"Simple Living High Thinking": Beekeeping for Beginners
A video by "The Vedic Way." 3D model download: http://www.thevedicway.org/beekeeping/
"Simple Living High Thinking": The Perfect Soil
Take a close look at these two plants, we took the seeds from the same fruit and we put them in pots six months ago. What is the main difference that makes it so dramatic? A video by The Vedic Way.
Simple Living: Build Your Own House from Bamboo
Cheap housing with organic materials, that looks and feels like a modern cement house. A video by Vedic Way.
To spread awareness of the importance of cows for a peaceful society, the devotees at New Vraja Dham organise a special festival every spring to celebrate the first grazing of the cows after a cold winter.
This summer and fall, for ISKCON’s 50th anniversary, the GBC Ministry for Cow Protection and Agriculture will run conferences on simple living in four continents. It hopes that the conferences will also launch a support network for ISKCON farms around the world. The Ministry was first established in 1998 by Balabhadra Das of the International Society for Cow Protection (ISCOWP), who emphasized working with oxen and encouraged devotees to take up cow protection as a key part of their mission.
In the hopes of launching a support network for ISKCON farms around the world, the GBC Ministry for Cow Protection and Agriculture is holding conferences on simple living in four continents this year. The first two, in South America and North America, were held last month with encouraging results. The South American conference took place at the Goura-Vrindavan farm in Paraty, Brazil. The second continental farm conference held this year was the North American one in Gita Nagari, Pennsylvania.
ECO-Vrindaban (ECO-V) – which strives to fulfill Srila Prabhupada’s mandates for simple living and cow-protection at New Vrindaban in West Virginia, USA – is on the lookout for a new construction and maintenance person for its ongoing operations. A non-profit entity launched in 1998, ECO-V works closely with ISKCON New Vrindaban in the areas of cow protection and gardening activities. The organization looks after a total of around 800 acres.
On the most auspicious occasion of Gopastami, ISKCON Kanpur held ca large event with many awareness programs about cow protection, also launching Sri Surabhi campaign and seminars for farmers. The event was graced by the presence of two of the cities prominent officers District Magistrate Mr. Kaushal Raj Sharma and Kanpur Development Authority Vice Chairman Mrs. Jaishree Boj.
Eco-Village Sustainable Communities
Now more than ever before people all over the planet are seeking new sustainable models for living. EcoVillages and ecological communities have been emerging as a viable alternative where people can live together in cooperation and harmony with the natural world. 'A New We' explores 10 such communities in Europe (including Krishna-valley in Hungary) and opens doors to further exploration and discovery on the new 'Global EcoVillage & Sustainable Community Network'.
With a sudden boom of new Krishna conscious farm projects in Central Canada, their leaders gathered to discuss how they could collaborate with each other at the first ever Central Canada Farm Conference on December 17th. Canadian GBC Bhaktimarga Swami and farmer Sukhayanti Dasi brought together twenty-six devotees from seven agrarian projects across Southern Ontario and Quebec for the conference, which took place at the King Edward Park Community Centre in Brighton, Ontario.
The eco farm is run by Bhakti yogis. Director Vaishnava Das studied natural building at the California Institute of Earth architecture, while his wife, coordinator Draupadi Dasi, worked as an ecological anthropologist. “I’m very interested in Srila Prabhupada’s vision of long-term sustainability – working with the land, and growing food,” says retreat co-organizer Hita Karina, a second-generation devotee and yoga teacher from Alachua, Florida. “And Vaishnava and Draupadi are not only living that life, but teaching it too.”
New Vrindaban is set to host the second annual ISKCON North America Farm Conference from October 13th to 15th this year. The GBC Ministry for Cow Protection and Agriculture, which organized conferences on simple living in four continents last year, is behind the event. The conference, themed “Back to the Basics,” will be facilitated by ECO-Vrindaban and ISKCON New Vrindaban. Representatives from thirty farming efforts all over the U.S., Canada and Mexico will be invited.
ISKCON Gita Nagari Farm
Gita Nagari is a 350 acre farm situated in scenic Port Royal, Pennsylvania. The community lovingly engages in farming and caring for their cows, focusing on the Supreme Lord as central to their existence. A video by Ananta Vrindavan. Music "Madhava's Lullaby" by Jahnavi Harrison.
New Vrajamandala, a beautiful 300-hectare farm just outside the little town of Brihuega near Guadalajara, Spain, has flower and vegetable gardens, a goshala for cow and ox protection, and gorgeous Deities of Sri-Sri Radha-Govinda Chandra and Sri-Sri Gaura-Nitai. But like many smaller ISKCON temples in Europe, community members were facing challenges in maintaining and developing their project.
New Vraja Dhama is perfect for the main event – devotees on the 660-acre farm have had decades of experience and grow their own vegetables, fruits, and grains. They also care for cows and have their own waste water treatment system and solar panels that cover a large portion of their electricity needs.
The event showed how far ISKCON farms have come in networking and working together particularly over the last decade, with conferences now regularly organized in four continents by the GBC Ministry of Agriculture and Cow Protection. Because the ISKCON Farm Conference began in Europe in 2008, however, the 10th anniversary event focused on European farms.
