Use of tractors

[Guest guest]

Many times in Hyderabad Prabhupada talked about the tractor. He said the

tractor has spoiled the whole society. He said, "Because there is tractor

then there is no use for the bull." So many times he discussed. And he

said, "Then what are you going to do, what to do, what to do. And then you

will cut their throat." He said, "You will see. It is sure to come. If you

do not use the bulls for plowing, one day you will say, let us cut their

throats." And it is a fact. People will get them and then they will send

them away and sell them, kick them out. It has to happen on our farms if we

don't use the bulls for plowing. What will you do when you have hundreds and

hundreds of animals and you are getting more and more animals?

 

Interview with Tejiyas dasa by Paramananda dasa in Mayapura, 1982

(This interview appeared in the "Iskcon Farm Newsletter", Vol.2 No.1.

 

 

So, take more land and engage them in agriculture, plowing by the bulls

instead of tractor. Bulls can be engaged in plowing and transporting. Nice

bullock carts village to village for preaching. Make the farm the center and

go ten miles this side, ten miles that side, ten miles this side, etc., with

four bullock carts. Sell books and preach and live peacefully on the farm.

People used to engage the bull for this purpose. So there was no problem

which way to utilize them. First of all this artificial way should be

stopped, and the bulls should be engaged in plowing and transporting, and

smashing the grains. To avoid machinery, petrol, machine oil, by nature's

way.

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Letter to: Balavanta -- Bombay 3 January, 1977

 

 

Prabhupada: So why they're inventing machine? Machine means no work.

Hrdayananda: They think this is progress, everyone can lie down and the

machines will work.

Prabhupada: Yes, machine, inventing machine means one machine can work for

fifty men. The banks are using this, what is that, computer?

Hrdayananda: Yes, everyone is using computers.

Prabhupada: To save money. Machine means unemployment for many. Tractor,

they're using, they're unemployment for bulls and plowmen and then they,

bulls have to be killed. This is going on. Unemployment, then kill them.

Vietnam, send all the men to fight and kill them. As soon as there is

overpopulation, they declare war so that people may be killed.

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- February 12, 1976, Mayapura

 

 

Prabhupada: Bull will not supply milk, so there is no use. It must be

killed. Otherwise they are ferocious animal. You have made this law. The

cows may be given some time to be killed, but the bulls should be killed

immediately. This is their law.

Hari-sauri: Nor do the farmers actually want to keep them anyway.

Prabhupada: No.

Hari-sauri: They are useless animals.

Prabhupada: Simply expensive. But here in India they know how to utilize

bulls -- for transportation, for plowing and so many other things.

Tamala Krsna: Such a shortage of fuel, but there is no shortage of fuel with

a bull.

Prabhupada: No, rather, it will supply you gobar, fuel. Whatever he will

eat, he will give you fuel.

Tamala Krsna: In return.

Prabhupada: In return.

Jayapataka: But now the government is trying to teach the people that they

should buy tractors and kill the calves.

Prabhupada: Huh?

Jayapataka: They want to have..., make tractors popular and then...

Prabhupada: Kill the bulls. They were criticizing us because in our gosala

we maintain the male calves.

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- February 3, 1976, Mayapura

 

 

Prabhupada: Huh? What is that economical progressing? So that means busy

fool. Fool, they do not know how to satisfy the economic problem. That is

recommended in the Bhagavad-gita, annad bhavanti bhutani: [bg. 3.14] You

grow food grains. Then all economic question... But why you are not

producing food grains? Why you are producing iron stools and instruments and

motor and tire and collecting petrol far away from Arabia? That is... Krsna

never says that "You do all this nonsense." He said, "Grow food grains." Why

don't you do that? That means fools. After all, you have to eat. So you are

not busy in growing your food, but you are busy in producing tire tubes,

motor cars, stools and instruments. Then how you will get your food? Where

is your economic? First economic is, first necessity, you must eat.

Pusta Krsna: But with the tire tubes and nuts and bolts they can make a

tractor. And the tractor can help produce food, they think, much faster.

Prabhupada: No, that is waste of energy. Because you are eating the bulls,

therefore you require a tractor. Otherwise you don't kill the bulls. This

animal will do the business of tractor.

