Damaghosa das: Vedic Culture means simple living — Starting with growing your own FOOD !!

Prabhupada: “… Anything grown in the garden, that is hundred times valuable than it is purchased from the market. …and if you ‘can’t’, or no soil, get dried beans, soak, and grow sprouts, and offer, and eat raw, in a few days”

This farm project is especially for the devotees to grow their own food. Cotton also, to make their own clothes. And keeping cows for milk and fatty products.” ( Letter to: Yasomatinandana — Vrindaban 28 November, 1976)

“Therefore I am asking so much here and…, “Farm, farm, farm, farm…” That is not my program — Krsna’s program. Annad bhavanti bhutani [Bg. 3.14]. Produce greenness everywhere, everywhere. Vrndavana. It is not this motorcar civilization. If it has taken in his brain, then it is to be understood that he can do this plan. He’ll be able. “ (Conversation Pieces — May 27, 1977, Vrndavana)

That I want to introduce. At any cost do it and… Don’t bother about big, big buildings. It is not required. Useless waste of time. Produce. Make the whole field green. See that. Then whole economic question solved. Then you eat sumptuous. Eat sumptuously. ( SB 1.10.4 Purport)  

Starting with growing your own FOOD !!

by Damaghosa das

Hare Krsna To All, Pranams,
Glories to Srila Prabhupada, and the Vedic culture, starting with growing your own FOOD !!

Some say taking “control” of your own life means to become independent of others control. But actually an aspiring Vaisnava is supposed to live within the laws of material nature and at the same time be independent of the material society,at least as far as possible. Srila Prabhupada is trying to teach us so many things in his books and this “idea” of becoming somewhat self sufficient has not yet taken hold in the minds of the majority of devotees.

We ARE living here in the material world, despite some who claim they are “transcendental to it”. And to make the best use of a bad bargain means to figure out how to live in this place while incurring or making minimal damage to our body, to the planet and to our own consciousness. The Vedic culture tells us  to live as simply as possible to keep body and soul together as this  is the actual way the sages/devotees did it ages ago and some still do to this day in India. So how can we do it?

Someone told me a couple days ago that if a person today,loses his job, his credit rating goes down and then insurance companies will charge him more for car and home coverage. I mean how can you win with this going on? You try your best, work at some mundane job, then lose your job, then the sharks in the insurance companies close in for the kill further by saying now you are a credit risk so they will have to charge you MORE money- for the same coverage !!

And we could on and on with this, but I think others get the picture here. There is no winning this battle in kali yuga. The simplest and most practical thing we can do is try to follow what the Acaryas tell us to do, purify ourselves and get out of here by going back to Home. Personally I dont think it possible for conditioned souls at present to just cut all ties with the modern world and head for the hills and grow some spuds for self and family. Just let the power go off for a day or two and see what happens to your life, how we are so attached to these modern comforts.

But if all of us started growing our own food, even in a small backyard, that is how one starts on this path of self sufficiency, self empowerment, and the idea of pursuing self realization , which is largely based on simplifying our lives, becomes more real and fullfilling.

And then figure into the equation the fact that the Supreme Lord Krsna WANTS us to do it !! As Prabhupada often times said, you cant eat nuts and bolts, so why are we manufacturing so many useless things or helping others do it?? (please see the few Prabhupada quotes at end of article)

Anyway,I just took a few pictures this morning out back while chanting some japa and thought to share them with you all.

Life is good, by chanting the Holy Names, and it gets better the more we hear and chant because just as shadow follows form,the material energy will very nicely support us if we serve her Master thru bhakti yoga.

