How to live in this world while chanting Hare Krishna Part - 4

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Compiled by Dama Ghosha Dasa (Seattle, USA)

Bhagavan: So in our community, when we grow things, or we have need of someone's services, how are these services distributed equally? Let's say we grow cauliflower, we grow peas, we grow wheat. Is it that each family must be responsible and take only what he needs? How is it distributed?
Prabhupada: No, no. These varieties... Suppose you grow half a dozen different types of vegetables. So from this half a dozen you can make three dozen varieties. If you are a good cooker. So the varieties of enjoyment will be fulfilled. We have got some desire of different quality of varieties. That you can make. From milk, vegetable, grains, the three things, you can make three hundred varieties.
Bhagavan: But my question is, if the community produces... Some class of men produce vegetables and grains, some class produce cows, some class produce clothes, some class produce necessities for building. How are these things distributed equally?
Prabhupada: Because we are community, we shall distribute whatever necessity for everyone.

Bhagavan: They will come and say, "I need this much cloth, I need this much milk."
Prabhupada: No, this much cloth... But if you become Krishna conscious, then you will be satisfied with the minimum necessities of life. That is natural. You won't demand.
Yogesvara: So actually such a program can only be successful proportionately with the rise of Krishna consciousness of the people.
Prabhupada: Yes. That is the main basic principle. Without being Krishna conscious, if you arrange like this, that will never be successful.
Yogesvara: They won't be satisfied.
Prabhupada: No.
Yogesvara: So then we should begin our rural communities like New Vrindaban, and then by training up people in the cities, we can send them gradually...
Prabhupada: There will be no city. We don't want cities.
Bhagavan: What about our city temples?
Prabhupada: No, no. For the time it may go on. But as we make progress, there will be no necessity.  City means... For the present we have got. Because the city is there, we are there. But suppose the city is closed. We shall be there? If the city is closed, you still
will be there?

 [Srila Prabhupada is not an ordinary man, like you or I. He is directly empowered by the Lord to come here and help us deal with this nasty kali yuga .Some of us will hear him and try to follow his orders, some wont. Everybody cannot follow all of his orders because there were just too many of them. But we all can follow the most important ones. The basic ones are following the 4 regulations, chanting Hare Krishna mantra daily and this idea of living locally growing one’s own food he also wanted adopted by his disciples.  Otherwise, why the huge volume of information in his books, his daily walks, and conversations such as this one about living locally? With nuclear war looming soon, or at least a major worldwide financial collapse coming soon, who wants to be left alone in a city run wild with crazies looking for food and what you have and they don’t?  Better to hear this good advice now and do something practical about it than wait around for the worst to happen.]
Yogesvara: But we can predict that the cities will go on for quite some time.
Prabhupada: Yes, it will go on, but when they will see that your ideal community is better than city life, people will take to it. Param drstva nivartate. When one gets a better standard of life, naturally he will give up the lower standard of life.
Dhananjaya: But won't the countryside be spoiled if there is an atomic war?
Prabhupada: Bomb will be utilized where there are big materialistic persons. Bombs are never thrown in the village.
Bhagavan: The bombs will be thrown in the big cities where the industry is.
Prabhupada: Yes, yes.
Yogesvara: The targets will be the cities.
Prabhupada: Yes. They will be finished first. The bombs are never used at the villages. Downtown, downtown. (laughter) The downtown will be first finished. I have got experience during the last war. The bombs were being thrown in Calcutta and almost all the bombs were thrown in downtown.
Bhagavan: They know they don't want to bomb the countryside or else how can they live?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Bhagavan: The overpopulation is in the city.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Bhagavan: They think that overpopulation occurs in underdeveloped countries, but actually in every city it is overpopulation, people living on top of each other like rats.
Prabhupada: (loud noises) These are subway trains?
Dhananjaya: No, these are ordinary trains.
Prabhupada: So all your problems solved?
Bhagavan: No, not yet.
Prabhupada: Put Problems. I'll solve.
Yogesvara: Here's a problem. The women today want the same rights as men. How can they be satisfied?
Prabhupada: Everything will be satisfied. Just like our women, Krishna conscious, they are working. They don't want equal rights with men. It is due to Krishna consciousness. They are cleansing the temple, they are cooking very nicely. They are satisfied. They never say that "I have to go to Japan for preaching like Prabhupada." They never say. This is artificial. So Krishna consciousness means work in his constitutional position. The women, men, when they remain in their constitutional position, there will be no artificial…

[Below is another related conversation on the same topic.]

Conversations, May 28, 1974, Rome
              
Dhananjaya: In Greenland?
Prabhupada: Others cannot live locally.
Satsvarupa: That's not their karma?
Prabhupada: No, karma is there. That is another point. My point is that any condition, one can live locally. That is my point. They are supposed to be uncivilized, and they live in the ice cottage. There is no sufficient things for eating. And how they live? That is the point. So why civilized man cannot live locally?

Satsvarupa: One objection to that is that they say that now cultures have been spread more by all this transportation. You even write that the world is now like a global village. But if everyone just stays in their own place, they won't know what people and culture is like in other parts of the world, and their view will be more narrow.

Prabhupada: No. They may go sometimes. Just like in India, they used to live locally, but at the same time they used to go to the pilgrimages by walking. It is not prohibited that one should not go out, but when one goes out, he goes out of pleasure, not as
obligation. At the present moment, it has become an obligation that one must go out of his home, of his village, of his country. That is defective. There was no need of so many transports. People remained locally. One has to go for livelihood hundred miles. This is defective.

SUMMARY-  A lot has been said by Srila Prabhupada above and most of it is probably quite shocking for most devotees. It is just too much to swallow for many.
Once a devotee friend of mine told me a story about a morning walk in southern
India with Srila Prabhupada where he took them through some remote village where there was no phones, no electricity, no running water, and everybody lived in the basic Indian village mud/cow dung hut. And Prabhupada told them---THIS IS FIRST CLASS!!! My friend told me all the devotees were basically shocked at what they saw as it was NOT what they were used to in the western world, where they all came from. So much of this information may be shocking to many, but as we chant more and more, get more purified, we will be able to see the wisdom of it all and the shock value will be totally gone.

The whole process of Krishna Consciousness is based upon hearing. The more we hear from the pure devotee, the more we become cleansed of all the impurities of this kali yuga and all our anarthas as well. The result of this continual hearing is that we naturally become more austere, more devoted, and able to live a simple sadhu’s life devoid of all the trappings and traps of the machines of kali yuga.

Some people will say, yeah, but what about Yukta vairyaga? What about using everything for Krishna? Yes that's true, but then why did Srila Prabhupada himself have his new phone taken out the very next day in NYC? He told the story about how in India at that time you had to wait about two years to get a phone. He had his new phone in NYC the very next day. Then after seeing the result and the distractions it caused to his own personal life, he had the devotees remove that very same phone a day later.

Another example is shaving. Srila Prabhupada by his own example shaved with a straight razor. He could have had the very best electric razors made in the world, but he stuck with this simple living model all his life, even taking bucket baths as well. He made the comment about shaving - that in kali yuga there is a machine for everything!! Even for such a simple thing as shaving!

So the principle of yukta vairyaga leads one to living- eventually- in this way.
Simplify your living and purify your soul.