OUT OF THIS WORLD

October was another good month here at Pandavas Paradise. The rains came, the flowers bloomed, and our garden provided many delicious items for offering to our beautiful deities of Sri Yoga Nrsimha and Sri Sri Gaura Nitai.

In our modern society, people struggle to enjoy the complicated and unsatisfying fruits of the industrial food industry, filled with added artificial flavourings, contaminated by pesticides, and packaged in non-biodegradable plastic. Meanwhile, with just a little effort our simple organic garden gives great rewards. One of the greatest satisfactions in life is to eat fresh, healthy foods from your own garden. Even more satisfying is to understand that this food has been provided by God himself through his natural arrangements in this world, and to offer it to God with love before we eat.

This month’s tasty offerings included

Blackberries:

Strawberries:

Mulberries:

Chilies:

as well as bananas, tomatoes, carrots, beetroot, and many varieties of herbs.

Our altar decorations included

Plumeria/frangipani (these are the pink ones, but we also have the white/yellow ones):

Jasmine:

Roses:

Our night Jasmine was also in bloom and would fill the temple with its intoxicating fragrance during our evening arati.

We weren’t the only ones enjoying the opulence of nature. One day I got caught in the rain, and sheltered by one of our guesthouse buildings. The rain brought out the insects, and the birds swept through the air catching the insects to eat. This reminded me of how Krishna provides for everyone, even the birds.

Here is a related verse from the Srimad Bhagavatam, along with Srila Prabhupada’s very relevant purport:

SB 4.14.20
The Supreme Personality of Godhead is worshiped by the great demigods, controllers of universal affairs. When He is satisfied, nothing is impossible to achieve. For this reason all the demigods, presiding deities of different planets, as well as the inhabitants of their planets, take great pleasure in offering all kinds of paraphernalia for His worship.

PURPORT
All Vedic civilization is summarized in this verse: all living entities, either on this planet or on other planets, have to satisfy the Supreme Personality of Godhead by their respective duties. When He is satisfied, all necessities of life are automatically supplied. In the Vedas it is also stated: eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman (Katha Upanisad 2.2.13). From the Vedas we understand that He is supplying everyone’s necessities, and we can actually see that the lower animals, the birds and the bees, have no business or profession, yet they are not dying for want of food. They are all living in nature’s way, and they all have the necessities of life provided — namely eating, sleeping, mating and defending.

Human society, however, has artificially created a type of civilization which makes one forgetful of his relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Modern society even enables one to forget the Supreme Personality of Godhead’s grace and mercy. Consequently modern civilized man is always unhappy and in need of things. People do not know that the ultimate goal of life is to approach Lord Visnu and satisfy Him. They have taken this materialistic way of life as everything and have become captivated by materialistic activities. Indeed, their leaders are always encouraging them to follow this path, and the general populace, being ignorant of the laws of God, are following their blind leaders down the path of unhappiness. In order to rectify this world situation, all people should be trained in Krsna consciousness and act in accordance with the varnasrama system. The state should also see that the people are engaged in satisfying the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This is the primary duty of the state. The Krsna consciousness movement was started to convince the general populace to adopt the best process by which to satisfy the Supreme Personality of Godhead and thus solve all problems.

Recently we have divided some land into 10 plots for devotees to live in Pandavas Paradise. The designated land is in-between the temple and the waterfalls, with about 10 minutes walk either way. GD and I are hoping to build a house there too and we have already chosen our plot.

Here is a view from one of the plots:

Here is a photo overlooking our plot:

We are currently based in Brasilia, about 260km away, but we would like to spend more of our time in Pandavas Paradise. Life in the city can be a lot more convenient for our material needs – internet, banks, shops etc., but life in a peaceful and devotional, countryside community is a lot more convenient for our spiritual needs.

As missionary types we are concerned about reaching people. In spreading Krishna consciousness, most of the people that we want to reach happen to be concentrated in cities, and, therefore, cities tend to be the most active preaching grounds. At Pandavas Paradise however, we are fortunate that the city folks come to us looking for a some fresh air and, more often than not, a spiritual alternative to their daily grind. They usually find out about us through the internet. When they come to Pandavas Paradise they spend time in our beautiful natural surroundings and they chant Hare Krishna with us, participate in our temple activities, and learn the spiritual knowledge of Krishna consciousness. So even without living in the city, we are still able to reach the city people. And these people usually come from not just one city but from various cities all over Brazil.

In between retreats, GD and I focus on our service of teaching, writing, and internet preaching. Most of this could be done in Pandavas Paradise if we had a good enough internet connection, but right now we only have weak mobile internet there, so it might be some time before we are able to make it our main home. And, for now, we still want to be in Brasilia for “Krishna Sanga” (our weekly Sunday event) and the monthly “Gita Sunday” (6 hours of Gita study with the Brasilia group).

