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Why Not Store Bought Milk by Mathura dasa Posted June 15, 2010 If we’re going to offer milk to Krsna it benefits the cow. Well on some level, maybe, If you are lucky. Lets say I enslave you, I take your children and your hard earned money by force, treat you inhumanly and then slit your throat, but don’t worry I’ll offer your $ to my home deities before I spend it… Is that actually benefiting the cow? Krsna’s cows are benefited by serving and being served, Krsna actually serves the cows himself with love and care! The proper thing is to get a cow or help someone else get one and pay them the price it takes to protect the cow then you will be benefiting the cows. The direct experience of our animal protection project is that the cows actually protect our family by giving us milk that can be transformed into so many things even the all mighty dollar. "The cow should be protected, milk should be drawn from the cows, and this milk should be prepared in various ways. One should take ample milk, and thus one can prolong one's life, develop his brain, execute devotional service, and ultimately attain the favor of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. As it is essential to get food grains and water by digging the earth, it is also essential to give protection to the cows and take nectarean milk from their milk bags." Sb 8.16.12 From our experienced calculations we have figured that to have an average of 2.75 gallons of milk per day (4gal in beginning and 1.5gal @ 2nd year end) you will need to care for approx 10 cows, breeding one cow every other year. That would take 10 acres average, depending on location. Average yearly hay for all is approx 900$ per year (depending on location) and for alfalfa for the milker is approx 900$ per year, 1200$ per year fence maintenance, herb wormer, molasses, salt, supplements and extra hay. 2.75 gal x 10$ x 365 days=10,000$ – 3000$ expenses=7000$, that’s $19.17 per day= approx. 7$ per hour of work. Making yogurt for 4$ per qt, as well as other products, will help increase your hourly wage.
We will appreciate any help or positive feedback in these matters but criticism will help none of us so please be helpful! I’m sure this will create a lot of emotion in people, but I am only trying to get you to think about these matters and act rather than justify your actions. To learn more about our project contact us at snowcreekfamilyorganicsblog.wordpress.com
His Holiness Bhakti Rasamrita Swami (previously H. G.Devamrita Das) spoke this past month at the ICC meetings (a Conference of ISKCON leader about the need for ISKCON temples and projects, in India, to consider implementing environment friendly standards. Maharaj feels that Nature, as much as everything else, belongs to Krishna. As devotees, we should try in every way to counter or at least not add to the present environmental degradation. Maharaj has surmised his ideas for ISKCON temples to adopt in the paper posted below. Making ISKCON Temples Eco-Friendly As a well-known and world-wide spiritual institution with a large member of followers, ISKCON is aware of its responsibility to the environment. In pursuance of this responsibility, we wish to formulate strategies for a step-by-step progression in the level of eco-friendliness of our Temples and other projects in India, leading to the setting up of practical standards of compliance. The culmination of course, will be “Green Temples”. Participation or suggestions from temples and projects outside India are most welcome. In considering eco-friendliness, the following would need to be considered: 1. MATERIALS: (For construction, interiors, kitchen and other equipment, packing and storage, stationery, clothing and other personal effects etc.) 2. ENERGY: (For lighting, heating, cooking, transportation, domestic and other appliances, etc.) 3. WATER: (Conservation, Recycling, Harvesting rain-water) 4. METHODS: (For conserving water or for cooking, or for saving energy or for building structures and so on.) 5. WASTE MANAGEMENT: (For solid and liquid waste) 6. FOOD: (e.g. Organic foods, cooking mediums, utensils, fuels, packed foods, preferred and avoidable types of food, etc.) 7. TREES/GREENERY: (For different purposes. Encouraging the use of plants indigenous to the local or geographical region.) 8. HEALTH: (Being aware of health hazards of eco-unfriendly practices) 9. AUDIT: (Current levels of usage vs ideal standards) 10. CREATING AWARENESS: (Educating devotees about the need for being more eco-friendly) These proposals are not intended to be compulsory requirements. Nevertheless, we urge all our temples and projects to follow certain minimum standards of compliance. We highly encourage and if possible will reward movement up the scale to higher standards of eco-friendliness. It will be left to the inspiration and motivation of individual Temples to adopt the standard.
