MISTAKES

[Guest guest]

Dear Prabhus. I made the terrible mistake of leaving out Srila Prabhupada's

words (quotes) from the letter I sent on behalf of Gopinatha Acarya. Sorry

about that. Here's the letter, with the quotes. It'll make a lot more sense.

YS Niscala

Dear Prabhus,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Regarding the

discussion about gobar gas, one of the only references I came accross in

Srila

Prabhupada's conversations regarding gas is:

76-12-26: Room conversation, Bombay.

Indian man: So can I know the reason why you are restraining the use of

gobar gas

now. I could not understand actual technical difficulty. Is there any

difficulty?

Prabhupada: No, we can utilize the gobar in different way.

Indian man: No, but gobar gas is not good, that's why...

Prabhupada: No, no, not good. But we have to arrange for this plant,

generate gas. So

why not direct?

Indian man: No, but the fuel is achieved, but the fertilizer is lost. Gobar,

there are two

elements. One is a methane gas and one is fertilizer. If you burn it you are

burning the

fertilizer which is very, very important, and very, very useful against the

fuel that we

get.

Prabhupada: No, that ash is very good.

Indian man: No ash is not the full fertilizer. It is only partial. 10% of

the fertilizer

becomes ash. The organic matter is burned with great loss to the society and

the earth.

Prabhupada: But in our Mayapura, that plant, we spent so much, it has not

become

successful.

Indian man: No that is mechanical fault. Just like electricity now it has

failed. Now sir,

we should not stop utilizing electricity.

Prabhupada: No, any machine, that defect will be there.

Indian man: But that we have been working for twenty years in Ahmedabad.

Everybody is very happy there, and they're actually making money out of it.

The

fertilizer that is there is about four times what is normally achieved. So

good

maintenance are required for any...

Prabhupada: (sneezes loud) I have no objection, but I've got experience. In

Mayapura

it is failure.

Indian man (2): Sometimes we get a defective machine. I purchased one for my

girl's

house. I've got a number of about 30. But one was rejected but...

Indian man: Either defective machine or defective maintenance.

Prabhupada: Maybe. But the difficulty is there.

 

In this conversation,

Srila Prabhupada is pointing out the defect of machine.

Its my practical experience after struggling with half-baked

self-sufficiency for years,

that practically any machine, even though it may seem to be helpful, is

actually ahindrance. It is only helpful to "progress" towards a better

machine,

because the actual

intent is to avoid the needful, and try to produce more than needed,

andreplace

someone's labour. Thats why every machine is replaced by another:

horsesreplaced

bulls, tractors replaced horses, etc.

We need an easily sustainable and maintenance-free system which we can

showto

everyone that's practical, that's right, best in the long run, and easy

right here and now.

Any machine is subject to breakdown and we are at the mercy of someone else

and/oranother machine to fix or replace parts and thus we're always in

anxiety.

Plus, that's

not the example we want to preach, so where's the nectar? After all,

we'regoing

through all this because the world is crying out for the right alternative.

Let me give a few examples from my own years of experience, which may save

others,years of wasted time.

The first crop of wheat we grew with the bulls was in 1989. After getting

into the

nectar of plowing with the bulls, acre after acre, the only practical thing

to plant was

grain. After watching it grow for a few months, we were waiting for some

inspiration

from Krsna how to harvest it, but eventually opted out to hire the local

seed merchant'sharvester for the one-off cost of $200 for about 3 acres.

Then, after having it sit in bags through the summer, waiting for some

inspiration howto grind it up, the weevils ate the lot. Never mind.

Next year we plowed and planted another few acres and had in the back of the

mnd to

get a horse-drawn harvester, which sounded great but we didn't know what it

was, orwhat it would take to pull it. Anyway, that didn't come through, and

we

resigned

ourselves to poop out and hire the harvester again, when Bhakta Mick( who,

inspired

by the working of bullocks at New Govardhana, donated his 40 acre farm at

that time),

pushed us into surrender, by heading out into the paddock with a sickle. So

a few of us

got out there with sickles. We cut it, tied it with string, put it on carts

and took it upthe hill to the marble temple room with glass windows/walls

and we

hand-threshed

them against the backs of benches, swept up the grain, hand winnowed it in

plastic

bowls and took the straw up to Bill's permaculture garden. This went on for

about aweek or more

and we ended up with 1-1/2- 44 gallon (200 litre) drums of it . We had

onlydone

about 1/3 to 1/2 of it, when for various reasons I left and went to India

for about ayear.