So far only one other devotee has chosen his plot in Pandavas Paradise. He will be retiring in a year or so and looks forward to living there as a vanaprastha. There are several other devotees still considering the possibilty of building a home, or week-end cabin there.

Pandavas Paradise continues to grow, and we are looking forward to finding out what Krishna has in store for us in the future. We are already planning many exciting projects there, including two temples, an International Brahmacharini Training Centre and an Ayurvedic Spa! But more on all that later.

(…continued from Part 1)

Pandavas Paradise is a 400 hectare (almost 1000 acres) retreat centre/nature reserve/temple situated in the Cerrado, the vast tropical savanna ecoregion of Brazil. The Cerrado is known as the world´s most biodiverse savanna with about 10,000 different species of vascular plants, over 160 mammal species, 867 bird species, thousands of species of butterfly, and much more. Of course, the Cerrado covers a huge area (about 2 million square kilometers) and not all of those species of plant and animal species exist in Pandavas Paradise, but the huge biodiversity is obvious. It is estimated that in each hectare of Cerrado you will find about 400 different species of plants. Every time I visit I find so many new plants and animals that I hadn´t seen before. Everywhere I look I see so many different species living side by side. It gives me great opportunity to wonder at Krishna´s creation, and remember that this is just a spark of his splendor.

In Pandavas Paradise we have a lot of field arnica (the Cerrado endemic, Lychnophora ericoides, not the other arnica):

We pick some and use it to make tea. It is used in traditional medicine as an anti-inflammatory. The bees like it too when it is in bloom:

Here are just a few of the other interesting species I photographed during a recent visit as I walked around the various trails:

This frog was sitting on the deck outside our chalet:

“…the most alluring illusory material energy is His smile. This great ocean of material creation is but the casting of His glance over us.” (Srimad Bhagavatam 2.1.31)

Pandavas Paradise has only been operational for three years and, for now, it is mainly used for retreats and festivals . I will write more later about how we plan to develop its other aspects – a bigger temple and a devotional community.

Last week I spent a few days at Pandavas Paradise (Paraíso dos Pândavas). My husband and I try to go there every couple of weeks to get out of the city and spend some time with the beautiful deities in their beautiful natural surroundings.

Here is one of the photos I took last week of the view from the simple wood chalet we stay in while we are there:

The area is well-known in Brazil for its “spiritual vibrations” and has become a hub for all kinds of spiritual seekers. It is on a bed of quartz crystals, at an altitude of about 1300m, and it is still quite unspoilt by modern, industrial agricultural methods.

When we are there we have more time and space and peace to reflect on spiritual subjects.

In the mornings we walk down to the small forest near the chalet to chant japa. There is a small stream there that makes a sweet and peaceful sound and we sit next to it and chant:

In the evenings we go to the temple where we have small deities of Gaura Nitai and Yoga Nrisimha:

There are no devotees living at Pandavas Paradise full time so the deities are only worshipped when we visit and during the retreats. My husband decorates the altar (with flowers that grow around the temple) while I set up the arati paraphernalia; sometimes he sings bhajan while I perform the puja and sometimes we swap. After the arati, we sit before the deities and sing the Maha-mantra together.

Here is a view through the window of the pujari room at sunset:

During the day we read, go for walks, bathe in the waterfalls… more in Part 2.

In July I spent a week at Pandavas Paradise, a retreat centre/nature reserve/temple in the most beautiful surroundings at Chapada dos Veadeiros, Goias, Brazil. I was helping to teach the JIVA course (Jornada Intensiva de Vaisnavismo), a one-week intensive training course for people who want to learn more about Krishna consciousness and how to practice it at home.

The topics covered included basic philosophy from the Bhagavad-gita and Srimad Bhagavatam; how to prepare, offer and honour prasadam; Vaisnava etiquette; temple songs; deity worship etc. The course was the first of its kind here in Brazil.

The participants came from various parts of Brazil, from the very North to the very South, and they were of various ages, from fourteen to almost fifty. They were extremely grateful for the opportunity to learn, and the transformation in them was clear by the end of the week.

Some had not chanted even one round before the course, but, during the week we were there, they chanted 16 rounds every day. Some were eating meat before the course, but they went home not only as vegetarians but as prasadatarians. One of the students had been around devotees, attending Sunday Feast etc., for over 20 years, but somehow had not taken the next step. By the end of the course, she too felt transformed and expressed that she now felt that she was able to practice Krishna consciousness fully.

Click here to see the course photos, including some shots of the beautiful natural environment and wildlife at Pandavas Paradise.

Here is a video (in Portuguese) with some testimonials from the participants, filmed on the final day of the course.

Sign up for next year´s course here (in Portuguese).