My path to Simple Living

[Dhanesvara Das]

(this is also posted on my blog with photos: http://gitagrad.blogspot.com)

Having become accustomed to simple living, it is sometimes easy for me
to take for granted the changes that one must go through to get there.
This was brought home to me by Suresvara’s response to the earlier
post “Simple Living – the Path to Happiness and Personal
Fulfillment?” He wrote: “Thank you for your latest piece on the
Varnasrama conference about village life. As a survivor of several
attempts to “live simply”—from New Vrindaban to Gita-nagari to the
Bhaktivedanta EcoVillage near Udupi to Prabhupada Village in North
Carolina—time and again I’ve born witness to the “guna test.” We
always flunk. As an Amish friend near Gita-nagari once remarked: “We
started with horses and never left 'em. You started with cars, and
you're trying to go to oxen? Whoa!”

In response I was considering some things that might be helpful for
those trying to make the transition, and reflecting on that began to
think of my own progression. The transition to simple living is as
much a story as how we came to Krishna Consciousness, because it is
indeed a transition in our ways of thinking and living. It is a
journey of consciousness, not simply a move to the village.

As recently as 2003 I never thought of leaving the United States to
live somewhere else. But that changed when I met someone from India
online that wanted to create a spiritual alternative to modern
culture. I wanted to be a part of that work. So I organized myself to
leave for a year in India. Now India in and of itself is an immense
cultural shift. The density of people, the noise, the smells, the very
stuff of life is all open to plain sight—life and death, all of it.
And it is nothing if not a huge contrast to America. As it turned out
I was not condemned to live in the midst of all of all, say in mid-
town Mumbai, but managed to find accommodations in a village not too
far out of Jagannatha Puri. Quite an idyllic place actually. I stayed
on the second floor of a house, and outside of my room on the flat
roof, was a coconut tree that provided a shady respite from the sun. I
called it my “coconut office” and would spend hours on the roof in the
shade of the coconut trees reading and writing. This village, as all
villages, was relatively quiet, save for the blaring speakers of
distant revelry or worship, and the language barrier kept me from
distinguishing precisely between the two. And life in the village was
s-l-o-w.

The rest of it was quite like other Indian villages. There was no
running water, the kitchen was what people in America would call a
hallway, with most preparation done on the floor, and cooking done
over a gas stove supplied by a balloon tank. Neither was there a
bathroom, and bathing was done in a ghat, a small pond. That provided
one of my first major cultural challenges: they don’t use soap to
cleanse themselves but fresh cow dung! Hmm, intentionally take the
stool of an animal and smear it all over your body just as you would
do with soap. Wow. Too much for me, and for a good while I purchased
and used soap. However the idea was brewing within. Still...it took
some time for me to warm up to that idea, despite the fact that that
was what everyone else did, and that the Vedic literature states very
clearly that the dung of that amazing animal, the cow, is purifying.
But I did it, holding my nose at first, and then in time, after
experiencing that the result was the skin felt very clean and fresh,
and becoming accustomed to the odor, I was able to handle the daily
bath with the gusto of any native.

Why did I do that? Very simply I was motivated to experience a
different culture, and the best way to do that is by doing what the
others do, eating what they eat, wearing what they wear—actually,
living as they live.

A important aspect of India that was essential to my journey to simple
living was the cleanliness, or lack thereof. In America we live at a
particular standard of cleanliness. Everything must be clean. That’s
how I was raised and that typified the majority of my living
experiences. But in India I learned that a little dirt was not a death
sentence, nor even a certain infection. During Jagannath’s Rathayatra
in 2004 I was blessed to be able to ascend the Lord’s chariots and
embrace the Deities along with a crushing throng of other select
devotees. On the way up the roughly-hewn wooden ramp I bashed my foot
and took a large sliver in the sole. My shoes were long-since gone and
I had no choice but to walk the streets of Puri with an open wound on
my foot. Gangrene was certain I supposed, but the loss of a foot was
perhaps a decent trade for the opportunity to embrace the Lord of the
Universe. Much to my surprise the anticipated infection never arrived!
Food and water were another matter however, since thousands of people
do die each year of infections and diseases from these sources.
Through it all I learned that I could indeed live with other than the
ideal cleanliness of America.

