Srila Prabhupada’s idea of varnashram was practical. Nonetheless, for those habituated to modern living, his vision of living simply on the land seemed unattainable. For various reasons, to this day, the Hare Krishna movement has little to show with regards to a practical demonstrations of varnashrama dharma.
Finding a ksyatriya or a brahmin in these times is nearly impossible. Therefore our first task should be training devotees in these roles. To do that we first need a group of disciples of Srila Prabhupada living close together and having daily programs of sadhana, cooperative preaching and Deity worship. In the future Krishna consciousness may be fostered by devotee association within a varnashrama framework, but for now, and for us, we need to first reestablish a public temple and an ashram of devotees before we can begin a varnashrama village. In other words, the first Vedic village must be founded by dedicated disciples of Srila Prabhupada, not by Vedabase pundits and new breeds of Vedic speculators.
Srila Prabhupada indicated that varnashrama farm projects should be attempted by established ISKCON temples. Without men, land and finances, it is extremely difficult to create an economic situation that can maintain devotees, cows, and Deities in a village situation. It will take many decades to establish all these programs unless several devotees cooperate carefully with a common aim.
Southern Oregon may be the best place in the USA for establishing varnashrama. Pristine conditions, fertile soils and mild climate are a great boon. Nearby are towns for preaching Krishna consciousness. Many devotees have visited our temple in Ashland and Butte Falls and said, Great place for preaching! Great place for varnashram! The Hare Krishna movement has a chance now, for the first time in many years, of being able to establish the land and infrastructure necessary to support devotees, cows, regular Deity worship and a varnashrama college — or at least a training center for practical farm skills.
Rather than imagining we will soon find devotees to fill all these roles in varnashrama villages, we might do better to first create facilities for vanaprasthas and brahmacaris an ashram for hearing and chanting, preaching and Deity worship. By our regular programs of hearing and chanting, we can establish Vaisnava tradition. Later, as we are able to employ devotees properly, Krishna can easily send us the required physical association of devotees capable of acting as brahmins, sudras, vaisyas and ksyatriyas.
We will eventually need living varnashrama teachers who teach by practical example as well as by reason and philosophical study of Srila Prabhupada’s books. Brahmins, though not trained for fighting, can train ksyatriyas by teaching students foundational concepts and principles of the martial class. Srila Prabhupada has explained that brahmins can train any of the other classes. Various types of martial techniques constitute secondary training and are worse than useless without the primary training of ksyatriya character, determination and dedication to Guru and Krishna. Srila Prabhupada has indicated all these programs in his talks on varnashram in Vrindaban in 1974. Regarding brahminical and devotional training, Srila Prabhupada set up many classes and programs concisely for this purpose. We need to establish now the infrastructure and tradition for a genuine place of pilgrimage in America, as Srila Prabhupada wanted. New Vrindaban, Gita Nagari and other iskcon projects are presently useless for this transcendental purpose.
(by Narasimha dasa)
Persons interested in this project may contact Narasimha das at narasimhadas8@yahoo.com or Yasoda nandana dasa at yasoda1008@yahoo.com
PAMHO, AGTSP.
This is Anubhavanda dasa, the poet who visited you with Damaghosa at your meeting a few years ago. It was the time Damaghosa attacked you for your phisophical understanding which I completely agree with. Because I have read many statements in Prabhupada’s books and the Varnasrama books and have seen one video on youtube that more than completely confirms Prabhupada’s actually I believe desperate desire to establish a community based on Varnasrama priciples. It really pains me to no end that there can not even be an agreement among Prabhupadanugas by which we can cooperate together for Shrila Prabhupada.
Because from what I can understand Prabhupada said if you love me you will cooperate together to spread my mission. And I’m not really that scholarly or super intelligent but it’s easy for me to understand Prabhupada really wanted for one thing to give facility for his initiates who proved they could not follow brahminical principles to be engaged according to their natural tendencies and show the example to the whole human society of the practical way all people could be peacefully situated. But clearly this will be no easy job if we can’t even agree among ourselves what was Prabhupadas prime purpose for coming to us here in the west and everywhere he went really.
Than again we know Krishna says in the Bhagavad gita that is a really rare soul that really comes to understand him properly. But Prabhupada to me, really gave excellent knowledge understandable to all who are really serious about executing life’s mission.
