Guest guest Posted November 26, 1999 Report Share Posted November 26, 1999 The stark reality is that very few of our devotees actualy want to live a simple self reliant lifestyle. The thing is young devotees are not encouraged in this way, they do not see how it is at least as important to Prabhupada's mission as distributing books and there is a mood that such a step is "opting out" ; for instance, one new bhakta told me he is so attracted to simple village life, country life, self-sufficiency, but the devotees in Sydney told him that it was selfish. They said he should give up such ideas and preach. That means they have not grasped how living ideally IS preaching, which is what Srila Prabhupada was trying to get us to understand 30 years ago... It is not surprising when the leadership of that temple, responded to our proposals to make New Gokula more self-sufficient, thus: "...dogmatic determination to reverse the trend of civilization 180 degrees overnight*, within a short time New Gokula will become a shambles socially, economically, and politically and our so-called community will revert to an irrelevant group of new-age cave-dwellers living an outcaste meaningless existence on the lunatic fringe of current humanity. At worst, as other extremist groups have, it may degenerate into a hazardous, inbred cult, as dangerous perhaps to itself as much as it would be a menace to the public " *by overnight, he is referring to our 10-year plan for self-sufficiency How can you grow a 1,000 dollar computer on your land and how do you download your e mails with a plough? Haven’t figured that one out yet…but I lived before I didn’t know a computer from a (fill it in) Just like the devotees at Saranagati to live on the land in such climate and under such government that they have to pay $10,000/ yr tax! Boggles your mind, don’t it? Yep if there’s devotees so willing they do it under such conditions, it should be possible to encourage devotees to do so under more normal conditions. Ys, niscala ____ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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