by Hayagrīva dāsa Adhikārī (ISKCON-New Vṛndāvana)

Within the past three years communes have been popping up throughout America. They tend to sprout in the unlikeliest places, and they are conceived and nourished by the most diverse people. Practically all of them have "hippy" images and are inspired by current concern over ecology (O for a breath of-gasp!-air!) and a semi-Thoreauesque "let's-get-back-to-the-earth-and-live-cheaply-and-simply" longing. Many of the members are just tired of "hassling" with urban culture-too many peace marches, too many drug busts-and many are just tired of their own image as underground culture freaks. Most of them inspire one another and, ironically enough, manage to superimpose their urban life-style upon the country.

The hills of West Virginia, however, are a tough and tender cradle for a different type of communal project. Although New Vrndavana is not yet three years old, it is one of the oldest and largest communes of the crop which arose in the last half of the Sixties. As fate has it, "hippy" communes sprout and die quickly-discouraged by the first winter, diversity of interests, drug and sex confusion, local inhabitants-but New Vrndavana, unique in conception and purpose, is expanding with a view to solidly establishing a genuine Vedic culture in America.

The "seed-giving father" is His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder-acarya of the Hare Krsna movement in the West, who conceived of New Vrndavana before coming to America from India in 1965. In his prospectus for the movement printed in 1966, Srila Prabhupada wrote that one of the five purposes of the International Society for Krsna Consciousness is: "To erect for the members, and for society at large, a holy place of transcendental pastimes dedicated to the Personality Krsna."

Vrndavana is the forest where Lord Sri Krsna sported as a boy and is also the name of the supreme planet in which the Personality of Godhead eternally abides. New Vrndavana is an implantation in the Western world of the ideals established five thousand years ago in Vrndavana, India, by Lord Sri Krsna. The roots are ancient, but the fruits of the tree are ever new.

The integral or Utopian community is not new in American history. Indeed, it has been a most basic part of our history from the Puritan experiment at Massachusetts Bay in the 1630's to this New Vrndavana experiment today. Despite differences of dress and circumstance, the aim of most of these communal experiences has been basically the same: to find a setting in which God consciousness can be pursued so that man's journey through this temporary sphere of material existence can be successfully completed to transfer his consciousness to the Absolute or to the realms of eternality. The conception of a community of souls is founded on the premise that such a transferal is easier collectively than individually.

Different experimenters have expressed the ideal community in different ways. Some have been more successful than others, largely depending on the authority on which the community is based. Some have been based upon a strong personal authority (Brigham Young or John Smith and the Mormons, or Humphrey Knolls and the Socialist Community at Oneida). New Vrndavana is different in that it is based on perfect authority. If one analyzes the various communities of the past, he can see that they have fallen apart because they could not agree as to what was the center of the community, what was its aim, what was its unifying point. The most successful communities tended to be those that were strongly religious. They could unify on the basis of the worship And obviously where the concept of God is most agreed upon, that community will be most united and most harmonious. New Vrndavana is based on God, or "Krsna," as revealed by the Spiritual Master and the information given by God Himself in the Vedic scripture Bhagavad-gita. It is because these authorities are agreed upon that there is unity of purpose at New Vrndavana.

Communal living has currently provoked many articles by journalists and many essays by students. In a recent survey, one graduate student asked one of the New Vrndavana leaders: "What is your advice to beginning communes?" The reply was instant: "Don't try to start one without Krsna." It was pointed out that the commune wouldn't have lasted its first winter without faith in the instructions of the Spiritual Master Srila Prabhupada and a lot of Hare Krsna chanting. Communal living isn't all honey and wildflowers, though there are plenty of both. First there is the seemingly eternal problem of finances, then manpower. There must be money to buy property and building materials; then the building must be carried out by members who know more about construction than just nailing. Thus far New Vrndavana has twelve cottages and one main farmhouse, barn and pavilion constructed. Wells must be dug, sewage disposed, roads built, land plowed, supplies brought in. Then there must be heat for the winter-stoves, firewood or oil and hay and grain for the cows and horses, which are quite expensive for the winter when there're a dozen cows. And there's more to crops than just throwing in seeds. In brief, there is so much involved in getting a commune functioning that it is no wonder that most of them fold and die before the first spring flowers bud. The advice: don't try to start one without Krsna.

When Krsna descended from the spiritual sky 5,000 years ago, He gave a practical example of the ideal life when He sported as a cowherd's boy. He showed that man can live very simply and reserve his main energies for what Emerson called "plain living and high thinking" by protecting and cultivating the cow. So one of the aims of New Vrndavana is protecting the cow and demonstrating the value of the cow in providing for the sustenance of man. At New Vrndavana, the cow is more than just an ordinary animal. Aside from the fact that Krsna was very fond of cows and that the cow is considered man's second mother in the Vedas (dhenu mata), the cow represents man's religion or man's yearning and love for God. When such yearning and love are slaughtered, then man is left with the empty shell of materialism, or life without principle and meaning. So one of the main functions of New Vrndavana is to demonstrate the humane practicality of cow protection.