Srila
Prabhupada said that he personally considers living off the land to
be the bija (seed) mantra of varnasrama. The vaisya is required to
make this work on a practical level. The majority of devotees
already live within the congregation and work to earn money in
different ways to support their asrama - they act as vaisyas. And
Srila Prabhupada said that most of us are vaisyas or sudras.
So
presently, within the devotee community, most of us already live the
life of vaisyas in the literal sense, that is we are devotees who
earn money and understand spiritual values and the tradition.
Although as vaisyas, we do not earn money according to tradition, we
still earn money in different ways; as professionals, businessmen,
artisans, and office workers - to provide material comforts such as a
nice home for our family – as traditional vaisyas used to do. The
difference between devotees earning money and materialists earning
money is that devotees use it in the mode of goodness and sometimes
passion whereas materialists act more like sudras and use money in
ignorance, to satisfy their bodily senses.
So
strictly speaking, devotees working on the outside are not sudras but
vaisyas. One can advance in spiritual life in the asrama of a vaisya,
and attain brahmana consciousness yet remain a vaisya. As the system
evolves, some will naturally desire to act as administrators
(ksatriyas) within the community, and some may be more suited to take
on the responsibility of brahmanas.
The best
way to kick-start varnasrama would be to create communal living
amongst the vaisyas, who are predominantly grhasthas. Encourage them
to earn the money they need in a more traditional way – farming. In
this way, let the system of varnasrama evolve.
An idea
would be to acquire huge tracts of land, divide them into four acres
or so each, and sell them to devotees who want to farm, with around
100-200 hundred little farms per project. For devotees who cannot
afford to pay for the land and do not have start-up capital, some
arrangements could be made for them to pay as they earn. Some
infrastructure will be needed. There can be a little village within
the community, with basic shops, a gurukula, a temple and other
facilities needed to run a small village. Roads can be laid down
between farms and the village for easy access. Devotees working
outside and those in businesses who don’t want to farm can be
encouraged to locate their offices or businesses within the village
and deal with the outside from there. Let the grhasthas themselves
get together and organise these communities.
Most
devotees, especially within India and other economically poorer
countries would be more inclined to jump into this. Imagine Indian
grhastha devotees having the opportunity to earn between two and
three lakh Indian rupees a year as profit, this is a good middle
income salary in India - they will really make it work. Devotees who
know something about farming in India may not agree that one can earn
approximately seventy thousand rupees per acre a year. This is
because farmers in India presently get only a fraction of the amount
of what the end consumer pays for produce. Devotees within a village
community could have their own devotee agency serving the farmers
directly, who could engage in direct marketing and look at other ways
to maximize profit. Local milk collectors go around all parts of
India to buy milk and traditional farmers normally have at least two
cows and a bull per family. Excess milk can be sold for additional
income. Agricultural specialists even speak about the possibility of
earning one lakh per acre. But the individual vaisya is needed to put
in the effort to make it work – when someone works for themselves,
there is naturally inspiration and success.
Just like
in communism, people are not inspired to put their best effort in
their jobs because they work for the state. But if it were their own
businesses, they will work day and night to make it a success.
Although Srila Prabhupada mentioned spiritual communism; this means
that as a spiritual society we should be community based. We should
have restrictions which encourage devotees to regulative their lives.
There should be some conservative authority and not freedom to do as
we please. Varnasrama should have a vibrant, sustainable economy,
based on solid economic principles of productivity and not
speculation. Vaisyas are allowed to earn money. Within the present
model followed by most ISKCON farms, there is a central authority and
devotees work for that authority, the vaisya spirit is not
encouraged.
The object
of varnasrama, which is to assist devotees go back to the spiritual
world, should not be compromised. In daivi- varnasrama, devotee
farmers and traders should work with the object of attaining
Karma-yoga consciousness – work done as an offering to Krsna
without attachment to the fruits.
Each
community could have a local council – made up of devotees with
administrative and managerial skills or inclinations; this could be
helpful to determine who the future ksatriyas will be. Sannyasis and
spiritual masters could advise in the role of brahmanas.
Most
devotees will not want to work as sudras, and in any case, there are
not enough devotees around to do manual labour so local labourers for
these farms can be hired. In countries such as India, where labour is
in abundance and cheap and the way of life is still simple, this can
really take off. There are possibilities also in countries such as
South America, Africa and maybe Eastern Europe - the lifestyle is
simple and labour is easily available. Labourers can live on the
farms if necessary. They can be preached to and encouraged to eat
only vegetarian meals when within the community – thus filling in
the sudra vacuum. Even Western countries could start these
communities. If devotees want to sacrifice living in suburbs and
cities, this will work.
Devotees
need to work within the framework of their respective government’s
economic structures and laws to get started. It will be an impediment
to try and establish a communities own currency, economic model,
defence etc (as some envision with varnasrama) at the same time as
getting devotees settled on their own piece of land to begin farming.
Off course, there should be some future planning, but the emphasis
should be on just getting things done now.
If, in every country of the world, little pockets of these
communities spring up, then in the future, when the time is right for
the golden age to take off, these communities will expand
phenomenally all around them. If we want to establish varnasrama now,
the immediate focus should be on getting devotees settled on their
own land – the “bija mantra.”