Meanwhile, the devotees weren't too keen on using it, because the

inexperienced help

left some small clods of dirt in the grain from the roots of the wheat,

which had not

been properly cut, but pulled out. So I don't know how much was used. Wehad

a

"Little Ark" vertical hand-grinder, converted to use with a washing

machinemotor

which used to overheat and that didn't help inspire anyone to grind it up.

The next time I didn't plant, but Lagudi did, and although he had done it

just to fill up

his paddock, we agreed to cut it with a newly acquired reaper and binder

($1,500 all

up, from the back of whoop whoop: Walla Walla, 1,500 kms away . It

was only about an acre, and I hand threshed in the paddock as much as I

could before

some rain fell - about 1/4 44 gallon drum. The binder cuts and binds the

standing crop

and we pulled it in with two good, strong bulls, but they found it tough

going and we

had to stop often. Many times the cutting bar would jam up, and we had

tostop to

clear it. Later we pulled it with 4 bulls. It did a marvellous job, but I

often wondered it

would be easier in the long run to just get stuck into it and cut it byhand.

We lost one of the fingers from the cutting bar, which didn';t help. The

conveyor belts

shrink when they get wet, so you can't afford to leave the machine out in

the weatherovernight, etc., etc. The knotting mechanism is also extremely

temperamental, and as a

point of interest, if you ever have such a machine, oil or grease

theknotting

mechanism, before you put it away for the next year so it doesn't rust, and

its very hard

to get at to polish with emery paper. But what to do with the sheaves?

So, for one whole year I worked on getting a horse-drawn harvester, which I

set up as

a stationary thresher, with two bulls walking around a horse-gear, which by

way ofshafts and universal joints, ran the threshing drum at 1000 rpm.

The front cutting mechanism was detached, and the drum exposed with the

ideaof

feeding in the sheaves or holding in the sheaf , ears first, to beat off the

grain. The rest

of the mechanism would winnow clean the grain and theoretically we could bag

it at

the other end. Anyway the drum of course is not designed to handle so much

straw,since harvesters just cut the top off the crop. The binder cuts

sheaves in

such a way,

that although all the ends are all one way, the ears are all up and down

inside the

sheath, so you can't beat off the ears, but have to thresh the whole sheaf.

The drum would jam up and the gear broke free of its footing. I always had a

sneaking

suspicion that all this rigmarole was going to be useless, because although

one mightget some compliments, engineering-wise or museum-wise, who on earth

was

going togo to all this trouble to get one of these old machines? Is that

what we

want to show

anyway? If the bulls are walking around and around anyway, why not just try

walking

on top of the crop as they do in India? I never believed it would work, but

finally

decided to try it. I laid out some tarpaulins on top of the bitumen in the

bottom

carpark around a solitary tree (could have been a post). I tied a rope from

the top of

the bow and end of the yoke to the tree in such a way that the two bulls

could walk

around the tree on top of the crop (fenugreek) and in less than 2 hours all

the seed had

been threshed out by their feet and in conjunction with a hand-cranked

winnower, had50 kg of pure, clean fenugreek seed.

Wow! What a breakthrough! What fun! Amazing! It really works and works

best!The

perfect procedure, for the small self-sufficient devotee farmer- vaisya, to

get it all overand done with, with the minimum of fuss, expense, anxiety...

So for a few years after that, the final procedure was to cut the crop with

a sickle, put

it unbound on a tarp, drag it out of the paddock with a pair of bulls, and

walk two or

four in tandem (S.B. recommends three abreast) on top of a concrete floor in

a bigbarn.

Vakuntha! No worries about the hot sun, sudden thunderstorms, etc., etc. Of

course, I

can't explain all the intricacies here (though it may seem I have) and there

are plentymore considerations varnasrama wise i.e. distribution of he grain,

proprietorship, etc.,which we have not practically sorted out yet.

The point I'm trying to make out of all this, is that we can philosophize

about a lot of

things for years, but there are many hidden traps to waylay us if we deviate

an inch or

become overintelligent and think we have a better way of doing something.

(I must admit though, that of all the machines, the hand-cranked winnower

was pretty

handy. Of course, expert winnowers (matajis from India) could do better)

Just another case in point, if you're prepared to read on.

For years, I was thinking how to grind the grain with the bulls. I even had

a mill lined

up with 4 foot stones for $5,000 (cheap!), 5,000 kms away! (All for a few

chappaties!). After spending a good part of my life finding out that you

need an expertto dress, balance and set the stones, it all but turned me

off..

Luckily, I found this reference in the conversations books: 770215: S.P.:

No, there is

no need of ox, individually, small grinding- capki (chaki), and in the

morning theychant Hare Krsna and grind (sings) Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna..."

Someone even gave me a new hand-grinder ($260) but STILL I was attached

tothe

idea of avoiding the hard work of hand-grinding and went ahead with

grandiose ideas

of converting car diffs into bull gears and casting stones from cement.

