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My New Year’s resolutions for 2014
Harivilas Das, President VCC

It is a custom to make resolutions at the beginning of the new year
that reflect desired goals to achieve. In previous years I outlined
goals that I hoped would inspire our wonderful congregation of
devotees to channel their energies so that they would become reali-
ty. Many of those previous goals were achieved in 2013. We were
able by the combined effort of hundreds of friends and devotees to
purchase a newly constructed building in Bellevue. I had
announced the desire at the Srinivasa Kalyanam event in 2011 that
our community would open a new temple in Bellevue dedicated to
worshipping Sri Balaji. With the hard work and dedication of our
congregation, this goal will be accomplished in 2014.

In 2010, I articulated the goal of opening a model organic farm and
engaging in cow protection and reestablishing the Vedic dharmic
paradigm of simple living and high thinking, based on spiritual
culture and self sufficiency. I and Madhava Candra Prabhu
purchased a total of 19 acres in Redmond and we will obtain our
first cows in 2014. The cultivation of organic vegetables and flow-
ers has been going on for two years. We hope to attain self-
sufficiency of this farming project by 2015. This means that we will
be off the grid because we will produce our own heat, hot-water
and electricity through environmentally friendly technology and cow
protection. We plan to dramatically increase our farming activities
and land purchases in order to demonstrate a working model to
change American agricultural practices. The Vedas clearly say that
by cow protection, responsible land stewardship, and honoring
brahmans, and protecting women, children, and mother earth
(Bhoomi devi), human society can achieve prosperity and peace.
Thus, people will be inspired to cultivate the higher spiritual values
leading to ultimate liberation. If we change American agricultural
practices from exploiting animals to protecting them, then Bhoomi