Planet ISKCON

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New Vrindaban Cow Protection: Practical Necessity for a Peaceful Society

Back To Godhead Magazine, January 1976

By Vishaka devi dasi

Speaking on the troubled condition of our modern world, the late historian Arnold Toynbee once said, “The cause of it [the world's malady] is spiritual. We are suffering from having sold our souls to the pursuit of an objective which is both spiritually wrong and practically unobtainable. We have to reconsider our objective and change it. And until we do this, we shall not have peace, either amongst ourselves or within each of us.”

The conditions of our urbanized, technology-oriented society that prompted Dr. Toynbee’s remarks are no mystery to us. Especially in the West, and increasingly in the rest of the world, the mad quest for artificial luxuries has created a chaotic atmosphere pervaded by greed and power-seeking. The goal of life? “How many ways can I make money?” and “How many ways can I spend it?” The results of such a philosophy are painfully evident: internationally, we face the risk of nuclear destruction; nationally, crime waves and political corruption rule the land; and individually, we are plagued with anxiety, frustration and despair.

In the peaceful hill country near Moundsville, West Virginia, a sprawling thousand acre farm called New Vrindaban gives sanctuary to cows, guaranteeing them a long and happy life in return for their bountiful supply of milk. Milking the cows is a cheerful activity for the herdsmen who appreciate the animals’ good temperament.

This is the unfortunate result of a society without spiritual direction. According to the Vedic scripture Srimad-Bhagavatam, a truly peaceful, progressive society must be based on service to God. Such a spiritually evolved civilization actually flourished on this planet five thousand years ago and the people were rich in both spiritual and material assets. The Supreme Lord was pleased with the service rendered by the citizens, and thus He profusely supplied the necessities of life milk, food grains, fruits, vegetables, silk, cotton, minerals and jewels. Being fully satisfied spiritually, people did not look for pleasure in artificial sensual stimulation indulged in at the cost of health and sanity. People lived simply, close to nature and close to God free of the encumbrances of a modern mechanistic civilization. Dwelling on tracts of land suitable for complete self-sufficiency, Vedic agricultural families used all the resources at hand. Because the cows were treated very affectionately and protected from any harm, they were very joyful and secure. Thus, they contributed much greater amounts of milk than today’s animals. The very valuable cow dung was used not only as a fertilizer but also as a heating and cooking fuel, and even as a cleanser. (Modern science has confirmed the disinfectant properties of cow dung.) And bulls provided the muscle for plowing and harvesting the fields, milling the grain, and pulling oxcarts full of people and commodities.

Jets of warm milk squirt into a bucket from a cow’s generous udder. Buckets are then poured into ten-gallon cans. On a good day, a Holstein fills up one can with eighty pounds of milk.

Accustomed as we are to modern conveniences, we may regard such a life as primitive and far from ideal. However, when the Supreme Lord Sri Krsna appeared on this planet five thousand years ago, He showed by His own example that for both material prosperity and spiritual advancement, human civilization must maintain the cow and bull very carefully.

Ajeya dasa pours milk into a stainless steel container.

At New Vrindaban, ISKCON’s Vedic village near Moundsville, West Virginia, Lord Krsna’s example is being put into practice. Established by His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada nine years ago, New Vrindaban now spreads over one thousand acres of hilly farmland and is a perfect example of the benefits derived from organizing society according to the principles of cow protection and service to Krsna. Kirtanananda Swami, leader of the New Vrindaban community, describes the project’s purpose: “It is a great vision of presenting to everyone, not only in this country but in the whole world, how one can become Krsna conscious living just as Krsna lived in Vrindaban, depending on nature and the cows.”

A devotee offers dairy foods and a variety of the farm’s harvest to please Lord Krishna on the altar at New Vrindaban.

A few of the many tasty dishes that can be made with milk.

The following is a conversation between BTG staff photographer Visakha-devi dasi and two cowherd men of New Vrindaban.

Visakha dasi: You seem to enjoy working with cows very much. Can you tell us why?