It wasn't until I actually tried the hand grinder and saw how easy it was to

grind up

enough flour for 10 or 20 chappaties that I never looked back. Why take one

or morehours to catch and harness the bulls to grind up the grain (which is

so

precious), which

is going to be stale the next day, and for whom? Every family grinds their

own andinvites a few guests to dinner.

Vedic lifestyle mmeans simple, do-it-yourself, low maintenance, save time

(in the long

and short run): take personal responsibility for yourself, family, cows, and

sadhus,brahmacaris, etc.

BIG bhoga, Sunday feast, BIG temple programs means (at least right now till

we're up

and running- past self-sufficiency, all trained up in the varnas, busting at

the seams with

excess produce, bulls all engaged and protected and men all engaged)...in

reality,

buying bhoga as Srila Prabhupada suggested- even for the Hyderabad

project,until

such times as the locals participate.

But I guarantee that any devotee who gets it together to train bulls, plow,

plant and

harvest, is going to call it quits when he's produced enough, and use the

saved time forchanting, reading, etc.

Now what to do with the flour for 10 or 20 chappaties? Are we going to setup

a

biogas digester? No way. Pick up a few cow pats regularly, from around

thehouse,

throw them on the wall, pick them up when they fall off dry, put them in a

tin bucketstove, shove some straw from the corner left over from the harvest

underneath astinder,, light it up and boil the milk you've just milked.

In this way just keep it simple. What to do with the left over ash? Use it

for cleaningpots, making soap, or sprinkle it around your fruit trees or

vegies.

But of course, the cows and bulls are not always around so you only use some

of their

dung. If you want to compost it, great. Another suggestion is to hang two

1/2 full 40

kg feed bags of fresh manure on either side of a piece of wood on top of an

open 44

gallon drum of water (hang them in the water) for a few weeks and give each

plant 1/2

litre to a litre of the liquid fertilizer. This avoids the weed seeds, from

using the freshdung straight.

My personal experience was to pick the best soil handy for growing

vegetables, and

don't worry about fertilizer. Certain vegetables grow best and stick to

them. If youplant them at the right time you don't need to water them. As

Srila

Prabhupada said, ifyou grow one crop a year, the soil won't deplete.

As for nitrogen, the plants get it from the atmosphere, and if we put it

into the soil, the

plants will take it at the expense of trace elements. Growing a crop of dahl

(say dun

field peas=yellow split peas) still leaves a net increase of nitrogen in

the soil anywayand a crop of wheat next will benefit.

Back to the biogas digester, I also spent long hours thinking about it, but

when the

temple wanted to get one together, I envisaged herds of cows and bulls being

shuntedaround just for the dung supply at the expense of agricultural

activity

(which is

foremost) and without cooperation of the cowherds and that department, I saw

it asdetrimental.

If people want to live life artificially, let them live it somewhere else

out of the way.Don't try to use the bulls and cows to support our ugra

karma.

First do agriculture with the bulls, and if after being fully satisfied

withyour

agricultural produce, you want to embark on dubious projects such as growing

lumberfor houses, pumping megalitres of water for housing developments,

grinding

1,000's of

kilos of precious grain for fly-by-night non-varnasramites, driving tourists

in bullock

carts for a few miserly dollars, etc.,etc., well and good. But FIRST please

produceyour food and that of the animals. I guarantee that after that,

you'll be

fully satisfiedand forget all other foolish schemes.

Once again, the priority is to produce your own food. This will solve all

the problems.

All will become crystal clear, and all doubts, hallucinations, speculations

and worries

will disappear. They are all nightmares to haunt us and distract us from the

real goal:

Happy cows and bulls, happy healthy devotees-freed from anarthas- with lots

of sparetime for chanting, dancing and developing love of Godhead and going

back

home...Of course, this means varnasrama, trained up and cooperating leaders

etc.,etc.Anyway, no offence intended. Please forgive any aparadhas...

There is a good case for humus and organic matter, but if all this concern

hampers us

from achieving the end result, better not to worry about it. Unless its

convenient, it just

won't work. No one will do it, and we'll be discouraged. We don't want to

spend too

much time, languishing indefinitely, trying to sort out this varnasrama.

Get right to the core of it: grains, dahl, milk, sugar, vegies, then cloth,

oil, simple

dwelling. Everything Srila Prabhupada said was right. Do it first and worry

about thefine tuning later- it just may not matter

Aside from the cloth and oil, and clay tiles for roofing, pretty much

everything else has

been sorted out. We need a varnasrama college; one farm "sacrificed" for

simple living.

I suggest New Govardhana. Anyone