3-9-10

BLAKE TRANSPLANTING A TANGERINE TREE

MOOOOOO

GAURA & NITAI

A.C. BHAKTIVEDANTA SWAMI PRABHUPADA
(FOUNDER OF INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY
FOR KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS)

KRISHNA (LEFT) & HIS GIRLFRIEND RADHA (RIGHT)

Above all else, the devotees here have dedicated themselves and their lives to Krishna. Food is neither made nor eaten for pleasure, but instead it is always prepared as an offering to Krishna. Before anyone eats any food, it is first brought into the temple for Krishna. Cleanliness is of upmost importance with all matters relating to the temple. Before entering the temple, you must be clean. As a result, anyone who prepares food must have just showered and put on their cleanest clothes. This is to prevent any soiling of food which will be offered to their God. Washing your hands before cooking is good practice; Hare Krishnas take this to a whole new level. After the food has been offered to Krishna, the mortals are allowed to eat. All plates and hands must be cleaned before entering the kitchen. If you want seconds, you must wash your plate before returning to the kitchen. This is because all human "remnants" such as saliva are dirty and will contaminate the kitchen, which is a holy zone. On this same note, chefs do not and can not taste their food as they cook, as it would again contaminate Krishna's offering. We can't wrap our minds around cooking without tasting food. Still, their food tastes delicious...it's quite amazing.

As we mentioned, cleanliness is godliness. Taken here to an extreme, devotees do not stock toilet paper in their bathrooms. Apparently showering after using the bathroom is the only sufficient way to cleanse oneself. If you use toilet paper you are not clean enough for Krishna and should you enter the temple, you would defile it with your unclean being. This seems quite insane to us. We are pretty sure on this compound, we have located and secured the only rolls of tp. However, this got us thinking; what do members of other societies do when they cannot afford toilet paper? Something that is such a given in our society may be unheard of in other cultures and parts of the world. Buying paper to wipe yourself and immediately throw it away seems like a tremendous waste if you are living in a severely economically depressed area. But neither of us are about to start showering 7 times a day. We don't even shower once a day!

Some of the Krishna stuff made us feel a little uneasy, but something in the greenhouse made us feel even more uneasy. The food in the garden feeds the residents here, and is not for sale. Bhakta Blake uses organic techniques, but doesn't have the organic certification. This is not something new and we have no problem with this, because the organic label can be misleading. However, he had us apply a root hormone to some fruit tree cuttings he's trying to root. Blake said this is the only gardening product on the farm that isn't organic. The hormone was a powder and when mixed with water, created a paste. The paste, when applied to twig cuttings, expedites root and plant growth. We were opposed to this practice for two reasons: firstly, because chemical application onto plants is dangerous, and secondly, because the bottle specifically warned against using this hormone on food plants. There was a huge booklet under the bottle's sticker that contained warnings and specific information about the hormone which clearly stated the bottle's contents are dangerous to animals and humans, and should only be used on ornamental plants. We were at a moral crossroads of sorts, and spoke with him about the matter. Blake said he would investigate the product, possibly contact the maker, and use an alternative in the future. He also speculated use of this specific product would not negatively impact fruit bore from trees, but using it directly on an edible root, such as potatoes, would be harmful. We're not so sure, but we definitely would not have applied this hormone to a carrot or a potato. Since it's not our farm, we applied the paste to the roots as directed.