Divine Nature

1: A Planet in Trouble

2: Meat and the Environment

3: Toward a Spiritual Solution

4: Science, Nature, and the Environment

5: A Science of Consciousness

6: Karma and the Environment

7: Rural Communinties of ISKCON,

Part of the Widening Circle

8: The Environment of the Soul

Bibliography

Notes

Resources

A Spiritual Perspective on the Enviromental Crisis

DN 1: A PLANET IN TROUBLE

1

A PLANET IN TROUBLE

“The environment is burning in a hundred, in a thousand places worldwide. But there is no fire escape here, no ‘out,’ no other solution than a shift in knowing who we are.”1

Jim Nollman,

Spiritual Ecology

About sixty miles southwest of Melbourne, Australia, in rolling hills studded with gum trees, lies New Nandagram, an environmentally sustainable community of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Gokula Däsa, the development director of New Nandagram, is supervising the planting of trees along the border of the property. Not only will they be aesthetically pleasing, but they will also provide extra forage for the community’s dairy cows. Expressing his concern about the degradation of the planet’s ecosystem, Gokula Däsa says, “There is a sanctity about earth. Even lifelong urban dwellers are revolted by lakes of oil, stacks of crunched automobiles, unclean air, stinking sewage systems, dying forests, ugly garbage dumps, and unswimmable lakes and rivers.”

But what’s the cause of this? “A polluted environment grows out of polluted consciousness,” says Gokula. “It’s like Gandhi said—there’s enough on earth for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed. We’re trying to run things on that principle at New Nandagram. We have a plan for providing all of our residents’ needs in a sustainable way. And that takes some careful decision-making about what we really need to live happily and peacefully. It all comes down to accepting a simpler and more natural way of life.”

Unfortunately, a simpler way of life proceeds from different systems of values than most people hold. In both “developed” and “undeveloped” regions of the world, people are seeking constant improvement in personal comforts, entertainment, and personal wealth. This quest seldom has discernible limitations. People seem to have a relentless, almost unconscious drive to have and enjoy more than they really need.

Writing for the (London) Observer News Service in 1972, Arnold Toynbee described the cause of what he called “the world’s malady” as spiritual. “We are suffering” he wrote, “from having sold our souls to the pursuit of maximizing material wealth, a pursuit which is spiritually wrong and practically unattainable. We have to recognize our objective and to change it.”

Many people are seeking such change. Gokula Däsa and other members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) have chosen to explore an alternative worldview and way of life based on an ancient wisdom that offers long-term solutions to the seemingly intractable problems of the environment.

Although most members of ISKCON live in cities, they still embrace the concept of “simple living and high thinking.” But a significant number are now living in dozens of intentional rural communities throughout the world, where they practice a life of voluntary restraint based on spiritual values. Concern for the environment is a natural part of these communities.

In the hills of the Atlantic Forest region of Brazil’s São Paulo province, Rüpa Goswami Däsa, development director of the Hare Kåñëa farm community there, supervises the planting of crops that stem erosion on deforested hills. (He wins praise from local environmentally-minded officials.) At the Hare Kåñëa farm community of Gétä-Nägaré, in rural Pennsylvania, Sétä Däsé trains a young ox to respond to her simple vocal commands. When grown, the ox will help plow the fields, freeing the community from dependence on tractors. In the former Soviet Union, some Hare Kåñëa members are leaving the food and housing shortages in the cities to start self-sufficient farm communities in the countryside. In England, Ranchor Däsa submits a proposal to the Worldwide Fund for Nature for reforesting India’s Våndävana district, an area sacred to worshipers of Kåñëa for thousands of years. The project is approved, with work now underway.

But there is lots of work yet to be done. Living in all parts of the world, the men and women of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness are in a good position to witness firsthand the environmental crises now facing our planet. We have witnessed the air pollution in Mexico, the deadly aftermath of the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union, the destruction of the rainforests in Brazil, Swedish lakes dead from acid rain, and the horror of the chemical disaster in Bhopal, India. Wherever we look, we see a planet in trouble, a planet in need of spiritual healing. It’s not difficult to identify greed as a root cause of pollution as we briefly survey the state of the world’s ecological predicament.

DN 1.1: Wildlife

Wildlife

Unrestricted hunting of animals threatens the existence of many species. About 1,000 are officially recognized as endangered. During the 1980s, the number of African elephants shrank from 1.5 million to 600,000.2 In October 1989, to stop the killing of elephants, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species voted to ban the trading of ivory. In Germany, half of the indigenous plant and animal species are extinct or endangered.3

DN 1.2: Rainforests

Rainforests

Rainforests are victims of the lumber and meat industries. Millions of acres are cleared and stripped annually to graze cattle for meat and to grow billions of tons of soy that is exported to feed beef cattle.

The world’s rainforests occupy 3.5 million square miles, about the size of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. We lose about 45,000 square miles a year,4 an area about the size of Nicaragua. At that rate, all the rainforests will be gone in about 80 years.

Besides the tropical forests, other forests throughout the world are also in danger. Jose Lutzenberger, Brazil’s secretary for the environment, said that if Sweden, Russia, Canada, and the United States continue chopping down their remaining primeval forests, “the results could be just as devastating for the global ecosystem as the destruction of rainforests in Africa or tropical forests in New Guinea—and should be condemned by international public opinion.”5 Much of the wood from these forests goes for paper. Each German, for example, consumes 440 pounds of paper each year.6

DN 1.3: Soil Loss

Soil Loss

Among the main causes of topsoil loss is the big-business, single-crop method of farming. This involves intensive use of fertilizers that leach and otherwise devitalize soil.

In the United States, beautifully red, perfectly round, and uniformly sized tomatoes sit in even rows in thousands of supermarket displays. These tomatoes often have thick skins, and their insides are made up of an almost tasteless red pulp. But because they have enticing product names, look attractive, and feel firm, they command high prices. Their thick skins enable them to withstand fast-moving harvesting machines and all the subsequent dumping and packing operations that help make the massive quick-pick-and-pack techniques profitable. Unfortunately, this type of factory farming tends to destroy topsoil quickly. Since 1950 the world has lost about one fifth of its topsoil from agricultural lands.7 In Germany, every year an average of 25 tons of topsoil per acre is lost to erosion.8

DN 1.4: Trash

Trash

Mountains of rubbish have become symbolic of people who have more than they need. This is especially true in the industrialized nations, where the typical resident uses 10 times more steel, 12 times more fuel, and 15 times more paper than a typical resident of the developing nations.9 In 1990, more than 182 million tons of industrial and household garbage ended up in German garbage dumps, more than two tons for each German citizen.10

Leaders in so-called underdeveloped countries are therefore sometimes irritated when ecologists from developed countries attempt to impose restrictions on third-world industrial growth in the name of preserving the environment.

DN 1.5: Toxic Waste

Toxic Waste

Exotic chemicals such as dioxins and PCBs are not the only source of danger. Common heavy metals like lead, nickel, mercury, chromium, and cadmium all have poisonous effects on humans. For example, lead, found in old house paint and water pipes, is known to cause anemia, decreased intelligence, and other health problems in children. When trash is burned, poisonous heavy metals go into the air, and when trash is buried in landfills the heavy metals often migrate into human drinking water.

In 1980, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set up a “Superfund” for cleaning up the country’s most hazardous toxic waste sites. As of 1990, 1,218 sites had been designated for top-priority cleanup, but only 35 sites had been cleaned and removed from the list. As of 1993, Germany had 140,000 known sites where toxic wastes had been dumped illegally, and officials estimated another 240,000 sites unknown.11

Another problem with the chemical industry is the occurrence of major accidents. In 1985, a valve broke at the Union Carbide chemical plant at Bhopal, India, allowing 30 tons of lethal methyl isocyanate gas to escape. More than 2,000 people living nearby were killed, and another 17,000 received permanent injuries.12 Such dangers compel us to question just how much industry we really need to function as sane human beings and live happily.

DN 1.6: Toxic Trade

Toxic Trade

In August 1986, the city of Philadelphia (USA) loaded 15,000 tons of toxic ash from its trash incineration plant onto an oceangoing freighter, the Khian Sea. This ship spent 18 months in the Caribbean, looking unsuccessfully for a place to dump its dangerous cargo. Five continents and three name changes later, the ship allegedly found a place to legitimately offload the toxic ash, but Greenpeace says the waste was actually dumped illegally in the Indian Ocean in November of 1988.13

Philadelphia had to export its ash because of the increasing difficulty in finding places to dispose of it in the United States. Many European cities have the same problem.

The U. S. and Europe are therefore engaging in the questionable practice of exporting toxic waste to developing nations, where there is far less public knowledge about (and hence less opposition to) the dumping of toxic waste. In 1990, German factories produced 9 million tons of toxic waste, of which 522,000 tons were officially exported to other countries.14

DN 1.7: Pesticides

Pesticides

To keep profit margins high, factory farming routinely uses chemical pesticides to protect crops from insects and animals. The many good biological, nonchemical, and nontoxic methods are seldom used. The pesticide industry vigorously markets its products and promotes vast savings for growers.

The dangers of pesticides have become well known in the industrialized countries, and many governments have banned the use of certain kinds, but these very same pesticides are still manufactured and exported to other countries.

For example, one quarter of the pesticides exported by U. S. companies cannot be sold in the U. S. for any purpose.15 Ironically, agricultural products sprayed with banned pesticides return to the U. S., which imports about 25 percent of all the fruits and vegetables its population consumes.

Children are especially at risk. They have smaller bodies than adults and tend to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. Therefore they are exposed to a much higher concentration of cancer-causing pesticides than adults—about four times higher.16

DN 1.8: Nuclear Waste and Accidents

Nuclear Waste and Accidents

The most toxic waste is nuclear waste, and its safe disposal is a problem yet to be solved. Nuclear plants in the United States are holding in temporary storage over 16,500 tons of high-level waste, which will remain harmful to human beings for about 250,000 years.17

Accidents are another problem. On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded, releasing radioactive materials into the environment. Officials said two men died in the initial blast, and thirty firefighters were killed while trying to control the blaze. Hundreds of workers and firefighters were hospitalized, and about 135,000 people—everyone living within a 20-mile radius of the reactor—were evacuated. Fallout from the explosion blanketed much of Europe.

In the spring of 1991, the Economist magazine reported: “Vladimir Chernousenko, the scientific director of the 20-mile exclusion zone around the reactor, claims that the number of immediate Chernobyl deaths—still officially listed as 31—in fact could total as many as 7,000.”18

Reactors in the United States and Europe are said to be safer than the Chernobyl reactor. But in 1993 at nuclear power plants in Germany there were 193 incidents requiring registration under German law.19 In 1985 American reactors were shut down for emergencies 765 times. Eighteen of the shutdowns occurred in connection with serious accidents.20 The situation could be much worse in other countries.

The most serious nuclear power plant accident in the United States occurred in 1979, when a reactor at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania partially melted down, releasing dangerously radioactive materials into the atmosphere.

DN 1.9: Water Pollution

Water Pollution

The most spectacular kind of water pollution involves massive oil drilling mishaps. A 1979 accident at Ixtoc21, an exploratory well in the Gulf of Mexico, spilled 140 million gallons, covering 10 percent of the Gulf.

Transporting oil is also dangerous. In an average year, accidents dump about 120 million gallons of oil into the sea. But “roughly six times more oil gets into the ocean simply through routine flushing of carrier tanks, runoff from streets, and other everyday consequences of motor vehicle use,” says Marcia D. Lowe of the World Watch Institute.22

Much life on earth depends on fresh water, which is becoming increasingly contaminated not only by the oil industry but also by the meat-packing industry and many manufacturing industries. About 1.75 billion of the world’s people have inadequate or contaminated drinking water.23 This phenomenon is not confined to the Third World. The water in European nations such as Germany is also found to be contaminated with dangerous amounts of residues from the chemical, pharmaceutical, and metal-working industries.24 In 1992, Germany experienced 1,825 documented accidents involving releases of water-polluting substances. In 90 percent of these accidents, groundwater was polluted, the supply of drinking water was endangered, or both.25

DN 1.10: Air Pollution

Air Pollution

Most of our exposure to toxins comes from the air.26 We may drink up to two quarts of water per day, but we breathe 15,000 to 20,000 quarts of air. Motor vehicles are the world’s biggest source of air pollution.

A study by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Program shows that two thirds of the world’s urban population live with polluted air.27 Breathing the air for a day in Mumbai, India, pollutes your lungs as much as smoking ten cigarettes.28

In Athens, studies have shown that the death rate is six times higher on days of heavy air pollution than on clear days. Air pollution and acid rain are also corroding famous monuments in this historic city. The Acropolis has suffered more damage in the past 25 years than in the previous 2,500.29

In all parts of Germany, at least one of the three most common pollutants (sulfur dioxide, nitric oxide, and ozone) exceeds the critical limit. In metropolitan areas of Germany, the air contains about 1,000 different pollutants and their derivatives.30

DN 1.11: Acid Rain

Acid Rain

Sulfur dioxide, from factories that burn coal and oil, and nitrogen oxides, from motor vehicles, are the main causes of acid rain. Some acid rain results naturally from chemicals entering the air from volcanoes and forest fires, but our industrial civilization makes it much worse. In many places the rain is as acid as lemon juice, and in some places like battery acid.31 Acid rain kills crops and trees, kills fish and other kinds of aquatic life in lakes, and corrodes buildings and statues. In Germany, two-thirds of all trees have minor or major damage from acid rain.32

DN 1.12: Global Warming

Global Warming

Carbon dioxide makes up only .03 percent of the atmosphere, but it is extremely important. Scientists say it traps heat that otherwise would escape into space. This greenhouse effect keeps the earth’s climate from becoming uncomfortably cold.

Carbon dioxide is a natural product of organic decay and animal respiration. But industry has poured additional carbon dioxide into the air, causing potentially dangerous increases in the earth’s temperature.

In 1990 a total of 22 billion tons of carbon dioxide entered the atmosphere from energy-emission sources. Germany alone was responsible for 1 billion tons, whereas over 100 developing countries were together responsible for about 7 billion tons.33

About 75 percent of the carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere each year comes from the burning of fossil fuels in factories and motor vehicles.34 Another 20 percent comes from the deliberate burning of forests to clear land.35

United Nations studies show that a warming climate could raise sea levels, which are already rising, by 1.5 to 6.5 feet over the next century. If sea levels rise 1 meter, this could submerge 5 million square kilometers of lowlands. These lowlands are now inhabited by 1 billion people and include one third of the world’s cropland.36

Not everyone agrees with such doomsday scenarios. But among scientists who have thrashed out the pros and cons of the issue for years, the consensus is that global warming is a fact and that rising sea levels remain a threat.

DN 1.13: CFCs and the Ozone Layer

CFCs and the Ozone Layer

In 1974, F. Sherwood Rowland, a chemist at the University of California at Irvine, and Mario J. Molina, a graduate student, published a study in Nature showing that CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons, used in aerosols, solvents, and refrigeration) destroy ozone.

Ozone in the upper atmosphere shields life on earth from the harmful effects of ultraviolet rays. Exposure to more intense ultraviolet radiation shortens the time for burning and blistering of human skin, increases the incidence of skin cancer, and causes cataracts. Excess ultraviolet radiation can also harm plant and animal life, including marine plankton, which plays an important role in the marine food cycle.

The world’s nations are taking steps to control the manufacture of CFCs. In the spring of 1994, Germany ceased producing them.37

DN 1.14: Environmental Warfare

Environmental Warfare

The Gulf War of 1991 added a new dimension to the world’s environmental problems. Iraq, it appears, resorted to environmental warfare, deliberately releasing millions of gallons of oil from Kuwaiti fields into the Persian Gulf, perhaps as a defense against amphibious assault, or perhaps as a means of crippling Saudi Arabia’s water desalinization plants. Also, Iraq apparently set hundreds of oil wells ablaze, releasing clouds of black smoke that turned day into night over much of Kuwait. The effects of the smoke were felt over much of the Middle East and southern Asia.

DN 1.15: Looking Ahead

Looking Ahead

Finding themselves in a world beset with the above-mentioned environmental problems, the members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness are exploring and adopting ways to remedy them. Recognizing that environmental crisis stems from a crisis in consciousness, we are advocating a spiritual vision of the universe as the key to bringing our planet to a more healthy condition.

Positive change also involves voluntary simplicity. The ultimate result could be a less industrialized society, wherein all human beings can live more naturally and peacefully. To people blinded by shortsighted greed, such societal transformation may appear extreme. But those who can appreciate the spiritual wisdom that guided past civilizations will find it desirable.

We may not be able to accomplish major social change within our own lifetimes, but we can take steps in the right direction and inspire future generations to complete the task.

DN 1: People Working for Change

People Working for Change

Jayaprabhupäda Däsa

Jayaprabhupäda Däsa was born in Cali, Colombia, in 1953. Before he turned thirty he had earned two masters degrees in rural development disciplines and gained job experience with government agencies like the Institute for Natural Resources in Colombia. He says, “I was frustrated. I worked for corporate and government teams that went to the little farmers and promised to help develop their regions and improve agricultural conditions. But we seldom helped anybody.”

His frustration led to a partnership with his wife, Çäntendriyä Däsé, a Brazilian painter and intellectual who had lived in Rio. She had gone to Belim in the Amazon region to find a more satisfying environment in which to paint and to study political science. Here they met, married, and decided to travel in South America, find a suitable plot, and live on the land. She painted portraits while he sold handicrafts to save up for their Shangri-La.

When they met Hare Kåñëa devotees in Ecuador in 1983, things changed. They began to practice yoga every morning on a beach near Guayaquil. They also began constantly reading the philosophical books of Kåñëa consciousness. Inspired by the prospect of a more spiritually centered life, they began to think about living in a spiritual community, hoping to realize their dream of attaining self-sufficiency and fulfilling their spiritual quest. Almost every morning, Kåñëa devotees from their nearby Guayaquil center came to visit them at the beach. The couple got all their meals from the movement’s Guayaquil snack bar.

