Russian state was a vast federation of fifty thousand small peasant republics each busy with its own affairs, obedient to its own laws and even possessing its own tribunals of starotsas (elders). The Russian state was not undemocratic, on the contrary if anything, there was too much democracy.

What makes the peasant commune such a unique institution is the power that it had. Each commune was a completely self-contained unit, answering to no other authority than its own body of elected elders. All police functions were discharged by the communal authorities, all legal matters were dealt with by the same. Any damage to property, any criminal offence whatsoever, was dealt with at the communal level. All public works besides were also within the jurisdiction of the commune. It maintained stores of grain during famines and assisted poorer members who suffered during the lean months of the spring. It controlled the cultural life of the people as well as all education. It even built its own parish churches and trained many of the rural clergy. The commune maintained all schools and hospitals. In short, it was absolute.

Now, the state’s interest in this was clear. For the commune to be self governing, yet still loyal to the monarchy, it was necessary for it to be completely independent of the state. Mironov writes “The government did not risk appointing its own people, who would have been independent of the peasant, to official positions in the commune; that would have been too expensive and ineffective at the same time” (445)

However, to make sure any village executive (specifically its chief executive) was loyal, he could be removed by the royal-appointed district governor. This, however, rarely occurred, largely because irritating the peasants, the great bastion of loyalty in the country, would not be in the interests of the royal state. Mironov continues in this vein:
If however, one analyzes how these officials actually functioned, it is clear that the government did not reach its goal: elected officials did not stand above the commune but operated under its authority, and all administrative and police measures in the commune were taken only with the consent of the village assembly. Only very rarely did elected officials become a hostile authority standing above the peasantry: they had to be periodically reelected, had no significant privileges, did not break their ties with the peasantry (elected officials were freed from taxes and other obligations, except those in kind, and continued to perform all forms of peasant labor), remained under the control of public opinion of the village (and in the event of malfeasance faced the threat of retribution), and shared the common interest of the peasants, not the interests of the state. As a rule the elected officials acted as the defenders of the commune, as petitioners and organizers. Frequently they emerged as leaders of peasant disorders despite the threat of harsh punishment. (445-6).

Many liberal Russia scholars might counter this by claiming that the elected village heads were required, after the 1860s, to faithfully carry out the will of the district authorities. However, though this is true, it was also true that no decree of the district authorities had validity in the commune unless it was approved by the village assembly.

According to the data collected by the Russian Geographic Society, the Russian peasant assembly consisted of all male heads of household. Decisions were not finalized until unanimity was reached, or, as Mironov has said, disagreement was brought to a level of silent sulking, which, at this level, was considered agreement. It is important to note, therefore, that each peasant had a specific stake in communal affairs as well as a corresponding voice. Any specific peasant, therefore, could not afford to be alienated from the community, as all decisions could be vetoed even by a relatively small group of disgruntled peasants.

In her “The Russian Peasant Family in the Second Half of the 19th Century” (Russian Studies in History, vol. 38, n.2, (Fall 1999)), Svetlana S. Kriukova sheds some more light on the structure of the family in the peasant commune. Now, though this article is not nearly as rigorous as Mironov’s (and is geographically limited to the black soil region), it is still very useful.

Because all legislation needed to pass the communal assembly, which was a function of direct democracy, the family became a far more important institution than the modern bourgeois understand. The structure of the peasant family was headed by the oldest male, though women would have that title if she was unmarried, and her sons were also unmarried (39). The wife dealt with domestic affairs and supervised the female members of the house. The wife had substantial authority in ordering marriages and the timetables concerning various economic projects. Now, the family acted as sort of a mini-commune, it was rational for the male to cast the deciding vote. However, a “mistress of the house,” that is, the mother of the wife, had relatively equal authority with the husband. Generally, disagreements within the family were solved by any elderly living within the neighborhood (41). But, regardless of who made the final decision, all functions of the household ultimately were under the scrutiny of the commune. Interestingly, the communal structure (at least in southern Russia), invented an innovation called “women’s weeks,” which were times during the year where the females of the household would be released from family or communal obligations in order to work purely for themselves. This was done both to raise more money and goods for dowries as well as provide the women in question with sufficient resources for old age or infirmity (45).

This, in many respects, was to maintain domestic solvency, for the assignment of tax duties made it imperative that each household maintained a proper standard of living. If the head of household was a drunk, or was incapable of keeping the family money properly, he was publicly berated by the communal authorities, often beaten and, in many cases, deprived of his status as head of household. It is clear that those who developed bad reputations as head of household either reformed quickly or lost their status. Many wound up in the army, with the commune then resuming care for the family until the minor male children came of age.

Those members of the family incapable of working, such as the elderly, the mentally ill crippled or sick, were guaranteed support. Whatever the family could not provide was provided by the commune. The communal courts rearranged debts and taxes, as well as the more important area of land allotment, for those families who dealt with sick or invalid members. No one was permitted to enter severe poverty.