Ambarisa dasa: The cows here at New Vrindaban are special. You can sense this immediately when you come in contact with them. They’re Krsna’s cows. They’re very dear to Krsna, and when you work with them it’s easy to remember Him. They’re mellow and their temperament reflects on you.

You have to approach them with an attitude of service. By relating to them on a personal basis and serving them with a humble attitude, you can see them as living beings with feelings and personalities. Most farmers raise cows with a dollar sign in their mind. It’s very impersonal. Regular dairy farmers or ranchers use the cow as a machine or a tool for their own selfish ends. It’s very gross. But when we serve Krsna’s cows, we realize that each one has a specific personality.

Jennifer enjoys a pastry cooked in clarified butter.

Visakha dasi: Why do you say that these cows at New Vrindaban are Krsna’s cows? Aren’t all the cows everywhere Krsna’s cows?

Ambarisa dasa: Yes, but these cows are special. They belong to Krsna even more because they’re serving Krsna more. That is, their milk is being offered to Krsna in the temple here. That’s why we take so much trouble with them. Because the milk they give is for the pleasure of Lord Krsna. Also, these cows are happier than cows on other farms. Most farmers send their cows to the slaughterhouse when they get to be a certain age. The cows know they’re going to be slaughtered they can sense it. They seem very sad, so they’re less attractive. But our cows know they’re not going to be slaughtered they know they’re being protected. They’re a lot happier, and they give lots of milk.

Every day at four P.M., the cream from the day’s two milkings is churned into butter by Viduttama dasi. Inside the can, the rod she holds is attached to a round wooden disc with a sawtoothed edge. When the rod is moved up and down, the disc churns the cream into a rich, light-colored butter.

Visakha dasi: What’s your daily routine?

Ganendra dasa: One of the best things about working with cows is that your life becomes well regulated. We get up at two in the morning to milk the cows. It’s very nice because we know we’re doing it just to please Lord Krsna. It puts us right on the transcendental plane first thing in the day.

The schedule fits in nicely with our temple routine. We milk the cows at two o’clock, and as soon as we’re done milking, we go into the temple and attend the morning functions. We’re busy all the time this way, and we don’t fall down to a mundane level. The early morning hours are the best time for spiritual practice.

Afternoon sun streams through late summer foliage as an ox team hauls logs for winter firewood out of the forest. Bulls are needed as much as cows in a Vedic community; besides hauling, they plow the fields, grind the grains, and provide transportation. The trio of bulls, cows and land forms the central structure of Vedic economy.

Ambarisa dasa: Cows are the most regulated animals I know. They eat at a certain time, are milked at a certain time, go out to the fields at a certain time, walk so many hours a day, chew their cud for so many hours a day. Their bodies function on a tight schedule, and whenever this schedule is upset even a little bit, they immediately let you know. So you have to be really fixed in your duty. You have to think, “If I don’t milk the cows, they’ll get sick, and then they won’t give any milk.” The devotees who are cooking the food that gets offered to Krsna are thinking the same thing “If I don’t cook this offering for Krsna, then He won’t get anything to eat.” The consciousness is very personal, very nice.

Ambarisa dasa rounds up two young bulls to take them down the hill to the barn.

Ganendra dasa: It’s just like with people. There’s always an exchange of feelings. Since the cow is a person too, when we become friendly toward them, each cow responds personally. That’s how cows are the more affectionate you are to them, the more affectionate they are to you. They give more milk and are happier.

Ganendra dasa treats his son to a ride on Dvipa, a two-year old heifer.

Ambarisa dasa: That’s one thing about New Vrindaban. All the animals here are free from anxiety, and anyone who comes here feels that and also becomes free from anxiety. Recently a newspaper reporter visited us, and he wrote in his article that when you’re at New Vrindaban you may not realize how free from the mundane rat race you are, but as soon as you go back you understand that you’ve been in a transcendental place.

Feeding the calves half gallons of milk at a time, Vijaya dasi fills in for the mother cows. When feeding directly from their mothers, calves often get sick from their inevitable overindulgence. For cows, calves and bulls to live happily, human beings must protect them.