Shortly thereafter they decided to accept an invitation to live at Nova Gokula. This Hare Kåñëa rural community in the Atlantic Forest region of eastern Brazil covers 321 lush acres of hilly tropical terrain. The section Jayaprabhupäda and Çäntendriyä chose to develop was the “Vedic Village,” a 100-acre spread set apart from the main community for complete self-sufficiency. Jayaprabhupäda, his wife, and their three children live in a house they personally built from bricks they made from mud. Three other families live in similar structures and share a commitment to life without electricity and petroleum. Jayaprabhupäda grows the only food they eat by cultivating a plot of land with two large white bullocks and a traditional wooden plow.

“I think what we’re doing is becoming a practical option for many people, and not just within Hare Kåñëa communities. I really want us to be a model of sustainability for farmers, at least throughout the nearby region.” With organic agriculture, Jayaprabhupäda expects to gradually revive the area’s soil, which commercial farmers severely degraded by decades of growing coffee and cattle fodder. “People have to understand that smaller economic units work when we learn to adopt higher thinking and simple living. Small is beautiful. This is a practical application of God consciousness.”

Jayaprabhupäda is part of a community think tank. Both Nova Gokula and its Vedic Village are governed by a charter and by-laws that Jayaprabhupäda helped fashion. The charter calls for villagers to produce their own cloth, shoes, paper, fuel, and castor oil for lamps. Jayaprabhupäda has already begun training ISKCON devotees in the use of ox power and other features of self-sufficiency and sustainable agriculture.

Local and government assistance in the form of loans and grants has bolstered Jayaprabhupäda’s commitment to a difficult and sometimes daunting task. An event that helped shape Jayaprabhupäda’s commitment to the project took place in 1985, when Nova Gokula hosted the ninth annual Alternative Communities National Encounter. More than 3,000 visitors from 42 organizations took part. A main topic of the week-long convention was the community itself.

DN 2: Meat and the Environment

2

Meat and the Environment

“By eliminating beef from the human diet, our species takes a significant step toward a new species consciousness, reaching out in a spirit of shared partnership with the bovine, and, by extension, other sentient creatures with whom we share the earth.”1

Jeremy Rifkin

Beyond Beef

Killing animals for food, fur, leather, and cosmetics is one of the most environmentally destructive practices taking place on the earth today. The Kåñëa consciousness movement’s policies of protecting animals, especially cows, and broadly promoting a spiritual vegetarian diet could—if widely adopted—relieve many environmental problems.

These policies are rooted in the following philosophical and functional principles:

1. Humans should not slaughter animals for food. They should be as compassionate to cows and other farm animals as they are to their pet dogs and cats. Nonviolence extended beyond human society is known as ahiàsä, an ancient Vedic principle still practiced in some parts of the world.

2. Cows are the most valuable animals to human society. They give us fuel, fertilizer, power (for tilling, transport, grinding, and irrigating), milk and milk products, and leather (after natural death).

3. The killing of animals violates karmic laws, creating collective and individual reactions in human society.

4. Well-documented medical studies show that flesh-eating is harmful to health.

5. Mass animal-killing for food and fashion erodes mercy, reducing respect for all kinds of life, including human life.

6. Meat diets are more expensive than nonmeat diets.

7. If the world switched to a nonmeat diet, it could radically increase its food output and save millions of people from hunger, starvation, and death.

8. Massive animal slaughter is destroying the environment. We shall now document this destruction, keeping in mind that it amounts to violence against the earth. It also has karmic consequences.

The meat industry is linked to deforestation, desertification, water pollution, water shortages, air pollution, and soil erosion. Neal D. Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (USA), therefore says, “If you’re a meat eater, you are contributing to the destruction of the environment, whether you know it or not. Clearly the best thing you can do for the Earth is to not support animal agriculture.”2

And Jeremy Rifkin warns in his widely read book Beyond Beef: “Today, millions of Americans, Europeans, and Japanese are consuming countless hamburgers, steaks, and roasts, oblivious to the impact their dietary habits are having on the biosphere and the very survivability of life on earth. Every pound of grain-fed flesh is secured at the expense of a burned forest, an eroded rangeland, a barren field, a dried-up river or stream, and the release of millions of tons of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane into the skies.”3

DN 2.1: Forest Destruction

Forest Destruction

According to Vegetarian Times, half of the annual destruction of tropical rain forests is caused by clearing land for beef cattle ranches.4 Each pound of hamburger made from Central American or South American beef costs about 55 square feet of rain forest vegetation.5

In the United States, about 260 million acres of forest have been cleared for a meat-centered diet. Each person who becomes a vegetarian saves one acre of trees per year.6

About 40% of the land in the western United States is used for grazing beef cattle. This has had a detrimental effect on wildlife. Fencing has forced deer and antelope out of their natural habitats.7

DN 2.2: Agricultural Inefficiency

Agricultural Inefficiency

About half the world’s grain is consumed by animals that are later slaughtered for meat.8 This is a very inefficient process. It takes 16 pounds of grain and soybeans to produce 1 pound of feedlot beef.9 If people were to subsist on grains and other vegetarian foods alone, this would put far less strain on the earth’s agricultural lands. About 20 vegetarians can be fed from the land it takes to feed 1 meat eater.

Eighty per cent of the corn raised in the United States is fed to livestock, as well as 95% of the oats. Altogether, 56% of all agricultural land in the United States is used for beef production.10 If all the soybeans and grain fed yearly to US livestock were set aside for human consumption, it would feed 1.3 billion people.

DN 2.3: Soil Erosion and Desertification

Soil Erosion and Desertification

Overgrazing and the intensive production of feed grain for cattle and other meat animals results in high levels of soil erosion. According to AlanÿB. Durning of the Worldwatch Institute (1986), one pound of beef from cattle raised on feedlots represents the loss of 35 pounds of topsoil.11 Over the past few centuries, the United States has lost about two-thirds of its topsoil.

In other countries, such as Australia and the nations of Africa on the southern edge of the Sahara, cattle grazing and feed-crop production on marginal lands contribute substantially to desertification.

DN 2.4: Air Pollution

Air Pollution

Burning of oil in the production of feed grain results in air pollution, including carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming. Another major source of air pollution is the burning of tropical forests to clear land for cattle grazing.

The meat industry burns up a lot of fossil fuel, pouring pollutants into the air. Calorie for calorie, it takes 39 times more energy to produce beef than soybeans.12 The petroleum used in the United States would decrease by 60% if people adopted a vegetarian diet.13

And in their book For the Common Good, World Bank economist Herman E. Daly and philosopher JohnÿB. Cobb, Jr., say, “If a simple and healthful change in eating habits along with localization of most food production and a major shift toward organic farming were to take place over the next generation, food production and distribution could be weaned from their current heavy dependence on fossil fuels. In the process, the enormous suffering now inflicted on livestock would be greatly reduced.”14

The meat industry, in addition to producing carbon dioxide, is also responsible for other greenhouse gases, such as methane. Methane is produced directly by the digestive process of cows. This greenhouse gas is considered very dangerous because each molecule of methane traps 20 times more heat than a molecule of carbon dioxide.

How big a threat to the planet is the methane emitted by cows? Overall, the effect is not significant, certainly not enough to justify fears of cows destroying the planet by global warming. Each year about 500 million tons of methane enter the atmosphere,15contributing about 18% of the total greenhouse gases. Cows account for 60 million tons of the methane, about 12%.16 Therefore, methane emitted by cows amounts to only 2% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. It should also be kept in mind that feedlot cows, because they eat more, produce more methane than range-fed cows. In India, there are about 270 million cows, but 99.9% of them are range fed.17 Therefore they produce less methane than an equivalent number of feedlot cows.

DN 2.5: Water Pollution

Water Pollution

About 50% of the water pollution in the United States is linked to livestock.18 Pesticides and fertilizers used in helping grow feed grains run off into lakes and rivers. They also pollute ground water. In the feedlots and stockyard holding pens, there is also a tremendous amount of pesticide runoff. Organic contaminants from huge concentrations of animal excrement and urine at feedlots and stockyards also pollute water. This waste is anywhere from ten to hundreds of times more concentrated than raw domestic sewage. According to a German documentary film (Fleisch Frisst Menschen [Flesh Devours Man] by Wolfgang Kharuna), nitrates evaporating from open tanks of concentrated livestock waste in the Netherlands have resulted in extremely high levels of forest-killing acid rain.

DN 2.6: Water Depletion

Water Depletion

All around the world, the beef industry is wasting the diminishing supplies of fresh water. For example, the livestock industry in the United States takes about 50% of the water consumed each year.19

Feeding the average meat-eater requires about 4,200 gallons of water per day, versus 1,200 gallons per day for a person following a lacto-vegetarian diet.20 While it takes only 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat, it takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat.21

DN 2.7: The Bottom Line

The Bottom Line

Reducing or eliminating meat consumption would have substantial positive effects on the environment. Fewer trees would be cut, less soil would be eroded, and desertification would be substantially slowed. A major source of air and water pollution would be removed, and scarce fresh water would be conserved. “To go beyond beef is to transform our very thinking about appropriate behavior toward nature,” says Jeremy Rifkin. “We come to appreciate the source of our sustenance, the divinely inspired creation that deserves nurture and requires stewardship. Nature is no longer viewed as an enemy to be subdued and tamed.”22

DN 2.8: Other Reasons Not to Kill Cows

Other Reasons Not to Kill Cows

Of course, saving the environment is not the only reason it’s good to avoid eating meat, particularly beef. Further reasons, some of which we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, are discussed at length in other books published by the Kåñëa consciousness movement (see the resource section at the end of this book).

During the process of converting grain to meat, 90% of the protein, 99% of the carbohydrates, and 100% of the dietary fiber are lost.

It is well documented that vegetarians are less likely to contract certain kinds of heart disease and cancer. So better health is one of the benefits of the flesh-free, karma-free diet practiced by the Kåñëa consciousness movement. This diet is not only healthier but also more satisfying to the mind and taste buds than meat-centered diets.

Furthermore, eliminating meat-eating would release a vast quantity of food grain for human consumption, thus helping solve the problem of world hunger. And on an ethical level, stopping animal-killing would help induce a greater respect for all kinds of life, including human.

DN 2: People Working for Change

People Working for Change

Yamunä Devé

When she’s not writing recipes for the Washington Post, making public appearances, or teaching cooking classes, Yamunä Devé is writing vegetarian cookbooks. In 1988 the International Association of Cooking Professionals voted her Lord Krishna’s Cuisine “The Best Cookbook of the Year,” the only time this honor went to a book of non-Western cookery. Printed by major publishers in several countries, the book has become a classic of its genre. It evolved from Yamunä’s more than twenty-five years as a lacto-vegetarian and practitioner of Kåñëa consciousness. Her second book, Yamuna’s Table, has become a steady seller, and a third, The Vegetarian Table: India, hit the market in 1997. Her latest project is a spiritual cooking school called Yamuna’s Table, located in Sedro-Woolley, Washington, USA.

“I have learned that what I call spiritual vegetarianism can be one of the most positive approaches to avoid ecological disaster,” says Yamunä. “People don’t realize that not only the animals but the trees, the land, the water, and the air are all part of a very delicately balanced biosphere. All these elements are indispensable, integral parts of a living whole we call the earth. In previous times, God-centeredness was a fact of society; our move away from that centering has made us extremely callous to life in general. I’m sure that the radical increase in murders is intimately related—karmically, that is—to the massive, unprecedented levels of animal slaughter that occur on this planet today. Through spiritual pursuits, I have learned to revere all life.

“When I met Çréla Prabhupäda in 1966, it never crossed my mind that I would be writing books and newspaper columns, doing media campaigns and running a cooking school,” says Yamunä. “In fact my only interest at the time was to clean up my act and become a devotee of Lord Kåñëa. I saw the world around me going nowhere, really.

“That year I cooked for my devotee sister’s wedding and, amazingly, Çréla Prabhupäda not only officiated over the entire ceremony but cooked alongside me. While he was in the kitchen with me, he made me wash my hands every time I unthinkingly touched my mouth. I must have gone to the washroom at least twenty times that afternoon.”

Due to these and many other instructions soon to follow, Yamunä became increasingly philosophical. “Although my soul inhabited my physical body, it felt abnormal to be in a body. I realized that the physical body is an unclean, temporary habitat for the soul. To be clean was to be next to God, and that’s all I wanted—to be next to God.”

She began to travel her chosen path. It was a way of doing everything for God, or Kåñëa. She explains, “To me, it meant many things: reading books like the Bhagavad-gétä, worshiping the Deity of Kåñëa, serving my guru’s rapidly expanding mission, and singing mantras in public.” In 1968 she became a missionary in London and recorded a rock version of the Hare Kåñëa mantra with former Beatle George Harrison.

Ultimately, cooking for Kåñëa became Yamunä’s greatest love in life. Her cooking school in Washington has turned out to be her central focus. “I think I can best answer my calling by teaching people the Kåñëa conscious way of food preparation. After all, Prabhupäda did say that you could go back to Godhead simply by eating.”

DN 3: TOWARD A SPIRITUAL SOLUTION

3

TOWARD A SPIRITUAL SOLUTION

“One of the greatest challenges to contemporary religions is how to respond to the ecological crisis perpetuated by the enormous inroads of materialism and secularization in contemporary societies, especially those societies arising in or influenced by the modern West.”1

Dr. Mary Evelyn Tucker

Professor of Religion, Bucknell University, USA

How do people try to deal with the environmental crisis? Few are confronting the problem from the standpoint of spiritual consciousness.

DN 3.1: Material Solutions (Individual)

Material Solutions (Individual)

Some are trying, however, to make changes in their daily activities, and this is necessary, especially in the industrial nations. The USA, Europe, and Japan bear the most responsibility for the earth’s environmental crisis. “The richest billion people in the world have created a form of civilization so acquisitive and profligate that the planet is in danger,” says Alan Durning of the Worldwatch Institute. “The life-style of this top echelon—the car drivers, beef eaters, soda drinkers, and throwaway consumers—constitutes an ecological threat unmatched in severity.”2

Concerned individuals show their personal commitment to a better environment by recycling paper and glass, by not purchasing products they consider harmful to the environment, and by giving money to support environmental action and awareness groups. They try to consume less energy and use less water.

And in the Hare Kåñëa movement, we also try to do some of those same things—not just because it’s good for the environment, but because it’s good for our own spiritual development.

Our founding spiritual master, Çréla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda, was not only a great scholar of India’s vast Vedic literature. He was also a reservoir of practical ecological wisdom, all based on the ancient spiritual culture of India. Right from his first years in the United States, in the 1960s, Çréla Prabhupäda would do things that today would at once be recognized as environmentally sound. Yet Çréla Prabhupäda’s attitudes and behavior initially astonished his disciples, who had been born into a consume-and-throw-away culture.

On a morning in May 1976, Çréla Prabhupäda was walking with some disciples on a beach in Honolulu, Hawaii. One of his disciples said, “Especially in the last two hundred years, people have exploited the atmosphere and the earth so badly that, practically speaking, man is on the verge of self-destruction.” The disciple added that people were trying to solve the problem by, among other things, recycling.

But for Çréla Prabhupäda, recycling was not something new. He explained how in India people take their broken metal utensils to merchants, who give them half the original price. Typically, even the bowls and plates Indian families use for dining are of metal, which can eventually be recycled.

On another occasion, in Rome in May 1974, Çréla Prabhupäda told his disciples how to save trees: “Paper you can make from grass, from cotton, from so many other fibers. You don’t require wood.… From rejected paper, you can get another paper also. But they throw it away in your country. Collect this rejected paper and again put it into paper.” This conversation took place years before recycling of paper became popular.

One might suspect that Çréla Prabhupäda’s thriftiness was only a habit from his life in India, a poor country in many respects. But there was more to it than that. Çréla Prabhupäda saw the world and its resources as God’s energy, and these were not to be misused and wasted, especially by people cultivating spiritual values.

Ultimately, only the widespread cultivation of genuine spiritual vision and values can cause enough people to act in a way that will end the environmental crisis. Separating glass bottles and aluminum cans might give a transitory feeling of ethical commitment. But such efforts fall far short of what is really needed. In fact, they may even hinder real progress by giving people a false sense that they have done enough.

DN 3.2: Material Solutions (Collective)

Material Solutions (Collective)

Of course, individual action is only part of the picture. People acting together, in groups large and small, are also grappling with the world’s environmental problems.

For example, a group of parents, concerned about the health of their children, will hold a demonstration to remove a toxic-waste dump in the neighborhood. Some say this local, grass-roots approach is the most effective kind of environmental action. In 1991, Hare Krishna members in Poland led a successful grass-roots movement to halt the opening of an environmentally harmful dolomite quarry (see “People Working for Change,”). But for every grass-roots group that succeeds, dozens fail to overcome the forces arrayed against them. And even if there’s success in some particular effort, it has little impact overall. If protesters stop a toxic-waste dump from being set up in one place, it will be set up in another. And the factories that produce the toxic waste will be kept in business by the protesters themselves, who buy what the factories turn out. Furthermore, intense commitment to limited goals and political attempts to achieve them may blind us to the need for the overall spiritual transformation of society.

The bigger environmental action organizations, seeking more influence, stage national and even global events, such as Earth Day. They also lobby local, state, and national governments to adopt policies and regulations meant to help solve environmental problems. Many people question the ultimate usefulness of this approach, which has been called “reform environmentalism.” It may do some limited good in controlling and reducing pollution, but it leaves intact the whole polluting apparatus of the worldwide industrial society. Also, gains achieved through lobbying and political action can be reversed by the lobbying and political action of others, especially action appealing to economic self-interest. A better approach is to strive for the overall spiritualization of society. With a deep, spiritual change of heart, a permanent change of goals and values, environmental reform would take place as a by-product, almost automatically.

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness has potential as a peaceful extra-governmental force for this kind of change, nationally and internationally. In 1966, Çréla Prabhupäda included in ISKCON’s articles of incorporation a far-reaching statement of the movement’s purposes. Among them: “To bring the members closer together for the purpose of teaching a simpler, more natural way of life.”

