Varnashrama Development

[Gauracandra]

Discussions of varnashrama development I think often miss a fundamental problem and I think the first big stumbling block to the creation of an actual cohesive social system.

 

The problem is size. We do not have population density to create a cohesive social structure. 100 devotees here, 200 there, is not enough.

 

To make it simple, visualize if you will what would happen if you did in fact gather 10,000 devotees from around the world in one town. All of a sudden all sorts of possibilities fall into place, from the minor to the major.

 

For priests, it makes it easier to gather donations for the maintenance of temples. We could select only the most qualified individuals because we would reduce redundancy. We tend to think of our temples as having a few hundred people. But there are plenty of well functioning churches in the U.S. that have several thousand congregation members easily. I have a friend who's church is huge (like 30,000). They simply rotate services. All of a sudden you could have a few temples, managed by a few head priests (the most qualified). Large congregations would put a lot less stress on having to raise funds through book distribution. In addition, with a large congregation you could finance a very beautiful temple(s) with no mortgage.

 

For businesses, the opportunities are huge as well. By creating a small town just of devotees, the funds generated from the congregation would stay in the hands of the congregation. When I go to the store, I may spend several hundred dollars per month, that goes to non-devotees. But in a community of 10,000 a devotee could set up a legitimate grocery store. They could set up laundromats, clothing stores, restaurants etc.... In economics there is a principle called the multiplier effect. Basically you could have a few devotees earn money, and as they spend it, it ripples through the economy, creating other jobs. These other jobs could be businesses owned by devotees within the community. Then our funds would continually circulate among devotees (not entirely, some would 'bleed out', but more of our wealth would be retained within our community).

 

For administrators, there really isn't a whole lot of defending they could do. But again, there is even less in a community of 100. Atleast if you could establish a large community, you could create a small volunteer fire departments or such.

 

Everything from cow protection to economic development, to schooling. Even if the schools are public schools, the government is required to provide them to you. If you have two or three thousand Vaisnava kids going to a public school, you have effectively created a Vaisnava school, with the tax payers (devotees among them) paying the bill. Philosophy could be done outside of school in a sort of seminary type set up.

 

It really isn't any temple's fault that there hasn't been a full scale varnashram system set up. As far as I'm concerned the main stumbling block initially is one of population density. You can want it to happen all we want, but unless there are lots and lots and lots of devotees owning large sections of an area, it just won't happen.

[Kulapavana]

the "population density" argument is somewhat valid (it makes things easier). but we will not achieve this higher density unless we take the Vedic approach in preaching: broad acceptance of people, diminished sectarianism among the preaching groups, honorable (Aryan) bevavior by our members.

 

all that aside, my question to all people here: what is stopping individual devotees from declaring their own varna and acting accordingly?