Varnashrama?

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Text COM:1770999 (228 lines)

Samba (das) SDG (Bangalore - IN)

15-Oct-98 14:31

Granddisciples (of Srila Prabhupada) [1321]

Varnashrama?

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> We will not become a society untill we are enough people. 20 persons here

> and there on the globe will never become a society and will never be able

> to implement varnashrama. If we want to be a society we have to come

> together enough people in one area (but not in one big castle). Otherwise

> the members will only be engaged in doing the needful and living a life of

> multimanaging. There is no way around. Sorry.

 

I agree with you totaly on this, and I dont envision that a solution based

on varnashrama is going to work overnight. For many devotees it is already

too late to change our lives, or at least it would be very difficult (we

should bear in mind though that we did change our lives pretty radicaly when

we decided to join ISKCON, and if we felt it necesary we could do it again).

 

I find it interesting the the Amish have found that if their childern do not

grow up farming, they will not take it up in later life. The Amish fear this

because their entire lifestyle, nay philosophy, is based on a rural life,

and a living from the land. They know that if you take away that base their

entire community is threatened. They have been together in a remarkably

unchanged social format, for over 600 years. OK they dont preach and they

dont make many outside converts. But they have sustained themselves in their

humility for a long long time. They must be doing something right!

 

Many of us were born in cities, and have only ever known a lifestyle wherein

people are employed by large companies to produce varieties of questionably

needed goods. We are only familiar with a paradigm where our families travel

to work, for money, and get their food from the store, and spend something

called 'free time' watching nonsense on a little box.

 

This situation has only existed for a very short time, typically around 70

years at the most. For the preceeding thousands of years rural based

lifestyles where the overwhelming norm. Modern life is unnatural,

ugrakarmic, and interestingly the writing on the wall seems to say that its

time could be up, if not totaly at least we may expect long term disruption

which may alter many peoples lives.

 

One of the reasons our movement is in such a mess, is because many of our

members and families are so dysfunctional, having been brought up in this

artifical environment. If you look at it our concept of 'Normal' has

undergone constant change due to technology over the last 40 years. Families

have dwindled from large extended nurturing families, to small, driven,

technology dependant 'nuclear families'. Single parent families now becoming

a norm. Is it any wonder that the U.S. is doing great business with 'teenage

mental health services'. Technology in the guise of making our lives easier,

is actualy making them more and more stressful.

 

Vedic society was developed in a predominantly rural atmosphere, although

there were cities, even these cities depended on agriculture rather than

industrialism to sustain themselves.

 

If we had recognised the importance of creating our own training systems

twenty odd years ago, wherein we train devotees, especialy our children in a

livelihood. We may have many more qualified devotees right now, living in

our communities. Yes the training would be mundane to a degree, but while

learning the mundane skill, Krishna Conscious values can also be instilled.

As a teenager in ISKCON I struggled like anything to find a place, not

always succesfully.

 

We have not made it easy for our people to remain. We all need to live, and

to do that we must work, it is inevitable. We cannot train people as if this

necesity did not exist. Actualy I feel that it is much easier to train

people in spiritual life if it is based on a real life context. So far the

gurukulas tried to make preachers, but many of the students did not have

that nature. That was another mistake. We tried to gear the training to only

one varnic role. Some people say that ISKCON is only meant for Brahmins. I

personaly find that as hard to beleive as the Ritvik idea. Surely Prabhupada

wanted to respiritualize all of society?

 

There has been discussion of the Gurukula system in this conference, and I

agree that Srila Prabhupadas ideas were (of course) totaly sound. The

problem was that we did not give enough time and consideration to it. I have

been in ISKCON for 22 years now, and I know for a fact that in many cases we

have hardly ever really taken the time to think things through properly. In

my personal experience most of the leaders had some personal political

agenda to meet. In general devotees were treated like troops to be ordered

around. This is not what Srila Prabhupada wanted. He wanted each and every

devotee to be independantly intelligent, otherwise how in the world did he

expect that they would one day also become guru, a statement he made on

numerous occasions? Of course young devotees require some training and

discipline, up to a certain stage. Another of our problems being the lack of

recognised qualifications due to incomplete training systems.

 

We could have gone in many directions. Unfortunately the movement was

hijacked by a variety of unscrupulous leaders, who had their own agendas.

They systematicaly disparaged their godbrothers, and assumed divine roles,

not tolerating any dissent, and certainly not encouraging creative thought,

or independance.

 

When I joined the senior devotees in the English yatra, and probabaly around

the world were 5 year devotees, the eldest, spread thinly, had been there

ten years at most. We were all babies, and Srila Prabhupada, although a

worldy wise statesman, had his hands full dealing with our misconceptions,

and controlling mentalities.

 

But that is all past, now we have many devotees who are capable of

independant thought and action, and who are fried with leaders who try to

supress independance, and thoughtfull action.

 

One of the symptoms I have noticed at work in ISKCON, is an unwillingness to

find out in a nonconfrontational and objective way, where have things gone

wrong. We are all too willing to lambast each other for mistakes, when we

should be trying to analyze how we failed. Rather than kicking out someone

who has failed, it would be better to sit with them find out where the fault

lies and work on rectifying it. Give people a chance to grow and learn.

 

I suggest that we begin by setting up training programmes for our people. We

should initialy train people in useful skills which can immediately be used

to establish something self sustaining. In other words, the training is

actualy based on a guilds system where a person learns in a productive

enviroment, which actualy generates returns. The program should of course be

sustainable, over the long run.

