WEBVTT

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Many people think and say
\"I work very hard

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so that in 20 years
my children have economic stability

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and always have food on their table\".

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However, I wonder:
20 years from now,

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How will the world be,
considering how we’re doing today?

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If you water the root,
the leaves are automatically watered.

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But when a society only cares
about watering its leaves,

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and they don\'t water the root,
then it dies.

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And that\'s what
we’re living through now, isn’t it?

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Nature, or Mother Earth,

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is the most important thing
in Vedic culture, because

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it’s the first way to
connect with the divine.

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It\'s like energy,
it\'s our mother.

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She’s the one who’s taking care of us,
giving us what we need,

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she holds us, she sustains us.

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Becoming a devotee also means
following a discipline,

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follow a spiritual routine.

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You have to spend some time
in residence, like a monk.

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And in that process,
you learn a lot of things.

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My legal name is
Alfonso Enrique Benítez Carranza,

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I’m currently 70 years old.

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I was born in Lima.

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From a very young age
I questioned many things,

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but at that time
I was absorbed by politics,

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I quit my studies and joined
a leftist party in Peru.

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And my experience there
was rather intense,

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because some of us,
those who were the most prepared,

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would search for places
that could be appropriated:

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banks, places where
there was accumulation.

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But I saw a high possibility
of losing my life.

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And there was a plan
for armed struggle,

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for social revolution...

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I felt that
the philosophical foundations

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didn’t justify me killing someone,
or getting killed,

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then I told my comrades
that I’d retire.

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And then I went through
a process of reflection,

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and one day I found a pamphlet
handed out by Hare Krishna devotees,

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where I read a verse
that had a great impact on me:

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\"Those who adopt
foolish or atheistic positions,

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will descend
to the darkest regions of ignorance”.

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And at that time,
I identified so deeply with the Vedic culture,

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that I gave up Marxism.

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I feel that all the principles
of Vedic culture are very solid,

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and they clarified many questions
that I may have asked myself before.

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Who we really are, where we come from,
where we’re going,

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what comes after life...

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There was a time when
professors at university would tell me:

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“Dude, you ask a lot of questions,
I\'m going to tell you a secret:

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look up what the Vedas are, that\'s where
the knowledge of the world comes from.”

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And that it stuck with me,
\"the Vedas, the Vedas\"…

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Vedic philosophy
speaks of a system of life,

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in which you learn many things.

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You get to the mother of knowledge.

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We’re ready.

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Our spiritual master
had a concern,

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to find a place to make a habitat
where everyone can live happily.

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He started investigating,
he returned to Lima.

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Riding along the highway,
going up Pasamayo,

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he looked towards the sea,
and saw a sign below,

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handwritten,
that said \"land for sale\".

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It was a stretch of sand,
leading up to the beach.

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Only a madman would buy a plot of sand
close to the beach.

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So our spiritual master
had a profound, crazy dream.

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I mean, he saw
more than a field full of sand.

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He saw an ecological farm,
with organic crops,

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with all varieties
of fruits and produce.

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He wanted to show
that we could do something else,

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make an effort.

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And he took us up to the top of Chacra y Mar,
where the vehicles pass,

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he took us all up there
and assigned us tasks.

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He came to me and said:

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\"Yadunat,
I want everything to be green,

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don\'t kill any plants.\"

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And I looked and said,
“Just sand here.”

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And the only green part
was where the water was,

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where the channel came through.

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What? Green? Aah!

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Loads of work, right?

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And so it was.

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We started to irrigate,

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and since we had buried organic material
under the sand, they began to rot.

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I started to investigate,

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the neighbors told me “The only thing
that can grow in that sand is sweet potato.”

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So I began
to bring sweet potato seed,

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which was cheap, by the sack,
and I began to sow.

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Anywhere I saw an empty piece of land,
boom, I planted one.

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To make it green with sweet potato.

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Two years later,
our spiritual master returned,

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and found the farm,
which was now green.

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From that same desert
came everything we have now.

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There are many organic products,
and we have a whole farm.

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The devotees bought
this farm in 1989.

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Our teacher wanted
there to be a place in the field

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where we could lead
a simple way of life,

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with elevated thinking;

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cultivate the land naturally;
practice bioconstruction.

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For there to be harmony between nature,
God and human beings.

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That was the foundation
of the ecological farms,

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they have a spiritual background.

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It developed little by little,
more people began to come.

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The Hare Krishna monks live there,

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in a secluded place,
in meditation,

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eating healthy.

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Different generations of devotees
have left their efforts here.