Çréla Prabhupäda did not, however, recommend high-pressure lobbying. Instead, he emphasized the establishment of self-sufficient agrarian communities. “If these farm projects are successful,” he wrote to a disciple in 1975, “then all this industry will be closed. We do not have to make propaganda, but automatically people will not want [it].” Çréla Prabhupäda also envisioned gardenlike towns that would be more habitable than today’s cities and suburbs.

People want a secure and satisfying way of life. If they can be shown attractive alternatives to life in industrial society, they will make the right choices. In the long run, this is more effective than organizing campaigns to curb toxic emissions from factories.

Most environmental problems, such as global warming, are so expansive that even national governments are unable to confront them alone. Coordinated efforts by many nations—indeed, all nations—seem to be required.

The United Nations, therefore, is becoming more active in environmental issues and related causes, such as sustainable economic growth. Some propose giving the Security Council a mandate to deal with environmental problems. Others have suggested creating a separate UN Ecological Council, with powers like those of the Security Council.3

With help from the UN, many assume, the magnitude of the world’s environmental crisis will compel nations to cooperate. But environmental issues may simply become another source of dispute and conflict. We already see this happening. Developing countries often resist calls from developed ones to slow industrial growth for the sake of the environment. A country may even resort to environmental warfare, as Iraq did by burning hundreds of oil wells during the Gulf War of 1991.

So, despite collective efforts on all levels, the environmental crisis deepens. The number of extinctions and endangered species increases. Rain forests and other kinds of forests continue to be lost. Large-scale mechanized agriculture, operating with chemical pesticides and fertilizers, degrades more and more of the earth’s arable lands. Mountains of trash keep piling up in the developed nations of the world, as recycling efforts fail, partly because of lack of a market for recycled materials. No really safe ways to dispose of toxic and nuclear waste have yet been found. Despite decades of government regulation, levels of water pollution and air pollution remain intolerably high.

Further, the problems of global warming and ozone depletion have compelled nations to conclude that drastic measures are required. But governments appear to lack the will to institute such measures. For example, in 1992 heads of the world’s nations met in Rio de Janeiro at an environmental summit meeting. They watered down the centerpiece of the conference, a treaty on global warming. They also struck down rules that would have mandated lower emissions of carbon dioxide. They met again in 1997, but again little was accomplished.

Most collective attempts to cope with pollution rely on end-of-the-pipeline control and treatment rather than prevention. This approach has not, however, succeeded. A way has to be found, it seems, to stop pollution at its source, but this has proved almost impossible. One difficulty is that most individual and collective attempts fail to recognize the philosophical dimensions of the problem. Our environmental crisis has its roots in incorrect and imperfect conceptions of the self and the universe. When we understand our true spiritual nature, our unlimited urge to consume things and to produce things for consumption can be curbed. The natural result will be a better environment in which to pursue spiritual growth instead of excessive economic growth.

DN 3.3: The Myth of Overpopulation

The Myth of Overpopulation

Those who buy into the concept of overpopulation claim that the very number of people living on the planet is one of the major threats to the environment. Therefore, they say, government-sponsored population control programs, especially abortion, are essential.

But the very word “overpopulation” is loaded with questionable assumptions and negative value judgments about the number of people living on this planet and the earth’s capacity to sustain them.

The nature and effects of so-called overpopulation are generally misrepresented. Over the past few decades, we have heard many predictions of massive famines, but these have failed to materialize. This is not to say that there is not a problem of hunger in the world. But this hunger is caused more by abnormally low rainfall, political unrest, and economic exploitation than by “overpopulation.”

In terms of living space, the world as a whole is far from being crowded. A simple calculation shows that every man, woman, and child (about 6 billion total) could be placed within the 210, 038 square miles of France, with each person having about 975 square feet of space.

But what about food? A study by the University of California’s Division of Agricultural Science shows that by practicing the best agricultural methods now in use, the world’s farmers could raise enough food to provide a meat-centered diet for a population ten times greater than the present one. But that’s not the limit. If people would be satisfied with an equally nourishing but mostly vegetarian diet, a population thirty times greater than the current one could be fed, the study shows. And as we have shown in the previous chapter, a switch to a vegetarian diet would also bring many environmental improvements—less destruction of rain forests, as well as a decline in air and water pollution, to name a few.

In the early 1970s there was some famine in sub-Saharan Africa, but studies have shown that every country affected also had, within its own borders, sufficient agricultural resources to feed its own people. As Frances Moore Lappé points out in her well-researched book Food First, much of the best land was being misused for production of cash export crops. And this is still true today, not only in the Sahara, but throughout the world.

The same fact was noted by Çréla Prabhupäda, the founder of the Kåñëa consciousness movement. During a visit to Mauritius in October 1975, he stated in a lecture attended by some of the nation’s leading citizens: “So I see in your Mauritius island you have got enough land to produce food grains.” He then challenged, “I understand that instead of growing food grains you are growing sugar cane for exporting. Why?...You first of all grow your own eatables, and if there is time and if your population has sufficient food grains, then you can try to grow other fruits and vegetables for exporting.”

He went on to say, “I have traveled all over the world—to Africa, Australia, America—and everywhere there is so much land vacant that if we use it to produce food grains then we can feed ten times as much population as at the present moment. There is no question of scarcity. The whole creation is so made by Kåñëa that everything is pürëam, complete.”

Another wasteful use of food resources has to do with diet. Çréla Prabhupäda said during his lecture in Mauritius: “I have seen in the Western countries they are growing food grains for the animals, and the food grains are eaten by the animals, and the animal is eaten by the man. The animals are eating food grains, but the same amount of food grains can be eaten by so many men. What are the statistics?”

We gave some of these statistics in the previous chapter. To reiterate, about 90 percent of the edible grain harvested in the USA is fed to animals that are later killed for meat production. But for every 16 pounds of grain fed to beef cattle, only one pound of meat is obtained in return. The same wasteful use of grain to fatten feedlot cattle for meat is commonplace in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.

Çréla Prabhupäda concluded, “If there were one government on the surface of the earth to handle the distribution of grain, there would be no question of scarcity, no necessity to open slaughterhouses, and no need to present false theories about overpopulation.”4

The first person to sound the overpopulation alarm was the English economist Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834), who calculated that the world’s population tends to increase faster than its food supply. Interestingly enough, Malthus believed that the best solution was voluntary restraint in sex.

DN 3.4: Toward A Spiritual Solution

Toward A Spiritual Solution

Everyone seems to agree that we have to cut down the amount of damage we’re doing to the environment. But this brings us to a real crunch. We run up against the individual desire for accumulating wealth through manufacturing, mechanized agriculture, trade, banking, and finance. We run up against the conviction that a nation’s strength is measured by the growth of its industrial capacity. We run up against the consumer mentality, which identifies happiness with the ability to acquire, through high-paying jobs, more and more material possessions. It’s an impossible situation: we want a clean, healthy environment, yet at the same time too many of us demand a style and standard of life that inevitably result in environmental degradation.

A number of thoughtful people have, however, recognized this dilemma and proposed solutions requiring fundamental changes in human consciousness, in the direction of simpler living and the pursuit of nonmaterial satisfaction.

For the members of the Hare Kåñëa movement, including ourselves, such ideas are not new. Çréla Prabhupäda, the movement’s founder, once said, “Life is never made comfortable by artificial needs, but by plain living and high thinking.”5

We find it encouraging that others are coming to the conclusion that human energy has to somehow be “dovetailed to the complete whole.” Although we may not agree with them on every point, we are hopeful that by a combined effort we can progress toward a real solution to our planet’s environmental crisis.

DN 3.5: Deep Ecology

Deep Ecology

Among those who see the need for a fundamental change in human consciousness are the deep ecologists. “Deep ecology is a process of ever-deeper questioning of ourselves, the assumptions of the dominant worldview in our culture, and the meaning and truth of our reality,” say two prominent theorists of this movement, Bill Devall and George Sessions.6

We agree with the deep ecologists that modern civilization raises obstacles to this process of inquiry. “In technocratic-industrial societies there is overwhelming propaganda and advertising which encourages false needs and destructive desires designed to foster increased production and consumption of goods,” say Devall and Sessions. “Most of this actually diverts us from facing reality in an objective way and from beginning the ‘real work’ of spiritual growth and maturity.”7

Deep ecologists would like to see much of the world returned to wilderness. They also speak of the “biocentric equality” of all living things. By this they mean that “all things in the biosphere have an equal right to live and blossom and to reach their own individual forms of unfolding and self-realization within the larger Self-realization.”8

Members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, while sympathetic to some of the goals of the deep ecologists, differ with them about the ultimate sense in which all creatures “reach their own individual forms of unfolding and self-realization within the larger Self-realization.” For the deep ecologists, this process takes place solely within nature. The “larger Self-realization” is simply that of nature unfolding according to its own laws. As far as humanity’s self-realization is concerned, this would amount to humans as a species taking a more humble position relative to nature and other living things. But this holistic vision, although an improvement over humanity’s present exploitive behavior toward nature and other living things, falls short of a genuine spirituality. It fails to take into account the eternal identities of all living things beyond their situation in material nature. These eternal identities become revealed not simply in relation to nature and other living things but in relation to God, who is present both in nature and beyond nature and who is the source of both nature and the living things in nature.

An equality of vision more satisfactory than that of the deep ecologists was possessed by the ancient Vedic sages of India, whose teachings the members of the modern Kåñëa consciousness movement follow. “The humble sage, by virtue of true knowledge, sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brähmaëa, a cow, an elephant, a dog, and a dog-eater [outcaste],” says the Bhagavad-gétä (5.19).

“A Kåñëa conscious person does not make any distinction between species or castes,” comments Çréla Prabhupäda on this text in his Bhagavad-gétä As It Is. “The brähmaëa and the outcaste may be different from the social point of view, or a dog, a cow, and an elephant may be different from the species point of view, but these differences are meaningless from the viewpoint of a learned transcendentalist. This is due to their relationship to the Supreme.”

Each living thing is not simply a material form that finds its proper place within material nature. Each living thing is also possessed of a soul, which has an eternal relationship with God, who exists beyond material nature. Of course, nature is the energy of God, and God is present in His energy as well as beyond it. So it is possible for those who properly align their souls with God and with the souls of other living things to also properly align their material bodies with God’s material nature and the material bodies of other living things. This is a more complete self-realization than that of deep ecology.

Applying a vision of the theocentric equality of all living things, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness addresses the deep philosophical and spiritual issues that touch on the self and nature, while it simultaneously introduces a way of life that situates the self harmoniously within nature.

DN 3.6: Voluntary Simplicity and Nonmaterial Satisfaction

Voluntary Simplicity and Nonmaterial Satisfaction

In 1994, one of the authors of this book (Michael Cremo) was invited to a conference on Population, Consumption, and the Environment, sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Boston Theological Union. The conference was attended by scientists, religionists, politicians, and environmentalists. Dr. Henry Kendall, Chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists and professor of physics at MIT, said that science had no “silver bullet” to fix the environmental crisis. He identified the problem as overconsumption, and said only a change of values could remedy this. Science, he said, was not capable of influencing large numbers of people to change their values; religion, he said, was the only force capable of doing that.

A similar sentiment was echoed by Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior of the United States, who said that if he told the public what actually needed to be done to reduce consumption, he would be forced from his post. He also thought that religion was the only force that could bring about the change in values needed to reduce consumption and thus reduce environmental degradation. In short, most of those attending the conference agreed that the environmental crisis was a spiritual one that demanded a spiritual solution.

Of course, not every religious teaching is going to be helpful in this regard. Some contemporary manifestations of religion encourage material acquisition and de-emphasize contemplative spiritual practices. In recognition of this, some of the religionists present at the conference called for their faith communities to return to an ethic of frugality and cultivation of spiritual sources of satisfaction, by prayer and meditation. The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, which is based on the timeless bhakti-yoga system of India, is already oriented in this direction. The bhakti-yoga system is founded on the twin principles of reducing material consumption and maximizing spiritual practices, such as Hare Kåñëa mantra meditation.

The call for spiritual change as a solution to the world’s environmental problems sometimes comes from unexpected places. The Worldwatch Institute, based in Washington, D.C., turns out well-documented reports on the world’s environmental problems. The Institute’s yearly State of the World report has become a standard reference for government officials, educators, and journalists around the world.

But the Worldwatch Institute goes beyond identifying problems and proposing end-of-the-pipeline solutions. It also recognizes the need for spiritually oriented solutions. Alan Durning, a senior researcher of the Institute, says, “In a fragile biosphere, the ultimate fate of humanity may depend on whether we can cultivate a deeper sense of self-restraint, founded on a widespread ethic of limiting consumption and finding non-material enrichment.”9 In considering how to accomplish this transformation of consciousness, Durning finds value in “the body of human wisdom passed down from antiquity.” He urges environmentally concerned people “to follow the path of voluntary simplicity preached by all sages from Buddha to Mohammed.”10

It is significant that an influential secular organization for environmental research is now recommending the same practices the International Society for Krishna Consciousness has been demonstrating and promoting for many years, especially in its rural communities. In these communities, members strive to limit consumption of material goods and encourage spiritual practices that lead to heightened inner awareness and satisfaction. At present 40 of the Society’s 360 worldwide centers are rural and moving toward self-sufficiency. Even the urban centers of the Kåñëa consciousness movement teach the spiritual philosophy of simple living and high thinking. They also direct attention to the rural settlements that are helping establish an appropriate direction for the future of the planet.

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness is thus making a unique and valuable contribution to the ultimate solution of the world’s environmental crisis. Many individuals and research organizations have amply documented the scope of this crisis. Many have also identified the need for a spiritual solution. But few are taking the required practical steps to implement it.

DN 3: People Working for Change

People Working for Change

Vanamälé Däsa

“The biggest problem in society today is that almost all of us claim God’s property as our own. By trying to possess and enjoy more than our rightful share of this planet, we continuously act against higher laws of the universe. One result is unclean industrial enterprises and factories that create enormous amounts of waste, pollution, noise, and anxiety.”

These are the words of Vanamälé Däsa, former head of the 225-acre Hare Kåñëa community near the town of Czarnow, Poland. Vanamälé sought to protect this quiet settlement (named Shantipur, or “The City of Peace”). “When I found out that a dolomite mine might be set up in this region along with a new road running along our property’s border, I felt we had no choice left but to fight.”

In late 1990, inspired by Vanamälé, four government officials wrote letters to district authorities for the Polish village of Czarnow (pronounced Char-nov), population seventy. The letters warned local government leaders not to approve the mine project and the related asphalt road that would go through the village. Two years after businessman Zenon Chwastek announced plans to build the dolomite mine in this peaceful hamlet, those plans were dead on the drawing table. Vanamälé’s resolve and resultant actions had prevailed.

Even before Vanamälé accepted the spiritual path of Kåñëa consciousness, one of his life goals was to live in a rural community free of industrial intrusion. He became a Kåñëa follower partly because he saw he could realize his personal goals within the movement. “I wanted to help make Shantipur a community based exclusively on God consciousness: simplicity, enlightened agriculture, cow protection, and ox power.

“I know this is also the way forward for the world. The urban-industrial complex as we know it will one day disappear. We’ll ultimately run out of oil. When this happens, the face of society will change. Then people will feel more dependent on powers beyond them, and to many that will mean developing a sense of God. But when the oil runs out, we don’t want to be left high and dry.

“I knew I had to stop the mine from intruding on this peaceful place. Not to take action would have been a statement that the Hare Kåñëa movement would passively watch the godly serenity of Czarnow become ruined.”

Part of Chwastek’s mining proposal suggested that Czarnow’s status as a conservation area be removed. “It was an outrage,” says Vanamälé. “The ecology of the region would have been severely damaged. Constant noise, smoke, rock dust, petrol pumps, carbon monoxide from the trucks, magazine and goods stalls for truck drivers—where would it end? The village would have been permanently demoralized.”

When he realized that Chwastek’s plans were advancing unimpeded, Vanamälé visited key political figures, and the sleepy village gradually began to awaken to the threat. Area residents provided 7,000 protest signatures. Hundreds took part in a demonstration that Vanamälé led in Jelenia Gora on December 1, 1989. Because of all these efforts, the village preserves its tranquil atmosphere.

Ian Roberts

“In June of 1992 I had the good fortune to attend the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro,” says Ian Roberts, director of Leicester Environment City. “The conference was designed to allow world leaders to debate the problems of environmental degradation and economic disorder. The issues appeared alarmingly complex. Government leaders from around the world could not devise specific and meaningful solutions.

“As I thought through the issues on the Earth Summit agenda, I reflected on a statement in the Bhagavad-gétä As It Is which tells us that by contemplating the objects of the senses one becomes attached to them and ultimately ends up frustrated and bewildered. Industrialized society in particular has as its cornerstone the need to stimulate consumption, to constantly fuel economic growth. To this end, it constantly encourages us to meditate on the objects of our senses. With individuals’ desires massively outstripping their abilities to meet their aspirations, is it any surprise that we create ongoing frustration and extreme egotism, which result in environmental, social, and cultural devastation? The Gétä offers a simple solution to these anomalies, linking our problems directly to our lack of spiritual culture and values.”

Ian grew up in the British Midlands and studied civil engineering at Liverpool University. In 1980 he graduated and went to work as a civil engineer in southern Africa for British Petroleum. In the mid-eighties he returned to the university to complete a masters degree in business administration. In 1986 he moved to Australia, eventually settling in New Zealand as managing director of a publishing and property company.

Traveling awakened Ian’s interest in the environment. “Throughout the eighties I witnessed pathetic degradation of extraordinary natural beauty in Africa, Australia, and New Zealand,” he said.

One day a newspaper article caught Ian’s eye. Leicester, Britain’s tenth largest city, was looking for a director to manage a new project designed to turn the city into a model of “green” development. The goal would be to “green” Leicester within four years. Ian applied for the job and got it.

The Environment City project developed rapidly. At the United Nations Earth Summit it was selected as one of the world’s top twelve environmental projects. In addition, it was selected by the European Commission as a model blueprint, a designation which enabled the program to secure substantial funding.

The Leicester project has improved bicycle paths and recycling facilities. It has also brought environmental education to schools with its “Faith in Nature” program, which involves all of the city’s faith groups.

