From: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us (Kalki Dasa)
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: The Farmer and Krishna
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 14:38:02 EST
Reply-To: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us (Kalki Dasa)
Organization: Kalki's Infoline BBS, Aiken, SC, USA

From Back to Godhead magazine, November/December 1992

THE FARMER AND KRSNA

by Hare Krsna Devi Dasi

(c) 1992 The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust
Used by permission.

I've talked about how farming declines when leaders make it hard for
would-be farmers to get land. And even when the U.S. government made
land easier to get, eventually cow slaughter and centralized agriculture
made it nearly impossible for the small farmer to make a living.

Now let's look at the recent history of China, where the government gave
farmers their own land and where farmers, by tradition, protected
working oxen. Though I don't condone the extreme methods China used to
change from centralized to family farming, a look at the history is
informative.

Between 1949 and 1952, the new Communist regime took about forty-four
percent of China's arable land from rich farmers and landlords and gave
it to poor and landless peasants. Most of the land became family farms
of about equal size. This land reform inspired farmers to work harder,
and grain yields went up quickly.[1]

By keeping some form of cow protection and putting farmers on the land,
China improved the life of millions of its citizens. But two
developments undermined self-sufficient family farming: farm families
gradually lost their land to collectivized production, and the Chinese
became more willing to kill bulls for food. Tractors replaced bulls. And
for tractor farming to pay off, landholdings had to be larger.

More subtle but perhaps even more important, the efforts at land reform
had nothing to do with God.

Unless one nurtures one's essential relationship with God, farm work can
quickly turn into drudgery. Then people lose their enthusiasm. So they
run to jobs that pay them enough to buy new pleasures for their senses.
As modern China turns more and more from the farm to the factory, she
repeats the experience of other countries that have shifted from farming
to industry -- and the military. Consider this report from Song, a small
Chinese village in the province of Henan:

        One prosperous township brimming with companies is Houjie,...
        which has an official population of 75,000, mostly peasants who
        used to wade through surrounding rice paddies. But it is also a
        temporary home to more than 80,000 migrant laborers who work on
        assembly lines in the township's 900 factories. "There was
        nothing to do at home," Yan Jimei, a 20-year-old woman, said of
        her village in nearby Guanzi Province. "So I came here to look
        for a job. Life's much better here."[3]

SIMPLE LIVING, SIMPLY BORING

In the end, you'll find it hard to support yourself, sustain your farm,
or practice permaculture without high thinking, or cultivating your
eternal bond with the Supreme Lord. Simple living without high thinking
is boring.

Seeing the misery caused when a few people hoard wealth, the Chinese
Communists asked citizens to give up their greed and take only their
given share. But if the search for pleasure is part of human nature, it
can't be held down forever. "Just say no" is a motto that won't work in
the real world. As Krsna Himself states, nigrahah kim karisyati: "What
can repression accomplish?" Krsna explains that the only lasting and
effective way to get past sense pleasure is to get a higher taste. That
higher taste comes from devotional service to the Lord, performed under
the guidance of His envoys the brahmanas (self-realized souls).

Sustainable, self-sufficient farming, therefore, calls for these three
basics: The farmer must have land, he must protect and employ the cow
and the bull, and he must be guided by qualified spiritual leaders.

SPIRITUAL LEADERS WARD OFF DISASTER

Spiritual leaders need a sound understanding of the scriptures to
fulfill the role of reminding people of the will of the Lord. If
spiritual leaders are unfit or not respected, they can't protect
society.

For example, the Bible states, "Thou shall not kill," and even more
specifically, "He that killeth an ox shall be as if he slew a man"
(Isaiah 66.3). If early American spiritual leaders had truly grasped
what this means, they could have warded off widespread social and
ecological disaster -- not to speak of senseless cruelty to millions of
animals. But they didn't. So farmers now find themselves boxed into
unsustainable corners, and machine-heavy countries face the likelihood
of an agricultural collapse just a few years down the road.

SPIRITUAL CULTURE MOTIVATES THE FARMER

But spiritual leaders can't simply lay down prohibitions. "You shall not
raise cows for slaughter. You shall not waste grain to make beer..."
Beyond that, spiritual leaders must help farmers (and everyone else)
come closer to the Supreme Lord and find satisfaction in devotional
service.