After being in India for almost a year I decided to go the countries
of the former Soviet Union to preach my message of Spiritual
Economics. I had no idea what was there, what to expect, or if I could
survive. But having managed in India I figured I could handle most
anything else. There I was given lessons of a different sort. The
countries of E. Europe (Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova) are all quite
similar to each other in that the Soviet legacy was everywhere
visible. Most of the buildings, and especially the low and hi-rise
apartment buildings are quite depressing in appearance. Although the
tenants did their best to improve their own flats, the common areas
were sorely neglected. Going up the stairwells of any building was
like visiting the slum areas of America. It was repulsive and many
times I chided the devotees that they had to clean and improve the
appearance of their stairways. But that was not, and still is not,
apparently, a part of their culture.

The contrast with America was particularly striking during my first
year, and to be honest it was, and is, hard for me to see such
neglect. My natural instinct is to want to fix things—but, it’s the
whole country! This experience did however have one advantage—I no
longer needed so much eye candy as is present in America. Less than
perfect became the normal sight, but if something was decent or even
nice it was definitely noticed and appreciated.

This is not to say that everything was bad. Indeed, there are many
nice features in every city. For example, the main streets are almost
always divided and lined with trees and strolling lanes. Additionally
there are many nice parks to walk in, and they are always filled with
people out to enjoy the day or evening. And gradually, since people
have been freed from Soviet central-planning and authority, attractive
buildings were being built everywhere, until the economic bust of 2008
that is. One cannot expect such things to change immediately, or even
in just one generation. They take time.

The villages in those countries however are much more reasonable.
There are not so many depressing sights, and although the houses is
simple and of a lower standard, they are adequate. One of the major
challenges in the villages however, like India, is cleanliness. It is
harder to be clean without cement walks, electric washing machines,
and running water, and in most cases one must settle for less than
ideal circumstances. Of course this all depends on how much of the
city is brought to the village. I have been to villages in Hungary,
Belarus, Lithuania, France, India, Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova. They
are all reasonably similar in their construction (save for India), and
in the manner of living that they support. Having had such a variety
of experience there is no longer an immediate shock due to the
contrast of city conditioning when going to such places. I now
understand it as “village life.” The mysteries have been solved and I
know how life works there.

Undoubtedly my experience is far different from that of the average
city dweller. I have gone through many experiences that have allowed
me to now easily adapt to village circumstances of almost any
standard. Unquestionably everyone who determines to take up the
village way of life has to “downsize” their expectations and adjust to
the circumstances of their proposed new way of life. Unless they are
bringing the city with them to the village, most people cannot do that
“cold-turkey,” in one step. I dare say that I could not have either.
The best approach is to make periodic visits to the village for
several days or weeks. It’s like going camping. The differences in
living are appreciated and tolerable as long as one knows that it’s
only for the weekend.

The idea is not that we have to learn to live with dirt, or with a
standard inadequate to meet our needs. We need to find the balance
between what is necessary and that which allows time for life. The
idea is to simplify our lives, become group-dependent,* to make time
for the things that are most important to us—our relationships to God,
family and friends, and our personal growth and development. And, as
we make progress along our spiritual journey simplicity will
automatically manifest within our lives. It is a concomitant factor of
spiritual growth. As that happens we want to be able to reduce the
demands of the body, but, let us note, that is much easier to do in
the village but almost impossible in the city.

One thing that I want to make absolutely clear is that I am no less
happy when I live in the villages. Indeed, it is now quite the
opposite. Free from the crowding, pressure, turmoil and noise of city
life I am much happier in the village, and yes, despite the dirt. Real
happiness, after all, comes from within. **

We want to create in the village community the circumstances that
support our needs for growth and spiritual development that don’t
demand too much of our time. Moreover, village life affords us the
opportunity to grow our own healthy food, something that is becoming
almost an impossible luxury in the city. The villages give our
children a place to grow free of restraints and undesirable influences
and characters. And, everyone can find a place from which to grow and
develop in the village community. These benefits are much more subtle
and less immediately noticeable than the difference in household
facilities, the dirt, or the increased labor, but they are the things
that make life better.

We need to find the balance, and finding that balance is an art, the
art of living.


* self-sufficient is impossible. The ideal we want to strive for is to
be group-sufficient, or group-dependent—dependent on the members of
our community.
** (although I do confess that my quality of life does increase with a
hi-speed internet connection )