hare krishna and welcome to the farm management course i'm radha krishnadas from krishna valley hungary krishna valley is one of the largest farms or eco villages within iskcon and i'm in the management of krishna valley for more than 10 years now i was also involved in the intentional communities management for three years that's the global eco village network of europe that consists of more than 2 500 intentional communities all around europe africa and the middle east so i had the good fortune to meet the brightest people who are trying to build communities so during this
course we will cover a lot of things but there are certain aspects that we will not speak about first of all we will definitely not speak about farming how to how to do gardening or how to manage a goshala and definitely we will not speak about varnasram what we will try to cover is how to run how to manage a farm community and we will emphasize all the different aspects of it we will speak about the in social the environmental and the economic part of it so this is what we will try to try to
aim we would like you to understand how a farm could be managed well managed what is a farm that srila prabhupada really wanted and how we can develop our present forms you will understand all the steps towards that hare krishna so in this first lecture in this first class we will speak about why do we need farm communities well many devotees ask this question and if we look at srila prabhupada's quotes and how he actually emphasized farm development we can see that there are certain elements that prabhupada really wanted us to do when he was
speaking about developing forms so first of all srila prabhupada was speaking about simple living and high thinking when he was mentioning the forms so for us it's important to understand what simple living and high thinking would mean and when we read srila prabhupada's books and we hear prabhupada's discussions and read the quotes that prabhupad said then we can see that simple living means that we try to reduce our needs to the level that's necessary to maintain the body properly at the same time we try to focus much more on krishna consciousness and on the krishna
conscious practices of our everyday life so that means that the farms are meant for self-sufficiency for the greenhouse does to live a simple life and to raise their children in a krishna conscious environment it's good as prabhupada said many times it's really good for economic solution of the of the problems of the world let's see prabhupada's quote in that regard so srila prabhupad said in regards to the farmers being an economic solution so our program is to live there depending on agriculture and cow cat protection and agriculture that should be the economic solution and peacefully
be in krishna consciousness chanthari krishna that is the vrindavan scheme this human form of life is not meant for increasing artificial needs we should be satisfied just to maintain the body and soul together and balance time we should have for enhancing our krishna consciousness or spiritual consciousness so that after this body we haven't got to make another material body but we go back to home back to godhead that should be the motto of human life this is an address to indian association columbus may 11 1996. so we can see in that the farms provide a
living facility or a lifestyle that krishna was living living in vrindavan so we are following krishna's footsteps in this regard also and the other aspect is that we have a sustainable life and sustainable meaning that we do not exploit mother earth but we use what is provided for us just as it is written in the shri issue punishment so in regards to preaching form is a really really wonderful preaching tool it gives a model for society how to live a simple life but at the same time it gives a proper proper model for all those
people who would like to live an alternative lifestyle that is much more sustainable and if we see how the farms could be used as as a preaching we can see in krishna valley's example we have more than 20 000 tourists coming every year so they are coming there to observe the lifestyle that the devotees are living there in krishna valley and in that way we can give them solutions to the present economic environmental and social crisis too when we speak about self-sufficiency it is important for us to see that srila prabhupada was emphasizing how the
cities and the farms should work together and how the farm should be sustainable not just sustainable but self-sufficient and how they should provide the needs for the cities let's see some quotes in that regard the basic principle of our life in vrindavan will be cow keeping if we can keep cows sufficiently and grow our necessary foodstuffs then we shall show a new way of life to your countrymen letter to such obama 30th march 1996 this modern civilization is always artificial you are actually learning in new vrindavan the self-sufficient mode of living simple living high thinking
that is our policy and as long as krishna remains in the center of all these activities then you are actually in vrindavan and the more you please the deity is there with your service the more they shall reciprocate by bestowing upon you love for sri sri radha and krishna letter to khlodini kolkata 28th january 1973 also how it is an economic solution prabhupada was speaking about that 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 then there will be no
question of poverty so develop these farm communities as far as possible they should be developed as an ideal society depending on natural products not industry letter to rupanuga bombay 18 december 1974.