This may sound abstract, so let me give some examples from my experience
at Gita Nagari Farm and the way the Lord's holidays are celebrated
there. Though each holiday has its own special features, one of my
favorites is Govardhana Puja. It commemorates Krsna's lifting Govardhana
Hill to shield the residents of Vrndavana from a devastating rain.

Early in the day many guests arrive to help make a huge feast for the
Lord. They bring vegetables and flowers from their own gardens. Someone
mixes up a huge batch of oats, wheat-flour, soymeal, and molasses, and
the children make several hundred sticky molasses balls to feed the
cows. Once the kids are all washed off, they run to the barn to paint
the cows with bright-colored hand prints. One special cow (often the
milker's favorite) is decorated with golden hoofs and ankle bells, a
bright silk blanket, and a feathered headdress. The whole barn is done
up with with bright-colored streamers and flags.

Back at the temple, the growing number of feast-makers listen to
accounts of Krsna's Govardhana pastimes. Other guests help decorate the
ox-cart and the ox who will pull the Deities of Sri Sri Radha-Damodara
to the barn to visit Their cows.

At last, as the chanting begins, the Deities in Their new jewelled
outfits are placed onto the cart, and the ox pulls up the road to the
barn amid the dancing and singing of the devotees. The Deities tour the
barn and see all Their cows, to the constant chanting of the kirtana
party. Devotees then worship the Deities and the cow with incense,
flowers, and water, just as Krsna did five thousand years ago. As the
ceremony ends, the children dash for the boxes of molasses balls and
make sure each cow gets a share (personal favorites get extra).

The ox-cart procession returns to the temple. Soon the time comes to
worship Krsna holding up Govardhana Hill. At Gita Nagari the hill takes
the form of a large mound of sweet, buttery halava, adorned with candy
rocks, bushes and streams, and even candy snakes. After the guests sing
and walk around the hill, they get to eat pieces of it. Finally,
everyone enjoys a great feast that's been offered to the Lord.

From year to year, devotees add new features to this wonderful
celebration of Krsna's pastime among the cows and cowherds of Vrndavana.
Sometimes devotees compete in sawing firewood and in other games.
Sometimes the ox-workers read to the Deities from a notebook listing
services the oxen have done during the year.

The festival calls for a lot of extra work. At the end of the day,
everyone is physically exhausted but spiritually refreshed and
satisfied.

No mundane festival can match the natural simplicity and beauty of
spiritual festivals held in a country setting. A festival for anything
other than the Supreme Lord and His pastimes can never give the same
satisfation. Krsna is in the heart of all living beings, even the cows
and plants, and He can reciprocate in a personal way no one else can
come close to. Devotional service is Krsna's internal potency for
pleasure, so nothing can match the pleasure of serving Him.

The spiritual pleasure a person feels by serving the Lord in a festival
like this is not like the pleasure one gets from watching television or
taking intoxicants. It's more like the pleasure of drinking cool spring
water on a hot day. The pleasure we get from serving Krsna is a pure
pleasure we need to survive.

And if we can't get real pleasure from serving Krsna, we may have to
slave away in a hellish factory to get money to buy some plastic
unsatisfying pleasure. This is an important lesson not only for China
but for everyone else too.

NOTES

[1] "What's Next in Chinese Agriculture?" Macroeconomics: Principles &
    Applications, by Robert P. Thomas (Dryden Press, 1990), p. 780.
[2] "Far from Tiananmen: Color TV and Contentment," Nicholas D. Kristof,
    The New York Times, 7 Oct 1990.
[3] "Free-Market 'Dragon' Gains in the Fight for China's Soul," Nicholas
    D. Kristof, The New York Times, 26 March 1992.

END OF ARTICLE

Hare Krsna Devi Dasi has been involved in ISKCON since 1978. She spent
several years on the Gita Nagari farm in Pennsylvania. She now lives in
Maine, where you can write to her c/o The Ox Power Alternative Energy
Club, 9B Stetson St., Brunswick, ME 04011.

Posted By Kalki Dasa for Back to Godhead

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