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The Iskcon Cow Protection Culture

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Because Iskcon is a spiritual holistic society it means Iskcon can demonstrate the alternative to capitalism. When defining the original and conclusive purposes of Iskcon Srila Prabhupada also included a lifestyle principle as well as many other spiritual practices. The 6th purpose of Iskcon is aimed and directed to all members of Iskcon towards their lifestyle so that the whole of Iskcon is single pointedly and united to gaining these goals of life.

That 6th purpose reads that all members of Iskcon live a natural and simple way of life so that it brings the members of Iskcon closer together and that we also demonstrate this way of life. The whole idea of a lifestyle is to illustrate the alternative to capitalism, to show that mass slaughter of animals is not at all necessary by showing how to protect cows in the right way and by living a simple way of life from all the stress of capitalism by basing our lifestyle on an agrarian way of life. The holistic necessity of basing our lives on an agrarian way of life means to include cow protection so that all the components of solving the economic problems of life are included in a self sufficient principle.

Because we all have to eat, take shelter of buildings, clothe ourselves, and become educated and use energy then that gives us all a choice of how to achieve these requirements. There are multiple ways of achieving them. The capitalistic way is integrated into the way most of us were brought up and the predominant system that is available around the world today. We all know how exploitative, violent, abusive and atheistic this system is. A devotee is given the choice through gaining knowledge of his situation. A transcendental person also includes all the material modes of nature and the mode of goodness is a prerequisite for attaining the transcendental realm. A transcendentalist would by no means exploit nature and therefore his requirements are minimal, in harmony with nature and take on a sharing quality whilst living a community styled life. But still the economic problems of life need solving and through the â€œSimple Living-High Thinkingâ€ principle and natural living
the mode of goodness is the simple choice for the devotee.

Within the cow protection project all the problems of life are solved. The premier product of milk is produced from the mode of goodness milking cows which is undeniably the most robust single food known to mankind. But then the Oxen then provide all the draught power to farm the lands, the positive alternative to fossil fuelled tractors and industrialized farming. And then we also gain the most miraculous cow manure which can easily be transformed to energy in the form of Methane and then lastly into a perfectly balanced fertilizer for conditioning and fertilizing the lands, grassland and the kitchen gardens.

Unless this cow protection culture is followed in its most manifest way by achieving all the goals of cow protection; simple living, community dynamics, the alternative to exploitative violent modern day agriculture, then we have not achieved the 6th purpose of Iskcon for the members of Iskcon.

The preaching strategy for this project is simple. We are demonstrating by our very own practical lifestyle the alternative to animal slaughter. By living in the material world engaged in this minimalist way of life by just depending on cows, land and mode of goodness materials we can easily preach this way of life so that others become attracted to this natural way of life and thereby become devotees as well. Our main aim in this 6th purpose of Iskcon is to practically help others gain an entrance to the spiritual world by attracting them to the way we live.

Once we have set up the holistic way of life for devotee communities to live by and introduce the mode of goodness principles then the blueprint of expansion can spread right across the Iskcon world so that all devotees can engage in the 6th purpose of Iskcon. We can depart from the very exploitative capitalistic way of life, we can illustrate the practical ways of life by our own example, we can demonstrate the cow protection principles of minimum violence, and we can create beautifully constructed buildings at very little expense as an alternative to being forced to work the rest of life just to pay for ridiculous mortgages and high rental agreements. The 6th purpose of Iskcon takes away all the useless stresses of capitalism so we can eat properly produced wholesome food, properly grown flowers for Deity worship, minimum violent agricultural products, and a wholesome holistic lifestyle to practice our spiritual lives from.

We havenâ€™t just been handed the answer to material life by entering into spiritual life
by chanting Hare Krishna, following 4 regulative principles, no, we have also been handed the legacy of lifestyle change, a most important purpose of Iskcon. This demonstrates the internal Krishna Consciousness of us as individuals and collectively as Iskcon. Are we ready to shoulder this responsibility in Iskcon? Do we realize the extent of this project that we can leave the capitalistic way of life behind us and command the mode of goodness lifestyle so that we can be the only ones on this planet to renounce animal slaughter, by positively engaging in cow protection so that the only holistic alternative can be demonstrated?

The unique principle that cow protection offers is the holistic quality of being self determining and self sufficient whereas all other systems cant offer that principle, they are all open to external influences such as synthetic pharmaceutical type fertilizers, chemical pesticides, artificial fungicides, exploitative industrial agricultural techniques, all of which are particularly unhealthy for body and planet. Whereas cow protection positively brings devotees closer together naturally and is the ultimate personal service by serving Krishnaâ€™s cows rather than the impersonal capitalistic systems of lifestyle. What the 6th purpose of Iskcon is teaching devotees is the system of bringing in a natural organic lifestyle that is tailor made to a personal local way of life. So that we can un-learn the capitalistic impersonal ways of solving the economic problems of life to a more universal harmonious way of life through mode of goodness principles and simple living.

The only system that is open to devotees is through cow protection .Even though Iskcon collectively still has not learnt how to unlock the potential, yet all the secrets and facilities are available to devotees who follow the goals of cow protection. And for individual devotees who would like to by-pass the rather cumbersome Iskcon methodology in cow protection of â€œtrial and errorâ€ the principle is open and does not take a long time to set up, but as long as you follow the goals of cow protection all is achievable easily and wonderfully. Nothing in Krishna Consciousness is complicated, especially in a lifestyle principle of â€œsimple living-high thinkingâ€, itâ€™s easy to achieve. Why would it be called â€œSimple Livingâ€ otherwise?????

By Dusyanta dasa

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