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By Arjuna Krsna Das<\/strong><\/p>\n Both Rama Laksman prabhu, Director for IDVM Secretariat located in Sri Mayapur along with Arjuna Krsna prabhu, Co-Director for IDVM Department of Education undertook an extensive tour to various ISKCON rural projects in India.<\/p>\n Their travels took them to Nilachal Dham, a new project under ISKCON Juhu temple close to Mumbai in Maharashtra, Nandagram Farm in Gujarat, Pathmeda on the border of Rajasthan and Gujarat, Panchavati in Tamil Nadu, close to Salem, Venu Madhuri in Maharashtra, Govardhan Eco Village in Maharashtra, a project run under the ISKCON Chowpatty temple and last to Gokul Dham near Belgaum in Northern Karnataka.<\/p>\n Nandagram Farm – A Gurukul blossoms<\/p>\n As representatives of IDVM, Iskcon Daiva Varnasrama Ministry, when we were making our month long programme to visit the farm communities across India, we meticulously planned in such a way that we would be in a big city temple, especially during festivals, such as ‘Janmastami’, so that we don’t miss out on the extravaganza, especially in terms of feasting. As there is a famous proverb in Sanskrit, ‘Brahmanah Bhojana priya’, we added our lingo to it, “Vaishnava prasada priya” and it so happened, as it always happens, Krsna is watching with mischievous glances and he decided to just switch things a wee bit here and there and when we landed near Avanti farm, we found that the dates on which ‘Janmastami’ was to be celebrated would pitch-fork us in the farm rather than Baroda city temple.<\/p>\n When we reached ‘Kevadia’, near the Nandagram farm, we met with Nartak Gauranga Das, disciple of HH Bhakti Vikas Swami Maharaj and the first thing we noticed was the utmost humility and concern for others from him. We were led to the place, where they were staying and he apologetically informed us that they had just shifted recently from a nearby farm, which often had water seeping into their quarters and they had recently shifted into this place, wherein the ‘Gurukul’ boys and the ‘Grhastas’ were SHARING their accommodations. This place was built in a hurry to provide for accommodations and soon they would be constructing separate quarters for the ‘Gurukul’ boys and the Grhastas in the 32 acre farm.<\/p>\n The moment we went in, we heard a ‘chorus’ of ‘Hare Krsna Prabhuji’ and dozens of young boys were on their stomachs offering ‘Dandavats’. It was amazing to see their sense of discipline and their energy levels as they went about their daily chores, which now included us, as guests to be served. The quarters were homely and had no electricity, except for one room away, where they could charge their devices, such as mobiles, which has become a kind of necessity in the modern world. Especially for ISKCON devotees, as we are a preaching mission, and we still need to communicate and update the reports on the progress of the farm communities online, unlike the famous Amish community, which has been completely living according to nature for decades.<\/p>\n We met other senior devotees in the farm consisting of 4 Grhastha families, who also have some of their children enrolled in the Gurukul. Nartak Gauranga prabhu heads this community and also doubles up as English teacher. I saw a very familiar devotee and he too stopped and both of us broke into a wide grin and hugged each other, this was Jai Nityanand prabhu, who also happened to be my Sanskrit teacher, during my ‘Bhakti Shastri’ course at VIHE in Vrndavan. We got down to talk and he talked of his ‘Sanskrit’ classes for the children here at the farm and he also conducts drama sessions and Epics such as ‘Ramayana’ and ‘Mahabharata’ for the Gurukul boys. They recently got a cow from a pretty far off village and she was still very much nervous and fidgety with her brief stay in the farm along with her daughter. The only person, she allows to come near and milk her is the Goshala in-charge, Nityananda Krsna prabhu.<\/p>\n The next day began early with the ‘Gurukul’ kids running around feverishly to get dressed in time for the arati, while the head pujari, Dharma prabhu went around softly calling other boys, who were still in bed, moaning ‘5 minutes more’. Mangala arati saw the children extremely chirpy and singing ‘Gurvasktakam’ to their hearts content and it was a joy to be around such bundles of energy, as we were reminded of our childhood days. The entire day, saw the preparations for ‘Janmastami’, which was to be held in nearby village, where they were expecting close to 500 people and the Gurukula children were busy enacting a drama, for the pleasure of Lord Krsna and the villagers and even in the midst of all the busy preparations, devotees were gracious in spending their time liberally with us, with regards to some questions that we had about their ‘Gurukula’. We were amazed to hear Nartaka Gauranga prabhu, who told us that, under the inspiration of HH Bhakti Vikas Swami Maharaj, they had started this ‘Gurukula’, where they clearly told the Grhastha families that they would not be giving any certificates or degrees to the children enrolled in the Gurukula and they would be teaching them, exactly as Srila Prabhupada wanted the devotee children to be taught.