New Vrindaban

New Vrindaban is an ISKCON (Hare Krishna) intentional community located in Moundsville, West Virginia. It functions as a spiritual pilgrimage center which attracts people from all over the world, and also as a community striving to enact a model of self-sufficiency based on spiritual ideals and practices. New Vrindaban is named after the Indian city of Vrindavan.

History

The community was founded in 1968 by Kirtanananda Swami and Hayagriva Das, two early disciples of A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, with the intention of creating an atmosphere of "Simple Living and High Thinking". New Vrindaban would present to the rest of the world a return to Vedic village living, depending on the land, the cow, and ultimately upon the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna.

New Vrindaban developed under the careful, charismatic, but controversial guidance of Kirtanananda Swami (honored as "Srila Bhaktipada" after March 1979), and by the mid-1970s the population of devotees had grown to over 100, with a successful cow protection program.

New Vrindaban has always been a strictly vegetarian community, in order to facilitate spiritual growth. It is believed in the religion of Krsna Consciousness that reactions due to meat consumption create negative karma. The intention was also to set a proper example of sustainability to other similar intentional communities and to the general public.

The focus of the New Vrindaban Community shifted in the mid-1970s, as construction began for Prabhupada's Palace of Gold, an elaborate and ornate temple combining architectural elements from the East and West, originally intended as a residence for Srila Prabhupada, but turned into a memorial shrine after Prabhupada's passing in November 1977. The Palace drew as many as 300,000 people a year to the New Vrindaban Community during the early 1980's.

In October, 1986, a census report showed 377 adults living at the community, and ambitious plans were in place for an even larger temple complex, The Temple of Understanding, that would be the centerpiece of "The City of God", in which the New Vrindaban Community would expand into a massive interfaith complex of temples, ashrams, natural reserves, and even an airport.

This shifting of New Vrindaban's dynamics towards interfaith practices caused a rift between the community and ISKCON (The International Society of Krsna Consciousness), and New Vrindaban was expelled from ISKCON in 1988. The planned "City of God" never came about, as in 1990 the US federal government indicted Kirtanananda on charges of racketeering, mail fraud and conspiracy to murder. The government claimed that he illegally amassed a profit of more than $10.5 million over four years. The conspiracy to murder charge was also connected to suspicions that Kirtanananda had been involved in child abuse and child molestation.

Kirtanananda was convicted on nine of the eleven charges in 1991, but the Court of Appeals threw out the convictions, saying that child molestation evidence had unfairly prejudiced the jury against Kirtanananda, who was not actually charged with any crimes of child abuse or molestation.

Kirtanananda was asked to leave the community in 1993 due to suspicions of immoral and illegal activities. He pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering in 1996, and was subsequently sentenced to prison.

Current activities

New Vrindaban was allowed back into ISKCON in 1998, and today is one of ISKCON's most well-known and well-visited (over 40,000 visitors a year) temples in North America.

Devotees stay in a three-story temple/ashram, where they practice devotional activities to the presiding Deities, Sri-Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra, who were installed at New Vrindaban on Janmastami, August 13, 1971. These activities of devotional service include kirtan (congregational chanting of the Holy Names of the Lord, and the cooking and offering of prasadam, vegetarian foodstuffs offered to the Deities. It is believed this process allows for a subtle spiritual essence to enter the foodstuffs to aid the spiritual advancement of anyone who partakes of it. Other activities include pujari, or priestly duties done for the Deities (like dressing, bathing, offering of different articles like incense), fundraising, preaching to visitors, temple and grounds maintenance, and spiritual educational programs.

Also on the property is a large Guest Lodge, which can hold up to 100 visitors at a time, a series of guest cabins, and the Palace of Gold, the shrine to A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

The large acreage on the New Vrindaban property also supports a number of agrarian projects. Over 80 cows are kept in a protection program that allows them to live out their natural life without being slaughtered. Two agricultural projects, the S.A.N.T.E.E. (The Sustainable Agricultural Network for Training and Environmental Education) Teaching Garden (1 acre) and the Garden of Seven Gates (6.5 acres) provides the community with locally-grown organic produce, herbs, and other natural products.

The community is overseen by a Board of Trustees of long-standing community members who oversee land and legal issues. Day-to-day management of the temple and lodge is overseen by a Management Team working with the different departments.

Devotees at New Vrindaban also travel to local universities to do vegan/vegetarian cooking classes and seminars on Krsna consciousness and other spiritual topics and lifestyle choices. A few devotees based at New Vrindaban also travel across America distributing the books of Prabhupada and other Krsna conscious literature. Fact|date=February 2008}}

References and footnotes

All information is sourced to the following article unless stated otherwise

• Rochford, Burke E. Jr. and Kendra Bailey Almost Heaven: Leadership, Decline and the Transformation of New Vrindaban in Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions Vol. 9 nr. 3 February 2006

External links

• New Vrindaban
• The Palace of Gold
• New Vrindaban Bloggers
• Brijabasi Spirit (New Vrindaban's blog)
• A Community in Transition-New Vrindaban
• The Conversion Experience-Student reports from the Global Leadership Center at Ohio University-The Pluralism Project
• The Instant Karma of New Vrindaban (article)
• New Vrindaban: The Black Sheep of ISKCON