Walking around iskcon Chamorshi land

Maharastra tour

November 22, 1997
Chamorshi, India

In India we own a few farms and out of those half a dozen farms there are only a few farms growing vegetables. And chilli is also growing here and other vegetables. Rice also, rice paddy. There are tomatoes to our left here, not this one but that one there.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

For part of the year there’s water here in the canal. Five or six days ago there was water coming in here and now it has stopped. Is this connected with a river dam? Yes a river, so this is agriculture for the irrigation? Oh,I want to bring to your attention that this is for the brick factory, you see the bricks? This is Radha Shyamsubdara brick factory.

Shouts of Haribol! So this is the first brick factory in Iskcon.

Devotee: There is one is Vrindavan

Maharaja: Okay, number two factory and so devotees are trying to be self sufficient by doing different things. We can go sometimes..

Oh, we didn’t look there by the temple and the Prabhupada memorial. These are the brinjals here in front of you and to your left are the chilies. So they have been planted only some time ago so in a few months time there will be plenty of brinjals and tons of chilies. That’s for you.?

So this is the main source of water for farming. This well is now like 25 feet deep and they have done the boring in the middle which is very deep, about 25 feet deep. So in the belly of mother earth there is lots of water so they get water out like this and with a pump it goes to the fields. Near the temple also they did some digging and there is some water and some small fish you see?

The water is quite clear and about a 100 fish, small family. Some mango trees and some guava? Lots of guavas, you see the fruits? Papayas are there, mangoes, coconut. All these trees are now growing. They are not stopping when I’m not talking? They are very smart you see? Oh this is from Bangladesh? This is a special fruit tree from Bangladesh we brought from Bangladesh to here. These are devotees from Bangladesh, in fact.

Anyone can speak Bengali here? The previous kitchen was here last year when we came. Tomatoes for the soup on the left. Is the Goshala clean? You should have cleaned it up more. These bulls are from Vrndavan, they were in Vrndavan Goshala one time.

Go mata ki jai!
Gopal Krishna Bhagavan ki jai!
Gvalbalo ki jai!
Vrindavan dham li jai!
Gokul dham ki jai!

Let everyone take darsana of the cows. There are some twenty five calves and cows. You see how peaceful they are? They give more manure for fertilizing than they give milk. Do you have the main crop and how much milk do you get? Two to three hundred quintals. You understand quintals? One hundred kg is a quintal so three hundred quintals.

So soon they will get those cows and bulls to walk all over, round and round and then this is the separated- and then this has to be husked further, there is rice inside. So this is all rice also. This is to be husked. Local people please come forward.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

He is teacher in high school, which school? He is initiated disciple and he chants sixteen rounds since how long?

Devotee: since 1987

Maharaja: Since ‘87 he is chanting 16 rounds and he has been initiated for some
time now. His wife was initiated and Parikrama devi dasi is her name. We did one Parikrama here. Big padayatra in these Bengali villages. There are how many villages? There are around two hundred villages where the residents are mostly from Bengal, Bangladesh. Between Pakistan and Bangladesh, a lot of people from Bangladesh, they became refugees in India. So they were given shelter, residence, accommodation and different parts of land in India so this is one area where lots of people migrated from Bangladesh to this part. This deity of Radha Shyamsundar was in Bangladesh also at one time and Parameshwar Prabhu, he was born in Bangladesh and he came with the deity from Bangladesh. There’s a village called Krishnanagar just two kilometres from here and the deities were in the village for many, many years and this was all forest.

And the devotees, they cut the trees and leveled the land and then dug the wells and then levelled the land so it’s a lot of labour, a lot of hard labour and sweating that has gone into making this. A few years ago there were trees here. Only two years ago right here there were trees and rocks. You could see trees like this, there are only two trees now but there were trees like this everywhere.

So now put a small temple. So someone is working hard and growing rice and vegetables. We are not used to it, in Iskcon we think- we have been spoilt by this so called modern style, scientific age and electronic ways of doing things. We are not into making our hands dirty although when it comes to eating we have to eat rice only..And wheat. We cannot eat nuts and bolts, we can’t fry them for our breakfast or fry them for petrol.

We have to eat rice and grains and vegetables, it doesn’t matter whether we are going to the moon or living in New York where they eat flesh which is another foolish idea instead of eating..cows eat fresh grass and they eat rotten meat so who is wiser? The cow is taking lush, green fresh grass and she has a good appetite and so we should be drinking her milk but instead we prefer meat. This is the age of Kali.

They will have a Narsimha temple in the future here, we don’t have the deities now. A Narsimha temple here for the protection of all the devotees on the farm, we will have Narsimhadeva. Prabhupada’s Pushpa Samadhi is here.

Devotee: I hear that the deities of Radha Shyamasundara are self manifested. Maybe we could hear that story? Is now a good time?

Maharaja: So Mukunda you are struggling! Some flowers from when Prabhupada departed, Parameshwar Prabhu managed to get some of those flowers. So he brought some of those flowers and they have been placed here. So he is also thinking that this is a little Pushpa Samadhi but this is just the beginning. In the future this will all be developed further.

This Murti was made locally by a local devotee, Srila Prabhupada ki jai! So everything is by the grace of Guru and Gauranga so we pray to Srila Prabhupada for his mercy and direction for further success here, and your prayers. So you can come and stay here and we are showing you around so you can pick and choose one of the places some of the time sooner or later.

Let’s show everyone the milk taken from the cows. They give three times, how old is this cow? Just one old month old? Vatsa means calf and the cow’s feelings, the way she feels and cares for the calf, this is Vatsalya bhava.

What is inside the Goshala? Like in Parikrama you can just sit down and eat, so you wash your hands and feet and come in here and take Prasadam.