Therefore, we wish to set up practically do-able, relatively simple, cost-effective and reviewable standards. This will be a basic list of do’s and don’ts of sorts. Anyone interested in contributing their time and efforts, providing information or expertise are encouraged to please assist in this project. If anyone is, or knows of environment experts who may be able to help with a blueprint for an eco friendly or Green Temple, please do contact me: ( Research Coordinator)
Thank you.
I recently received the following letter from a devotee who doesn't get what the problem is with the bridge going by Keshi Ghat. Actually, he is not the only one, but many seem to be confused about the fuss. On the one hand, there are those with materialist vision, who see the bridge as "progress" that will bring Vrindavan into the 21st century. On the other are the devotees who think we should passively attempt to change our vision and see the divine Vrindavan while pretending that whatever happens on the surface is irrelevant to the way that our vision is transformed. Here is his letter and my answer: I just don't get it. Why is everyone so concerned with the environment? It is our master, we must accept what the environment is doing and carry on in our devotional practices. I was just in Vrindavan, it was wonderful, words cannot do justice. My condolences to all of you people concentrating on some material matter. You should be concentrating on the beauty. If you find a rock in your rasagulla you savor your tooth breaking rather than the sweetness of the rasagulla, and then you blame that on the sweetmaker. Vrindavan will be beautiful with or without a bridge. I don't know about you people but I know that I don't have the devotion to see that true transcendental Vrindavan, all I see is dust and stool. A bridge is much nicer to look at than stool. If you can see that REAL Vrindavan, then please bestow upon me your mercy so that I too may see what is REALLY there, so that I may see the lord of my heart with my own eyes. Until I get sufficient devotion and mercy I will not see, so please bestow upon me your mercy. The letter is a little confused, since in the beginning you seem to be ignoring the stool and then you say that you do see it, but that you find the bridge beautiful. At any rate, you fail to see the connection between the two. But to answer your question as to how to get the devotion and mercy so that you can see the REAL Vrindavan, let me give you a few tips. If your heart is impure and full of desires, do you engage in purificatory acts to make it proper for Krishna to reside there, or not? Similarly, if your temple were dirty, would you not think it necessary or appropriate to clean it? Should the deities be nicely dressed and offered food on clean dishes, and so on? Did Mahaprabhu set an example in the Gundicha temple, or did he say, "Jagannath likes it this way" and leave it? And is it a devotional practice, mandira-mArjanAdau, or not? And when Narottam Das cleaned Lokanath Goswami's stools, why didn't he just say, "My guru's body is transcendental. His stools, like Rishabhadeva's, smell like roses. So I will revel in his stool; there is no need to clean them"? Actually, you are making the Ramachandra Puri mistake. When Madhavendra Puri was dying and calling out in separation to Radha and Krishna, Ramachandra Puri said, "What's your problem? You are a liberated soul. Why are you crying out in separation?" Ishwar Puri recognized the opportunity for service and got Madhavendra Puri's mercy, while Ramachandra Puri's career spiralled downwards. When Raghunath or Prabodhananda say that they dream of sweeping the Divine Couple's pleasure bower, is that incorrect of them? Are they concentrating on some material matter because they clean the kunja? Furthermore, if someone comes to your parents' house and desecrates it--let us say they come and drink alcohol and urinate in the living room--do you just ignore it and see the spirit soul in them and accept that they are acting according to the modes of nature and leave whatever filth or nuisance they have done without question? Is Vrindavan your home or not? So is cleaning the environment in the Dham service to the environment or service to Guru, Gauranga and Gandharvika-Giridhari? If you do not see the dirt, then you are exempt from cleaning it. But I would say, that is your misfortune. Your guru has not shown you that this service is there to be done. He probably told you to sell books. Why? Isn't everybody already eternally liberated and never separated from Radha and Krishna? And when you walk on the parikrama marga, I assume you don't hear the cars honking and nearly running you over. And when the bridge is built and there are ten times as many cars, you will neither notice the fumes or the increased noise. Better be careful, as one of those cars you neither see nor hear, may run you over. But of course, there