Yudhisthira Prabhu on The Maha Podcast: 50 Years Fighting for Prabhupada’s Farm Dream

Interviewed on his farm at New Vrindaban, the 77-year-old disciple of Srila Prabhupada recalls Prabhupada’s farm instructions and urges devotees to take self-reliance seriously.

The fourth episode of The Maha Podcast, released on September 22, features Yudhisthira Dasa, a disciple of Srila Prabhupada who has spent more than five decades trying to establish self-sufficient, ox-powered farming at New Vrindaban, West Virginia. The hosts recorded the 50-minute conversation on his farm, where they found him in the middle of the day’s work.

Yudhisthira Prabhu describes growing up on a farm in southern Vermont until the government took his family’s valley by eminent domain for a flood-control project. He met devotees while hitchhiking and arrived at New Vrindaban on April 1, 1971. His first service, he recalls, was burying a dead horse.

In 1974, when Srila Prabhupada stayed at New Vrindaban, Yudhisthira Prabhu was homesteading nearby with a team of oxen and no car or chainsaw. He recounts how his oxen once lunged toward Prabhupada, who then advised him to put rings in their noses. In the conversation that followed, he says, Prabhupada stressed that the farms must be made successful and would “save the world in its darkest hour,” adding that “a man never needs to go further than what an ox can take him in one day.” After touring his homestead, Prabhupada struck the floor with his cane and said, “Everything is complete.”

Yudhisthira Prabhu is sharply critical of what followed. He says the movement went “off track” after Srila Prabhupada’s departure, that New Vrindaban has become “a big tourist resort,” and that he was told by temple management not to talk about self-sufficiency.

He says he is now building an underground barn to protect his oxen from what he sees as coming food shortages, and appeals for devotees to join him in developing self-reliant living. The hosts said they had recently acquired 600 acres in Tennessee for a farm project and invited him to join; he declined, saying he cannot leave the land he tends.

Recalling Srila Prabhupada’s letters to him, he cites the instructions that have guided him: to work with a whole heart, to work sincerely, and to be patient and determined.

Source: The Maha Podcast on YouTube