Visakha dasi: Do you think it’s practical to put so much emphasis on the cow?

Ganendra dasa: Well, we’ve seen here that cows actually can support human society materially and spiritually. In fact, that’s the purpose of the cow. They give more milk than their calves can drink. So the extra milk is meant for us it helps us develop a good brain for understanding spiritual life. Also, she supplies pure cow dung that can be recycled into the fields to cultivate the grains and the pastures. And the bull helps till the fields. In this way a perfect cycle is maintained. We cultivate crops on land fertilized with manure; then we offer the food to Lord Krsna: Krsna eats sumptuously, we eat sumptuously, the cows eat sumptuously, and everyone is satisfied.

On the other hand, slaughtering the cow is detrimental to everyone. The meat is harmful to your body and your brain. And the cow has been caused much pain, so there are great sinful reactions to suffer. If you protect the cows, give them what they want, and derive the benefits in the way Krsna intended, then when they die of their own accord you can use the skin for leather, if necessary. But you don’t have to kill cows.

The Srimad-Bhagavatam says the cow is an offenseless living being. It’s Krsna’s arrangement that the cow takes so little and gives so much. From her milk you can make hundreds of delicious preparations. She simply performs her service very peacefully without any bother to anyone. These are the qualities of an ideal devotee, and they’re reflected on those who work with the cows.

A local West Virginia newspaper recently called New Vrindaban’s 120 cows “one of the best dairy herds in the state.”

Snana Yatra 2013 Part 1 Melbourne

Govardhan, in his role as a devotee, is just ecstatically running towards Krsna, believe it or not! For the skeptics, what can I say? For the cynics, there are clinics… (smile)

For the devotee, life is a miracle. And this is what Prabhupada said about miracles, “Miracles don’t exist! It is simply that we don’t understand.

So miracles don’t exist. Why is something a miracle? When we’re dealing with Krsna, the unlimited Supreme Lord, are we saying there is something that Krsna cannot do? What is a miracle for Krsna? He’s not limited!

So do you think that Govardhan cannot run? Watch out next time you’re on Govardhan parikrama!

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May I love Vrndavana, where at the base of a kadamba tree on the cool shore of the Yamuna a dark complexioned, amorous, divine youth dressed in yellow garments plays a flute as He glances at Radha’s lotus face.

[Source : Nectarean Glories of Sri Vrindavana-dhama by Srila Prabodhananda Sarasvati Thakura, 1-27 Translation ]

Kali Yuga series – the conclusion.

The post How to exorcise ourselves from the haunting of Kali appeared first on SivaramaSwami.com.

(this blog is recorded on the full page: quick time player is needed; works best with Firefox or Explorer; if you are using Google Chrome it will automatically play, so to not listen, mute your speakers.)

You might consider this blog as a mirror, or opposite, of my last one on amazing things. I have often noticed how it is easier for people to be against something, than for something, and was reminded of this topic by a few comments on some Facebook posts. One person was upset with my “amazing topics” blog that I didn’t include something he was attached to, and then someone complained about my Bhagavad Gita quote, since it is a translation by Prabhupada with certain editing they don’t approve of. While I understand their complaints, I post on my Facebook page and share my Krishna.com blogs to (hopefully) inspire devotees and as my service to them—certainly not to upset them, though hopefully to get them to think—which is, of course, hard work, while reacting is easy, and is the just the opposite. Anyway, along with being a tad annoyed, I had to laugh at human nature (always a good idea), and was grateful for a blog topic that I think is quite interesting.

If you want to get a big group together in “agreement,” find something to be against, some pending problem or disaster, or the shortcomings of a public leader, and you will likely be successful. This is why negative political ads work. Even though the general population says they don’t like them, they still listen. Another way to "unite" people is to discuss, or complain about, the news! Bad news and scandals' sell and make headlines, while good news or stories of a Good Samaritan are often hidden inside the paper or website. If they do make the front page, they are only one out of twenty stories.

