Today I had the pleasure to see how the Mayapur Gurukulis produce gur (sugar molasses) with a bull-powered ghani (press).
It was amazing to experience how powerful yet gentle and soft the oxen served and how expert the little Gurukuli boys were.
Parasuram Prabhu, their trainer, had to go away for some other seva, and so Siddharta from Mayapur (15) and Sahadev from Colombia (13) did everything by themselves – bringing the oxen, yoking them, walking them, handling the press and boiling down the juice on a special fire place.
Often, people think self-sufficient living is very austere, but many of its aspects are very easy and joyful, as these boys demonstrate. They chose this service themselves and don’t want to do anything else. Especially Siddharta, he comes as a volunteer and serves the cows everyday and this is his chosen school for life.
Not all boys have to read books for twelve years and become scholars and managers – in fact most won’t and they also won’t be happy if they are forced to do so. So we should encourage those who have such inclination to become happy farmers like these blissful Gurukulis.
We had such fun joking too and Gaura tattva spontaneously emerged from our jokes and pranks. One time the bull Nimai escaped and the boys had to chase after him to bring him back. We were joking that Nimai ran away to take sannyasa and nobody can bring him back now. Suddenly we were overcome with feelings of separation.
Another time they introduced the bulls to me – Syam is pulling on the inside and Gaura on the outside. So I asked to boys: So what do we have here; antah krsna bahir gaura, Krishna inside and Radha outside? Immediately the little Siddharta said: “Caitanya Mahaprabhu!”
🙂
<3 love is the dynamoParasuram Prabhu who trained the boyshot! preparing fire for boiling sugar cane juiceboiling down the juiceSoooo much sugar cane juice!They deserve a break and some fondlingYoking the oxen, Syam and Gouraand off we go...Getting good vibes between Mother Earth and Father BullSyam and Gaura powering the sugar cane juice press (ghani) —Filtering the juice
Reported by: Radhamadhava Das from Mayapur, India
