By: HG Guna Avatar Das
Editor : Vrindavanlila Devi Dasi
Recently many cities in the world were under lockdown because of pandemic Covid-19, and people began to explore village life as an alternative way of life; return to the rural natural life in a village. Many of the city people who had lost their jobs and business started to look for a plot in the village. How does the village offer solution to different global problems?
We all know that village is the lifeline of natural human civilization. In Sanskrit village is known as “gram”. This word was also been used during the Angkor era in Cambodia that’s why, we have Vishnu Grams at the Angkor park around the Angkor Wat Paramatma Vishnu Loka, the great city of Lord Vishnu.
So since time immemorial village has been the primary support of the ancient city such as Angkor Wat. The village produces food and also rears cows. The harmony between natural agriculture land base and cows and the principle of Dharma offers peaceful life and happiness to the people.
The spiritual kingdom protects its citizens under systematic law and governance. So, in return, the citizens pay full respect to the royal order as a representative of God. This is spiritual communism where the King is pious and governs according to the word of the scriptures, conducting himself strictly as the representative or the servant of God.
The land in the whole kingdom was not owned by individuals but it’s under the king. The King would allow a certain community to utilize the land and in return pay taxes to the administration.
Villages, being fundamentally based on simple localised lifestyle, are generally insulated from global disorders such as economic depression, food crisis health problems etc.
Our founder Acharya A. C. Bhakti Vedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada often condoned village lifestyle base on the simple life and high thinking the agrarian life style. Srila Prabhupada in his last words before his departure to the Spiritual World spoke strongly about the need to re-establish Varnasrama Dharma and community-based living revolving round land, cows and Krishna. Prabhupada also mentioned about traditional village education base on the character of every individual student, the Varnasrama College. Cows and Brahmana form the pivot, natural agriculture, traditional education, Brahmanical culture and God Consciousness are the primary attributes of such lifestyle
Srila Prabhupada’s Conversation – April 3, 1975, Mayapur
Prabhupada: Yes. Why don’t you solve? There are so many lands. Come here and grow food. Grow fruit. That is the desire of Krishna. Anand bhavanti bhutani. Produce food and … ask, “You have to pay this price.” And you have to pay. And if you grow your own food, there is no such question. The simple economic problem, solution, this rascal cannot take…..
Lecture – New Orleans Farm, August 1, 1975
… 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 a 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 Krishna. Very nice program. …
We may not find successful ISKCON projects, but around the world, so many devotees have been trying to slowly begin various farm projects based on farming, cow protection and traditional educational institution.
In Siem Reap since a few years, we have been working on three village projects.
First is the Chub Village Basecamp (CVB). CVB is a private project under the local devotees led by Shuka Kamat Mataji. The CVB provides Educational facilities for children with accommodation facilities for the teachers.
Chub Village is interconnected with our other projects in this Chub Te Traw Commune such as Yashodapura Eco Village (YEV) farm Community Project and Vedic Culture Education Center (VCEC). Both are under the guidance of HH Bhakti Raghava Swami Maharaja, who pioneered several initiatives related to Global Varnasrama mission and Global Sri Surabhi Campaign.
So we are working together to develop Cambodia projects. Last year we did our second Ratha Yatra in this village, with the help of some international devotees who joined us.
Once a week we travel for FFL programs from one village to another village and on Sunday we have a weekly program in the Ashram in Siem Reap town.
The whole objective of our activities is to ultimately help establish the Varnasrama Community in Cambodia. All programs and the projects that we have in these villages are interconnected. The CVB provides a place for the teacher to live in the village and assist the village program and projects. It helps educate the youth and children according to their natural character.
The Yashodapura Eco Village (YEV) facilitates the families to grow food and offers a place for cow care and protection. The YEV project is now facing heavy incessant rain. The paddy has grown nicely and the cows have good green grass.
The Vedic Culture Education Center (VCEC) offers a place for holding Cultural festivals. Everyone can come and happily join all the Kirtan fests, dance and art performances.
So, all the projects are in line with Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mission of Harinam Sankirtan and Prabhupada’s Varnasrama Mission. VCEC has received some donations from the Malayasian devotees headed by Jay Radhika mataji and also from our dear godbrother Sri Krishna Purushottama Prabhu. The donations will be used for the construction of the second kutir in Grihastha area. This kutir is to be made more traditionally using the wood, mud blocks and thatch roofs. During these past few months we have also planted bananas in the VCEC and we still continue to plant more. We also plan to plant flowers trees, coconut and various fruit trees. The shrine (small temple of Sri Sri Krishna Balaram and of Mother Surabhi)construction is also being designed under the guidance of HG Kala Dasa prabhu (ACBSP). We hope to receive some help from Cambodia and also outside towards this shrine construction.
We pray that we are able to continue the development here, and more and more Cambodian people take up the process of Krishna Consciousness by chanting the Holy Name- Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.
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