Superb article on cow protection. By Dusyanta dasa In modern day conventional milk producing herds of cows there is only one aim; to produce low cost milk. All the techniques, all the considerations and the capitalistic dynamic that it operates within are aimed at producing low cost milk with a mind to make money. In dairy herds that follow that dynamic the focus of income is solely placed upon the price of milk. So the milk is sold for money at the farm gate for an amount of money for each litre of milk. Usually it is within a wholesale package; that is the milk is stored in a cooling tank and 1000’s of litres are collected daily in a tanker to be delivered to the depot that is either bottling the milk or processing the milk to further dairy products.That’s the dynamic that modern conventional dairy farming is situated. It is based on a capitalistic formula so that money is collected and paid to the farmer wherein he can then buy in his inputs for the next round of feeding the cows, housing them and paying for all the labour to commence the next weeks milkings. This cycle of dairy farming is momentarily practiced until they come up with the next new idea to become more effective and efficient. Dairy farms are neither holistic nor inclusive and absolutely have no relationship with a symbiotic community.The differences between milk produced in a modern conventional setting and a cow protection project are diametric opposites. They could not be further away from each other even if they tried. And the idea of paying money in a cow protection herd for milk that they produce is one of the reasons that cow protection does not work. If we try to mix up the way modern day dairy herds operate by making money and turning milk production into a type of business then we have misunderstood the holistic principles of cow protection. Cow protection does not depend on making money for it to survive. It does not have to be turned into a business to function, in fact by turning it into a business is the cause for it not to work, as it should be in the mode of goodness.The three modes of nature have an influence on everything we do, our way of life, what we eat, how we interact with nature and our energy requirements. What cow protection enables us to access is a holistic lifestyle that is pre disposed to the mode of goodness where the economic principles are symbiotic self-sufficient and self-independent. Because cow protection is a self-sustaining principle that does not depend on external inputs whatsoever then by operating a capitalistic principle within cow protection dilutes down that effect. What cow protection facilitates is not just milk production as the only product available but also all our food requirements through the land and oxen and thirdly all our energy requirements. So three of the facilities of cow protection are wealth-creating principles that a community benefit from. Cow protection functions in this situation where there is a symbiotic community that relate by benefiting from all those facilities of cow protection, otherwise cow protection just becomes another business in a capitalistic world, its not cow protection any more. Cow protection does not mean just not killing the cows, that’s a by-product of cow protection, just the words “cow protection” already infer not killing so we have to look way deeper than just not killing cows.If a cow protection project has not been set up according to the requirements of the mode of goodness then the functionality means that a compromise will have to be made which will affect its ability to relate through the symbiotic route of solving the economic problems of life. That is the main principle of cow protection; to solve the economic problems of life through the mode of goodness. Firstly there has to be a symbiotic community that can relate to a cow protection project and secondly it has to function in the mode of goodness. Capitalism and its exploitative factors are not conducive for a cow protection project to work for the benefit of community. We are not trying to make cow protection into a business, only that we reach the goals of subsistence. The mode of goodness dictates how we operate with cows, how we live as devotees and how we interact through symbiosis. If we by-pass those criteria then we dilute down the real purposes of cow protection and lose sight of our cow protection goals. The differences between authentic cow protection and non-authentic cow protection are found in how we have approached the whole subject and how we execute it. And if we actually want to run cow protection projects that satisfy the purposes of it by facilitating the symbiotic relationship between cows and devotees by solving the real economic problems of life in the mode of goodness then we must understand how this is achieved.When we start listing all the requirements of cow protection then it becomes apparent that only through executing cow protection through the mode of goodness will it work how it’s meant to work. The requirements of cow protection need to be set up as simultaneously as possible. The rules and regulations of cow protection are spelt out by the criteria needed to execute it. We can’t just experiment with cows and think we are doing a good job. Cow protection is on an equal standing to Deity Worship because we worship the cows. The rules and regulations of Deity worship are there to guide us how to execute Deity worship properly, not according to our whims and our mode of nature. And so it is with cow protection, its exactly the same, we have to follow the rules and regulations. All cow protection projects should be executed in exactly the same way, in exactly the same standard as Deity worship. Then we will have cow protection functioning as it is supposed to around the world. If not then we will witness an array of cow protection projects that don’t work and don’t satisfy the purposes of cow protection.With all the correct components of cow protection in place then there is no facility or need for money to exist for the members connected to that cow protection project. The concept of “affordable” cow protected milk, or the “cost” or “price” is irrelevant to its members because the inequality that money causes does not exist in symbiosis. Cows produce milk, oxen produce all food requirements and cows’ manures produce methane gas and fertilisers for the