 

There are many details to discuss, and a lot of things to consider in

implementing this, which I won't go into now.

 

You are right that we are spread out. I wonder if at this time we SHOULD

consider consolidating somewhat.

 

I personaly feel that a good part of our problem is that we are spread too

thin to be effecive. Often in the past some leaders cooked up half baked,

grandiose schemes, which stretched their people to the max, runining their

sadhana etc, only to find that the program had to be stopped eventualy

because a key person who neglected his sadhana for god knows how long, and

got affected by all the praise heaped on him for doing so well finally left.

We should never bite off more than we can chew, and we need to analyse when

we are making our plans, if we really have the manpower to follow it through

in a sensible, and sane fashion.

 

Maybe we should have national council level meetings to discuss the manpower

skills we have, and find out what we are actualy capable of doing with what

we have. And who is willing to cooperate.

 

Lets look at the situation we have now.

 

Many Gurukulas are closed, and the system so discredited that many parents

fear sending their children. What is the solution? Well I feel that one of

the main aspects for having gurukula in the first place, was to train the

children according to their nature. In the past most of the schools were

really dumping grounds to allow the devotees to engage in the *much more

important* task of, ostensibly book distribution, but really fund raising to

maintain a handfull of high flying gurus. (I was present at the manor after

Bhagavan left, Prithu Prabhu and I entered his rooms where we found stacks

of Pierre Cardin Mohair Sweaters and socks, Drawers with varieties of gold

pen sets and manicures etc, Twas surely the estate of an emperor).

 

Unfortunately, some of our leaders were at that time plagued by short term

vision. There are so many unfortunate young people in our movement who's

lives have been seriously impaired because they felt as if they were

abandoned as children, an unimaginable trauma for a young child.(I have

personal experience of a devotee who became a mental wreck because of this).

Actualy the children are the single most important asset to us as a

spiritual society. They are our future, and we abandoned them.

 

I think that the one of the most important things we can do now is to really

try to understand what gurukula is meant to be. I see them as the forerunner

for Varnashrama college. Each Gurukula should have at least one astrologer,

who is also trained in phsycology, or at least who is a good judge of

character. It may be that all the teachers should take a course in astrology

and character analysis. Let the schools be day schools. (Of course you need

enough students and teachers to run a school, another case for

consolidating). In Udupi, the place of Madhavacarayas eight muths some

gurukula boys take Sanyas at the age of ten years. These boys are constantly

monitored and observed, their traits checked against their planetary

influences. In this way the astrologer by observing the childs development,

gains an insight into the influence a planet can have on a childs

physcology. No boy is considerd unless they have shown the proper

tendencies, and have the auspicious alignments of planets in their chart.

Interestingly the attrition rate of these young sadhus is very low. Many

people in ISKCON decry astrology, and often rightly so. But Srila Prabhupada

reccomended it for marriage, and I think it can be a usefull tool in

predicting a persons nature, if not their future.

 

A childs education needs to be tailored to its phsyco physical nature.

Eventualy as the character of the child becomes apparent they can be given

lessons which suit them, eventualy finding themselves in the right

environment for Varnashrama training in a certain varna. We can also train

our adults to a degree in the same way. This needs to be researched more. We

are unfortunate in that much of the traditional skill and knowledge existing

only a few hundred years ago is now lost.

 

You are undoubtedly right, we cannot at this time have a complete social

system with what we have now. The only way change can take place is by

gradual training, encouraging the right values and discouraging the wrong

values. At this time we have no long term systematic scheme for the future

of our movement, its about time we got together and started to work one out.

For us it may already be too late, our children may be the only hope. But I

personaly feel that if we move in this direction we may be surprised as to

what can develop.

 

I think there is one more thing we can do. There are very few devotees who

are interested in developing a sustainable lifestyle based on agriculture.

But there are a few, spread out all over the world, and more people are

joining everyday. Srila Prabhupada spoke of 'an ideal unit'. Surely we

should have at least one place in the world, or even better one place in

each country or continent, where like minded people can be facilitated by

ISKCON to develop an 'ideal unit'. Many people say that we have tried farm

communities and they were a dismal failiure. I would say that what actualy

happened was that 'My way or the Highway' type managers started a communist

type 'collective farm', which failed because it did not give any of the

players a stake in its success. This is again an area in which failure meant

a damning of the idea, without taking the time to really understand what

went wrong, because 'we were too busy' or because a new person got elevated

to a big position, and set out to 'make his mark'.

 

 

I feel if the attempt is to be made again, the projects should actualy

facilitate the devotees. They should be allowed to own the land, either by

outright purchase, or by gradual purchase based on a tax or levy of the

crop. There could be a number of ways of approching it. Maybe giving an acre

on trial, and based on actual success the allotment of more land, which can

be purchased in kind. The society has to start trusting its people, and

actualy providing them with shelter.

 

If anyone thinks we cannot do all this, I would like to offer an example of

a group who has succeeded to a degree in building up an essential

infrastructure over the last 30 Years. Auroville, an experiment set up by

Sri Aurobindo in India, is now supported by over 60 successfull cottage

industries, many of which are run by foreigners. Sri Aurobindo's idea was

similar to Srila Prabhupadas. Unfortunately many of the people of Auroville

have slipped badly from their spititual position. But physicaly they have

turned what was a desert in a foreign land into a lush jungle, and have many

families who are supported entirely through their own devices.

 

We CAN do it, we just have to reprioritise.

 

Having read through this text, I find it is a bit rambling, and I apologise

for that, if I had time I would try to make it more succinct.

 

YS Samba das

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