Varnashrama - A Vedic Society
Varnashrama - A Vedic Society
Upon coming to the United States Srila Prabhupada initially created a
religious order and a missionary movement. Before he passed away in 1977
he expressed that he had left the second half of his mission unfinished -
that was to create a multifaceted Hare Krishna society.
In this regard, Prabhupada had urged the devotees to develop varnashrama
- a natural system of society expounded in Vedic culture. Varashrama is
society centered around worship of God, and is based upon people pursuing
areas of study and work according to their individual nature and
propensities (this system of society should not to be confused with
India's caste system which is based upon one's birth). Varashrama fits
society into eight basic units. There are four units of livelihood
consisting of a priestly or scholarly class, managerial class, mercantile
and agricultural class, and also a worker and artisan class. Each person,
according to their individual nature, will find their own niche. The
other four units are student life, married life, retired life and
renounced life. This was the type of society that Prabhupada was
gradually moving toward.
Of course, in the early days of the ISKCON the lifestyle was communal and
everyone lived very simply in a mood of renunciation. In its outset, New
Vrindavan was a small 130 acre rural farm with a hand full of devotees,
and for almost twenty years remained communal in nature. In the early
days the community was financially supported by Hayagriva's (one of the
founders of the community) wages as an professor of English at Ohio State
University. In the mid 70's, the community was supported by an incense
business it had developed. Toward the end of the decade the community
developed a candle business. For many years private enterprise was
discouraged.
Throughout the 1980's New Vrindavan sent out traveling fundraisers to
solicit donations, especially at sporting events. During the 80's,
individuals from the Hindu community also began to provide generous
donations for the expansion of the community and maintenance of the
temple. Some money also came in from tourism at the Palace.
1985 was a watershed year. Some devotees were aching to develop their own
businesses and cottage industries. A few had already moved elsewhere to
do so. Many devotees were still moving to New Vrindavan. That year work
had began on the construction of apartments for families. At this point
in time Kirtanananda could have changed priorities. The time was
certainly ripe. Devotees had learned many crafts and skills. To keep
these people in the community and help them develop stable livelihoods
should have been the priority. Indeed, there were plans and discussions
on how to implement varnashrama. But the plans were coming from the top
down rather then allowing varashrama to emerge naturally. Cottage
industries could have developed to both maintain the families and bring
money into the community.
Kirtanananda, however, made a decision to continue to focus the New
Vrindavan economy on traveling parties of fundraisers that cris-crossed
the United States. This was his priority - to encourage the collectors to
continue to raise money for the new temple and the community's ever
expanding projects, and thus rely on collections of money from people who
for the most part did not know exactly what they were donating to.
This proved to be detrimental. The devotees printed stickers using
copyrighted materials such as football logos to increase their
collections. This, along with other events and accusations, culminated in
a FBI raid in January of 1987 and the community's expulsion from ISKCON
later that year.
Within several years the population was down by almost half. In 1990
Kirtanananda finally gave his official edict to allow the devotees to
develop livelihoods for themselves and their families. But it was too
late. New Vrindavan's population had dropped off considerably.
The community had begun charging a nominal rent on apartments and started
selling off property to it's members. In the 90's the main concern for
families was to procure property and develop livelihoods. By the end of
the decade the majority of community's families had purchased their own
homes (mainly property sold by the temple) and began developing their own
sources of livelihood which included truck driving, accounting, nursing,
teaching, music, storytelling, candle making and other crafts.