Ian is convinced that sustainable improvements in the environment will occur only with changes in people’s values and beliefs. “The policies devised and implemented under the Environment City banner in Leicester have had a common theme,” he says, “and that is to encourage individuals to reduce the consumption of nature’s limited resources. But at the same time we have to show that the quality of life can be improved when material consumption is decreased.

“Without this shift in emphasis, the desperately required changes will not take place. The Bhagavad-gétä and related works teach us that by practicing bhakti-yoga one attains a taste for simple living and high thinking. In other words, developing love for God automatically moderates one’s appetite for material things by enriching one’s life spiritually.

DN 4: Science, Nature, and the Environment

4

Science, Nature,

and the Environment

“The desacralized world is doomed to become an obstacle inviting conquest, a mere object. Like the animal or the slave who is understood to have no soul, it becomes a thing of subhuman status to be worked, used up, and exploited.”1

Theodore Roszak

Where the Wasteland Ends

Among those calling for a spiritual solution to our planet’s environmental crisis are, interestingly enough, some of the world’s leading scientists. At the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders, held in Moscow in January 1990, thirty-two scientists signed a document entitled “Preserving and Cherishing the Earth: An Appeal for Joint Commitment in Science and Religion.”

The signers included astronomer Carl Sagan, nuclear winter theorist Paul J. Crutzen, physicist Freeman J. Dyson, paleontologist Stephen J. Gould, environmental scientist Roger Revelle, and former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) president Jerome Wiesner.

The scientists said, “We are close to committing—many would argue we are already committing—what in religious language is sometimes called Crimes against Creation,” said the scientists. They therefore issued an urgent “appeal to the world religious community to commit, in word and deed, and as boldly as is required, to preserve the environment of the earth.”

“The environmental crisis requires radical changes not only in public policy,” said the scientists, “but also in individual behavior. The historical record makes clear that religious teaching, example, and leadership are powerfully able to influence personal conduct and commitment.”

“As scientists, many of us have had profound experiences of awe and reverence before the universe,” added the signers. “We understand that what is regarded as sacred is more likely to be treated with care and respect. Our planetary home should be so regarded. Efforts to safeguard and cherish the environment need to be infused with a vision of the sacred.”

Ironically, science more than anything else has been responsible for the destruction of “the vision of the sacred.” Although the signers speak carefully of crimes against “Creation,” scientists such as signer StephenÿJ. Gould are unremittingly hostile to any hint of “Creation” in science classrooms. Although such scientists may see in religion a force for social change, they deny that religion has anything significant to say about the origin of life and the universe. Religion, according to many prominent scientists, is nothing more than a pattern of behavior that arose in the mind of evolving humans. Because it gave some groups of humans an advantage in the struggle for survival, religion—scientists say—has persisted. And it is to this social utility of religion that the signers of the Moscow document opportunistically appealed.

Religionists could best respond to the scientists who signed the Moscow document by reclaiming the world from blind materialism and channeling human energy into spiritual development. This would mean confronting both the worldview of modern science and the urban-industrial civilization it has spawned. Unfortunately, most religious leaders appear unwilling to take these steps.

DN 4.1: The Roots of the Environmental Crisis In the Scientific Revolution

The Roots of the Environmental Crisis

In the Scientific Revolution

Our environmental problems are a natural and predictable by-product of the science-based, technocratic civilization that originated a few centuries ago in Europe and spread around the world.

In preindustrial Europe of the Middle Ages, people assumed that human life had a divine purpose and destination. As such, material progress played a role in society subordinate to that of spiritual elevation.

Robert S. Lopez, a professor of history at Yale University in the United States, said of the medieval thinkers: “They did not need to grope, like Einstein, for a unified theory of physics. God, they felt, provided that unity. He was the order of the world, the harmonizer of all contrasts, the initiator of all motions. Love gushing from Him to all creatures and returned to Him by the creatures in proportion to their abilities was (as one would say today) the source of all energies.”2

Indian civilization shared this vision. The five-thousand-year-old Çrémad-Bhägavatam (1.2.6) contains this message about the ultimate purpose of human life: “The supreme occupation [dharma] for all humanity is that by which men can attain to loving devotional service unto the transcendent Lord.”

Even as Europe entered the age of scientific discovery, many of the early scientists retained deep and profound conceptions of God as the ultimate controller and designer of the universe. Copernicus (1473–1543) is idolized by modern intellectuals for his assertion that the sun occupies the central place in the solar system, a view orthodox Churchmen of the time rejected. Yet even as he calculated the vast distances of stars and planets, Copernicus wrote that their orbits were an illustration of the “divine work of the Great and Noble Creator.”

But as the growth of science in the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras in Europe continued, the outlines of the hand of God grew dimmer and dimmer on the canvas of the universe. The universe became a colder, more impersonal place, governed not by divine arrangement and intercession but by precise, mathematically expressed physical laws. Thus began a philosophy that still lies at the heart of science. It is called reductionism—the attempt to reduce the universe, including all human experience, to measurable and predictable states or actions of matter (ultimately subatomic particles) and material forces (such as electromagnetism and gravity).

But the new scientists were not simply interested in knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626), one of the main founders of the modern scientific method, said that “knowledge is power,” a lesson the atomic scientists of the twentieth century were to learn only too well. In her book The Death of Nature, historian Carolyn Merchant points out that Bacon felt nature had to be “hounded in her wanderings” and “made a slave.”3 The business of the scientist was “to torture nature’s secrets from her.”

In the seventeenth century, Bacon listed in The New Atlantis some of the inventions he could foresee: “The prolongation of life … means to convey sound in trunks and pipes in strange lines and distances … flying in the air … ships and boats for going under water.” Also in the list: “instruments of destruction as of war and poison” and “engines of war, stronger and more violent, exceeding our greatest cannons.”4

Religion began to lose its importance with the rise of science and technology. Social critic and historian Lewis Mumford said, “Whatever their adhesion to the outward ceremonies of the Church . . . more and more people began to act as if their happiness, their prosperity, their salvation were to be achieved on the earth alone, by means they themselves would if possible command.”5

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as the view of the world became even more materialistic, greater human effort was channeled into building the machines Bacon envisioned, vastly increasing human ability to exploit the earth’s resources. Thus began the industrial revolution, which generated the environmental crises we now confront.

One of the first industries to expand was mining, which initially met with considerable opposition. Medieval European philosophers, following their Greek and Roman predecessors, claimed it was morally wrong to mine metals from the earth.

Pliny (A.D. 23–79), for example, wrote in his Natural History that the earth, “bounteous and ever ready,” supplies us from her surface “with all things for our benefit.” But the substances below the surface “urge us to our ruin” while “exhausting the earth.”6

The medieval opponents of large-scale mining had a surprisingly prophetic view of its negative environmental effects. In 1556, Georg Agricola wrote in De Re Metallica: “The strongest argument of the detractors [of mining] is that the fields are devastated by mining operations.… Also they argue that the woods and groves are cut down, for there is need of wood for timbers, machines, and the smelting of metals. And when the woods and groves are felled, then are exterminated the beasts and birds.… Further, when the ores are washed, the water which has been used poisons the brooks and streams, and either destroys the fish or drives them away.”

In the village communities of many areas of medieval Europe, land was held and used in ways that were not very destructive to the environment. Pastures, forests, and water resources were held in common, and their use was carefully regulated by councils of village officials or elders.

The agricultural system was directed toward local self-sufficiency. With the decline of the medieval God-centered world view and the rise of materialistic science and industry, this subsistence type of agriculture dwindled. Between the years 1500 and 1700, it was gradually replaced by production for the emerging market economy. The application of industrial methods of production to agriculture set in motion a process that is even now destroying traditional village economies and the environment.

The combined impact of market agriculture and expanding industry began the rapid depletion of Europe’s forests in the sixteenth century. Trees were cut to expand farmland and pasture and to supply fuel and raw materials for factories. During the seventeenth century, England, now faced with a shortage of wood, switched to coal as an energy source for industry. “Whereas the medieval economy had been based on organic and renewable energy sources—wood, water, and wind—the emerging capitalist economy taking shape over most of western Europe was based not only on the nonrenewable energy source—coal—but on an inorganic economic core—metals: iron, copper, silver, gold, tin, and mercury—the refining and processing of which ultimately depended on and further depleted the forests,” says Carolyn Merchant.7

The soft coal used as fuel in England had a high sulfur content and produced thick, black, choking smoke. In 1627, a petition complained that coal smoke was tainting pastures and poisoning fish in the Thames.8

Worldview and Culture

The pattern that emerged in medieval and Renaissance Europe—a progressively more godless cosmology leading to a destructive civilization based on the maximum exploitation of matter—was described five thousand years ago in the Bhagavad-gétä.

The Gétä (16.8, 9, 11) states: “They say that this world is unreal, with no foundation, no God in control. … Following such conclusions, the demoniac, who are lost to themselves and who have no intelligence, engage in unbeneficial, horrible acts meant to destroy the world.… They believe that to gratify the senses is the prime necessity of human civilization.”

Some modern observers echo the Gétä’s words. Pitirim Sorokin, former chairman of Harvard University’s department of sociology, described the civilization that rose out of Renaissance Europe’s age of scientific discovery as “sensate.” Sensate culture, he explained, “is based upon the ultimate principle that … beyond the reality and values which we can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste there is no other reality and no real values.”9

Sorokin said that sensate society “intensely cultivates scientific knowledge of the physical and biological properties of sensory reality.”10 He adds, “Despite its lip service to the values of the Kingdom of God, it cares mainly about the sensory values of wealth, health, bodily comfort, sensual pleasures, and lust for power and fame. Its dominant ethic is invariably utilitarian and hedonistic.” The inevitable result, Sorokin said, is the exceptional violence we have experienced in the twentieth century. And we may include in this category violence against the planet itself, brought on by the “increasing destructiveness of the morally irresponsible, sensate scientific achievements … invented and continuously perfected by the sensate scientists.”11

DN 4: People Working for Change

People Working for Change

Brahmapäda Däsa

Brahmapäda Däsa’s day begins at 4:15 a.m., when he trundles half a mile through the darkness, along a yard-wide dirt path flanked by banana trees and rice fields, to a large, brightly lit Vedic temple. Here he joins others in singing prayers before life-size Deities of Rädhä and Kåñëa during a morning service known as maìgala-ärati (“auspicious worship”).

By 5:30 he has returned to his residence, a simple structure situated ten meters from the sheds that house 80 cows, bulls, calves, and bullocks. The sheds are known as “The Mäyäpur Dairy Farm” or, in local parlance, “the goshala” (shelter for cows). By 6:00 Brahmapäda begins to supervise 14 workers who wash, feed, and milk the animals and then turn them out to pasture by 9:00.

Brahmapäda lives in ISKCON’s 700-acre Hare Kåñëa community in Mäyäpur, West Bengal, India. Some 240 people live in the community, on the river Ganges, 30 miles from the Bangladesh border. ISKCON organizers are developing the Mäyäpur site as a planned community based on Vedic models of village life.

Brahmapäda was born in 1955 in Masibad district, 70 miles from Mäyäpur. When he was 15 years old he met Mäyäpur residents who were traveling through his small village in a traditional “nagar kirtan” party, singing the names of Kåñëa. He joined the Mäyäpur community in 1976 when he was 21 years old.

Shortly after joining he began to work in the goshala, tending what was then a herd of about 30 cows. He did everything himself—pumped water, cut cow fodder, fed the animals, milked them, put them out to pasture, and tilled fodder fields with ox-driven plows. Since he had grown up on a farm, this work came naturally to him. “I felt content doing this work, but I was especially satisfied knowing that I was farming for Kåñëa,” he says.

In 1977 he was given spiritual initiation by the founding spiritual master of the Hare Kåñëa movement, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda. Brahmapäda then made up his mind to work in the Mäyäpur dairy farm for the rest of his life.

An achievement in which he takes special pride is the construction of three methane (“gobar”) generators. These supply gas that cooks meals for 110 people three times a day.

“The government people came in jeeps and asked us to make these generators,” he says. “They agreed to pay half the expenses. It’s difficult to get electricity for cooking out here, and there’s not much wood to make cooking fires.”

Through an opening near the top of the three gobar tanks, workers introduce a mixture of three parts cow dung to five parts water. This ferments, generating methane gas. The gas rises to the top of the tanks and is pressured into a pipe leading out from the top. The pipes from all three gobar tanks then join to become one pipe that leads into the kitchen. There it splits into four to power the gas burners on which the meals are cooked.

“As the years go by we will see that these tanks save us a lot of money, wood, labor, and time,” Brahmapäda says.

“Vedic knowledge teaches us to rely on God’s natural gifts like the rainfall, upon which all agricultural production depends. The West Bengal government appreciates the utility of using manure from Mäyäpur’s eighty cows to provide light and cooking fuel. The government people understand that spiritual teachings gave us this knowledge.”

DN 5: A Science of Consciousness

5

A Science of Consciousness

“As the sun alone illuminates all this universe, so does the living entity, one within the body, illuminate the entire body by consciousness.”

Bhagavad-gétä 13.34

If the world is ever to become free from the threat of environmental annihilation, we shall have to undertake a thorough reexamination of the materialistic assumptions underlying not only our picture of nature but our conception of our very selves.

Some scientists are already beginning to question whether materialistic principles are really adequate to explain basic features of human existence—such as consciousness. For example, John C. Eccles, a Nobel-prize-winning neurobiologist, states, “The ultimate problem relates to the origin of the self, how each of us as a self-conscious being comes to exist as a unique self associated with a brain. This is the mystery of personal existence.” Eccles said that “the uniqueness each of us experiences can be sufficiently explained only by recourse to some supernatural origin.”1

If the conscious self is factually supernatural in origin, and if this knowledge were firmly integrated into our educational and cultural institutions, society would probably be much more directed toward self-realization than it is today. The overwhelming impetus toward the domination and exploitation of matter that underlies today’s industrial civilization and culminates in environmental catastrophe would certainly be lessened.

DN 5.1: Insights from the Bhagavad-gétä

Insights from the Bhagavad-gétä

According to the Bhagavad-gétä, our unique sense of individual experience results from the presence within the material body of a spiritual particle, the symptom of which is consciousness. “As the sun alone illuminates all this universe,” states the Gétä (13.34), “so does the living entity, one within the body, illuminate the entire body by consciousness.” Çréla Prabhupäda comments, “Thus consciousness is the proof of the presence of the soul, as sunshine or light is the proof of the presence of the sun. When the soul is present in the body, there is consciousness all over the body, and as soon as the soul has passed from the body there is no more consciousness. This can be easily understood by any intelligent man. Therefore consciousness is not a product of the combinations of matter. It is the symptom of the living entity.”

The nonmaterial nature of consciousness was understood by the famous nineteenth-century British scientist Thomas Huxley, who stated, “I understand the main tenet of materialism to be that there is nothing in the universe but matter and force; and that all the phenomena of nature are explicable by deduction from the properties assignable to these two primitive factors.… It seems to me pretty plain that there is a third thing in the universe, to wit, consciousness, which … I cannot see to be matter or force, or any conceivable modification of either.”2

The Gétä (2.20, 2.17) offers extensive information about the nature of the nonmaterial particle that imparts the symptoms of life to the material body: “For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.… That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul.”

The Sanskrit word often used for soul is ätmä, which means “the self.” The Gétä (2.23–24) gives these further characteristics of the ätmä: “The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind. The individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried. He is everlasting, present everywhere, unchangeable, immovable, and eternally the same.”

Çréla Prabhupäda comments, “The individual particle of spirit soul is a spiritual atom smaller than the material atoms, and such atoms are innumerable. This very small spiritual spark is the basic principle of the material body, and the influence of such a spiritual spark is spread all over the body as the influence of the active principle of some medicine spreads throughout the body. This current of the spirit soul is felt all over the body as consciousness, and that is the proof of the presence of the soul. Any layman can understand that the material body minus consciousness is a dead body, and this consciousness cannot be revived in the body by any means of material administration. Therefore, consciousness is not due to any amount of material combination, but to the spirit soul.”

DN 5.2: Empirical Evidence for the Ätmä

Empirical Evidence for the Ätmä

Although this line of thought may appear logical, one might still ask if there is any scientific evidence for the existence of the soul. Of course, if there actually is a nonmaterial entity one would not expect that it would be easily detectable by material instruments and empirical methods. Yet some fields of scientific research do give evidence for a conscious self that can exist apart from the physical mechanism of the body.

The medical field provides substantial data on out-of-body or near-death experiences (NDEs). Not uncommonly, patients subjected to extreme trauma, during accidents or sudden attacks of illness or operations, experience their conscious selves separating from their bodies. For example, people who have been treated for heart attacks report seeing their own bodies from a point above the operating table. But according to current medical understanding these patients should have been completely unconscious.

Although some reports of NDEs are questionable, reputable scientists have made convincing studies. Among these highly qualified researchers is Dr. Michael Sabom, a cardiologist and professor at Emory University Medical School in Atlanta, Georgia (USA). Initially skeptical of NDEs, Sabom changed his mind after conducting a thorough investigation.

In his book Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation, Sabom gives dozens of documented accounts of near-death experiences. For example, one man said, “I was walking across the parking lot to get into my car … I passed out. I don’t recall hitting the ground. The next thing I do recall was that I was above the cars, floating. I had a real funny sensation, a floating sensation. I was actually looking down on my own body, with four or five men running toward me. I could hear and understand what these men were saying.”3

But the core of Sabom’s book was a detailed study of heart attack patients. Sabom divided them into two groups. The first group, consisting of twenty-five patients, did not report any near-death experiences. When he asked them to give details about their heart attack treatment in the hospital, none gave a correct description.

The second group consisted of thirty-two patients who had reported near-death experiences during their heart attacks. When asked to describe their treatment, six gave descriptions that corresponded in detail to what happened, although they should have been unconscious at the time. This result supported the view that these patients had in fact been looking at their bodies, and the treatment they were being given, from a point outside their bodies.