is no difference between life and death, is there? My dear friend, in fact, you are very fortunate that you have had a positive experience of Vrindavan. We wish that everyone else should also have as wonderful a pilgrimage to this land as you have had. Believe me, for those of us who have been coming to or staying in Braj for the last 35 or 40 years, we continue to come because we also see the transcendental beauty pervading the land, and because we can feel the presence of Radha and Krishna here. That is precisely why we feel this need to preserve and enhance the special, sacred and spiritual character of Vrindavan, and feel it a necessary act of PREACHING to do so. Preaching is not just selling books. Preaching is also about creating an environment that is conducive for devotional service. Nowhere in the world, no temple, no ashram, is as important a place for devotional service as the place where Radha and Krishna had their pastimes. That is why Chaitanya Mahaprabhu sent Sri Rupa and Sanatan there, not to convert anyone, but to discover and reveal the holy places where the Divine Couple had their pastimes. This was part of their PREACHING mission. Braj was that important to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And so, one of the first things he did when he had stalwart and worthy disciples was to send them to Braj to do this. When these places get lost again, or inundated under a ton of garbage, or paved over to make a four-laned highway, we will be letting Rupa and Sanatan's service be undermined. How can that be pleasing to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu? We will have misunderstood a great deal about bhakti and prema-rasa. Rupa Goswami's "upadesha-sara", "the essence of all instruction," is to live in Vrindavan under the shelter of a rasika devotee and hear and chant about Radha and Krishna's most intimate pastimes, i.e., to do bhajan and meditate on the ashta-kaliya lila. You may not be ready to do that, nor may many others, but Vrindavan and the other places in Braj Dham should be developed in such a way that this is the ideal environment to do just that. Sadhus naturally want a peaceful, beautiful, sacred environment to do their bhajan. Where will they go if this place is ruined for bhajan? Is there an alternative to Vrindavan? Can we make a New Vrindavan that is as good as the old one? There is no alternative. We must serve and preserve the Holy Dham that Rupa and Sanatan, and Haridas Swami, and Vallabhacharya, and Hit Harivams, and Hari Vyasa, and the acharyas of all the rasika sampradayas chose as their place of bhajan. We have no choice. NONE.
Jai Sri Radhe!!
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Milk From Protected Cows for Radha Kalachandji by Hare Krsna dasi Posted May 25, 2010
What can I say about the well-meaning attempts of devotees at the Dallas Temple to comfort the hearts of thousands of Gita-nagari devotees of Sri Sri (chota) Radha Kalachandji? They are no-doubt kind hearted, but our eternal home is Gita-nagari, no matter where in the world we may be. And that eternal home has sweet Radha Kalachandji on the altar, listening to the melodies of the robins and peacocks during the morning, and enjoying the refreshing breezes and the sounds of the big bull frogs at night. That is a home where farmers come in with staw covered shirts to pay their thankful obeisances during the heat of the midday. And that is a home where the cows with softly tinkling bells are ever joyful, to provide milk for the Deities, day after day. When I lived at Gita-nagari, every ekadasi Lord Kalachandji had His beautiful body smeared with ghee made from butter from our protected cows, making Him impossibly more handsome. And every mangala artotik tray had burfi, sweet rice, kheer & rabri and butter balls, all from our protected cows. Although the Dallas devotees have very kind hearts, I wonder if they can understand, it is not the opulent kirtans and beautiful temple that will help us feel better -- any more that the gopis could be pleased by hearing that now that He has arrived in Dwarka, everyone should be pleased that Krsna is finally being treated like the Lord He really is. The thing that would ease our heart the most is to hear that the devotees in Texas love Kalachandji so much that they are offering Him only milk from protected cows.
I know that this is an very opulent offering. And, it would be an extremely opulent offering in Texas, which is not so much known for cow protection. But Krsna is the chief friend of the cowherds, and if we could only hear that He has devoted, happy cowherds living nearby who are protecting His cows and bulls in the green fields and offering Him fresh milk every day, that is the one thing that could gladden our hearts. And then you yourselves will see how beautiful He really looks! Thank you very much.
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