By Vrndavanlila Dasi
After a long gap, I visited my village, Deviapur, near Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, India. As I got down from the train everything was a surprise. Earlier we used to go to the house from the railway station either on bicycle or bullock cart (as kids we preferred the latter option), but now smoke bellowing car and motorcycles were there to receive us.
As my cousins kept showing us our green fields, I could see that there was hardly any bullock seen pulling the cart or tilling the land even in a distance. There was this demoniac huffing and puffing tractor. Its very appearance was detestable, though it was a symbol of high status and wealth in the village.
Where have the cows and bulls vanished? The correlation between the dwindling number of cows and bulls in the village and increasing number of slaughterhouses in India is not so difficult to understand.
We live in the age of ‘utility theory’ where utility is the defining factor of what is the creature’s ‘validity’ to live. An object is respected as long as it is of economic utility to other human beings!
In the Vedic age or even 20 years ago there was no concept of ‘Old age homes’, but now there are a lot of them, simply because there are no longer joint families and also when the old people are no longer considered economically productive by the younger generation, they are thrown out, if not exposed to slow death.
When people`s own children are considered to be a potential burden, they are murdered (aborted) even before they are born, in the name of development. When a wife cannot be employed to bring in some easy cash, she can be burnt alive, in the name of dowry. When the mother cow is aged and cannot be milked, she is sent to a slaughterhouse. Since the bull has been replaced by a tractor and is now unemployed (rendered economically unproductive), he is also sold to the butcher. When a living being is unemployed and is thus rendered economically unproductive, the only solution to that is getting rid of that creature. …What a civilized society we live in!
So what is this unemployment, which has doomed our society? Let us look back to understand it better.
The false modern education model has totally devastated our spiritual roots and produced only ‘shudras’ – this is first violation of ‘varnasrama dharma’. The brahmanas, kshatriyas, and vaishyas are independent in nature. It is only shudras who are dependent. The newly ‘educated’ shudras can no longer continue their traditional occupations – second violation. Agriculture is left behind with the parents as they leave in search for job for cities – another violation. One violation leads to series of violations.
The laws of nature punish the violators. From being independent they are dependent in the cities. Despite the bitterness, this trend is so rampant that mass exodus of youth from villages have left the elderly parents with no hands to help them in agriculture and in other traditional occupations. They are either selling their lands off to industrialists, or employing machines to till the land and other works, as agriculture is fundamentally labor-intensive.
As if this was not enough, it results in unemployment of not just human beings, but also of animals like bulls, cows, horses, dooming their future – creating a slaughterhouse civilization. Villages are no longer able to support, as they have dearth of working hands, while cities cannot support simply because they are founded on a wrong model. They have only broken families, nuclear set ups, polluted air, criminal activities, artificial surrounding, gene-modified food, unhygienic water, noise, blaring sirens and unemployment to offer.
However, Indians love to chase the ‘American dream’. In our desire to support modern city life, are we not killing the villages? Are we not creating more unemployment for both animals and men alike and thus not becoming murderers?
In a daivi varnasrama set up, it is noteworthy that the Lord is at the center of all activities. In the Vedic age, one must work to have just enough to keep the body and soul together so that the precious life could be utilized for spiritual pursuit.
Wasn’t life beautiful earlier? The arrival of the morning was declared by the mooing sound of cows instead of mechanical alarm. One took bath in the stream instead of sitting next to a commode, one took pleasure in climbing on the trees and feasting on fresh fruits instead of fridge-stored polythene wrapped gene-modified fruit. So much we have lost already!
The description of village life in Vrindavan will make anybody go nostalgic. The problems emerge when we want to move the Lord from the center and want ourselves to be the enjoyer. We want to imitate Him, and even become Him. This results in our violation of His order and material life.
As we violate our natural set up (which is of village), the nature wreaks its vengeance in several forms – disease, famine, calamities etc. While on the other hand, when we try to make an effort to live in the manner in which the Lord desired us to be (in a Daivi Varnasrama set up) the nature is there so facilitate it.
Returning to our roots is not as difficult as we think. The tenuous bond with land, cow, and Krishna has to be revived and we need to make a more natural and scientific choice – make vrindavan villages.