<\/p>\n The ‘Gurukul’ has 15 wonderful students from age 5 to age 12 and these children are the life of the community, where they are very nicely engaged in doing their daily chores. The devotees have collected all of the conversations that Srila Prabhupada had on ‘Gurukula’ and they are doing their best to follow exactly, according to the instructions. The parents of these children also amazingly have agreed and many of them wanted the devotees to turn their children into Brahmacaris (Celibates), who would dedicate their lives for Lord Krsna. This attitude amongst the parents was nothing short of heroic, as some parents have taken up the challenge of creating a new generation of glorious children, who can bring about a revolution with their ideals and training. Children were meticulous in their work, which included cleaning the places in the morning and going about their studies and after a brief rest, some more studies and putting up beds and mosquito nets for the night.<\/p>\n We got ready for the evening ‘Janmastami’ celebrations in the village, where most residents understand Gujarati, even though they can understand a little bit of Hindi as well. Preparations began with Kirtans by the ‘Gurukula’ kids. The training of the “Gurukul” children was evident, as they took the entire load of conducting the “Janmastami” festival with most of the kids engaged in Kirtans and Drama and had a huge impact on the audience, who were just spell-bound to see their energy levels. . The villagers were full of enthusiasm and simple as they were, participated in the ‘Kirtans’ with joy and we served them Prasadam at the end and by the time we got to the farm, it was 11:15pm, but surprisingly we were not at all exhausted and continued our ‘Kirtans’ till 12pm, when we finally broke our fast with ‘Ekadasi’ Prasadam. It was truly the ‘best’ Janmastami of our lives, living in the simple surroundings of wonderful mother nature with Krsna, land and cows. After Prasadam, tiredness kicked in, another realization of how food tires down the body and then we resolved with the devotees that we should have a ‘Mangal Arati’ that day, as it was the most auspicious appearance day of Srila Prabhupada and maybe later take rest. Inspite of the hectic previous day work, many children turned up in force during ‘Mangala Arati’ and this would have really pleased Srila Prabhupada.<\/p>\n Later on after 10:30am, there were special Kirtans celebrating Srila Prabhupada appearance and the children began singing various songs and we were thunderstruck that the ‘Gurukul’ children had already memorized most of the songs in the Vaishnava song book and even ‘Markine Bhagavad Dharma’, written by Srila Prabhupada by heart. We felt ashamed as we mumbled after the children, who were enthusiastically rendering it to perfection. We later had a delicious feast and many villagers were also invited for the Prasadam. Another very positive aspect of this farm community is that none of the Grhastas are paid by the temple management. They all have agreed to have a share in whatever produce is obtained in the farm and right now they are running the activities purely by donation, but very soon they are going to shift to individual mode, where the individual “Grhasta” families will be given a plot of land, where they will be expected to sustain on their own. There are 6 such families and i have seen very good levels of co-operation amongst them. So, overall an excellent effort to set future standards for running of successful farm communities. We took our leave from the devotees and it was an unforgettable experience spending those two days amidst big festivities in the ‘Nandagram’ farm and we realized why Lord Krsna had played that trick. W e were thankful to Him, as He had wanted us to experience festivals the natural farm community way. Jai Radhe-Shyam.<\/p>\n Written by Arjuna Krsna das IDVM Co-Director for Department of Education For inquiries: Arjuna.Krsna.BRS@pamho.net<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As representatives of IDVM, Iskcon Daiva Varnasrama Ministry, when we were making our month long programme to visit the farm communities across India, we meticulously planned in such a way that we would be in a big city temple, especially during festivals, such as ‘Janmastami’, so that we don’t miss out on the extravaganza, especially in terms of feasting. As there is a famous proverb in Sanskrit, ‘Brahmanah Bhojana priya’, we added our lingo to it, “Vaishnava prasada priya” and it so happened, as it always happens, Krsna is watching with mischievous glances and he decided to just switch things a wee bit here and there and when we landed near Avanti farm, we found that the dates on which ‘Janmastami’ was to be celebrated would pitch-fork us in the farm rather than Baroda city temple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14104,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14103\/revisions\/14104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hare](\"http:\/\/dandavats.com\/wp-content\/uploads5\/2014-11-09_21-10-49.jpg\")
By Arjuna Krsna Das<\/strong><\/p>\n