The Perfection of Renunciation

Karunasindhu dasa, a former fine arts student at the University of Washington, joined the Krsna consciousness movement in 1970. He and his wife have been members of the New Dvaraka community ever since. Their five-year-old daughter is a student at ISKCON's Gurukula school in Dallas, Texas.

Muralivadana dasa, a graduate of Maryland Institute of Art, also joined the Krsna consciousness movement in 1970. He and his wife are also residents of New Dvaraka.

High In The Himalayan Mountains, a naked yogi sits in a cave, on a deerskin, meditating on the Supreme Truth. He eats nothing, sees no one and goes nowhere, for he is practicing renunciation of the material world.

In an entirely different setting, in Los Angeles, California, a community of three hundred Hare Krsna devotees lives in a suburban neighborhood sometimes called the "Hare Krsna quarter," which includes a dozen offices, four apartment buildings, a book warehouse, a stately temple and a large factory. Men and women, many with young children, they dance, sing, eat sumptuously, work hard and handle large sums of money-yet surprisingly enough, they also claim to practice renunciation of the material world. Even more astounding, if we examine the positions of the recluse meditator and the society of devotees, we find that according to the Vedic scriptures the lives of the Krsna conscious devotees are more renounced, for everything the devotees do is for the satisfaction of Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

While taking a tour of the Los Angeles community (which, for its opulence, he named "New Dvaraka" after Lord Krsna's celestial capital city on earth), Srila Prabhupada, the spiritual master of the Hare Krsna movement, once recited this verse from the Vedic scriptures:

"When one is not attached to anything but at the same time accepts everything in relation to Krsna, one is rightly situated above possessiveness. On the other hand, one who rejects everything, without knowledge of its relationship to Krsna, is not as complete in his renunciation." (Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu, 1.2.255-256) Srila Prabhupada asked that this quote be written on a sign and hung in a prominent place in the temple, for it pinpoints the essence of the Los Angeles temple's spiritual success: that all its activities and paraphernalia are directed not for anyone's selfish sense gratification but for the transcendental pleasure of the Supreme Lord, Sri Krsna.