News is business, and a news business means readers or viewers are require to make money. Thus they want to give people news that gets their attention through being sensational, or shocking, which in reality doesn’t often reflect the sum total of what is really going on. And the result of constantly hearing bad news is that people become more afraid, cynical, and negative about life.

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To be frank and brief, the Vedas are not user-friendly.

Why not?

Because they were not written for the masses. They were written for extremely literate, experience, brilliant people – who used them as sourcebooks and explained their content in a user-friendly manner to hundreds of more common people whom they interacted with.

Vyāsa scrutinized them once, to make them simpler, and produced the four Vedas we know of today. Again, they were not really user-friendly. So he scrutinized them again and produced the Upanishads. The main themes were becoming more obvious for more ordinary reader, but the upanishads were still quite abstract and difficult. So he repeated his scrutiny a third time and produced the Puranas. These were much more readable to ordinary intelligentsia. But still… Then Nārada helped him discover the final touch, and he created Śrīmad Bhāgavatam at long last.

So, if we want a user-friendly Veda, our best bet is to read Śrīmad Bhāgavatam.

Still, its not very user friendly compared to what we are used to these days in books. Its still because its not designed to be a do-it-yourself manual. The original paradigm still exists – that Sanskrit Vedic texts are written for highly experienced spiritualists, who then explain it to the masses and thus make it user friendly.

So, the user-friendly form of the Veda is guru.

Now that literacy is very high among all classes of people, it will be a good service to Śrī Vyāsa to make further attempts to produce written works that are highly user friendly. But this era (where there are modern writers with the experience and qualification to do so) is just beginning to dawn.

by Sukhavaha dd

I don’t usually go to movies but I heard from one devotee that Gravity had a deeper spiritual theme with subtle messages. I had the following realizations about how this movie portrayed aspects of our spiritual journey:

On life’s journey, we think we are existing in life (space) to accomplish some feat. Without gravity, we are floating and we are constantly grasping to hold onto the space ship (our only known reality). Then some catastrophe shakes our world and our connection to “reality”  (the space ship) is broken.

Our spiritual mentor gives us grounding guidance. At some point, we have one “string” connecting us with our past (space ship) and our guide. Our guide instructs us, “You need to learn to let go.”  Letting go, we feel we have lost our guide, until we hear his voice instructing us. As we follow the instructions (vani) in separation from the vapu, we find our way back to the old “reality” (the space ship), which is now burning (deteriorating). We discover our parachute is attached so we cut the ropes that bind us to the past.

When we get to the small capsule, we think we have our escape plan. When we find we are  out of fuel – we cannot see any way out. We become desperate – angry – depressed – and then resigned. We want to die (go unconscious). As we approach death, we call out – to something beyond us. We offer an attempt of a prayer, in resignation, a form of total surrender.

When we give up the knowing self, again our guide returns to wake us to another level of consciousness. “Just be here and look at what you DO have.”  “Don’t look to the past. Be present and look in front of you.”

In this place, our guide pushes us through the pain of our attachment and guilt. We let go of our pain and our limited conceptions about reality. We forgive ourselves and gratefully proceed with a renewed faith into an even deeper spiritual journey. The “Dark night of the soul” where we see nothing ahead of us.

We thrust ourselves forward – letting go of the fear that holds us to the past – and eject ourselves to another level of consciousness (the capsule) that can transport us home – to our spiritual reality.

In this place, we realize there is no going back to the past reality – it doesn’t exist. We have no idea if we will survive – and we realize it doesn’t matter. Either way – we will either have a great story to tell – or we will have an incredible journey – we are not attached (and not evolve. In the process of transformation, our re-entry is a burning off of all the old forms that we had been using. Everything must be burned for us to descend into our humanity (humility) and be reborn (transformed).

The Force of God’s Love (Gravity) is now pulling us back home. We shake as we burn off attachment to the ego mechanisms – as we “descend in grace to our spiritual place of belonging” (our spiritual identity).

