Whatever happened to Prabhupada's Farms?

[suchandra 1]

 

Whatever happened to Prabhupada's Farms?

 

 

 

 

Varaha das

 

 

Prabhupada warned what was coming<hr size="2" width="40%">excerpt from conversation on train to Allahabad, January 11, 1977Hari bol. I just read this. It's more prophecy from Srila Prabhupada about today's current economic meltdown situation.

 

PRABHUPADA: Organize this farm project. Farm. [background talking]

 

 

HARI-SAURI: He’s just saying that in the West one requires a great deal of capital. To start a farm, to get the land, you need a lot of money because land is very expensive. And also we have to use modern farming techniques because we have so few men to run the farms.

 

 

PRABHUPADA: No, you show example. People will do automatically. When the people find it is very nice, they will take.

 

 

HARI-SAURI: Should we try to make an effort to have our householders go and live on the farms, a special effort? If it’s ready to do that?

 

 

PRABHUPADA: Why householders? Everyone.

 

RAMESVARA: In America there is a very big emphasis on getting people to join us by moving into our temples. The temple presidents are very eager to get as many people to move in as possible, but in the long run most people cannot come up to the standard.

 

PRABHUPADA: Therefore I am... Farms.

 

RAMESVARA: So they have to be encouraged to have a little bit of Krishna consciousness in their own home, make their home a temple.

 

PRABHUPADA: No, let them go to the farm, New Vrindaban.

 

RAMESVARA: Many people... Most people in the world, they are grihamedhis [householders], and they cannot give it up so easily.

 

PRABHUPADA: “No, you remain... Come here with your wife, children. You remain grhamedhi.”

 

JAGADISA: New Vrindaban is very austere. If we build little bungalows with modern convenience...

 

PRABHUPADA: Oh, yes.

 

JAGADISA: There has to be some modern convenience.

 

PRABHUPADA: Oh, yes. Then we shall do that.

 

RAMESVARA: But for many people who live in the cities, they have their jobs already. They don’t want to give it up. Say, in America, most people live in the cities, and they already have their job, and they are set in their ways.

 

PRABHUPADA: But you said that there is unemployment also.

 

RAMESVARA: To a certain extent. But there are still 250,000,000 people. So most of them...

 

PRABHUPADA: So those who are unemployed, let them come to us. We shall give them employment.

 

RAMESVARA: Yes. But for the mass population...

 

PRABHUPADA: Well, gradually you will increase and...

 

RAMESVARA: We have to give them something that they can do in their home.

 

PRABHUPADA: Oh, yes.

 

RAMESVARA: Because it is impractical to think that they will give up everything and move into the temple.

 

PRABHUPADA: No, those who are unemployed, let them come. We shall give them employment.

 

JAGADISA: On the farm.

 

PRABHUPADA: Yes.

 

RAMESVARA: For those who are unemployed, that’s attractive.

 

JAGADISA: But for those who are already employed...

 

RAMESVARA: But most people have jobs.

 

PRABHUPADA: Eh?

 

RAMESVARA: Many people already have their jobs and their families.

 

PRABHUPADA: All right, let them not come, but those who are unemployed, let them come.

 

RAMESVARA: But what...? For those people who already have their jobs, instead of...

 

PRABHUPADA: THAT JOB......THEY WILL BE VERY SOON JOBLESS. DON'T WORRY. [LAUGHS] THEY WILL COME. THEY WILL BE OBLIGED TO COME. NOW THEY HAVE GOT JOB, BUT AS THE DAYS ARE ADVANCING IN KALI-YUGA, THEY'LL BE JOBLESS.

 

HARI-SAURI: So we can expect that material conditions are going to become very much worse than this.

 

PRABHUPADA: They may come or not. We don’t care for it. Let us establish an ideal society.Now if this doesn't sound like what is going on in the world today, then I don't know what would. Tent cities springing up, food riots, trillions of dollars down the tubes, Marshall Law, corrupt government, people and businesses on the verge of bankruptcy, failing banks, etc, etc. Why wouldn't anyone want to live on a self-sufficent farm and say, "To hell with the world, screw'em. At least I can live here, eat good food, heat my house with fire wood, have my own water well, a cow for milk and manure, chanting Hare Krishna all day long!!!!!!"