Sabom stated, “If the human brain is actually composed of two fundamental elements—the ‘mind’ and the ‘brain’—then could the near-death crisis event somehow trigger a transient splitting of the mind from the brain in many individuals? … My own beliefs on this matter are leaning in this direction. The out-of-body hypothesis simply seems to fit best with the data at hand.… Could the mind which splits apart from the physical brain be, in essence, the soul, which continues to exist after final bodily death, according to some religious doctrines? As I see it, this is the ultimate question that has been raised by reports of the NDE.”4

There’s a second category of scientific evidence suggesting that the self is a conscious entity that can exist apart from the physical body. These are reported memories of past lives. Here again is a field in which there is understandably much room for skepticism. Nevertheless, serious researchers have carried out painstaking investigations. Among them is Ian Stevenson, Carlson Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia (USA). Stevenson has performed in-depth studies of reincarnation memories, focusing exclusively on memories reported by children, who are less likely than adults to have the motive or resources to fabricate recollections of past lives. In many cases Stevenson was able to verify extensive details of the accounts given by the children, confirming the existence of the places and persons they described, including the dead person they claimed to have been in their previous life.5

As of 1983, Stevenson had recorded about 2,500 reports of reincarnation memories. Of these, he said 881 had been investigated, and in 546 cases he and his team of researchers had verified details of the previous life reported by the subject. In other words, out of the total number of investigated cases, 62 per cent had resulted in this kind of confirmation of the reported past life. Many of these cases are reported in Stevenson’s four-volume compendium titled Cases of the Reincarnation Type, published by the University Press of Virginia.

Dr. Peter Ramster, a psychologist at the University of Sydney, Australia, has performed similar research involving adults who reported past lives memories under hypnosis. Accompanied by independent observers, he took some of these subjects to the places of their reported past lives, where he verified even the minutest details of their memories.

In addition to past life memories, both Ramster and Stevenson present evidence of xenoglossy (unexpected knowledge of foreign languages) under hypnosis. Stevenson reports a case of an American housewife who fluently spoke an old Swedish dialect under hypnosis, although she had no known exposure to Swedish throughout her life.6 Such reports of xenoglossy indicate that the conscious self within a given physical body may have existed previously in a different physical body and was able to carry with it knowledge from that previous existence.

But today, influenced by materialistic science’s refusal to consider the existence of a nonmaterial conscious self, people tend to identify exclusively with the body and mind. They therefore tend to exploit matter for the purpose of continually increasing their bodily satisfaction. Expressed through today’s urban-industrial civilization, this exploitation is causing environmental decay of unprecedented global proportions.

The Bhagavad-gétä and other works of Vedic literature provide a theoretical understanding that the self is different from the body. But for realizing this there are practical programs of yoga and meditation—such as the chanting of the Hare Kåñëa mantra. This gives direct perception of the self. In The Science of Self-Realization, Çréla Prabhupäda says, “If one chants the Hare Kåñëa mantra, he will realize that he is not this material body. ‘I do not belong to this material body or this material world. I am a spirit soul, part and parcel of the Supreme.’”7

Understanding the difference between our temporary material identity and our true spiritual identity is the key to solving the environmental crisis. The foundation for an environmentally healthy planet is a science of consciousness that incorporates knowledge of the soul.

DN 5: People Working for Change

People Working for Change

Gokula Däsa

“I always had a secret ambition to live in a mud-brick house and become self-sufficient on a small plot of land,” says Gokula Däsa (formerly Greg Brown), reflecting back on a time before he had committed himself to the life of Kåñëa consciousness. “What I didn’t know was that this aspiration could be realized in the life of a Hare Kåñëa devotee. I didn’t know that the concept of living simply is rooted in teachings that go back thousands of years. And I didn’t know that many people still live this way.”

In the early eighties, Greg was working in Melbourne as a supervising draftsman for Telecom, the national telecommunications company in his native Australia.

Then an old friend living in a Kåñëa rural community near Murwillumbah, at the northern end of New South Wales, invited him for a visit.

Intrigued, he decided to spend part of his upcoming holiday with his friend. He stayed for four days and helped do some building work for the community. Greg liked the simplicity of his friend’s way of life and the character of the devotees.

The visit influenced him to spend his next vacation in India. For ten days he lived at the Hare Kåñëa movement’s most developed settlement in India, at Mäyäpur Dhäma, located on the Ganges River near the border of Bengal and Bangladesh. Mäyäpur is the birth site of Caitanya Mahäprabhu, the sixteenth-century saint and incarnation of Kåñëa who spread the chanting of Hare Kåñëa all over India.

Upon his return to Melbourne, Greg joined the Kåñëa consciousness movement. There, in June of 1985, he received spiritual initiation and was formally given the name Gokula Däsa, which means “one who serves the land of Kåñëa.”

In 1987 he fulfilled his desire to live on a farm whose residents were committed to developing long-term self-sufficiency. The recently purchased 250-acre Hare Kåñëa property, 80 miles south of Melbourne, was named New Nandagram, after a village in India near the holy city of Våndävana, where Kåñëa Himself lived about 5,000 years ago.

Gokula became one of the settlement’s most inspired workers. His enthusiasm and flair for organization soon earned him a prominent position in the community. In 1991 he became farm manager of New Nandagram.

“I wanted to apply the principles of Kåñëa consciousness to farming. The Kåñëa consciousness philosophy and practice instruct us to live as simply as possible, especially in rural settings, and to eventually become completely self-sufficient. To me that meant rejecting all dependence on electricity and petroleum as soon as possible. Not an easy task, given the fact that I had to convince at least 20 other people about this. So I thought to contact the permaculture people to at least get some idea of how people had survived up until the time of the industrial revolution.

“The trick was to employ permaculture in a way that was consistent with Vedic knowledge,” he says.

To maintain Vedic principles of cow protection, Gokula had to calculate how much of New Nandagram’s acreage would be needed for grazing the cows, bulls, and calves. “Our climate differs dramatically from most of India’s. So we had to limit the size of the herd to make sure we could maintain those animals well.

“I want Australians to see how we have utilized permaculture in a sustainable Kåñëa conscious ecosystem based on cow protection and lacto-vegetarianism. New Nandagram will be a reflection of the village life and culture of Vedic India.”

DN 6: Karma and the Environment

6

Karma and the Environment

“Quite apart from the laws of physics and chemistry, as laid down in quantum theory, we must consider laws of quite a different kind.”1

Niels Bohr

Nobel laureate in physics

Many see the environmental problem as strictly technical, with technical solutions. Even those who see an ethical dimension may see solutions only in terms of mobilizing public opinion to change certain obvious environmentally destructive behaviors. But there are deeper dimensions to the environmental crisis.

In addition to the laws presently known to science, there are, according to the Vedic literature, higher-order laws that govern the interactions of conscious entities. These laws are collectively known as karma. In the Vedic literature, karma is described in terms of actions and reactions. For example, if one causes unnecessary suffering to another living entity, one will undergo suffering in return. This suffering may come as environmental problems. One might counter that environmental problems can be explained in terms of observable human behavior. But why do people persist in such behavior, even when they know the results are undesirable? The action of karma on human consciousness may be an explanation.

One might ask if there is any scientific evidence for the law of karma. A likely place to look for such evidence would be in branches of science that deal with consciousness.

After studying the brain, Nobel laureate Roger Sperry suggested that the scientific principle of causation has to be broadened: “We have to recognize … different levels and types of causation, including higher kinds of causal control involving mental and vital forces that materialistic science has always rejected.” He spoke of “a sequence of conscious or subconscious processes that have their own higher laws and dynamics.”2

Sperry is not alone in his suggestion that we consider higher laws related to consciousness. Danish nuclear physicist Niels Bohr, also a Nobel laureate, stated, “All of us know that there is such a thing as consciousness, simply because we have it ourselves. Hence consciousness must be a part of nature, or, more generally, of reality, which means that quite apart from the laws of physics and chemistry, as laid down in quantum theory, we must consider laws of quite a different kind.”3

Along the same lines, physicist David Bohm says, “The possibility is always open that there may exist an unlimited variety of additional properties, qualities, entities, systems, levels, etc., to which apply correspondingly new kinds of laws of nature.”4

The law of karma, integral to India’s Vedic philosophy, would be one example of such “new” laws. Although karma might not be exactly what Sperry, Bohr, or Bohm had in mind, it does not violate the general principles they outline in the above passages. Huston Smith, a former professor of philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, said about karma, “Science has alerted the Western world to the importance of causal relationships in the physical world. Every physical event, we are inclined to believe, has its causes, and every cause will have its determinate effects. India extends this concept of universal causation to include man’s moral and spiritual life as well.”5 Karma plays a leading role in the world’s drift toward environmental catastrophe, and a large part of this karma is generated by unnecessary killing.

DN 6.1: Meat and Karma

Meat and Karma

Each day millions of animals are routinely killed. People fail to respect them as conscious entities with a right to live out their normal span of life.

Unfortunately, many scientists and philosophers have trouble recognizing consciousness even in human beings, what to speak of animals. Even people who admit that humans are conscious have trouble thinking of animals as anything other than robotlike biological machines.

But as Donald R. Griffin says in his book Animal Thinking, published by Harvard University Press: “It may be logically impossible to disprove the proposition that all other animals are thoughtless robots, but we can escape from this paralytic dilemma by relying on the same criteria of reasonable plausibility that lead us to accept the reality of consciousness in other people.”6

As we have seen, scientific studies of near-death experiences indicate that consciousness in human beings can operate outside the physical mechanism of the body. This suggests the existence of a distinct unit of consciousness that is not simply a product of brain chemistry. As we mentioned earlier, in Sanskrit this unit of consciousness is called the ätmä, or soul. If humans have souls, it is reasonable to suppose that animals also have them. Therefore, it is as wrong to kill an animal as it is to kill a human.

But when people needlessly kill millions of animals, there is something more than a sense of guilt to consider. There are karmic reactions, including degradation of the environment. Ahiàsä, or nonviolence, as taught in many Eastern traditions, can therefore be beneficial for the environment.

DN 6.2: Population and Karma

Population and Karma

According to Malthus and his modern followers, population is almost always pushing the limit of available food. But according to India’s Vedic teachings, the earth can always produce enough of life’s necessities. According to this view, scarcity is not caused by overpopulation but by the negative karma generated by self-destructive actions of the planet’s population.

The science of ecology has awakened us to a greater appreciation of how different organisms and natural resources are linked together in complex interdependency, and how easily this equilibrium can be upset—as in the case of acid rain. While doing research for NASA, America’s space agency, scientist Jim Lovelock concluded that the “Earth’s living matter, air, oceans, and land surface form a complex system which can be seen as a single organism and which has the capacity to keep our planet a fit place for life.”7 He calls his hypothesis the Gaia principle, after the Greek goddess of the earth.

Lovelock says, “The concept of Mother Earth, or, as the Greeks called her long ago, Gaia, has been widely held throughout history and has been the basis of a belief which still coexists with the great religions.”8 India’s books of Vedic knowledge state that the earth is the visible form of the goddess Bhümi, who restricts or increases her productive capacity according to the population’s level of spiritual consciousness.

“Therefore,” states Çréla Prabhupäda, “although there may be a great increase in population on the surface of the earth, if the people are exactly in line with God consciousness … such a burden on the earth is a source of pleasure for her.”9 If people are God conscious, then there is no artificial limit to the population the earth can comfortably support.

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966), a principal organizer of the modern birth control movement, believed that “women should free themselves from biological slavery, which could best be accomplished through birth control.”10 The Vedas, however, inform us about the cycle of birth and death, in which everyone, man or woman, is caught up. That is also a form of “biological slavery.”

By nature, we are eternal (birthless and deathless) spirit souls. But now we are encaged in material bodies subject to various miseries and the destructive influence of time. In other words, we are involved in reincarnation, transmigration of the soul from one material body into another, lifetime after lifetime. Real birth control means stopping perpetual rebirth.

But the laws of karma state that if people engage in birth control methods such as abortion, then they are insuring their future bondage. Çréla Prabhupäda warns, “In the next life they also enter the womb of a mother and are killed in the same way.”11 And as for the soul denied birth by abortion or contraception, it must also enter another womb. Birth control thus fails, because ultimately it prevents not one birth. So to prevent the pain of repeated birth for both parent and child, something other than material birth control is required—the development of spiritual consciousness, which includes spiritual birth control.

Such birth control can be accomplished in two ways—by practicing celibacy or spiritually-motivated sex to produce a child that is wanted. For most people, lifetime celibacy is not a viable option. A more realistic option is a marriage in which the partners practice voluntary restraint until they desire to have children.

This system of birth control does not mean no sex and fewer people but proper sex and better people, be they few or many. In this regard, Malthus made a point worth noting: “I have never considered any possible increase of population as an evil, except as far as it might increase the proportion of vice and misery.”12

If the population is good, then no matter how numerous, they will be able to cooperate with each other peacefully and, with the blessings of God, receive ample resources from Mother Earth. A population of good character will not generate as much “vice and misery,” and this is desirable for the health of the environment. Most environmental problems can be traced to human vices, especially greed.

Further, the law of karma holds that the natural order is disturbed when the biological development of any living being, in or out of the womb, is terminated. Such termination of the natural development of a living being reflects selfishness and lack of compassion, which can be seen as a kind of pollution of human consciousness. The link between pollution of consciousness and pollution of the environment is something that bears careful consideration.

DN 6.3: Freedom from Karma by Mantra Meditation

Freedom from Karma by Mantra Meditation

The force of karma keeps people trapped in the destructive patterns of consciousness responsible for our planetary crisis. Under the control of karma, people instinctively pursue material gratifications and possessions, thus fueling the overconsuming economy that overwhelms the environment with pollution of all kinds.

The subtle, destructive energies of karma can, however, be overcome. The law of karma acts most powerfully on those who identify the self totally as the material body and mind instead of the soul. By becoming free from such identification, people can become free from the control of karma.

This requires a change of behavior. Originally, the conscious self has its origin in the supreme conscious self. Great spiritual teachers in the Vedic tradition therefore advise that we reconnect ourselves with that supreme person to be completely free from karma. This can be done through devotional spiritual practices.

The Vedas explain that powerful spiritual energies can be generated by yoga, meditation, and the chanting of mantras. In the present age, the chanting of mantras is particularly effective. When properly chanted, the combinations of sounds in mantras release their energies. The most powerful mantras, according to the Vedas, are those composed of names of God, such as the Hare Kåñëa mantra: Hare Kåñëa, Hare Kåñëa, Kåñëa Kåñëa, Hare Hare/ Hare Räma, Hare Räma, Räma Räma, Hare Hare. The Vedas teach that God’s name, being nondifferent from God Himself, is supremely potent. Therefore, by properly chanting the Hare Kåñëa mantra, we can reduce karmic reaction, which is one of the underlying causes of the environmental crisis. The chanting of the Hare Kåñëa mantra is especially effective when people chant it aloud together.

DN 6: People Working for Change

People Working for Change

Lokanäth Swami

Lokanäth Swami Mahäräja is walking to bring about change. If he’s not walking, he’s probably driving a bullock cart. He began his “Padayäträ,” Sanskrit for “walking parade,” in India in 1984. Since then, Padayäträ walkers have crossed the length and breadth of India three times, covering more than 18,000 miles. Walkers range in number from twenty people (and five oxen) on remote roads to a hundred or more in large cities and towns along the endless route. An elephant or two occasionally joins the trekkers.

Born in 1949 in Maharashtra, India, Mahäräja is walking to bring Lord Kåñëa and a more natural way of life to where the people are.

After five years of walking in India, he decided to take Padayäträ abroad. He organized teams of trekkers, usually with oxen (bullocks), and got them started, sometimes walking five-hundred-mile routes. He became Padayäträ’s principal organizer, worldwide spokesperson, and chief visionary. He travels the world nonstop.

The walkers, or padayätrés, constantly sing the names of Kåñëa, give out food first offered to Lord Kåñëa (prasädam), distribute books of spiritual knowledge, and discourse on the philosophy of Kåñëa consciousness. They also conduct evening programs every night in the cities, towns, and villages they visit. These events engage local people in many aspects of the Kåñëa culture, including chanting, taking part in philosophical discussions, viewing displays, and eating prasädam. One of the padayätrés’ messages is “simple living and high thinking.”

A main feature of Padayäträ is the public presentation of the Deities of Çré Caitanya Mahäprabhu and Nityänanda Prabhu. These are two great avatäras of Lord Kåñëa who appeared in Bengal in the sixteenth century. Whether borne on bullock carts, carried on palanquins by trekkers, or shown standing onstage at local events, Lord Caitanya and Nityänanda are the center of every Padayäträ. It was Lord Caitanya who popularized the chanting of the Hare Kåñëa mantra throughout India: Hare Kåñëa, Hare Kåñëa, Kåñëa Kåñëa, Hare Hare/ Hare Räma, Hare Räma, Räma Räma, Hare Hare. He advised His followers that the chant should be spread to every town and village of the world.

Padayätrés also teach and demonstrate that cows, bulls, and oxen are friendly to human society. “If people insist on eating the flesh of animals or using their skin for leather or other products, why not at least wait till the animals die?” asks Mahäräja. “Why kill them?”

By 1997, as Mahäräja had predicted, Padayäträ devotees had walked in more than a hundred countries, including Spain, Fiji, Britain, Russia, India, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and the USA.

Mahäräja says, “One of our missions is to help people understand that we need a transcendental approach to solving the problems of the world. Millions are becoming disillusioned with city life. Some of our most important values have been lost to the blind pursuit of material comforts. Padayäträ reminds us that real happiness can be found in simplicity, living close to nature and the animals, being easily satisfied with basic needs, and understanding that life should be God-centered.”

DN 7: RURAL COMMUNITIES OF ISKCON — PART OF THE WIDENING CIRCLE

7

RURAL COMMUNITIES OF ISKCON — PART OF THE WIDENING CIRCLE

“Our farm projects are an extremely important part of our movement. We must become self-sufficient by growing our own grains and producing our own milk. There will be no question of poverty. They should be developed as an ideal society dependent on natural products, not industry.”