Devotee (4): It will work.

Prabhupada: But you want to eat them, so you must find out...

Indian man (1): Some other means.

Prabhupada: Replacement. That's it.

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- October 19, 1975, Johannesburg

 

 

Satsvarupa: We should go on the walk. The cars are coming on the road.

Prabhupada: So we shall walk? [break] ...containing three passengers,

wasting petrol. Similarly, hundreds and thousands and millions of cars and

buses are running all over the world, simply wasting petrol.

Bhagavan: When there was the oil crisis in the United States, they were

giving reports how some person would go in his car, go ten miles in a big

car to buy one pack of cigarettes.

Prabhupada: Stick to your own place and grow your food. There is no question

of transport. Little transport is required, that bullock cart. Krsna was

being carried on bullock cart. There is no use of petrol. Use simply the

bull. They are already there. Utilize them. No. The bull should be sent to

the slaughterhouse. Petrol should be used.

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk at Villa Borghese -- May 25, 1974, Rome

 

Prabhupada: That is my desire. Don't waste time for bodily comforts. You

have got this body. You have to eat something. You have to cover yourself.

So produce your own food and produce your own cloth. Don't waste time for

luxury, and chant Hare Krsna. This is success of life. In this way organize

as far as possible, either in Ceylon or in Czechoslovakia, wherever... Save

time. Chant Hare Krsna. Don't be allured by the machine civilization.

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Room Conversation -- October 8, 1977, Vrndavana

 

 

Nityananda: We can go this way, here. This is all our machinery here.

Prabhupada: Hm. So already some machine idle. You had to spend so much, but

they are lying idle. That is not good. That is the defect of machine. If you

cannot ply it, then it is dead loss.

Brahmananda: If you cannot what?

Prabhupada: It is dead loss if you cannot work with the machine.

Brahmananda: Yes, yes.

Prabhupada: But when you go to purchase you have to pay lots of money. Now

they will be rusty with water and gradually useless. How much money you have

invested?

Nityananda: Thousands.

Prabhupada: Just see. This is the defect of machine. If you cannot utilize

it, then it is dead loss.

Brahmananda: Where are the tractors kept?

Nityananda: One's at the house, and one's in the field.

Prabhupada: So they have to be utilized or rejected, these machines?

Nityananda: Yes, they all have a purpose. We use them from time to time.

Prabhupada: But now they are kept open and the...

Nityananda: Well, we are building a shed to keep them out of the rain.

Prabhupada: In the meantime it will be finished. By the time you finish your

shed, it is finished. Sastre sastre dal phariyaga.(?) "Some women were

dressing to go to a fair, and when they were dressed, the fair was

finished." (laughter) Utilize them. Otherwise, while they are in working

order, sell them. Don't keep in that way, neglected way. Either utilize it

or sell it at any cost. Otherwise they are useless.

Devotee: Srila Prabhupada? A materialist or someone who wouldn't know, he

may say that when the bull is not plowing, all he is doing is eating. You

have to pay money to feed him grain or to grow grain to feed the bull.

Prabhupada: They will grow, and they will eat. Rather, they will help you

for your eating. The father also eats, but he maintains the family.

Therefore the bull is considered as father and the cow as mother. Mother

gives milk, and the bull grows food grains for man. Therefore Caitanya

Mahaprabhu first challenged that Kazi that "What is your religion, that you

eat your father and mother?" Both the bulls and the cows are important

because the bull will produce food grain and the cow will give supply milk.

They should be utilized properly. That is human intelligence. This is

filling up with paddy or...? No?

Nityananda: With food for the cows. This one has forage or fodder, and that

one has grain.

Prabhupada: So everything is for the animals. Nothing for the man?

Nityananda: The cows give us milk.

Prabhupada: That's all? And you are not growing any food grains? Why?

Nityananda: Er... We've been trying to establish self-sufficient cow

protection program first, to grow our own food for the cows.

Brahmananda: There is no land available for growing rice or wheat?

Nityananda: Yes, but the number of devotees we have to do it...

Brahmananda: But you have so many machines.

Prabhupada: All these machines require oiling and keeping nicely. Otherwise

it will spoil.

