Drilling lease rejuvenates community in West Virginia Hare Krishna

Tribune News Service

NEW VRINDABAN, W.Va.

At the end of four unremarkable miles of winding back roads in the hills of West Virginia’s northern panhandle, a gilded dome emerges from the treetops.

The sight seems at odds with its remote location, but it’s not hard to imagine how the Palace of Gold, the centerpiece of this Hare Krishna farm community about 70 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, has drawn scores of visitors since it opened in 1979.

Over the years, the steps leading up to the edifice have crumbled, while red paint faded to pink and chipped off the ornate wall surrounding it. The award-winning rose garden withered, and the stately gold-leafed chattras, a traditional Indian structure built at each corner, turned a muddy rust color.

Alongside that slow decline, its disciples went through one of their own, losing hundreds of fellow members amid a decade of scandal. But twice in the past five years, community leaders have elected to enter into leases with a pair of natural-gas companies to drill on the land surrounding New Vrindaban. The signing bonuses alone have brought in millions that the community is using to restore its buildings and its reputation.

Community president Jaya Krsna das came to New Vrindaban in 2011, after seven years as an administrator at a Krishna college in Belgium. Born in the Swiss Alps as Josef Imseng, he had worked in business for years – most recently at a software company – all while he and his wife struggled as “unhappy Catholics.” He joined the Krishna movement in 2003 after the deaths of his wife and son.

In New Vrindaban, he discovered a community with “big potential” but in need of “rejuvenation.”

Founded in 1968, New Vrindaban was once the largest Hare Krishna community in the United States with some 700 disciples and fundraising parties bringing in millions. In the 1970s, members from this community and across the country famously chanted on streets and in airports, donning saffron robes and handing out spiritual texts. Even two decades later, smaller groups performed the call-and-response kirtan on the University of Pittsburgh campus.

The community began to collapse, however, amid power struggles after the death of the movement’s founder, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Allegations of murder and child abuse followed in the 1980s, leading to the conviction of New Vrindaban’s co-founder on federal racketeering charges. That spiritual leader, Swami Bhaktipada, who was excommunicated from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, died in 2011.

For years, New Vrindaban, too, was removed from the officially sanctioned list of Krishna temples and communities.

Krsna das refers to those times as “the troubles.”

“When you have a religious movement, you have a charismatic person, and when he leaves, it’s difficult to fill the gap,” he said, referring to Srila Prabhupada’s death. “All these young people were left alone [without] a father figure.”

Krsna das uses words such as “department heads” and “management structure” in describing his leadership style at New Vrindaban. On the same Mac book he uses to surf German-language news, he has built a PowerPoint presentation that outlines his six-point vision for the collective, called “Transformation of a Spiritual Community.”

Analysis, change, transition, stabilization, deepening relationships and strong community spirit and unity are to be completed by 2018 for the community’s 50th anniversary, and his tentative departure. Krsna das intends to leave all of his jobs after seven years and believes Krishna might have another project in mind for him back in his native Europe.

Though he brings stability to a role that he said had been a revolving door for years, some members resisted his approach. Some left, others were fired and replaced by newcomers, including several young people from Mexico, Europe and the African island nation of Mauritius.

“We’re investing in our young people,” he said.

One example he cited: The community paid for an online hospitality class for its youngest department head, a 24-year-old who oversees accommodations. “They are our future,” Krsna das said.

New Vrindaban’s membership today numbers about 200. Twenty-three live in the ashram, or monastery, 39 rent apartments down the hill from the temple and the rest own homes elsewhere in Marshall County, some along the road leading up to the community.

Some members have jobs at the local mall, university or post office, while others work at New Vrindaban cleaning, landscaping, organizing events or threading fresh flowers for garlands used to adorn the deities from the community’s $35,000-a-year flower budget. All are expected to refrain from eating meat, gambling, alcohol, smoking, drugs and extramarital sex.

The first service at New Vrindaban begins at 5 a.m. each morning in the temple, a modest building on the exterior with intricate, brightly colored likenesses of Krishna and a lifelike effigy of Srila Prabhupada inside.

The disciples worship Krishna in both the male form and the female, which is called “expansion.” The curtain opens to reveal the deities.

A devotee wearing the traditional robe near the altar waves incense while another leads the others in chanting the Hare Krishna mantra.

Rooted in Hinduism, the Krishna movement affirms that the ultimate goal for all living beings is to “reawaken their love for God, or Lord Krishna, the ‘all-attractive one.’”