Hare Krsna
Damaghosa Das
DasDasDas@aol.com

751002SB.MAU  Lectures
… I see in your this Mauritius land, you have got enough land to produce food grains. You produce food grain. I understand that instead of growing food grains, you are growing sugar cane for exporting. Why? And you are dependent on food grains, on rice, wheat, dahl. Why? Why this attempt? You first of all grow your own eatables. And if there is time and if your population has got sufficient food grains, then you can try to grow other fruits and vegetables for exporting. The first necessity is that you should be self-sufficient. That is God’s arrangement. Everywhere there is sufficient land to produce food grains, not only in your country. I have traveled all over the world–Africa, Australia, and other, in America also. There are so much land vacant that if we produce food grains, then we can feed ten times as much population as at the present moment. There … purnam adah purnat purnam udacyate, purnasya purnam adaya purnam evavasisyate. If we don’t produce food grain–you require it–and put unnecessarily men into scarcity, that is sinful. …

690323LE.HAW Lectures
We have created a civilization that one must earn thousands of dollars, then he can live like a gentleman. Is that successful life? And for earning that thousands of dollars he has to work so hard, just like animal, beast. No. That is not successful life. Successful life is that, that we should make our bodily necessities of life as far as required, not more than that. I want to eat something. God has given sufficient food. You grow. You live anywhere. You grow foodstuff. You grow grains. You grow fruits. You grow vegetables. Keep cows. Take milk. You can live anywhere. You haven’t got to go fifty miles off with a car to attend your office at six o’clock with velocity of hundred miles’ speed. Is that successful life, do you think? So where is successful life? We are proposing successful life.

751028mw.nai  Conversations
Prabhupada: If you open farm for financial help, then it will not be successful. You should take to farming for supporting yourself. That’s all. Grow your own food. Grow your own cloth. There is no need of financial help from outside. You get your food grains sufficiently, rice, dahl, wheat, vegetables, milk, sugar. Bas You get everything. From these five, six items you should be economically free. That you have to do, not for trade to get money. Then it will be failure

SB 7.14.5P Ideal Family Life 2/5
A wise man, however, learns from the sastras and guru that we living entities are all eternal but are put into troublesome conditions because of associating with different … under the laws of material nature. He therefore concludes that in the human form of life he should not endeavor for unnecessary necessities, but should live a very simple life, just maintaining body and soul together. Certainly one requires some means of livelihood, and according …  is the basic principle of Vedic civilization. One should be satisfied with whatever means of life comes automatically. The modern materialistic civilization is just the opposite of the ideal civilization. Every … the so-called leaders of modern society invent something contributing to a cumbersome way of life that implicates people more and more in the cycle of birth, death, old age and  disease.

3 August, 1975   Detroit
Letter to Mahamsa Swami

“The village organization is that the local people produce their necessities like grain, vegetables, milk, and cloth; and for recreation they have the chanting of Hare Krishna. They should live there comfortably and have spiritual recreation. They should not come to the cities.

I wish to introduce this ideal now. Then if we are successful this cheating civilization will stop. They have made these cities as hell. If people do not cooperate with them, then how will the factories run on? And, if the people are satisfied by this arrangement, then what will the communists do?”

?750801SB.NO Lectures
… a nice place. And the grhasthas may come here, have some small cottage, and grow your own food grains, vegetables, and have your cow’s milk. Get nice foodstuff, save time. Why should you go … and again hundred miles come back and take unnecessary trouble? Stick to this spot and grow your own food, your own cloth, and live peacefully, save time, chant Hare Krsna. Very nice program. …….

730722rc.lon Conversations 339138/530501
Prabhupada: And yajnad bhavati parjanyah. And when we regularly perform yajna, then there is regular cloud in the sky. And when there is cloud in the sky, there is regular rainfall, and when there is regular rainfall, there is sufficient production of food grains, fruits and other vegetables so that both the animal and the human beings, they eat sufficiently, they grow strength, they become happy and again perform yajna. And the animals supply, the cow supplies milk. In this way, the whole society becomes happy. These are the prescriptions, or directions, given by the Vedic literature. So if people take advantage of this instruction, as you have mentioned in your article “The Great Seers,” so if we follow their instruction, the whole history of the human being can be changed. There is no difficulty. But whether the people will accept or not, that is the business of the leaders of the society.

[this is one of my favorite quotes]

740606BG.GEN Lectures
So as we till our land and gets foodstuff according to my labor, according to my intelligence… Food grains I can produce once twice, thrice, if I work hard. Generally, they work two times: three months, three months. And those who are very lazy, they work three months. But even working for three months, they can acquire foodstuffs for the whole year. That I have seen.