Recently, in the North of France, a retired man killed his mother, wife and daughter, before committing suicide, because of being overwhelmed by debts (around 200 000 Euros). Police force, accompanying a legal debt collector, discovered the bodies…
In India, peasants commit suicide because of not being able to repay their debts, which is also to be analyzed in relation to severe draughts which prevents them to have enough crops and thereby sufficient income…
As we can see, something is definitely going wrong in our world… Over industrialization has generated so much pollution and global warming that an area larger than Germany and France combined is being flooded in Eastern Australia…!
Peasants run into debts to buy tractors, fertilizers, and even transgenic seeds which they cannot produce on their own anymore, becoming henceforward dependent on international trusts… Huge parts of agricultural land in Madagascar has been leased to a big Korean farming company, meant to supply the increasing needs of the Korean population…
Facing both national and international unbalances, we have to “think globally and act locally”…
Srila Prabhupada’s Vedic model of “simple living and high thinking” is certainly the only feasible model on the long run…
Now, our challenge is to make it attractive. We also must be capable to recommend a gradual transition, not to be perceived as fundamentalists, while still having some pilot projects showcasing how this is possible and how it functions nicely.
Simultaneously, we have to think about the implementation of this new sustainable model of society, in such a way that we can engage all varnas and ashramas, and not just vaisyas and sudras. So, an exclusive approach of going back to the villages to lead a very frugal life may not sound so attractive to the rising Indian middle class and to the leading upper class.
In this regard, Srila Prabhupada had his own definition for a capital like Paris; he said: “Paris means immense opportunity for preaching”. When he traveled to the West, he didn’t start with the countryside to convince the rural population and preach them to give up tractors and go back to horse and bull power! He went to the cities and convinced spiritually inclined people about the ultimate goal of life… The rest was meant to follow and fall gradually in place, as rural communities were started in a second phase…
Thereby, Indian engineers also need to be engaged in conceiving and implementing eco-friendly ways of nurturing the future of the human race… Intelligent innocent people need to engage both their intellectual and material assets in the service of Sri Guru & Sri Gauranga, along the principle of yukta vairagya…
Srila Bhaktisiddantha went to Radha kunda in a nice fancy car at the time. He wanted to convince all class of men that all are meant to serve and please Sri-Sri Radha-Krishna and that everything had to be engaged in Their service for Their pleasure… He said that this world was not lacking anything, but Krishna consciousness…
Therefore, it is our challenge to move forward on different forefronts and approach different kinds of people and audiences in different ways, so as to attract them, for their ultimate benefit, to the merciful lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada and be able henceforth to engage them, according to their guna karma, qualities and capacities/activities, in devotional service…
Wishing you all the best, at the lotus feet of Sri-Sri Gour-Nitai
Puskaraksa das
Srila Prabhupad would often point out the flawed conception of “advancement” of civilization that is touted as modern society. For example, previously people in an agrarian society could sustain themselves living in villages, growing the food that they would consume, weaving the cloth that could be used for making clothes. One did not require a car, a bus, or a train to travel many hours each day to and from work. With the development of machines to wash clothes and dishes, one had to work to get money in order to pay for these things. In the final analysis, one’s most valuable asset, “human time” is lost in the complicated complicated modern life style. So Srila Prabhupad would question: “where is the advancement in such a lifestyle
The alternative option that Srila Prabhupad time and again would propose is “simple living and high thinking.” This helps us to appreciate that there is no necessity to chase after the illusory goal of material advancement. It is not a “sour grapes” proposal, that is…since one is not so fortunate to possess modern amenities, then simple living is a worthy goal. Rather, simple living has the potential to save so much time for us, leaving that time for high thinking.
Mahatma Gandhi tried to encourage cottage industries in the village of India during his time in order to accomplish self-sufficiency in the villages. As mechanization of farms evolved, so many villagers lost the opportunity to work, and they moved to the cities like Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta. We have seen how so many displaced farmers were thus forced to live on sidewalks, pulling carts that donkies would pull in the past. These are all things to ponder in our preaching work…and if done properly, it creates a yearning for spiritual life and spiritual practices. Pusta Krishna das