 

That is the life that Prabhupada was talking about, not this artifical life. "Man made the cities, and God made the country," as Prabhupada once said. If we have nowhere that this ideal life is being ACTUALLY LIVED (and the more examples the better), then people will think that we're just blowing more smoke (talking the talk but not walking the walk), just like the goddamn politicians that got them to this stage in the first place.

 

The ISKCON farms that are around today—the ones that I'm familiar with anyway—aren't doing much, if anything. They don't produce much of anything—food, milk, cloth, housing or whatever else is needed on a "farm project". Here at New Talavan they have imported a bunch of guru groupies, and they don't do a damn thing really. To get them to cook an offering or do an arotike they have to get paid. Most of them have jobs in town and send the money back home to India, Mexico or wherever. They have their jobs, live in the temple shacks called houses (and pay rent!) watch TV, lust after women, cars and the latest cell phones, and they do ZERO farm work. The temple goes to town and buys its nesscessities just like the rest of the people in the US. What kind of example is that??? Will the downtrodden and distressed of the world want to come to a place like that?? Srila Prabhupada has 1300 acres of prime real estate here in South Mississippi, and the place is stuck in the biggest rut I've ever seen. But will they let the Prabhupadanugas live and serve there? HELL NO, at least not without signing a loyalty oath to the GBC of West Bengal. At least no one that I know of will do that, so the project just sits there, "devotees" come and go, the land is growing up in trees, vines, sticker bushes, and the infrastructure is falling apart at the seams. It's really sad to watch, but that is what the GBC has done to Prabhupada's temples and the future prototypes of the new human society, DVD/Srila Prabhupada's farms.

 

So what are we to do??? The job is ours if we want it, but where to begin?

 

Yrs,

Varaha das

[theist 1]

 

Whatever happened to Prabhupada's Farms?

 

 

 

 

Varaha das

 

 

Prabhupada warned what was coming<hr size="2" width="40%">excerpt from conversation on train to Allahabad, January 11, 1977Hari bol. I just read this. It's more prophecy from Srila Prabhupada about today's current economic meltdown situation.

PRABHUPADA: Organize this farm project. Farm. [background talking]

 

 

HARI-SAURI: He’s just saying that in the West one requires a great deal of capital. To start a farm, to get the land, you need a lot of money because land is very expensive. And also we have to use modern farming techniques because we have so few men to run the farms.

 

 

PRABHUPADA: No, you show example. People will do automatically. When the people find it is very nice, they will take.

 

 

HARI-SAURI: Should we try to make an effort to have our householders go and live on the farms, a special effort? If it’s ready to do that?

 

 

PRABHUPADA: Why householders? Everyone.

RAMESVARA: In America there is a very big emphasis on getting people to join us by moving into our temples. The temple presidents are very eager to get as many people to move in as possible, but in the long run most people cannot come up to the standard.

 

PRABHUPADA: Therefore I am... Farms.

 

RAMESVARA: So they have to be encouraged to have a little bit of Krishna consciousness in their own home, make their home a temple.

 

PRABHUPADA: No, let them go to the farm, New Vrindaban.

 

RAMESVARA: Many people... Most people in the world, they are grihamedhis [householders], and they cannot give it up so easily.

 

PRABHUPADA: “No, you remain... Come here with your wife, children. You remain grhamedhi.”

 

JAGADISA: New Vrindaban is very austere. If we build little bungalows with modern convenience...

 

PRABHUPADA: Oh, yes.

 

JAGADISA: There has to be some modern convenience.

 

PRABHUPADA: Oh, yes. Then we shall do that.

 

RAMESVARA: But for many people who live in the cities, they have their jobs already. They don’t want to give it up. Say, in America, most people live in the cities, and they already have their job, and they are set in their ways.

 

PRABHUPADA: But you said that there is unemployment also.

 

RAMESVARA: To a certain extent. But there are still 250,000,000 people. So most of them...

 

PRABHUPADA: So those who are unemployed, let them come to us. We shall give them employment.

 

RAMESVARA: Yes. But for the mass population...

 

PRABHUPADA: Well, gradually you will increase and...

 

RAMESVARA: We have to give them something that they can do in their home.

 

PRABHUPADA: Oh, yes.

 

RAMESVARA: Because it is impractical to think that they will give up everything and move into the temple.

