Palace of Gold visit

 

I write below of my recent vacation in Moundsville, West Virginia, USA, near Pittsburgh. I visited a 500 acre farm comunity at New Vrinvavan. The pinnacle of the farm is a memorial for Mr. Abhay Charan, also known Srila Prabhupada (1896-1977).  This farm is an epitome of simple thinking and high thinking, which actually provides an answer to the intellectual challenges of our civilization dragged by nuclear war or terrorism risks, religious sectarianism and environmental catastrophe.

When was the last time you remember a memorial built to honor an Indian? I could think of Gandhi's Raj Ghat. I could think of Indira Gandhi's Sakthi Sthal. Despite my somewhat extensive travel in India, I cannot truly recollect me visiting a memorial to celebrate an Indian (apart from Swami Vivekananda memorial at Kanyakumari).   Shouldn't we be celebrating Indians more?

In this context, it is truly amazing that the white and black Americans had built a memorial for Srila Prabhupada in American heartland, especially much before Indians started to migrate to America. What motivated these Americans to give up their jobs, families, hippie lifestyle to use their labor to build a monument for an Indian who spent only about 10-12 years in America?  By the Princeton and Harvard metrics, after World War II, America was at the peak of it success: sky scrappers, newly build highways, nuclear bombs, rockets, spaceships were in abundance. But the younger generation realized that metal, and concrete does not satisfy the self. The deepest need of humans, animals, and plants is to love all beings and be loved by all. In the absence of love, metal and concrete is useless. Houston, we have a problem.

In this state of discontent, America set off on the path of the Vietnam war fiasco and military drafting. The youth of America would not take this. Practically, the youth of America did not want to trust anyone above the age of 30!  The youth became Hippies, created their own communities, listened to psychedelic music, embraced the sexual revolution, and used drugs such as cannabis, LSD, peyote and psilocybin mushrooms to explore altered states of consciousness. But, these things do not satisfy the self either.

Abhay Charan had taught them that only unalloyed devotion that satisfies the self. Martin Luther King espoused "if you don't have a cause worth dying for, your life is not worth living for". Spreading the message of unalloyed devotion actually became the life and soul of a section of the Hippies. Some of them gave up everything to build Palace of Gold.  The architectural detail was exquisite. The rose garden outside is voted one of the best rose gardens in America. They have a large pond with peacocks around. Lots of cows. Idyllic. They have a large organic farming experiment, the best one I have seen or heard of.

Actually, the Hippies ended up building something greater: a community with an answer to the biggest challenges facing America. America is facing a mental health and physical health crisis. 6% of America is clinically depressed and 30% of America is obese. The IQ of students is diminishing due to the faltering quality of (fast) food they eat. Princeton and Harvard have not, yet, produced a good blueprint to solve this problem. They misdiagnosed the problem: even the entirety of whatever there may be within the world to satisfy one's senses cannot satisfy a person whose senses are uncontrolled. This community espouses Yoga (unalloyed devotion) as the answer. I could practically feel that the IQ of the people here is as good as, if not better, than the elite universities faculty.

A stunning facet of my visit was the quality of the food they served me. One could taste the high Emotional Quotient of the cooks! I made new friends Thomas and Matt by serving them this food. Thomas articulated how good music can change the world by cleansing our hearts. I explained to them how Indian thought can be a shining light to bring about world peace.

Finally, I got a special kick when I saw these Americans chantting "Ganga matha ki jaya. Yamuna matha ki Jaya." (All glories to rivers Ganga and Yamuna). After all, the biggest crisis facing India is the disappearance of river Yamuna and pollution of river Ganga.


My favourite quote of Prabhupada:

We must know the present need of human society. And what is that need? Human society is no longer bounded by geographical limits to particular countries or communities. Human society is broader than in the Middle Ages, and the world tendency is toward one state or one human society. The ideals of spiritual communism, according to Yoga, are based more or less on the oneness of the entire human society, nay, of the entire energy of living beings. The need is felt by great thinkers to make this a successful ideology. Yoga will fill this need in human society. It begins, therefore, with an aphorism, janmādy asya yataḥ, to establish the ideal of a common cause.
Human society, at the present moment, is not in the darkness of oblivion. It has made rapid progress in the fields of material comforts, education and economic development throughout the entire world. But there is a pinprick somewhere in the social body at large, and therefore there are large-scale quarrels, even over less important issues. There is need of a clue as to how humanity can become one in peace, friendship and prosperity with a common cause. Yoga will fill this need, for it is a cultural presentation for the respiritualization of the entire human society.