We land in the water – where the capsule is filling with water. If we again become attached to the form in which God’s grace has come to us, we may be consumed (drown). We cannot remain in this womb. For transformation to take place, we must become “naked” shedding all our outer coverings  weighing us down. We are reborn and breathe again. “Confirm your identity.” (We are not the same.)

We make it to shore and impulsively grasp the sand thinking we need to hold on to something – to some form. Now feeling the solid ground under our feet, we re-discover gravity (our spiritual place of belonging). We have an epiphany – no more holding onto the forms of how we think Grace (the Love of God) will appear to us.  We have found our true self – and our true grounding – and we rejoice.

2013 12 28 Srimad Bhagavatam 10 33 38 Only By Pure Devotional Service Can Enter Into Bhagavatam

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 29 September 2013, Melbourne, Australia, Srimad Bhagavatam 2.2.36)

Srila Prabhupada spoke out about machines. He said that although machines are leading the degradation of society, he pointed out that the same machines could be used in the service of Krsna. He said, “Machineries are not that bad because through the machine every one can take advantage of hearing about the Lord.” So Prabhupada, in that respect, was very modern, very much the acharya of the modern age.

Prabhupada gave initiations in that way. Second initiations, he also gave by the tape – the tape with the gayatri mantra. Normally, the gayatri mantra is spoken by the spiritual master in the ear of the disciple so some people in India objected, “How could he do this? This is not bona-fide. Those people are not initiated. No, this is not bona-fide. How can it be on the tape? How can that be bona-fide?” 

But Prabhupada, he did it like that - just played the recording on the machine. “That is not the same as speaking it in the ear and therefore these initiations do not count,” some would say. Of course, I would argue back. It is said that when Sukadeva Gosvami finally came out of the womb of his mother, where he remained for sixteen years to the great discomfort of his mother, when he came out, he did not wait for anything.

His father said, “At least wait and let me give you some education.” He did not wait. His father said, “Well, at least let me give you the sacred thread. At least that much, at least some samskar.”

He did not wait he just left. His father then went into the forest, after his son, and he called out his name. No response was there; no response at all except the echo that came off the trees. The echo that came off the trees, it is said, that also was bona fide, that was the chanting of the trees. So here, we see. A tape recording is just like an echo – it is an echo of the voice. Therefore, we say that the chanting on the machine is also bona-fide because it is the echo. In this way, we can appreciate it.

Sukadeva did not want to come back then Vyasadeva began to recite certain verses from the Srimad Bhagavatam. When Sukadeva heard these verses at a distance, he did come back to his father because the Bhagavatam is so attractive,

ātmārāmāś ca munayo
nirgranthā apy urukrame, (Srimad Bhagavatam 1.7.10)

Even a self-realized soul is attracted by descriptions of Krsna because they are naturally attractive. So it attracted the heart of Sukadeva Gosvami who came and his father had instructed him on Srimad Bhagavatam.

In this way, we see that education is valuable after all but not mundane education, not the ordinary education of this world but simply the education of Krsna consciousness. One who is perfectly Krsna conscious, he need not worry about anything, everything will be supplied, everything will come on the path!

The Vedanta deals with a theme beyond the finite views of phenomena. The subjects dealt with in that particular philosophy is not confined to any part of the material space, any definite span of time or any object of sensuous perception made up of any substance of this Universe. The activities of a being are measured in time, the playground of a being either linear, superficial or cubical is accommodated in space and the limited subjectivity or fleshly tabernacular entity is confined to phenomenon. The Vedantic scheme is quite different from such limited structural monuments though some people attempted to bring Vedanta within the prison bars of their senses.

- Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura, The Vedanta – Its Morphology and Ontology

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May Sri Vrindavana, which grants auspiciousness and bliss to all, and which is deeply loved by two or three great souls, become the mother and protectress of blind me.

[Source : Nectarean Glories of Sri Vrndavana-dhama by Srila Prabodhananda Sarasvati Thakura, 1-26 Translation ]

Special Day Meditation Podcast

Special Day Meditation Podcast