I really am very pleased myself to read you speaking out about this, we obviously need many more devotees preaching to devotees these truths. The truth that I believe Prabhupada when he was on this planet sent out a letter that somehow did not get to everyone, but I believe he did ask all his grhasta devotees to move to one community to establish Vanasrama principles. After all like you said, how else are we even going to get things started unless we get as many devotees as we can together to first of all just cooperate together to do what we were doing in the early days anyhow, which was putting Prabhupada in the center, because we didn’t have all the hogwash pretenders around us posing as gurus.
Anyhow I believe you are among Prabhupada’s diesciples that it was very predictable that things would come to this. Because there are so many histories of bonafide spiritual movements getting corrupted, because the demons of this world who are actually very powerful and intelligent misuse all that to get out of their way what they consider obstacles to their progress especially those that can reveal their cheating godless propagation.
I don’t really know if your aware of the illumanati cult that Mukunda is expounding so much about at his site and on youtube. He was the one who printed that very nice Prabhupada lilamrta.
But anyhow, I’m totally on your side, most unfortunately I don’t know what I could do to help you on my lousy ssi income and just very limiting karmic circumstances. Just the same it seems to me those with really very good karma for living comfortably tend to feel threatened by the Varnasrama formula so just try to deny that it exist. But isn’t that the nature of material attatchment and ugly pride also.
Because after all it takes the greatest humility to cooperate together in a communal situation. Although really it is totally Krishna’s mindset for society in general that we do just that. Aside from this Prabhupada said they won’t bomb the farm communities just the cities and ofcourse the devotees are always protected.
I mean Prabhupada tested this himself after wars or devastating calamaties Prabhupada actually looked through villages that were bombed and saw all the devotees survived. Still this isn’t all we are intersted in as devotees. on the contrary if we’re really great devotees anyhow, we can’t tolerate to see anyone suffering what to speak of our own family members Prabhupada created for us really.
So we must arrange for everyone’s happiness not just our own, that was Prabhupada’s motivation I belive.
Or why did he emphasise so much mass book distribution and why was he so upset in the end when he said there was one thing he very much regretted implementing more, that is Vanasrama. I read these statements from Prabhupada myself and yet there is so much disturbance from some when this truth is brought out on the table.
I’m afraid this is why there must be some war in the future to kick these denyers to their senses. Somehow Krishna must fullfil his desire for the golden age to take place which would be an age inspiring to everyone because of the spiritual social conditions under Prabhupafda guidance of completely wiiling cooperation for the happiness of all with the brahmins and every order of life working as it was intended for the pleasure of the Diety in the center of the community. Anyhow, all glories to your service and preaching. All I can do is pray you get all the assistance you need just to fulfill Prabhupada’s mission…
your fallen servant,
Anubhavananda dasa
Dear prabhus,
PAMHO AGTSP!
I just have to make a correction from my last letter perhaps. I mentioned how Damaghosa prabhu attacked Narashimha prabhu on his philosophical understanding about Varnasrama. But this was really a rare occurance for Damaghosa and he was really very sorry he did that afterwards. Actually Damaghosa prabhu has perhaps the nicest temple in the united states for devotees to come together and congregate. He has a super excellent garden that he lives about 99% self sufficient from. And it really is my duty as a aspiring vaishnava to get rid of any bad feelings I might of created. Really Damaghosa is my best friend here in seattle washington and all my friends I am sure would agree, he is one of Prabhupada’s most compassionate and fixed up devotees on the planet!!!!
I really want to invite all devotees to visit his place when he celebrates Vaishnava celebration days. Like I said previously I wish we could as Prabhupadanugas agree more and work together more because it seems it was Prabhupada’s desire. Anyhow Damaghosa is such a wonderful strict example of a good disciple, I just had to mention this. I am below even neophyte myself, and I’m a Prabhupadanuga who believes that Prabhupada is our perfect initiating guru for at least the next ten thousand years. And since this movement has not really been around that long we still have a while to go before we can really establish the kind of situation Prabhupada really is desiring because of the very strong western influences that still govern our consciousness I believe.
This kind of independent minded consciousness with attatchments to our own little bungalow in the material world. Still Damaghosa’s place is all based on pleasing the dieties in his gorgious temple and growing enough food to make the dieties happy and it is all free from the non devotee’s contaminations. So really Damaghosa really did pick up on Prabhupada’s meessage that our living quartes should be a temple and we should not really be depending on non devotees for anything!!!
Anyhow, I just feltt a need to glorify the auspiciouse qualities of Damaghosa prabhu, not that he’s on the same level of Shrila Prabhupada but who is among us, so we are bound to make mistakes and offenses in so many ways. I just want to be a servant of all the Prabhupadanugas in any way I can, so far all I have is my poetry to try to point all to Jagat Guru. My email address is bhima1600@webtv.net
Pleasse forgive all my offences and feel free to send me your advice..