Çréla Prabhupäda

Letter dated December 18, 1974

Human priorities are out of balance. The scientific and technological revolutions of the past few centuries have given us a way of life that is destructive of both human values and the environment.

But what new direction shall humanity take as it moves toward what some call the postindustrial era? Economist Robert Heilbroner says, “I believe the long-term solution requires nothing less than the gradual abandonment of the lethal techniques, the uncongenial lifeways, and the dangerous mentality of industrial civilization itself.”1 This would imply “the end of the giant factory, the huge office, perhaps of the urban complex.”2

Such a postindustrial civilization would be primarily agrarian, emphasizing local production and self-sufficiency. At present not many people may be attracted to this way of life. “The best that can be hoped for,” observes Alan Durning of the Worldwatch Institute, “is a gradual widening of the circle of those practicing voluntary simplicity.”3

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) is a leader in this process. Over the past twenty-five years, the Society has established more than forty agrarian communities worldwide. Individual members of ISKCON, using their own resources, have established additional smaller communities. These agrarian communities are not merely places for growing crops and herding animals. They are communities in the full sense, with many supporting arts, crafts, and appropriate technologies. They are also centers of spiritual culture, providing the nonmaterial satisfaction that is essential for solving the environmental crisis. Now under construction in Mäyäpur, West Bengal, is a model international city for 25,000 people.

DN 7.1 Ox Power

Ox Power

Central to ISKCON’s self-sufficient farm communities is the use of draft animals, particularly oxen, or bullocks, as they are also called. This can ultimately free communities from dependence on machines and fossil fuels.

Two members of the Kåñëa consciousness movement working in the area of ox power are the husband-wife team of Balabhadra Däsa and Chäyä Däsé, founders of the International Society for Cow Protection (ISCOWP), based in the USA (see “People Working for Change,”).

“ISCOWP offers alternatives to present agricultural practices that support and depend upon the meat industry,” says Balabhadra. “Ox training, a lacto-vegetarian diet, cruelty-free lifetime protection of the cow, alternative energies offered by the cow and ox, and a sound ecological, agrarian way of life are the practices that ISCOWP would like to make available to everyone.” ISCOWP supports natural methods of pest control, the use of local seed banks, and the organic gardening of grains, fruits, spices, and vegetables, and encourages crafts such as blacksmithing, weaving, spinning, and broom-making. In pursuance of these goals ISCOWP networks with several organizations, including Tillers International, Beyond Beef (Washington, D.C.), the American Vedic Association, and the Bharatiya Cattle Resource Development Foundation (New Delhi, India).

Balabhadra and Chäyä urge potential farmers to start small family farms powered by oxen. In 1991 the couple established a 3.5-acre demonstration farm near Efland, North Carolina, which served as a living classroom for educational seminars emphasizing ox training and ox-powered field work. In 1995 they moved their demonstration project to the New Vrindaban community in West Virginia. Balabhadra and Chäyä have also traveled across the U. S. with a team of trained oxen, showing them at fairs, festivals, and other events.

In May of 1974 Çréla Prabhupäda spoke about the advantages of ox-powered transportation with some of his students in Rome, Italy. After hearing the effects of the oil crisis following the 1973 Mideast war, he said, “Petrol is required for [long-distance] transport, but if you are localized, there is no question of [such] transport. You don’t require petrol.… The oxen will solve the problem of transport.”

Later, during a visit to India, Çréla Prabhupäda urged his Indian-born disciple Lokanäth Swami to travel from village to village with oxcarts instead of motor vehicles (see “People Working for Change,”).

Lokanäth Swami then organized a padayäträ (“pilgrimage on foot”) that continues to travel the length and breadth of India, going from village to village and town to town with oxcarts and exhibits. In each village and town, the members of the party are well received, attracting considerable attention to their message of living a simple, God conscious life in harmony with nature’s laws. He has since begun padayäträs in over a hundred other countries.

DN 7.2: A Meatless, Karma-Free Diet

A Meatless, Karma-Free Diet

ISKCON’s programs for cow protection and ox power are intimately connected with its spiritual vegetarian diet. As we have seen, the beef industry is one of the major causes of environmental destruction worldwide. Saving cows and bulls from the slaughterhouse is therefore one of the main things we can do to improve the environment. We shall now outline some of the ways the International Society for Krishna Consciousness is helping spread meatless, karma-free eating.

First of all, the Kåñëa consciousness movement has more than fifty restaurants in twenty countries. These restaurants serve only prasädam, vegetarian food that has been prepared with love and devotion for the pleasure of the Supreme Lord, Kåñëa. In the Bhagavad-gétä the Lord says that one should eat only food that has first been offered to Him. He further states that He will accept only vegetarian foods. If one offers the Lord such vegetarian foods, one becomes free from any karma involved in taking the lives of plants. And according to Vedic teachings, one also obtains a positive spiritual benefit from eating prasädam.

The Kåñëa consciousness movement also serves karma-free vegetarian meals at all of its 300-plus centers around the world and at hundreds of major public festivals each year. We estimate that the Kåñëa consciousness movement has served over 900 million prasädam meals since 1966. Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of Kåñëa worshipers prepare prasädam meals in their homes.

Former Beatle George Harrison, a longtime friend of the Kåñëa consciousness movement, once said, “It’s a pity you don’t have restaurants or temples on all the main streets of every little town and village like those hamburger and fried chicken places. You should put them out of business.”

Over the years ISKCON has worked with many organizations, including the Farm Animal Reform Movement, to promote karma-free vegetarianism at events such as Earth Day, World Vegetarian Day, and the Great American Meat-Out.

Members of the Kåñëa consciousness movement have also authored a number of influential vegetarian cookbooks. The Higher Taste, which the authors of this book helped write, is a small paperback that combines a philosophical introduction to Kåñëa consciousness movement’s karma-free spiritual vegetarian diet as well as a selection of recipes. It was especially designed to reach a wide audience, and to date over 10 million copies have been sold in several languages.

In 1988 Yamunä Devé wrote a compendium of Indian vegetarian cooking titled Lord Kåñëa’s Cuisine (see “People Working for Change,”). It was the first vegetarian cookbook ever to win the prestigious Best Cookbook of the Year award from the International Association of Cooking Professionals. The Chicago Tribune called it “the Taj Mahal of cookbooks.” In 1992, Yamunä came out with another prize-winning cookbook, Yamuna’s Table, and she has also become a regular contributor to the cooking pages of the Washington Post.

In 1990, Kürma Däsa, an accomplished cook who started several Hare Kåñëa restaurants in Melbourne, Australia, came out with a cookbook titled Great Vegetarian Dishes. He also appears in Cooking with Kurma, a thirteen-part television series that has reached millions of viewers throughout the world.

Other members of ISKCON have also published cookbooks. And ISKCON Television (ITV) has produced videos on cow protection and the Hare Kåñëa movement’s spiritual vegetarian diet.

ISKCON members regularly lecture on the environmental advantages of a spiritual vegetarian diet in their cooking classes. These classes are held in colleges, universities, and private homes and in ISKCON’s temples, restaurants, and rural communities throughout the world.

In addition to cookbooks, the message of avoiding meat is found in all of the books of Vedic philosophy published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. These publications, with over 400 million copies sold, reinforce basic spiritual messages that can help reverse the rush toward environmental disaster.

In 1972, Çréla Prabhupäda, overcome with compassion at the sight of Bengali children picking through garbage for scraps of food, told his disciples that no one within ten miles of any ISKCON center should go hungry. In response, Çréla Prabhupäda’s disciples organized ISKCON Food Relief, starting with a large prasädam-distribution program at the ISKCON center in Mäyäpur, West Bengal. Villagers from miles around would crowd the prasädam-distribution hall and receive hot, nourishing meals of vegetarian food prepared with love and devotion to Lord Kåñëa. Çréla Prabhupäda was cautious that this spiritual humanitarianism not degrade into mundane welfare work. He therefore emphasized the spiritual benefits of prasädam. Everyone, rich or poor, can benefit from taking this food, which frees one from karma and awakens spiritual happiness and satisfaction. So Çréla Prabhupäda invited everyone, rich or poor, to come to ISKCON centers to receive prasädam and asked his disciples to freely distribute prasädam everywhere they might travel. ISKCON Food Relief is therefore only one part of ISKCON’s extensive effort to let everyone experience the benefits of prasädam.

Today, ISKCON Food Relief is known as Hare Kåñëa Food for Life. From India, its activities have expanded around the world. Hare Kåñëa Food for Life volunteers communicate the environmental benefits of the spiritual vegetarian food they distribute. As a long-term solution to world hunger, Hare Kåñëa Food for Life advocates a return to self-sufficient rural communities based on cow protection, the ending of the wasteful and environmentally destructive meat industry, a return to God conscious spiritual values, and the adoption of a diet of prasädam.

DN 7.3: Village Life

Village Life

In a postindustrial world, the self-sufficient agricultural village, rather than the urban factory or rural factory farm, will be the primary economic unit.

“Our farm projects are an extremely important part of our movement,” said Çréla Prabhupäda in a letter written in December 1974. “We must become self-sufficient by growing our own grains and producing our own milk. There will be no question of poverty. They should be developed as an ideal society dependent on natural products, not industry.… Let everyone chant Hare Kåñëa, eat nicely, and keep the body fit and healthy. This is ideal life style.”

Near Carriere, Mississippi, in the United States, 21 families reside at the Kåñëa consciousness movement’s New Tälavan community. Members use 1,300 acres for timber, pasture, and crops.

In 1975, Çréla Prabhupäda advised the community to strive for self-sufficiency. The members of New Tälavan should grow their own grain, fruit, and vegetables, said Çréla Prabhupäda. They should keep a few cows for milk—which they could then turn into yogurt, butter, and fresh natural cheese. They should use oxen to plow the fields and for local transport. They should grow sugar cane for sweetener. They should grow castor beans and use the oil to burn in lamps. They should grow cotton, spin it into thread, and weave their own cloth on handlooms. For building materials, they should use logs and bricks. Finally, Çréla Prabhupäda encouraged the residents of New Tälavan to build a magnificent temple at the center of the community.

Later that year, Çréla Prabhupäda visited New Tälavan and gave additional advice about how to organize the community. “Avoid machines. Keep everyone employed as a brähmaëa [teacher], kñatriya [administrator], vaiçya [farm owner or merchant], or çüdra [laborer]. Nobody should sit idle.” He was explaining the Vedic social system, with its natural divisions or classes that allow people to make the most of their special aptitudes and inclinations.

“The brähmaëas,” said Çréla Prabhupäda, “study transcendental literature such as Bhagavad-gétä and the Upaniñads. And they lecture and instruct, as well as worship the Deity in the temple. They should have ideal character, and the other classes provide food and shelter out of appreciation for their guidance.” The kñatriyas, taking advice from the brähmaëas, govern the village and apportion land to the vaiçyas, who use the land to produce grains, fruits, and vegetables and to raise cows for milk. The vaiçyas give twenty-five percent of their produce or earnings to the kñatriyas, who utilize it for village projects. The çüdras—the artisans and craftspeople—assist the other three classes.

The current residents of New Tälavan have not yet achieved complete self-sufficiency and have only partially introduced the Vedic social system. But they are working in that direction.

In August 1976, Çréla Prabhupäda visited New Mäyäpur, ISKCON’s farm community near Lucay-Le-Male in central France. As elsewhere, Prabhupäda stressed self-sufficiency, advising members to build cottages with wood from the forests on their land, keep cows, and grow vegetables, grains, fruits, and flowers. “Try to concentrate on this village organization,” he said.

As of 1996, the ISKCON farm at Almviks Gard, 45 miles from Stockholm, Sweden, was home to 15 families, a total of 41 adults and 20 children. There were also 6 milking cows, 6 oxen, and 18 young or unproductive cows. About 50 of the 165 acres of arable land are under cultivation. Crops include hay, wheat, oats, rye, potatoes, carrots, beetroots, cabbage, fruit trees (apple, pear, plum, cherry), and flowers. The community also has beehives. Devotees carefully harvest wood from about 250 acres of forest and use it for construction. In addition the community has its own school, bakery, and handlooms. Residents grow crops from local seeds and train oxen for plowing and hauling. They say, “Our aim is to give an example of Kåñëa conscious life and economic self-sufficiency.” There is a guest room for visitors.

In Poland, there is an ISKCON farm community near the town of Czarnow. Called New Shantipur, it occupies 100 acres. Members also rent another 150 acres from the government. New Shantipur is home to about 60 people. They use oxen for much of the farm work. (See “People Working for Change,”).

As of 1996, 12 families and some single men were living at the 1,800-acre Sharanagati Dhama farm, 20 miles from the small town of Ashcroft in the mountains of British Columbia, Canada. The community does not use commercial electricity, although some families have small generators, and there is no regular phone service. The community offers 5-acre lifetime leases to members, transferable to their children. Currently, there are 100 acres of hay, 200 acres of pasture, 3 acres of organic vegetables, 80 fruit trees, and a variety of berries. The residents also grow wheat, rye, oats, and barley and also keep bees for honey. Six cows and four oxen make up the community’s small herd. Lumber from trees on the farm is milled on the property and used for construction. Some residents farm without machines. Others use machinery, but on a small scale. Residents have built homes using alternative methods, including straw-bale construction and earth shelters. Children are educated in a group setting, using government-approved correspondence courses.

The ISKCON farm known as Gétä-Nägaré (named after a model community envisioned by Çréla Prabhupäda in 1948) is located near Port Royal, Pennsylvania, USA. Of 325 acres, 150 are under cultivation for animal feed, and a five-acre organic garden supplies the community with a variety of vegetables. A few cows are milked and a few oxen trained, and the farm is also home to about a hundred nonmilking cows and nonworking oxen. Originally operated as a commercial dairy, the community is now making a difficult transition to local self-sufficiency.

In December of 1976, Çréla Prabhupäda visited ISKCON’s 600-acre farming community near Hyderabad, in south central India. By means of this community, Çréla Prabhupäda hoped to revive spiritually centered village life, which has been on the decline in India. Giving up their traditional culture and values, many village dwellers have gone to the cities to work in factories. “Let them come here, live peacefully, eat sumptuously, get all the other necessities of life, and become Kåñëa conscious,” said Çréla Prabhupäda during his visit.

One hundred and forty men, women, and children live at the Kåñëa consciousness movement’s Nova Gokula farm near Pindamonhangaba, in the Mantiquiera Mountains 114 miles northeast of São Paulo, Brazil. Residents of Nova Gokula have planted 500 orange trees, 50 mango trees, 500 papaya trees, 5,000 banana trees, and many grape vines. Cultivated land includes 20 acres of corn, 10 acres of barley, 5 acres of green vegetables, 2 acres of dhal (lentils), 10 acres of cow fodder, and 10 acres of rice. There are also 185 acres of pasture for Nova Gokula’s 56 cows, bulls, and calves.

Members also grow flowers. Jayaprabhupäda Däsa (see “People Working for Change,”) says, “Several species of orchids that grow here are considered endangered species, so we are cultivating them to save them.”

Nova Gokula is located in an important watershed region for the Paraiba River. “Our efforts to improve the watershed are good for the whole region,” says Jayaprabhupäda Däsa. “Two years ago we wrote up our plan to preserve the area and the water, and we presented it to the city of Pindamonhangaba, and they were very enthusiastic about it.”

About half the land at Nova Gokula is set aside for a “Vedic Village” centered on cow protection and complete self-sufficiency, with family farms as the basic economic units. On the other half, there is a community that still relies on machine technology and has contact with the outside economy.

ISKCON’s New Nandagram farm community occupies 265 acres of forest and grassy range near Melbourne, Australia. Established in 1987, the community has grown to 23 members with another 20 living nearby.

For planning the future development of New Nandagram, members sought the help of David Holmgren, one of the founders of the “permaculture” concept of sustainable agriculture. Holmgren produced a 50-page study that shows how New Nandagram can become a self-sufficient community based on cow protection.

An important part of Holmgren’s plan was determining how many animals the acreage could sustain. His findings showed that New Nandagram can support one cow for every 2 acres. With somewhat less than 200 acres available for agricultural use, New Nandagram could support about 90 bovines, based on a 15-year life span for each animal. He calculated that a maximum of 6 cows a year could be milked. But this number can supply milk for the entire community (including 30 children).

“Making use of the bullocks as work animals should be a key element in making the farm efficient and sustainable within the religious constraints,” adds Holmgren.

Because the farm’s spring water has an unpleasant taste, Holmgren recommended rainwater collection for human drinking. The community therefore built rooftop systems to capture rainwater.

The development plan calls for the planting of more than 50,000 new trees, specially selected to provide fodder for cows and attract insect-eating birds to garden areas. Forest will cover 40 percent of the farm’s acreage.

Holmgren proposed using oxen to haul cut logs to a portable sawmill. “Working bullocks harvesting timber could become a major environmental education attraction, demonstrating sustainable farm forestry techniques while reinforcing the traditional Hare Kåñëa relationship to cattle,” said Holmgren.

New Nandagram is one of the only ISKCON rural communities with this developed a plan for self-sufficiency. Although attainment of self-sufficiency may be many years, or even decades, away, the plan is based on sound principles and is being executed step by step.

Australian ISKCON members also intend to introduce permaculture concepts at their 600-acre farm (New Gokula) near Sydney, and their 1,000-acre farm (New Govardhan) near Brisbane.

In 1993, residents of the Saranagati community in Canada hosted a week-long permaculture conference. More than fifty leaders in the field of permaculture attended, and the final workshop was an exercise to design a permaculture plan for the settlement. The event was considered a milestone for ISKCON community development.

DN 7.4: Sustainable Small Cities

Sustainable Small Cities

In a postindustrial world, there would still be cities, although they would be smaller than those of today. They might resemble the cities of Renaissance Europe. Florence, for example, at the height of it cultural ascendancy, had only 35 to 45 thousand inhabitants.

As early as 1948, in an unpublished essay entitled Interpretations of Bhagavad-gétä, Çréla Prabhupäda outlined his vision for a city-sized, self-sufficient community based on the spiritual teachings of the Bhagavad-gétä. He called the planned community Gétä-Nägaré, “the city of the Bhagavad-gétä.” “The Gétä Nagari shall set the example that neither God nor the living being nor nature is in any way antagonistic toward one another, but that all of them exist in harmony as a complete whole unit,” wrote Çréla Prabhupäda.

