By Adikarta das
Dear Devotees,
Hare Krishna. We just wanted to let you know about our new community in
Kentucky named Cintamani Dham. We are totally ISKCON oriented, and very much
believe in Srila Prabhupada's desire for an organized movement to work
cooperatively together in order to spread Krishna Consciousness. We have 250
acres of very beautiful land in Kentucky, USA. The property has mountains,
springs, fertile bottom land by a fresh green/blue mountain spring fed
creek, and very awesome views.
We are strong believers in Srila Prabhupada's words as recorded in Srimad
Bhagavatam Canto 8 Chapter 24 Text 6:
Sri Sukadeva Gosvami said: "O King, for the sake of protecting the cows,
brahmanas, demigods, devotees, the Vedic literature, religious principles,
and principles to fulfill the purpose of life, the Supreme Personality of
Godhead accepts the forms of incarnations."
Purport: The Supreme Personality of Godhead generally appears in various
types of incarnations to give protection to the cows and brahmanas. The Lord
is described as go-brahmana-hitaya ca; in other words, He is always eager to
benefit the cows and brahmanas. When Lord Krsna appeared, He purposefully
became a cowherd boy and showed personally how to give protection to the
cows and calves. Similarly, He showed respect to Sudama Vipra, a real
brahmana. From the Lord's personal activities, human society should learn
how to give protection specifically to the brahmanas and cows. Then the
protection of religious principles, fulfillment of the aim of life and
protection of Vedic knowledge can be achieved. Without protection of cows,
brahminical culture cannot be maintained; and without brahminical culture,
the aim of life cannot be fulfilled. The Lord, therefore, is describd as
go-brahmana-hitaya because His incarnation is only for the protection of the
cows and the brahmanas. Unfortunately, because in Kali-Yuga there is no
protection of the cows and brahminical culture, everything is in a
precarious position. If human society wants to be exalted, the leaders of
society must follow the instructions of Bhagavad-gita and give protection to
the cows, the brahmanas and brahminical culture.
The last sentence is particularly adamant."If human society wants to be
exalted, the leaders of society must follow the instructions of
Bhagavad-Gita and give protection to the cows, the brahmanas, and
brahminical culture."
Whilst we are very committed personally to going out door to door, shop to
shop, college to college, to distribute Srila Prabhupada's books, and preach
in general, we feel that this very important goal of Srila Prabhupada's has
somehow been somewhat neglected in the United States. In Hungary, having
visited several times, we have been completely amazed by the superexcellence
of New Vraja Dham. It is in my humble opinion the best project in ISKCON,
and really sets the bar for devotees in many ways. We do realize that it
will be highly unlikely that we can establish such a project here in the US,
for a multitude of different reasons. The foremost reasonis the fact that
Sivarama swami is a transcendental genius, and we are not. However, despite
the fact that farming is not my thing, I really feel that without
demonstrating the ideals emphasized in this purport we are really neglecting
our duty. Whilst I try hard not to be critical, it's hard not to be
dissappointed by the general lack of interest shown by the majority of
devotees in such an important limb of Vaisnava culture as cow protection.
From my experience of living in Alachua, probably the largest devotee
community in the world, it was often very difficult to "get rid of" our milk
products from our beloved, protected cows. It was quite bewildering to be
honest, that devotees generally seemed to prefer to buy milk from commercial
dairies, who, as we all know, treat the cows abominally.
In one purport in the SB describing the opulence of Nanda Maharaja and the
cowherd men, Srila Prabhupada pointed out how in this age the cowherds are
all dressed in "niggardly dress." For those that are not up on antique
English words, niggardly means basically very poor. So this is the
situation, that nowadays people do not understand the benefits of the Holy
Cow, and are not prepared to pay a fair price for protected cow's milk,
including our devotees. So we feel that it is our duty to not only preach,
but show in our lives that cows really are important, and that living a more
simple and natural way of life is not only one of the original eight goals
that Srila Prabhupada wanted, but an invaluable example for people to see.
Personally I am from London, UK and have experienced many of the different
so called pleasures that big city life affords. Even, as a devotee, I have
had so many wonderful highs preaching in the city, but to do both is far
superior. To preach in a city is important, but to be able to actually show
people that we walk the talk, by having nice farm communities seems the only
way to go if we do not want to be accused of being hypocrites. The may say,
"Your books talk about cow protection, but I see you all buy your milk from
blood dairies." Of course we could all become vegans and forget about it
altogether, but that would seem to fly in the face of Srila Prabhupada's
words here.
So here we are in Kentucky! Personally I feel it would be nice to preach
somewhere like California, San Francisco perhaps, or Berkeley, (which I may
end up doing anyway) but such places are not ideal places to show people
about how important the cow is. Kentucky has very nice land, adequate
rainfall, no building codes, lots of springs, rivers, and generally the
people are very open. All the so-called hip places in the United States have
some defect. For instance California has very little rain along with
Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. New Hampshire, Vermont, and New
England are in my opinion too cold. Florida is too hot, and building codes
are tough etc. North Carolina is either expensive or swampy, as is South
Carolina. Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama are also too hot. So here we
are in Kentucky.
We are attracting some people here, and we have several colleges in the area
for preaching; at one university we collected over 250 e-mail addresses of
interested students, most of whom are agnostics or atheists.
We have some accommodation available, and we are building more as we write.
Visit our facebook page for more pictures and to catch a glimpse of our
pioneering in progress: facebook.com/landoftouchstone.
If any of you would like to visit, or feels a calling to help establish this
essential missing part of Srila Prabhupada's mission, please let us know.
Contact Adikarta das
E-mail: akd108.1@gmail.com
606-464-8332
Hare Krishna,
Adikarta das