soil to begin the holistic cycle again and again. In a self-sufficient and self-sustaining community where is the need for money to exist. All our subsistence requirements are taken care of by symbiotically relating and working to the real purposes of cow protection. Milk in a cow protection project does not cost more or less for the members of the community, because there is no capitalistic influence, it magically disappears. That’s what the mode of goodness accomplishes for the members of community and why the cow is situated in the mode of goodness. In fact when you apply the mode of goodness to your whole lifestyles it prevents all inequalities from taking place.Lets hypothesise that milk costs a high price to produce. So for members of community that cant afford that high price because they don’t earn or command that income then they are forfeited from accessing cow protected milk even though they are devotees. But members of community that have well paid jobs can easily afford that price so they can access the high price of protected milk even though they are not devotees. So what do the lower income members do, they buy cheap milk from supermarkets. What happens to supporting cow protection, it’s priced itself out of the market and is not accessible for low-income families. So in this scenario cow protection becomes a project for the middle-class, which is not a cow protection principle. So the price of cow protection milk has to be low. And how is that kept low, it is placed within a holistic principle of living. The price of milk is not independent of the cow protection food it produces and is not independent of the methane gas it produces from the manures. The price of milk in a cow protection project is not as an exclusively independent product. Its not. Milk is produced alongside and in tandem with food and grains and energy, all in one dynamic. It’s not the same as commercially produced milk, its not. That’s the difference between cow protection and commercial herds of cows. And that’s the difference between capitalistically run cow protection and community run cow protection, one is for people with more money that can afford high prices and the other one is for all people. One is run as a business that is privately or publicly owned and run through making profits and buying in external inputs and the other is run through communally owned wealth creating for sharing. Here is the difference between the mode of passion and ignorance to the mode of goodness. One is entrepreneurial enterprise, the two lower modes of nature, and the other community enterprise is the mode of goodness, and it’s for sharing.“We have to keep some cows. Never mind we are to take payment from others. That is not cow protection. Cow protection means just like Bhagavan, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He is tending the cows. He is going, taking the cows personally from His royal palace to the forest whole day, working there. Is it not, cowherd boy? And taken some little fruit, mother, whatever mother has given. They are playing that. So this is cow protection not that “Somebody will give money and we shall keep some third class cows and feed there and become cow protector.” We must tend the cows very nicely so that they give us sufficient milk. And with that milk we shall live.” Srila Prabhupada. (Shrimad Bhagavatam class 2.9.3. Melbourne. April 5th 1972.)In this quote from Srila Prabhupada He is illustrating a scenario where cows are included in some way but He is defining it as, “That is not cow protection.” So we can see there is an authentic cow protection project and there is a cow protection project that is not authentic. That is one where, “ Somebody will give money and we shall keep some third class cows and feed there and become cow protector.” Now this is not cow protection. And Srila Prabhupada talks about “third class” cows. Now these concepts from Srila Prabhupada’s class in Melbourne that there is a cow protection project that is not cow protection and that there are “third class cows” shows that we must be discriminative in how we execute cow protection projects, its not just a matter of having some cows that are not killed and collecting donations to pay for their feed.And the next beautiful point from this particular quote reveals that we must live from the milk not make a business from it. No, “and with that milk we shall live.” And if we look deeply into that example of Krishna in Vrindavana we see that the inhabitants of Vrindavana, no matter who they were and what class they were, all became opulent because of the wealth of cow-protected milk. The opulence was shared. In a business way of conducting cow –protection, which is through the lower modes of nature the opulence, is not shared and the milk is not affordable by all the inhabitants of that community. So that’s two major considerations on how to conduct a proper authentic cow protection project according to Srila Prabhupada’s class. And the more we look at Srila Prabhupada’s definitions and outline descriptions of cow protection its possible to understand the nature of those projects as being exclusively the domain of the mode of goodness.By working through all those understandings and connecting them its possible to work out exactly how cow protection works, what it is aimed at, how it is executed and the mode of goodness nature it acquires. If we want to have cow protection projects that are aimed at the devotees for their benefit then we have to move towards understanding how that works. That means a symbiotic community that is related to a cow protection project that solves all their problems of economy. That’s not a business proposal, that’s an understanding of what the economic problems are to start with. That is also made clear, the first consideration is food. So cows produce milk and the oxen produce the grains and then the humans produce the vegetables and fruit. Its called subsistence level agriculture not cash cropping or trading farming, it’s not a business, just farming for the number in the community. Its Vrindavana styled agriculture where the goal is subsistence, self-sufficiency, self-sustainable for the community of devotees and that is as far as it is necessary to go, its really that easy.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 19:08:57 +0000
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