The spiritual center of the community would be a temple dedicated to Lord Kåñëa, who spoke the timeless teachings of the Bhagavad-gétä to His friend and devotee Arjuna. The community would also include an educational institution called the Gétä School. “The children of the inhabitants of Gétä Nägari shall get free education with the facility of free boarding and free lodging in this institution,” wrote Çréla Prabhupäda (1948, p. 46).

Students and retired persons would carry out the duties of worship, teaching, writing, and publishing. Other members, principally the married adults, would see to economic development (especially cow protection and agriculture) and government.

In 1970, Çréla Prabhupäda initiated construction of a spiritual township modeled on the Gétä-Nägaré principle. He chose as the location Mäyäpur, in West Bengal.

Mäyäpur has a special spiritual significance for the members of the Kåñëa consciousness movement. It was here that Çré Caitanya Mahäprabhu, renowned as an incarnation of God, appeared in 1486. Çré Caitanya spread the chanting of the Hare Kåñëa mantra all over India and requested His followers to spread it to every town and village in the world.

Today the central features of Mäyäpur city, now home to several hundred full-time residents, are a Kåñëa temple and a domed memorial to Çréla Prabhupäda. There are also three major guesthouses, capable of accommodating 1,200 visitors. These are surrounded by lush, well-tended parks and gardens. From 1982 to 1992, twelve million people visited this spiritual center.

The Mäyäpur project produces most of its own grains, vegetables, fruits, and milk products. Oxen are used for tilling the land and for transportation.

To provide cotton cloth for residents and others, the Mäyäpur project has 45 handlooms. Residents also grow flowers for temple worship, and have started a number of cottage industries in addition to weaving. They also publish books and magazines using a printing press located on the property.

Eventually, the Mäyäpur city is expected to house 25,000 residents. It will be organized according to the Vedic social system called varëäçrama, with its divisions of teachers, administrators, businessmen and farmers, and laborers. Most people rightly deplore India’s present caste rules based on birth. But the original varëäçrama system, as described in the Bhagavad-gétä and other Vedic literatures, is based not on birth but on qualification.

Like the Gétä-Nägaré township envisioned by Çréla Prabhupäda in 1948, the Mäyäpur city will have a grand temple, including a planetarium exhibiting the cosmology that underlies Vedic civilization and culture. This temple will be completed early in the twenty-first century. It will be large enough to hold ten thousand people at a time.

The entire city will be arranged around the temple, in the manner suggested by urban planning directions found in the Vedas. Vedic city planners knew how to locate temples, parks, markets, residences, and agricultural fields in a way that fosters social and spiritual harmony. Close to the central temple complex will be places of culture and education. Next will come places for living and working. Finally will come an outer circle of farms, which will provide enough food for all the residents.

DN 7.5: Opportunities for Involvement

Opportunities for Involvement

As can be seen, not all of the programs of the Kåñëa consciousness movement are unique. What is unique is the combination of all these programs—self-sufficient sustainable rural communities and small towns, an emphasis on spiritual values and cultivation of nonmaterial sources of happiness, a God-centered cosmology, cow protection and ox power, and a spiritually oriented vegetarian diet—in one voluntary, administratively decentralized international association. There are many opportunities for involvement and exchanges of views, and some of these are listed in the directory at the end of this book.

DN 7: People Working for Change

People Working for Change

Priyavrata Däsa

“In the Bhagavad-gétä, God, whom we call Kåñëa, claims to be the father of all living beings,” says Priyavrata Däsa (Paul Turner), global coordinator of Hare Kåñëa Food for Life (FFL). “Those who aspire to be good sons and daughters of God are pained to see so many of their brothers and sisters go hungry. We learn that food prepared in a spiritual atmosphere and offered to the lord can feed people and, at the same time, provide spiritual benefits.

“The spiritual consciousness of our cooks and food distributors is an integral part of our feeding efforts. Kåñëa consciousness adds spiritual power to the food, which is called prasädam. Distribution of prasädam—Sanskrit for ‘mercy’—is a basic function of the Hare Kåñëa movement. We are dispensers, you might say, of spiritual consciousness.”

From his home office near Washington, D.C., Priyavrata administers Hare Kåñëa Food for Life Global. He produces videos, prints newsletters, and regularly updates his Internet website. He also travels the world, helping centers of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) organize to prepare and distribute spiritualized food.

According to Priyavrata, the environmental crisis is a crisis of values. He says that Food for Life’s volunteers throughout the world care deeply because they see the bigger picture. “The environment is a mess because we’re conditioned to see the earth and its creatures as things to be exploited unlimitedly for personal gratification. We don’t treat members of our family like this. Unfortunately, we have forgotten our connection with God.”

Priyavrata is convinced that environmental destruction is due to overindulgence. “The uneven distribution of food in the world,” he says, “is due not to food shortages but mainly to greed. Much too much land is being exploited for cash crops—junk foods, exports, tobacco, alcohol. Agribusiness is destroying small farms, food prices are soaring, and soil and forests are disappearing fast. Food has to be returned to the hands of the people. We want to set an example for environmentalists.”

A goal of the Kåñëa consciousness movement, as articulated in 1965 by the founding spiritual master of the Kåñëa society, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda, is “to check the imbalance of values in life and achieve real unity and peace in the world.” This concept, confirms Priyavrata, is a guiding principle of Food for Life. “We want to correct this imbalance of values by bringing nutritional, spiritualized food to victims of exploitation.

“My spiritual thinking goes like this: There must be enormous disparity in food distribution in the world as long as we think, ‘I am the master of all I survey, and everything is meant for my enjoyment.’ This delusion is deep within each of us, and this is what sustains the inequality we see all around us. That’s why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

“The compulsion to be ‘the lord of all we survey’ generates a negligence that’s now spread far and wide throughout the world. The same misguided thinking also lies at the root of the environmental crisis. It’s hard for most people to identify the ultimate cause of this crisis, because that cause happens to be spiritual in nature.”

Irene Dove

“You and I know that the bull is a person with feelings just like us,” says Irene Dove (Chäyä Däsé), co-director of ISCOWP. The acronym stands for the International Society for Cow Protection. “Cows have souls, just as we do. These souls are of the same spiritual quality as God. Cows are thus intimately connected with us; so we have to protect them as we would our own children. These animals are members of our universal family. People are always amazed that my young daughter, Lakshmi, who weighs about 110 pounds, has such an affectionate relationship with our ox, Gétä, that she totally controls the 800-pound animal with voice commands.”

Irene, her husband William Dove (Balabhadra Däsa), and two oxen travel coast to coast across the USA—and occasionally abroad—teaching about the gentleness of cows and oxen, and about the environmental, physical, and economic benefits of cow protection. “We shelter cows and bulls because of a spiritual principle,” she explains, “in which the bull represents religion. Cows and bulls are revered because Lord Kåñëa was most fond of them.

“Since time immemorial, human cultures have lived with and protected cows. Cows have provided many essential services to humanity for very little maintenance. They’re inseparably part of God’s efficient system for human civilization. Today people employ them in agriculture in India and many other so-called developing countries.

“Using oxen” Irene says, “can still be the most effective and economical way for small family farmers to plow crops and haul goods.” She adds that methane (or gobar) gas derived from bovine manure can be used to power electrical generators for “appropriate” or “intermediate” technology, and that oxen yoked to a large axle can drive purpose-built irrigation systems.

Born in 1946 in Long Island, New York, Irene joined the Hare Kåñëa movement full time in 1969. She spent eleven years teaching in the movement’s school system. When she moved to a Kåñëa farm, she joined what was probably the world’s first and only “Adopt a Cow” program. Members paid a fee to adopt a calf, and this sponsorship helped the program administrators protect the animal from the slaughterhouse for life. She began showcasing live cows and bullocks at dozens of farm exhibitions and other public events.

“The one truly sustaining force through the many things I’ve done has been my ever-increasing resolve to be a devotee of Lord Kåñëa,” Irene recalls. “I knew that if I dedicated myself to the teachings of the Kåñëa consciousness movement, I could handle difficult challenges. More and more, I’m convinced of a philosophical truth I’ve learned: if we devote ourselves to loving God, He will empower us to perform our chosen service to Him.”

Irene has seen “thousands of people undergo a dramatic change of heart” toward protecting cows. Her enthusiasm has developed into a lifelong commitment to promoting transformation through Kåñëa consciousness.

“The tractor is a real sore point in agriculture,” says Irene. “Tractors are expensive to operate. This expense partly explains why 30,000 to 50,000 small farms collapse every year in this country. But ox power, though slower, is far more efficient. For small American farms, oxen do better than tractors. They require no gasoline, cost far less than tractors to maintain, provide free fertilizer, preserve precious topsoil, and don’t foul the atmosphere with carbon monoxide. Bovine waste, when mixed in the traditional way with straw, is the world’s best fertilizer. And when the animal dies, its skin can be processed into leather.”

In 1992 Irene started an international farm association to develop the concept of small farms based on cow protection. Numerous small farmers have joined her International Farm Network, adding cow protection to existing agricultural systems or starting new farms based on ISCOWP principles.

Haraka Däsa

Snowbound winters in Sweden don’t exactly conjure up images of self-sufficiency and sustainable agriculture. Six months of little sunlight and subfreezing temperatures are more likely to suggest snowbound dwellings and outdoor activity limited to hurried hikes from house to car and back.

But pioneering Haraka Däsa is working diligently in Almviks Gard, Sweden, forging an economically simplified future, drawing on the wisdom of a less complicated, rural past where people depended on God’s natural gifts rather than sophisticated manufacturing and marketing.

Haraka was born in Germany in 1957. As a young boy he felt repulsed by road construction, increasing vehicular traffic, and animal-killing. His father was a preservationist, botanist, and forester. Early in life, Haraka felt that many pre-industrial features of life could and should be revived.

He has been the mainstay in the development of 50 acres of ISKCON community land in Almviks Gard, 45 miles from Stockholm.

“I’ve been working with oxen here since 1989, using old Swiss yokes and lots of different kinds of traditional plows and harrows,” he says. Haraka finds oxen particularly efficient because they do not require roads and don’t damage the soil. “On the fields, the most obvious advantages are that they don’t compress the soil or produce fumes and noise.”

From November to March, Haraka spends most of the short daytime hours thinning out forests—cutting dried trees and planting new ones. The preservation and cultivation of trees provide life-giving oxygen—essential, he says, to improving the quality of life in Almviks, and the world. Trees also help retain water for irrigation and drinking. “Natural drinking water is getting harder and harder to find nowadays.

“Many floods around the world are due largely to the massive stripping of trees from the hills and mountains. These trees would normally capture the tons of water that now wash in huge amounts into rivers and valleys, causing terrible flooding. Çréla Prabhupäda has written that the cutting of trees to manufacture paper to produce unwanted literature is extremely sinful.”

Haraka’s planting of trees, especially fruit trees, has over the years yielded large, abundant orchards of apple, pear, plum, and cherry trees. Every three years he plants a new group of trees in Almviks. Tree-planting is labor-intensive because it involves ongoing planting, as well as constant thinning and pruning.

Haraka and his wife, Çrévatsa, have also developed cottage industries. Together they operate a small bakery, where they use community-grown grains that they grind in an old stone mill. They sell the bread to shops and a nearby restaurant. During the long winter evenings they make clay pots, “throwing” them on foot-powered potter’s wheels. They also spin and weave wool to help support themselves and demonstrate self-sufficiency.

DN 8: The Environment of the Soul

8

The Environment of the Soul

“So, everything in the spiritual world is substantial and original. This material world is only an imitation. Whatever we see in the material world is all imitation, shadow.… Whatever beautiful thing we see in this material world is simply an imitation of the real beauty of the spiritual world.”

Çréla Prabhupäda 1

Seeing that the world is heading toward environmental catastrophe, most people are trying to deal with the problem—on the material level. But these efforts are only part of the solution. They fail to address the underlying cause of the environmental crisis.

The world can never be perfect, but it can be restored to a healthy condition if we adopt these four elements:

(1) A new diet. The meat industry is one of the biggest causes of such environmental problems as deforestation, desertification, and air and water pollution. The grain-fed beef industry also diverts grain from human consumption, thus contributing substantially to world hunger. A vegetarian diet would therefore be a major step forward. Members of the Kåñëa consciousness movement follow and teach a spiritual vegetarian diet (prasädam). Through 300 temples, 50 vegetarian restaurants, and other food programs such as Hare Kåñëa Food for Life, they have distributed 900 million plates of prasädam since 1966. The Kåñëa consciousness movement also promotes a vegetarian diet through books (including cookbooks), videos, and cooking classes.

Besides promoting a healthy environment, a spiritual vegetarian diet benefits human health significantly. Many kinds of cancer and heart disease are linked to meat consumption. Furthermore, by adopting a spiritual vegetarian diet we can increase our compassion for all living things. Simply to satisfy human appetites, the meat industry raises billions of cows, hogs, and chickens in cruel factory farms and then slaughters them. Other species are being hunted or fished to the brink of extinction. One way to show our concern for these creatures is to stop helping to kill them. Not only will this satisfy our moral sense, but in a very practical way it will help free us from the effects of karma.

According to the Vedic literature, those who participate in violence against other living things will eventually suffer violent reactions. The process is governed by the laws of karma. According to these laws, the reactions strike not only the person who actually kills the animal but also those who sell, transport, cook, serve, and consume the flesh. Of course, eating a plant also produces some karma, especially if it is necessary to take the plant’s life. Only the spiritual vegetarian diet of the Kåñëa consciousness movement removes this residual karma.

In Sanskrit books of knowledge such as the Bhagavad-gétä, we learn that persons on the path of spiritual advancement eat only spiritual food. Known as prasädam (“mercy”), spiritual food is prepared with deep meditation as an offering to the Lord of all creatures, Kåñëa. In the Gétä the Lord says he will accept such offerings, the most essential ingredient of which is bhakti, or devotion. When the Lord accepts the vegetarian food we offer, it is transformed from material substance to spiritual substance. Those who taste prasädam often comment on its heavenly taste. But in addition to such noticeable sensory effects, prasädam operates on a deeper level to remove the karma infecting our consciousness. It also awakens the dormant spiritual happiness (änanda) of the self (ätmä). The increased sense of inner peace and satisfaction that comes from eating only prasädam helps diminish the seemingly insatiable hunger for material gratification that lies at the root of our planetary crisis.

(2) A spiritually based, God conscious cosmology. Three or four hundred years ago, science took a wrong turn. It began to emphasize reductionism, the idea that we can understand everything around us and inside ourselves solely in terms of matter acting according to simple physical laws. This vision has had impressive results, giving human society increased ability to exploit matter. But the price for material progress has been high—a planet threatened with ruination, and impoverishment of the human spirit.

The godless world view of modern science portrays humans and all other organisms as soulless biological machines. This encourages the domination and exploitation of the world’s resources as the primary goal of life, which leads to the environmental degradation we see around us. But the cosmology drawn from India’s Vedic literatures shows that the mechanistic world view is mistaken in its denial of the soul and God.

The Vedic literatures, such as the Viñëu Puräëa, inform us that the supreme conscious being, known as Viñëu or Kåñëa, has three principal energies—(1) the spiritual energy, comprising the spiritual world; (2) the material energy, comprising the material world; and (3) the marginal energy, comprising the conscious living beings (jévas). The jévas are normally connected with the spiritual energy, but those who misuse their free will become covered by the material energy. The material covering is twofold—subtle and gross. The subtle covering is composed of rarefied mental and intellectual energies. Although invisible, these subtle energies influence gross matter. The gross material covering of the conscious self is composed of the more tangible elements, such as earth and water. Modern materialistic science studies the gross material elements and energies, leaving out the subtle material energies, the conscious self, and the supreme conscious self. Vedic science, which encompasses all of these as well as the gross material elements, offers a more comprehensive model of reality. Only by understanding the systematic relationships between the supreme conscious self, the living entities, and the gross and subtle material energies can we hope to understand the real causes of the world’s environmental crisis and the most effective solutions to this crisis.

The Vedic cosmology emphasizes self-realization as the primary goal of human life. Self-realization means freeing the conscious self from its subtle and gross material coverings and returning it to its natural spiritual condition. Using human energy primarily to achieve self-realization, instead of to exploit matter for sense gratification, encourages an environmentally sound life of natural simplicity. Through the Bhaktivedanta Institute, the Kåñëa consciousness movement educates scholars and the general public about Vedic cosmology and its accompanying way of life.

(3) Sources of nonmaterial satisfaction. Many commentators have noted that the world’s environmental problems will not be solved until people reduce their desires for material consumption. This is possible only if people gain some tangible experience of superior forms of happiness and satisfaction. The Kåñëa consciousness movement offers this experience through the practice of bhakti-yoga, and especially through Hare Kåñëa mantra meditation.

The conscious self has an original spiritual form and personality, but when the self enters the material world this form and personality are forgotten. Absorbed in the dream of material life, the self finds insufficient satisfaction. Transcendental sound vibration, in the form of mantras, can awaken the conscious self from dreamlike material existence, restoring the self’s connection to the source of änanda, spiritual pleasure.

In Sanskrit the root man refers to the mind, and the root tra means deliverance. A mantra is therefore a transcendental sound vibration that can deliver the mind from false identification with matter. By nature, the soul is meant to be in touch with the Supreme Soul and His spiritual pleasure potency. One can restore these connections by practicing bhakti-yoga.

Chanting the Hare Kåñëa mantra is central to this practice. The Hare Kåñëa mantra is made up of three spiritually powerful names—Hare, Kåñëa, and Räma. Kåñëa is a name for the Supreme Soul, the Lord. One of the meanings of the word Kåñëa is “reservoir of pleasure.” Hare is an address to the personified spiritual pleasure potency of the Lord. And Räma is the name of the Lord’s expansion who confers spiritual strength upon the soul. According to Vedic literatures such as the Padma Puräëa, names of the Lord and His potencies are nondifferent from the named spiritual persons and energies. So by properly chanting the Hare Kåñëa mantra, one can come directly into contact with the Lord, His pleasure potency, and His manifestation of spiritual strength.