Currently i only see Damaghosa and his wonderful congregation of devotees every week or two weeks and I am so much in need of the association of devotees even though I have been trying to serve Prabhupada since 1971 when I was initiated by him. Anyhow I myself am not an example to follow in so many ways and I need so much the kind of situation we had in the old days, a temple I can take shelter of with many fired up devotees. But it seems right after these demons removed Prabhupada’s physical darshan from our myst they also removed most of his awesome parafenelia in the form of devotees from our ability to associate with also, it seems most of them went underground to excape those demons who spoiled the house Prabhupada made mostly for our protection I believe. After all wasn’t it Prabhupada who said 75% of our advancement was the association of devotees!! It seems those demons understood this point so they knew if they removed Prabhupada from most of our vision it would desstroy any chance of most of us maintaining our spiritual lives.
So, I guess this is Krishna’s Will, after all Prabhupada said nothing can act, nothing can move with out the desire of Krishna. That consciousness is Krishna consciousness, this was a dictated in Prabhupada’s tenth canto of SB.
sO, TELL ME NOW WHAT IS TO BE DONE? YOU ASK ME IF VARNASRAMA WAS INSTITUTED, SOME BIG COMMUNITY ALL OF US COULD TAKE SHELTER OF WAY BACK WHEN PRABHUPADA ASKED FOR IT WHEN HE WAS ON THIS PLANET, THINGS MIGHT OF BEEN ALOT DIFFERENT. BUT MUCH OF THIS INFORMATION WAS ALSO BLOCKED FROM US BY THIS SINISTER MOVEMENT IN OUR SOCIETY THAT PRABHUPADA MENTIONED BACK THEN.
Still some of us are still fighting on, and perhaps this is some kind of plan to glorify us survivors like it was for the Pandavas when they were also banned from their rightful claim. Hare Krishna!!!!
your eternal servant,
Anubhavananda dasa
Hari Bol,
pamho AGTSP
“In the future Krishna consciousness may be fostered by devotee association within a varnashrama framework, but for now, and for us, we need to first reestablish a public temple and an ashram of devotees before we can begin a varnashrama village. In other words, the first Vedic village must be founded by dedicated disciples of Srila Prabhupada, not by Vedabase pundits and new breeds of Vedic speculators.”
FIRST THINGS FIRST! If we can not get Prabhupadanugas to even start a temple in the west, how will we be able to do Varnashrama Dharma Farms? The real problem is that by now Prabhupadanugas are so much fractionalized that we simply do not even have to manpower and recources to start a temple. We somehow need to stop the fighting by POSITIVE Engagements like Kirtan,Deity worship etc, so people will give up this tendency to just fight and argue amongst each other out of lack of positive devotional engagement. If you ask me people need to start comprimising and accept that something is better than nothing, othervise the movement will probably die out in the west.
Srila Prabhupada Memory Video about Varnashrama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnkAimAM87c
“Shortly before Srila Prabhupada departed from this world, there were a few conversations he had about Gita-nagari. In one conversation, downstairs in his house in Vrindavan, he was talking about his impending death, and he said, “I have no lamentation.” Naturally, he was free of all hankering and lamenting. But then he paused and said, “No, I have a lamentation.” Three or four people were there at the time, and someone asked, “Do you mean because you have not finished translating the Srimad-Bhagavatam?” Srila Prabhupada said, “No, because I have not established varnashram. Fifty percent of my work is incomplete because I have not established varnashram.” Then the question arose, “What to do about this uncompleted work?” In another conversation on the roof, Srila Prabhupada said, “I want to establish varnasharam,” and one of us asked, “How will you do that?” Prabhupada said, “I will sit down in Gita-nagari and teach you to live off the land.” He made it as simple as that.”
DEFINITIONS:
Gita-nagari – a spiritual farm community established by Srila Prabhupada in central Pennsylvania. See links below …
http://www.theyogafarm.com/
http://www.gitanagari.org/
Varnashram – the four divisions of society and four divisions of spiritual life according to one’s individual nature
Srimad-Bhagavatam/Bhagavatam – the scriptural Purana, or history, written by Vyasadeva specifically to give an understanding of Lord Sri Krishna
— Memories: Anecdotes of a Modern-day Saint (Volume 2, Tape 28, pg. 368)
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Transcriptions from video interviews conducted and compiled by Siddhanta das.
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