 

PRABHUPADA: No, those who are unemployed, let them come. We shall give them employment.

 

JAGADISA: On the farm.

 

PRABHUPADA: Yes.

 

RAMESVARA: For those who are unemployed, that’s attractive.

 

JAGADISA: But for those who are already employed...

 

RAMESVARA: But most people have jobs.

 

PRABHUPADA: Eh?

 

RAMESVARA: Many people already have their jobs and their families.

 

PRABHUPADA: All right, let them not come, but those who are unemployed, let them come.

 

RAMESVARA: But what...? For those people who already have their jobs, instead of...

 

PRABHUPADA: THAT JOB......THEY WILL BE VERY SOON JOBLESS. DON'T WORRY. [LAUGHS] THEY WILL COME. THEY WILL BE OBLIGED TO COME. NOW THEY HAVE GOT JOB, BUT AS THE DAYS ARE ADVANCING IN KALI-YUGA, THEY'LL BE JOBLESS.

 

HARI-SAURI: So we can expect that material conditions are going to become very much worse than this.

 

PRABHUPADA: They may come or not. We don’t care for it. Let us establish an ideal society.Now if this doesn't sound like what is going on in the world today, then I don't know what would. Tent cities springing up, food riots, trillions of dollars down the tubes, Marshall Law, corrupt government, people and businesses on the verge of bankruptcy, failing banks, etc, etc. Why wouldn't anyone want to live on a self-sufficent farm and say, "To hell with the world, screw'em. At least I can live here, eat good food, heat my house with fire wood, have my own water well, a cow for milk and manure, chanting Hare Krishna all day long!!!!!!"

 

That is the life that Prabhupada was talking about, not this artifical life. "Man made the cities, and God made the country," as Prabhupada once said. If we have nowhere that this ideal life is being ACTUALLY LIVED (and the more examples the better), then people will think that we're just blowing more smoke (talking the talk but not walking the walk), just like the goddamn politicians that got them to this stage in the first place.

 

The ISKCON farms that are around today—the ones that I'm familiar with anyway—aren't doing much, if anything. They don't produce much of anything—food, milk, cloth, housing or whatever else is needed on a "farm project". Here at New Talavan they have imported a bunch of guru groupies, and they don't do a damn thing really. To get them to cook an offering or do an arotike they have to get paid. Most of them have jobs in town and send the money back home to India, Mexico or wherever. They have their jobs, live in the temple shacks called houses (and pay rent!) watch TV, lust after women, cars and the latest cell phones, and they do ZERO farm work. The temple goes to town and buys its nesscessities just like the rest of the people in the US. What kind of example is that??? Will the downtrodden and distressed of the world want to come to a place like that?? Srila Prabhupada has 1300 acres of prime real estate here in South Mississippi, and the place is stuck in the biggest rut I've ever seen. But will they let the Prabhupadanugas live and serve there? HELL NO, at least not without signing a loyalty oath to the GBC of West Bengal. At least no one that I know of will do that, so the project just sits there, "devotees" come and go, the land is growing up in trees, vines, sticker bushes, and the infrastructure is falling apart at the seams. It's really sad to watch, but that is what the GBC has done to Prabhupada's temples and the future prototypes of the new human society, DVD/Srila Prabhupada's farms.

 

So what are we to do??? The job is ours if we want it, but where to begin?

 

Yrs,

Varaha das

 

Food riots? Marshall law? Not in America anyway. Of course industrial society is artificial but to think everyone is going to move from the cities to the farms...... It's impractical.

[Kulapavana 0]

And what are Varaha prabhu's farming credentials? How many crops did he raise in his life?

[Haridasdasdas 0]

Just this afternoon, a devotee I have talked to a few times at the temple has told me he is going to a farm in spain that has been set up.

 

It was quite wonderful because he had his bag in the restaurant at that time. He only had £1 on him, and his bag was so heavy. He said he was going to hitchhike to Spain.

 

To me, this is real devotion. Just trying to serve Krishna, and not worrying about eating, sleeping etc.

 

I wonder why there is not so much emphasis on farms these days.

[Haridasdasdas 0]

 

Food riots? Marshall law? Not in America anyway. Of course industrial society is artificial but to think everyone is going to move from the cities to the farms...... It's impractical.

 

You're saying that Srila Prabhupada's suggestion is impractical?