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My name is Maha,
welcome to Ecotruly Park.

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Well, not only are we
an ecological farm

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based on an attempt
at permaculture,

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but also a monastery.

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Here a philosophy is practiced
that originated in India,

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in a province called Gauda,

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and that’s why this philosophy
takes the name of Gaudiya Vaisnava,

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but we’re known internationally
as the Hare Krishna.

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You’ve heard that, right?

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This Vaishnava community
has the following principles:

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1. No meat, eggs or fish;
2. No illicit sex;

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3. No drugs or alcohol;
4. No gambling.

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\"The essence of spirituality
is to serve everyone\".

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“What you don\'t give away
you will end up losing”.

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Well, we’re here at
what is known as Truly Maestro.

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The word “trulli”, which is
the origin of our name, Eco Truly,

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refers to a type of structure
that, thanks to its circular base,

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provides harmony and balance
to the people who live inside,

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since within these structures,
energies will flow constantly,

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and therefore will be renewed.

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From a 200-brick base circumference,

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you finish the conical shape
with one brick, like a lid.

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And we saw that it was resistant,

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well built,
and that there was no problem.

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For us, food is
a very important aspect of this philosophy.

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We are pacifists,

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being a pacifist doesn\'t mean just
being good to other people,

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but also to plants and animals,
which is why

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we also exclude any type of animal meat
from our meals.

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That\'s why we balance our diet

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with products that we grow
and harvest right here,

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in our organic garden.

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Ahimsa is a word
that is written in Sanskrit.

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It’s divided into two parts:
\'a\' and \'himsa\'.

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\'A\' means no,
\'himsa\' means violence.

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Part of our intention
to not promote violence,

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is to become vegetarian,
because unfortunately

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for a piece of meat
to reach our plate,

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the animal has to go
through a very painful process.

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When a person buys a piece
of meat in the market,

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in a way, their money
is financing

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an industry
that does practice violence.

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So, to finance violence
is to participate in it as well.

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That\'s why we don\'t eat
any kind of meat.

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We consider that,
actually,

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all the food that you eat
is an offering to God.

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You’re not just eating a plate of food,
but eating “prasada”.

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Prasada means blessing,

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you’re eating
God\'s blessings,

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because before eating
you always offer your food to God.

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Therefore we’re required,
when we cook,

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not to even try the food
until after we’ve offered it to God.

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After it’s offered,

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it’s taken
from the small dishes,

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and brought to the pots,
where we start to distribute the food

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to all the people who come to visit,
or who live here,

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and so we’re eating the remnants,
or the blessings of God.

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Lima is a very big city,
with many cars,

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a lot of traffic too,

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many traffic jams
in different areas.

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Furthermore,
I lived in downtown Lima,

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so I had quite
a long commute home.

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And I got back
at 8:30 or 9 PM,

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to bathe, have dinner,
and see my wife asleep.

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And at night too,

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and the same thing the next day,
from Monday to Friday.

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And taking advantage of the weekends
to spend a little time together,

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but basically it was for everything
we hadn\'t been able to do in the week,

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at home,
which was to tidy up, clean, so

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we didn\'t really feel
part of the city.

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I felt very attracted,
from the beginning, to the image of Krishna,

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which I saw
at the Jagannath Mandir temple

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in Lima’s Paseo Colón,

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which is the image of Lord Jagannath.

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And I was very attracted to that image.

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I had no intentions at that time
to initiate myself as a spiritual teacher,

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or join a spiritual community,
or accept a religion,

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but I was interested in their philosophy,

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even knowing that maybe
I would have to, at some point,

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make a decision as to whether
to initiate myself or not.

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First, we began to
visit Eco Truly,

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for a couple of months,
we came every weekend.

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So they invited us to live here,

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and we made the decision
that it was the best, for us as a family,

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and for our ideals as a family,

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to educate our daughter
in caring for the environment,

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honesty, openness,

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an intimate relationship with God.

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All that led us
to make that decision.

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The Sadhakas
were more beautiful than ever.

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They gleamed
with their freshly shaven heads,

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and the lines of beautiful Tilak
decorated their consecrated foreheads.

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Their restless fingers
went through the Tulsi beads,

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and ecstasy bathed their hearts.

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In that condition
they approached the mud huts,

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where the holy master
was holding his sacred retreat.

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A young boy accompanied them,

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and a question
nagged his spirit:

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“Why were we created?”

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“Why have we come to this world?”

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“ \'What were we created for\', you ask?”

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“Try to understand
the position of that absolute good,

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of your beloved Father.