If the state desperately needed the communes to pass certain forms of legislation, they were in no position to force the matter on them. Russian peasants are rebellious; they are fanatical traditionalists, the worst threat to any bureaucracy. The state, then, would resort to every sort of preaching and begging of the village males and elders in general to get things passed, largely in the realm of taxation. But even here, only the commune was capable of assessing tax burdens according to the ability to pay. The royal state, allegedly absolute, had no clue how much money each peasant was making or how wealthy any commune might be. All taxing decisions therefore, were made by elected elders and the assembly.

The commune, through its assembly and elected elders, decided on a periodic land redistribution, where peasant families with many children were granted more, while those with fewer were granted less. The point of work for the communal peasantry was to reach a balance, to maintain a standard of living that could provide all objective needs of the family itself. Profit was unknown, distrusted and, even until the revolution, scorned. Need was the key, and all forms of exploitation were condemned not only by law, but also by the common law of communal custom.

The communal system was based around basic subsistence agriculture as well as the periodic redistribution of land, tax duties and public works. All of this was done within the village assembly in respect to the state, the informal structure of older men in the village who exercised quite a bit of moral authority (men retired at 60 and all dues were forgiven at this time) and the elected executives. This constitutional structure permitted the wealthier peasants to pay the dues of the poorer, which was considered a moral obligation taken from Byzantine times. Poorer households were maintained in lean times largely due to the communal virtue of charity, a virtue maintained not necessarily by law, but by the strong hand of communal custom, which, if it might be said, was actually the basis of the constitution of any commune. In other words, if such ancient virtues were violated, it was not uncommon for severe punishments to me meted out by the people as a whole. Chronic violations were usually punished by banishment or, if the criminal was of the proper age, induction into the army.

As Mironov reports, one of the astonishing and revisionist aspects of communal life as the 19th century began to draw to a close was its amazing vitality. It is common in the Russian history literature in English to paint a picture of the oppressed peasants chafing at the commune (when they mention it at all) waiting to escape to take advantage of the money economy. This is nothing more than bourgeois, Whig history.

There is every reason to believe that the peasantry looked upon the bourgeois with disdain, as well as their competitive money economy. The date collected clearly proves this. When the reforms of Petr Stolypin made it easier for peasants to remove themselves from the commune and enter the bourgeois economy, very few actually did. According to the data, by the end of the 19th century, almost 90% of peasants were functioning within the communal structure. By Stolypin’s reforms in 1905-06, “only an insignificant number of peasants found an alternative to the commune in trade, industry or in the sale of their labor. As in the past, the great majority placed their hopes for a better life in the commune and a new agrarian reform. . .” (464). This shows, without question, that the peasantry had no use for the liberal capitalist parties, westernizers or western socialists. It was the commune that maintained the peasant’s loyalty to tradition and the tsar. It was only those at the extremes of the communal structure that actually left the community for the city. Those who became wealthy and sought even more wealth moved away, and those extremely poor who, for whatever reason, could not function were the two elements that left, but these never amounted to any more than 4 or 5%. Those that were criminal, slow or just plain uncooperative were inducted into the army where the famous harsh discipline of the Russian infantry would solve those problems.

The peasant commune is likely one of the greatest supporters for family liberty devised. But its superiority to western models exists not merely in the results of such organization, but also because it was no “devised.” It was perfected over 1,000 years of often hard experience. The communal structure, the tightly organized extended family and the traditional peasant love for communal and family liberty kept the state at bay right up until the revolution. The destruction of the communes, naturally, came immediately under Lenin’s rule.

The dishonest “radicals” saw the commune s a threat. Many Russian populists (narodniks), such as Alexander Herzen, believed the communal system to be the means whereby a native Russian socialism would challenge the western, Marxism brand. However, for these liberals, the communal structure was to be completely denuded of traditional culture and be largely a dependency of the New State. All that the socialists wanted had already been part of peasant life for a millennium, but the socialists simply lied as to what they wanted. They sought a non-Christian, secular state run by urban elites who treated communes as departments of state. Ultimately, this is largely the reason the Bolsheviks liquidated large segments of the peasantry. Comparisons of the peasant communal system and modern socialism are pedestrian, they have nothing in common. This is why the Russian New Men of the 20th century ultimately destroyed the commune while publicly professing devotion to it. The commune was a Christian anarchist collective, based around ethnic tradition, the church and the extended family, all interacting on the level of basic equality. Anarchists sounded ridiculous to the peasantry largely because their secular ideas, to be imposed by force, already existed, and where the virtues of charity and mutual self-government not only existed, but were part of the traditional mindset of the peasantry. The bizarre nature of Russian Masonic “radicalism” was that they were advocating what already existed. The catch was, however, that their new society was to be run by them, on secular and materialist principles with the state, of course, being all -powerful. Peasants then would be truly mere chattel at the service of the New Men.
From: http://www.rosenoire.org/articles/Peasant_Commune.php