New Vrindaban

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"What about sanitation?" I asked. "None of the cottages have toilets in them and I haven't seen any outhouses."

"We had a couple of outhouses but we tore them down because they tended to stink up the area. Now we dig latrines in the lower woods and use lime and dirt to cover the stools and keep the flies away. We haven't had any trouble with this method but, eventually, we'll have a more sophisticated system. We do have hot and cold running water, by the way. When we first got here we pulled water out of a well with a bucket. It cost $1,000 to have a better well dug and an electric pump put in, but it was worth it."

"Have you had any problems with communal diseases?"

"Nothing serious now, but in the beginning we had to undergo an elaborate treatment to get rid of pinworms. Luckily, a general practitioner in Moundsville charges us half prices—something like two dollars a visit—so, when there's anything seriously wrong, we go to him. It's good to have a family doctor who sympathizes with your commune."

"As you probably know," I said, "most communes sprout and die quickly . . . discouraged by hardships of winter, diversity of interests, local resistance, you name it. How did you start your community and how have you made it grow so successfully?"

"In 1968 Kirtanananda and I purchased the original property, and our Spiritual Master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, began giving instructions on how to develop it into New Vrindaban. For the first summer and winter there were oily four of us here, and we lived in the original farmhouse which has now been renovated. We hurriedly patched the building that winter, heated one room with a 55-gallon drum filled with firewood, carried water in by hand from the spring, used kerosene lanterns for light and brought all food and other supplies in backpacks up two miles of muddy and snowy road. I was teaching English at Ohio State and hardly making enough to keep us going.

"There weren't many visitors that first winter. There were, no vehicles, save for my VW, and no animals.. But one factor made us different from any other four people just living in a shack, and that was that we had a larger purpose than simply digging nature.

"If the enjoyment of nature is the purpose of a commune, the community is threatened every time nature doesn't gratify the inhabitants' senses. Severe winters, flu, dysentery, month-long rains, mud, sick or dying animals, communal disputes or neighbor problems, food and money shortages, bugs, snakes and collapsing vehicles . . . all demand an inspiring transcendental goal. If that goal's not supplied, or if it's lost, there's nothing to keep the members from saying 'to hell with it' and returning to New York or wherever.

"We chanted Hare Krishna every morning and evening, then in the spring of '69—as though in response to our chanting—came women, children, three cows, two workhorses, a pony for the children, a pickup truck for running into town and an old power wagon which made it up and down the road until it finally exploded after four months.

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