Devotees in distance: All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Prabhupada: Jaya. Hare Krsna. They are starting?

Brahmananda: They are starting back.

Nityananda: Down the road we have fifteen acres of sorghum, grain for the

cows.

Prabhupada: And everything for the cows, but what for the man? They will

give everything for cows because they will eat cows, other farmers. But you

utilize the animals for growing your food.

Brahmananda: The idea is we should maintain the animals, but then the

animals should provide foodstuffs for the men.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Brahmananda: And that way there is cooperation.

Prabhupada: Yes. The animals, bulls, should have helped... instead of that

machine. Then it is properly utilized. And others, they cannot utilize these

animals. Therefore, what they will do? Naturally they will send to

slaughterhouse. But we are not going to send to the slaughterhouse. Then

what we will do? They must be utilized. Otherwise simply for growing food

that the cows and bulls we engage ourself? You are already feeling burden

because there are so many bull calves. You were asking me, "What we shall do

with so many bulls?"

Nityananda: Well, when they grow up we will train them as oxen.

Prabhupada: No, what the oxen will do?

Nityananda: Plow the fields.

Prabhupada: Yes. That is wanted. Transport, plowing fields. That is wanted.

And unless our men are trained up, Krsna conscious, they will think, "What

is the use of taking care of the plows (cows)? Better go to the city, earn

money and eat them."

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => NEW ORLEANS, AUGUST 1, 1975 WALK AROUND NEW TALAVANA

FARM

 

 

Bhagavan: Now, recently, in the last war in the Middle East, Saudi Arabians

raised the price of the oil over double now, I think, as a pressure to the

western countries to do things in their favor. Now they realized that the

market for oil is in such great demand that they don't have to lower the

price after the war, but they are going to keep the price. And actually the

price is still increasing. So this is causing inflation.

Prabhupada: So this problem will be solved as soon as we are localized.

Petrol is required for transport, but if you are localized, there is no

question of transport. You don't require petrol. Suppose in New Vrindaban,

we stay, we don't go anywhere. Then where is the need of petrol?

Bhagavan: Petrol they also use for heating. And electricity.

Prabhupada: No, heating. Heating we can do by wood. By nature.

Dhananjaya: I remember, Srila Prabhupada, you were saying that all we

require is some oxen, and the oxen can carry.

Prabhupada: Yes. The oxen will solve the problem of transport. That bullock

cart. Just like Krsna, when He was transferred from Gokula to Nandagrama, so

they took all the bullock carts, and within a few hours they transported

them, the whole thing, their luggage, family member, everything.

Bhagavan: How far can a bullock cart travel in one day?

Prabhupada: At least ten miles, very easily, very easily. And maximum he can

travel fifteen miles, twenty miles. But when we are localized, we don't

require to go beyond ten miles, five miles. Because we have created a

rubbish civilization, therefore one is required to go fifty miles for

earning bread, hundred miles, hanging.

Dhananjaya: Like in Los Angeles.

Prabhupada: Why Los Angeles? Everywhere. In New York they are coming from

hundred miles. From the other side of the island. First ferry steamer, then

bus, then so on, so on. Three hours, four hours, they spend for transport.

Satsvarupa: Is this an ideal solution or a practical one?

Prabhupada: This is practical.

Satsvarupa: Because sometimes we say that actually we cannot change the

course of the...

Prabhupada: No, no. Our society will be ideal by practical application.

Satsvarupa: If we stopped all the transportation industry, there would be

huge unemployment. It would be a great...

Prabhupada: No, no, we are not going to stop employment. We live like this.

You see. If you like, you live like us.

Bhagavan: Example.

Prabhupada: Example.

Satsvarupa: Not that we dictate to the... Not that we are going to force

everyone.

Prabhupada: No, we are not going to force anyone. "Our mode of living is

like this. If you like you can adopt." Just like we chant Hare Krsna mantra.

So we are not forcing anyone that "You also, you must chant." No. We live

like this.

Dhananjaya: So in fact, Srila Prabhupada, we should start using bullock

carts.

Prabhupada: Yes. No, first of all you start the community project, as we

have already started in New Vrindaban. Make this perfect.

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- May 27, 1974, Rome