Let them come to our farms

[Guest guest]

"But can our farms maintain them and their families or pay them a salary

so

that they can pay their bills?

Or should they rather start their own farm and maintain themselfs

and chant

Hare Krsna, in the area where there are already devotee farms?

"

 

According to Srila Prabhupada's perfect instructions, the answer is

clearly, without

ambiguity, both. Devotees should maintain themselves, living simply, growing

all their

necessities, on the ISKCON farms that Srila Prabhupada provided us for this

purpose,

without dependence on the artificial technology e.g. tractors, but replacing

it with

cow- and- bull technology. "The bulls should have helped in spite

of...instead of that

machine (referring to a tractor, already purchased). To start one's own

farm? A costly

investment. Where is self-sufficiency and time to chant, when one has to

pay back a

hefty loan. Profit will have to be there, and with a need for profit, and

having only

one's own labour, one will be pressured into using labour-saving things like

tractors,

then what is achieved by the whole endeavour? Why not have on Srila

Prabhupada's

farms, the instructions that Srila Prabhupada gave for the farms, carried

out?

Personally, being a mother, I just couldn't see simple living working

without a

community, because of kids and the "param drstva" principle. Kids want fun,

and their

only going to give up their addiction to technology, if they get a higher

taste, and get

fun the way kids used to in the olden days- playing with other kids.

Actually, if you

give them the choice, they'd rather go out and play with kids their own age-

well that's

only possible in a community. Us adults also need company. Having isolated

families

puts pressure on marital relationships, due to not having an outlet for

revealing the

problems one is having with one's partner and it makes it more difficult to

easily find

help/sympathy/advice when one is in dire personal difficulty. It is not the

varnasrama

idea at all- to have a separate farm for each family, but rather a village,

with common

grazing area for the animals, and combining a variety of skills necessary

for

self-sufficiency (from education to weaving cloth)- rather than trying to do

all that

oneself- what pressure! Varnasrama means utilizing one's natural talents in

service to

Krsna- but if one has to be in all 4 varnas at the same time...!!! It is

also necessary for

Krsna consciousness to get an opportunity to come together with devotees,

serve them

and hear about Krsna. Of course, you mentioned "in an area where there are

devotee

farms", but if you only have bullocks for transport, and especially if you

are unable to

get adjacent land, it makes it VERY difficult to come togetther, at least on

a regular

basis. Then there's still all the problems mentioned above.

 

"A Krsna conscious community which can expand into a devotee village

where

there is much land around would be indeed a good idea, but just to

have a

farm and invite people to move to this farm, where nothing belongs

to them,

is this realistic to atract someone with his family to live there?"

 

 

The understanding of varnasrama, is that Krsna is the Supreme Proprietor,

and the

king is His representative. The vaisyas are given land by the king, which is

theirs and

cannot be taken back, provided they supply the king with a percentage of

their

produce. They also have their own animals which they utilize to supply all

their

necessities. In return, the king or chief administrator, protects their

rights, helps them

in difficulty (e.g. the crops fail), arranges training for newcomers,

supplies them with

necessary amenities- not that he just hordes the profit, and he should treat

the citizens

(or in this case villagers) as he would his own children.

By this system, the vaisya gets the advantage of no loan repayments, gets

security, his

own land and animals, training and amenities e.g. a gurukula, where of

course reading

and writing is not as important as learning a trade- so no unemployed youth

and all its

problems like drug abuse, and a healthy way of life with plenty of

opportunity for

social interaction. What family in its right mind would NOT be

attracted???

 

YS, Niscala

 

 

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