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.

How to live in this world while chanting Hare Krishna - Part 2

By: 

Compiled by Dama Ghosha Dasa (Seattle, USA)

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.

[Here Srila Prabhupada tells us to heat our homes by wood stove - which is what we do here
simply because it is better quality heat and the wood grows everywhere in our area] 
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 Krishna, 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.

[again, here he tells us why the need to go so far away? If you live locally, have some sort of local community of devotees, then who wants to go visit the karmis? What can they offer us better? Their "rubbish civilization" is one reason we became devotees]
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.

[anyone who does the daily commute knows what he is talking about here. Even driving short distances can be hellish. It’s hard on your brain, the stress, the tension of being in a car which can crash or be hit at any moment, it costs a small fortune to operate a car, insure it, fix it, feed it gas, etc. So how is this local solution not practical? Srila Prabhupada says no - THIS is practical. I remember one trip some 25 years ago for me in India, I was thinking, after going through all the crazy traffic and pollution there, that I just wanted to get home and drive my own car! Now I feel completely differently - I wish I did not have a car at all and everybody was walking, riding bikes, or taking tongas. That feeling in India was due to raja guna.] 
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.

[We are not going to change the world today or tomorrow, But we can change the way we live in it. And if we do this, then others will pick up on our example and try to do likewise - as the saying goes - if you build a better mousetrap, then the whole world will beat a path to your door]
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 Krishna 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.

[This is a very important point. First of all, we become what he is telling us we should become -get the hellish cities out of our systems and all they stand for, move yourself out of the city, find some land, a job to pay for it, and from that point go forward by daily chanting Hare Krishna and inviting others to your new "ashram".  It is not impossible to do this; it can be done, if one sees the utility, practicality, and wisdom of all he is telling us here. This is how social change takes place - one person at a time until critical mass is achieved and then it will snowball because others will see so many doing what Srila Prabhupada has ordered us to do - even the karmis see the wisdom of Prabhupada’s teachings and are doing this local living model]
Devotee: There was a big meeting of scientists in Stockholm, Sweden, and they talked that if humanity doesn’t begin to live in a localized way like you say, in fifty years will be no more source of production.
Prabhupada: That is rascaldom. We can produce from anywhere, foodstuff.

[the best way to get oneself acclimated to growing one’s own food is to start with container planting on one's porch/patio or backyard, if you have one. Learn again what most of modern man has forgotten - how to sustain your own existence]
Bhagavan: What about the question of using petrol for heat? Another import, there is three uses of petrol, or four. One is the transportation, one is heat, another is electricity, and a fourth is they use it to manufacture so many products. So what if someone asks...
Prabhupada: No, you go on products, with your product. You have created problem, you go on with your problem. But we live like this. If you like, you can adopt.

[we will never convince everyone to live like this - but our own Acharya Srila Prabhupada is ordering us to do it, if we want to be happy and without the tensions and anxiety of city life. If one wants to go on living in the city, that's ok too, but you must take the consequences
yourself for such action. Dependence upon so many others, subservience to others, very high costs, chemicalized foodstuffs, pollution, bad water, bad air, bad health, anxiety, stress, shall
I go on?] 

Bhagavan: What is our solution to heat? Wood?

Prabhupada: Heat? Yes, wood. Sufficient.
Dhananjaya: But they are saying they used all the wood for paper, so there's no more wood.
Prabhupada: No, no. Paper you can make from grass, from cotton. So many other fibers. You don't require wood. You grow grass, sufficient quantity, and you make paper. Why should you publish so many rubbish literatures? Just like you were telling. The Times of India, the newspaper. (Sound of cars) This is the difficulty, walking on street. Therefore I wanted to go to the park. This is disturbance. So paper, if we don't produce unnecessary paper, there is no scarcity. From grass. You produce grass, huge quantity of grass, you will get paper. Cotton also. First-class paper. In India also, the rejected paper. From rejected paper you can get another paper also. But they throw it
away in your country. Collect this rejected paper and again put it into paper. And why should you publish all rubbish literature? Simply publish Bhagavata and Bhagavad-gita, that's all. What is the use of this newspaper, nonsense newspaper, huge, huge quantity? So everything will be nice provided you become ideal. Live in community. Produce your own food. Even you can produce your own paper. You don't require
printing of so many books. If there is one book, others can imitate, or copy. There is no need of printing. Formerly they used to do that.

Bhagavan: Do you want to go in the park? (a lot of noise from cars)
Prabhupada: Now?
Bhagavan: I didn't understand that about one book.
Prabhupada: One book... Suppose we have prepared some small quantity of paper. So you can, if you want that book, you just copy another book.
Bhagavan: By hand.
Prabhupada: Yes. There is no need of printing books.
Bhagavan: Some people would be engaged in copying books.
Prabhupada: No, you engage yourself. If you want book, that book, you copy yourself. Why someone should be engaged for you? You have got enough time. You are not going to the factory or hundred miles for your earning livelihood. You are on the local space. You have got enough time. You just take, copy. That's all. Minimize your unnecessary waste of time. Save time. Chant Hare Krishna. Go back to home. This is our idea. Instead of chanting twenty-five rounds, you chant hundred rounds. That is utilization of proper time.

[another new concept - don't publish books, if you live like this, just make your own paper and then make hand copies for others to have and read. But for the time being, he still wants book dist to go on.]