Implementation of Varnasrama
BY: KAPILADEV DAS
Oct 12, CONGO, AFRICA
(SUN) — I read the article by Bhima das entitled "Fanaticism is the Goal" about the varnashram community in Hungary. I understand his feeling and wanted him to appreciate that varnashram is actually being spread at this very moment. That very fact may ease his pain.
The opposite of fanaticism is liberalism - when we appreciate that many devotees are trying to spread Krsna consciousness in many different ways to the best of their understanding, that understanding is liberal. At the same time, a thoughtful devotee should recognize, that understanding which follows the instructions of the spiritual master is fruitful, and that understanding which is different ultimately proves fruitless. The proof is in the pudding. So a devotee is the most strict in personal dealings, most liberal in dealings with others, but never fanatic.
If Bhima finds that someone else's method of spreading Krsna consciousness is faulty, he should move on. Don't waste your valuable life in fault-finding. Bhima prabhu should be aware that at this very moment, devotees are establishing self-reliant varnashram communities, and he may be very happy to know that.
I am a volunteer with Working Villages International, which is establishing a prototype self-reliant varnashram community in war torn Democratic Republic of Congo. Unlike the situation Bhima describes in Hungary, there are no devotees going out and collecting donations, and the bankrupt government gives nothing. There is no choice but to be self-reliant. In fact, other than in our community, everyone else in the area is literally starving. In two years of hard work, the community is not only self-reliant in food production (growing over 90 different crops organically), but they actually have a surplus of 100,000 pounds of rice every month.
They are building beautiful brick homes for the members (there is now a brick factory, with a cement factory and a roof tile factory on the way). When complete, there will be 5,000 people living in the village, growing food for 200,000, people plus making their own clothes, building their own homes with local materials, and manufacturing all their daily use items. All the neighboring villages want to join our varnashram economic system and build their own self-reliant communities. We are thus planning a massive expansion which, within another year, will extend our varnashram system to the entire 800 sq. miles of the Ruzizi Valley, offering full employment to a population of nearly 1/2 million people.
In some ways, it will be somewhat like having our own country. Because the varnashram economic system we are deploying is superior to market capitalism in providing a good life for people, it will prove to be self-replicating and will spread all over the world.
All devotees are welcome to investigate this great Green Self Reliance Movement and join us in propagating it all over the world. Please feel free to check out our website, www.workingvillages.org or email me, david@workingvillages.org and I will be happy to answer any questions or send you periodic updates of our progress.
Your humble servant,
Kapiladev das