The natural result is that one experiences spiritual pleasure from within. When one experiences this higher pleasure, one automatically loses interest in material sense gratification. Our environmentally destructive economy feeds off the desires of billions of consumers. If these billions of people were experiencing the higher pleasures available from nonmaterial sources such as Hare Kåñëa mantra meditation, their demands for material products would decrease. Less demand for material products would mean less industrial production, and that would mean less waste of the earth’s resources and less environmental degradation.

(4) A new form of community. Urban-industrial ways of life are largely responsible for the environmental crisis. Many scholars and environmentalists therefore recommend a return to village life. In pursuit of this concept, the Kåñëa consciousness movement has established more than forty rural communities on five continents, all working toward self-sufficiency. Well under way is a small city for 25,000 in Mäyäpur, West Bengal. Cow protection and the use of oxen for agriculture and transport will largely free the Kåñëa consciousness movement’s rural communities from dependence on oil and machines produced in factories. These communities are not simply refuges for those seeking relief from the pressures of modern life. They are intended to be models for the redirection and transformation of human society.

A true sense of community depends upon having a common center. According to the Vedas, all living things and the natural world are united in a community through their connection to the source of both—the Supreme Soul, Kåñëa. The Vedas say, éçäväsyam idaà sarvam—everything is controlled and owned by the Supreme Lord. Understanding this, everyone should take only his or her quota. The world is designed in such a way that if everyone understood this principle and lived accordingly there would be no environmental crisis.

But even if we are somehow able to transform this planet into an environmental paradise, insurmountable problems will still exist. According to the Vedic cosmology, the true environment of the soul is the spiritual dimension of reality. Souls that depart from the spiritual dimension enter the material world, where they are subjected to the contaminating influence of the material energy. Under the influence of the material energy, the soul, which is by nature eternal, blissful, and full of knowledge, is compelled to accept a material body, which must inevitably become diseased, grow old, and die. The material world is thus an environment unsuitable for the soul.

The temporary natural beauty of this world, in the form of flowing pure rivers, forests full of trees bearing fruits and flowers, and mountains with cooling waterfalls, is, according to Vedic literature, a reflection of the eternal natural beauty of the topmost planet of the spiritual world, known as Çvetadvépa or Goloka.

The goal of the Kåñëa consciousness movement is to make this world as much like Goloka as possible, and to give everyone the means to return to the Goloka in the spiritual sky at the end of this life. There, in a body free from the contaminations of birth, death, old age, and disease, one can enjoy the transcendentally pure environment of Goloka in the company of the Lord of Goloka, Kåñëa, who eternally herds cows called surabhi through forests of desire trees.

DN 8: People Working for Change

People Working for Change

Ranchor Prime

In 1989 London resident Ranchor Prime became aware of impending ecological disaster in Våndävana, one of India’s important pilgrimage sites. As a devotee of Lord Kåñëa, he decided to do something about it.

The town of Våndävana, population 50,000, is the sacred place where Lord Kåñëa displayed His divine pastimes fifty centuries ago. Våndävana’s temples, riverbanks, groves, and forests are visited by three million pilgrims annually.

As a regular visitor, Ranchor discovered that Våndävana’s famous forests and groves were fast disappearing, its soil was eroding, and its sacred river Yamunä was becoming dangerously polluted. Environmental values embedded in Hindu scriptures seemed neglected, or sacrificed to creeping materialism.

In 1991, Ranchor convinced the Word Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), based in Geneva, to provide funding for a three-year program to begin restoring the ecology of a region that hundreds of millions of people see as the most sacred spot on earth. On frequent trips to India, Ranchor has since helped to develop the WWF Vrindavan Forest Revival Project, working hand in hand with WWF India and local residents.

The restoration effort centers on the Parikrama Path, the seven-mile route that encircles the town. It was once a shady forest path. But today few trees remain and the sand on which the pilgrims walk barefoot is often burning hot. Raw sewage and rubbish are commonplace along the sacred walkway. Ranchor regrets that developers have paved and bricked over much of the sandy path, leaving it with sharp stones and gravel, which often cut pilgrims’ feet. Passing motor vehicles routinely force walkers off the road.

Ranchor convinced the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) to provide land along the Parikrama Path for the project’s first phase: a nursery for trees and bushes of local origin. The WWF provided a well on this land, installed a water pump and irrigation system, and erected security fencing. Trained by project personnel, Våndävana residents formed a plantation team. Two more nurseries have since been established on ground lent by other local institutions. Since 1992, trees and bushes have been planted along the walkway, forming a focus for widespread community action and education in the town. The plan is to renovate the entire path, dealing with Våndävana’s serious environmental problems in the process.

The long-term aim of the project is to focus public attention on Hinduism’s traditional environmental values and on the importance of preserving them. WWF India workers see the project as one of their most significant and have committed themselves to supporting it for as long as it takes to create lasting changes.

Ranchor has now joined with other devotees of Kåñëa to form Friends of Vrindavan, an international charity whose purpose is to protect and restore the numerous sacred groves spread throughout the Våndävana region.

“The key to India’s environmental problems is to be found in her own spiritual traditions,” he says. “We want to help awaken Hindus to this important fact and at the same time save Våndävana from disaster.”

(For more information about Friends of Vrindavan, contact Ranchor Prime at 10 Grafton Mews, London W19 5LF, UK.)

DN: Bibliography

Bibliography

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DN: Notes

Notes

Quotations from the works of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda (Çréla Prabhupäda) are from the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (Los Angeles, Sydney, London) editions of Bhagavad-gétä As It Is (1989), Çrémad-Bhägavatam (1972–1980), Çré Éçopaniñad (1974), The Journey of Self-Discovery (1990), and The Science of Self-Realization (1977), and also from the Bhaktivedanta Archives edition of Conversations with Çréla Prabhupäda (1988–1991) and the Vaiñëava Institute edition of Letters from Çréla Prabhupäda (1987). In library catalogs, and in this book’s bibliography, the author’s name is listed as Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda.

DN: Resources

Resources

DN: Resaurces: A New Way of Living

A New Way of Living

The following publications and videos provide practical information to help you participate in solving the environmental crisis.

DN: Resaurces: Publications on Cow Protection

Publications on Cow Protection

Ox Power Ki Jaya!

By Paramänanda Däsa, ISKCON’s Minister of Agriculture for many years. This is the best book on ox training. Also includes instructions for making basic ox-power equipment. 40 pages; US$5.00 A$6.95

Hare Kåñëa Rural Life

A semiannual newsletter dealing with ox power and other sustainable practices of rural living, as well as the technical and social challenges facing Hare Kåñëa devotees in rural communities around the world. US$10 per year A$13.95

Hinduism and Ecology

By Ranchor Prime, an ISKCON member for more than twenty years. Part of the World Religions and Ecology series of the World Wide Fund for Nature, this book looks at the environmental values of the Hindu tradition, which underlies the rural communities of ISKCON. 118 pages; US$11.95 A$18.95

DN: Resaurces: Videos on Cow Protection

Videos on Cow Protection

Buck and Lou — Get Up!

By the International Society for Cow Protection. This film demonstrates the voice command technique presented in Paramänanda’s Ox Power Ki Jaya! (see above). Other videos are available; please request catalog. 120 minutes; US$20.00 A$29.95

Sacred Cow

By ISKCON Television. Learn the true economic, social, and ethical values of cow protection from Vedic experts and agriculturists. 30 minutes; US$12.95 A$19.95

DN: Resaurces: Other Videos

Other Videos

Vrindavana, Land of Kåñëa

Produced by Yadubara Däsa and Visäkhä Devé, this award-winning film portrays India’s sacred town of Våndävana, which embodies the traditional spiritual way of life reflected in the Kåñëa consciousness movement’s rural communities around the world. By ISKCON Television. 24 minutes; US$12.95 A$19.95

Padayäträ Worldwide

Join Kåñëa devotees on the roads of India, the US, South America, and Europe as they embark on spiritual adventures of a lifetime. By ISKCON Television. 60 minutes; US$15.00 A$8.50

A New Diet

The spiritual, karma-free vegetarian diet of the Kåñëa consciousness movement is good for the environment as well as the soul.

DN: Resaurces: Cookbooks

Cookbooks

Yamuna’s Table

By Yamunä Devé, author of the award-winning Lord Krishna’s Cuisine. This book combines the rich tradition of India with today’s techniques and nutritional concerns. The recipes are adapted to our contemporary taste for low-fat, easily prepared dishes. ISBN 0-525-93487-1, 335 pages; US$23 A$41.95

The Best of Lord Krishna’s Cuisine

By Yamunä Devé. This book contains 172 of Yamunä’s favorite recipes from the only vegetarian cookbook ever selected by the International Association of Culinary Professionals to receive the “Best Cookbook of the Year” award. 242 pages; US$12.99 A$19.95

Great Vegetarian Dishes

By Kürma Däsa, one of the Hare Kåñëa movement’s most celebrated chefs. Kürma presents hundreds of international recipes in this very practical book. Many full-color photos. ISBN 0-9593659-1-5 192 pages; US$19.99 A$26.95

Cooking for Lean Times

By Rädhä Donna Pessin, with Ayurvedic information by Joseph Sylvester (Bhägavat Däsa). This book is a practical introduction to informed Ayurvedic cooking. Each recipe includes tips and advice on economy and standard Western nutrition. 160 pages; US$4.99 A$6.95

Diet for the 21st Century

By David Wright. A complete guide to egg-free meatless cooking and a karma-free diet. Health, economic, and spiritual advantages to a vegetarian diet; the yoga of cooking and eating. Contains 70 recipes for Italian, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Middle Eastern, and French dinners. 142 pages; US$6.00 A$8.50

Lord Krishna’s Cuisine

By Yamunä Devé. International Association of Culinary Professional’s “Cookbook of the Year.” The most exhaustive and authoritative book on Indian cuisine ever published. Over 660 recipes, 330 illustrations. ISBN 0-89647-020-2, 799 pages; US$30 A$49.95

The Hare Krishna Book of Vegetarian Cooking

By Ädiräja Däsa. This high-quality publication with many full-color illustrations includes explanations about vegetarianism, spices, suggested menus, and culinary aspects of bhakti-yoga. 318 pages; US$12.95. A$19.95

The Higher Taste

A Contemporary Vedic Library Series Publication. In this introductory guide to gourmet vegetarian cooking and a karma-free diet, one learns why spiritual vegetarianism makes sense physically, ethically, economically, environmentally, and spiritually. 69 recipes; 156 pages; US$2.95. A$2.65

DN: Resaurces: Videos about Vegetarian Cooking & Values

Videos about Vegetarian Cooking & Values

Cooking With Kurma

11 videos, 90–120 minutes each; US$25 (A$29.95) each or US$199 (A$280) for the set of 11. Cooking is an art, and Kürma is a world-class chef. His recipes are enjoyed in over seventy countries where his best-selling cookbook, Great Vegetarian Dishes, has been sold. In this set of videos he teaches in an easy-to-follow manner the art of how to prepare delicious, wholesome vegetarian dishes from around the world.

Volume 1 — Indian Entrees

Scrambled curd, sweet-and-sour mixed vegetables, Gauranga potatoes, and more.

Volume 2 — Indian soups, rice, savories, and chutneys

Creamy yellow pea soup (dhal), rice pilaf with nuts and peas, assorted batter-fried vegetables (pakoras), tomato chutney, and more.

Volume 3 — Indian breads, drinks, and desserts

Unleavened whole wheat breads (chapatis), strawberry yogurt smoothie (lassi), classic semolina halava, vanilla sweet rice, and more.

Volume 4 — East Meets West

Tofu steaks, rainbow brown rice, green bean and broccoli salad, and more.

Volume 5 — Asian Style

Indonesian vegetable stew (sayur asam), Thai vegetable curry, Malaysian hot noodles with tofu (mie goreng), and more.

Volume 6 — Mediterranean

Italian fried corn bread (polenta), Spanish vegetable rice (paella), Moroccan couscous with vegetable sauce, and more.

Volume 7 — Indian

Cauliflower and potato supreme, Gujarati yogurt soup (karhi), savory whole-meal pancakes (dosa), and more.

Volume 8 — Mexican-Style Buffet

Mexican baked, stuffed, cheese-filled corn breads (enchiladas), Israeli chickpea croquettes (falafel), eggplant parmigiana, and more.

Volume 9 — Summer Patio Lunch 1

Ricotta-cheese-filled pastries (calzone), pasta pesto, biriyani vegetable rice casserole, and more.

Volume 10 — Indian Feast

Bengali royal rice (pushpanna), Rajasthani spicy dhal-stuffed bread, curried chickpeas, and more.

Volume 11 — The Vegetarian Smorgasbord

Potato and pea croquettes, tomato relish, asparagus and tomato quiche, carob fudge cake, steamed cauliflower salad with eggless mayonnaise, and more.

Healthy, Wealthy and Wise

This award-winning video is a great way to introduce your friends to the vegetarian way of life. A well-researched, compelling yet entertaining documentary featuring important nutritionists, economists, celebrities, and leading specialists. By ISKCON Television. 30 minutes; US$12.95. A$19.95

Food for Life

A detailed look at the Hare Kåñëas’ worldwide program of distributing free food. By ISKCON Television. 25 minutes, US$12.95 A$19.95

DN: Resaurces: Toward A New Science

Toward A New Science

The root of our environmental crisis lies in the reductionistic, materialistic worldview of modern science. According to this view, we are biological machines with no higher purpose than exploiting and dominating the earth’s resources. A new science based on the proposal that we are irreducible conscious personalities, with our source in an original conscious personality, leads to new values of simple, natural living and spiritual realization.

DN: Resaurces: Publications about Science and Kåñëa Consciousness

Publications about Science and Kåñëa Consciousness

Mechanistic and Nonmechanistic Science

By Richard L. Thompson (Sadäpüta Däsa).

Holder of a Ph.D. in mathematics, Dr. Thompson shows that the mechanistic paradigm of modern science cannot account for consciousness and the origin of living species. This book includes both popular and technical chapters. 254 pages; US$12.95 A$19.95

Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy.

By Richard L. Thompson (Sadäpüta Däsa).

In this book Dr. Thompson contrasts modern astronomy with Vedic astronomy, especially as it is presented in the Fifth Canto of Çrémad-Bhägavatam. Many illustrations and tables help illuminate this difficult subject. 242 pages; US$12.95 A$19.95

Consciousness and the Laws of Nature.

By Richard L. Thompson (Sadäpüta Däsa)

The book includes a historical summary of attempts at describing nature by means of mathematical laws; quantum mechanics; the wave function and its connection to reality; the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle; the Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen paradox; splitting universes; quantum logic; the fallacy of chance; and higher-order laws. 112 pages; US$9.95 A$13.95

Forbidden Archeology

By Michael Cremo (Drutakarmä Däsa) and Richard L. Thompson (Sadäpüta Däsa)

The authors present exhaustively researched evidence that directly challenges the commonly held view of when and how Homo sapiens appeared on earth. “A remarkably complete review of the scientific evidence concerning human origins,” said Dr. Philip E. Johnson, professor at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Darwin on Trial. Hardbound, 952 pages; US$40.00 A$60.00

The Hidden History of the Human Race

A condensed, popular version of Forbidden Archeology. Hardbound, 322 pages; US$22.95 A$33.00

DN: Resaurces: Videos about Science and Kåñëa Consciousness

Videos about Science and Kåñëa Consciousness

The Hidden History of the Human Race

By Dr. Richard Thompson (Sadäpüta Däsa)

Spinning fossils, changing bodies, and digitized picture manipulation. Dr. Thompson has produced ISKCON’s first computer-animated science show. Designed for general audiences, this program is guaranteed to create a stir. 30 minutes; US$19.95 A$29.95

Simulated Worlds

By Richard Thompson (Sadäpüta Däsa). As computer technology advances, it is becoming possible to project the consciousness of human subjects into robot bodies moving within computer-simulated environments. Subjects actually experience themselves seeing and moving within a three-dimensional “world” generated by the computer. This video reviews some examples of simulated-worlds technology. It also explores some interesting parallels between the situation of the subject in the simulated world and that of the conditioned self described in Vedic Säìkhya philosophy. 45 minutes; US$19.95 A$29.95

DN: Resaurces: Source of Nonmaterial Happiness

Source of Nonmaterial Happiness

According to the Vedänta-sütra, the soul is naturally illuminated by transcendental happiness. By experiencing this higher happiness, one can rise above the materialistic desires fueling the industrial production that has brought the world to the point of environmental catastrophe. The natural spiritual happiness of the soul can be awakened by the practice of bhakti-yoga, the yoga of devotion, which is practiced in the centers of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

DN: Resaurces: Books Explaining Bhakti-yoga

Books Explaining Bhakti-yoga

The following books are by His Divine Grace A Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda, founder-äcärya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

Bhagavad-gétä As It Is

The Bhagavad-gétä is universally renowned as the jewel of India’s spiritual wisdom. Spoken by Lord Kåñëa to His intimate devotee Arjuna, the Gétä’s seven hundred concise verses provide a definitive guide to self-realization, yoga, karma, and man’s relationship with his environment and, ultimately, with God. 1,047 pages; US$26.95 A$33.95

Çrémad-Bhägavatam

The complete science of bhakti-yoga. Çréla Prabhupäda writes in his preface: “Human society, at the present moment, is not in the darkness of oblivion. It has made rapid progress in the field of material comforts, education, and economic development throughout the entire world. But there is a pinprick somewhere in the social body at large, and therefore there are large-scale quarrels, even over less important issues. There is need of a clue as to how humanity can become one in peace, friendship, and prosperity with a common cause. Çrémad-Bhägavatam will fill this need, for it is a cultural presentation for the respiritualization of the entire human society.”

Careful study of Çrémad-Bhägavatam elevates one beyond material distress and duality, provides clear knowledge of material and spiritual realities, and yields the ultimate perfection—love of God, or Kåñëa consciousness. 18 volumes; US$360 A$500