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He wanted to create you,
he wanted to give you his love.

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One day,
in his sweet and infinite goodness,

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seeing you as a sleeping spark
in the ocean of his transcendental splendor,

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with a loving voice,
he turned to you and said:

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‘From the ocean of light of my own splendor,
oh divine spark, oh soul, I awaken you.

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I give you independence,
will, personality,

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oh little cluster of light,

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you will always thirst for me,
and I, for you’.”

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At some point I felt
I was living my life on autopilot.

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I felt I had no purpose
to live like this,

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waiting for the weekend,

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but I wanted to live life.

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So many stereotypes
that you have to fulfill,

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especially women.

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You have to look a certain way,
have a career,

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have children at a certain age,
or get married.

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They impose so many things on us

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that we’re supposed to obey.

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And when I learned about Krishna,
when I read the Bhagavad Gita,

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I felt like
I didn\'t need all that,

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I took a sharp turn,

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I stopped using shampoo,
I stopped wearing makeup,

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then…
I became very radical.

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I’ve been living like this
for 4 or 5 years,

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and you really realize that,
first, your life is made simpler.

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And in that way,

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you get rid of many things
that you didn’t really need.

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Really,

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in order to say that you’re doing
devotional service,

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Krishna has to be on your mind.

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You’re not present unconsciously,
but you’re present thinking of Krishna.

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Therefore,
you can do anything.

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For example,
my service is in the kitchen.

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Normally,
when you\'re working,

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you\'re very self-absorbed,
you\'re thinking about yourself,

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\"I have to do this and that\",
thinking of you.

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But here,
it’s really...

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something you’re doing
for other people,

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so it’s not only for oneself,
but for the others.

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- Coincidentally…
- Coincidentally I was heading this way…

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- What can I serve you?
- Wow! This looks very good.

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Well, do you want
split it up?

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- Or should I share it with someone?
- Yes...

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Thanks.

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Nature is the most important,
because Krishna, or God,

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not only has a male side,

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but he also has a female side,
which is the soul.

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So, Pachamama
is a manifestation of God too,

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only on the female side.

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Of course, feminine beauty
is a manifestation of God,

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and it’s very attractive,
very, very attractive,

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and it was created for that,
but not to be exploited.

00:21:55.105 --> 00:21:57.149
The act of calling
a woman \"mother\"

00:21:57.190 --> 00:21:59.109
serves to remember
that she’s a mother,

00:21:59.151 --> 00:22:02.321
so you shouldn’t see her
as an object of exploitation,

00:22:02.404 --> 00:22:04.114
and it’s the same with Mother Earth.

00:22:04.197 --> 00:22:06.450
In other words,
you shouldn’t exploit Mother Earth,

00:22:06.533 --> 00:22:08.285
on the contrary,
you should serve her.

00:22:52.329 --> 00:22:56.792
One of the principles
of Vedic philosophy is that

00:22:56.917 --> 00:23:02.297
we must harmonize with
all people, animals, nature.

00:23:02.422 --> 00:23:07.636
It’s one of the principles,
we must be harmonizing beings.

00:23:13.600 --> 00:23:16.520
Simple life,
elevated thinking, is to know

00:23:16.520 --> 00:23:18.563
that this material world
is illusory,

00:23:18.647 --> 00:23:21.108
it’s the same
living in a millionaire’s mansion

00:23:21.191 --> 00:23:23.777
as living in a one-room shack.

00:23:24.027 --> 00:23:27.364
All these constructions,
this whole institution

00:23:27.447 --> 00:23:29.574
is all made on the basis of service.

00:23:38.208 --> 00:23:40.460
These ecovillages are an oasis,

00:23:40.544 --> 00:23:43.964
it’s a place where people
can come, practice a spiritual life,

00:23:44.005 --> 00:23:46.925
be with people
who are also spiritual,

00:23:47.092 --> 00:23:51.012
and be with nature,
work the land,

00:23:51.096 --> 00:23:53.765
eat the same things
that they sow…

00:23:53.932 --> 00:23:55.559
it’s perfect.

00:23:59.271 --> 00:24:02.691
Because the more places
with this philosophy around the world,

00:24:02.774 --> 00:24:04.860
the more they’ll realize
that the primary need

00:24:04.943 --> 00:24:07.070
isn’t to build
more high-tech buildings,

00:24:07.112 --> 00:24:09.948
but to build more places
as refuges,

00:24:10.073 --> 00:24:13.660
where people can coexist
with the environment, and take care of it.

00:24:15.287 --> 00:24:18.039
To keep living,
but also to let live.