The Gita in prison

[Guest guest]

Uma, I am very interested in how I can find

the details about the Bhagavad Gita being

"used successfuly by a counselor in an

adolescent prison". Please share.

 

Peace & Blessings

 

Mark

 

, "Tatwamasi <tatwamasi>"

<tatwamasi> wrote:

>

> There have been several wonderful messages in our satsangh lately.

>

> jigyasa02, "letter from God"- post 4633, is a reminder of the traps

> that face all sadhaks, when we get carried away in our frenzy and

> supposed loyalty to one's own path and lose track of the message

> itself. I have received that message before from many other

sources;

> thank you for posting it in our club. Thank you too, for the

> enlightening stories you have been posting lately. Please keep

> sharing the information and knowledge that touches you in your

> sadhna.

>

> Welcome Mark613 and thank you for your Post 4637 presenting your

> experiences. Our club is designed to share experiential knowledge

> aside from what we learn from our great Gurus, for it is knowledge

> gained from experience that helps remove our daily obstacles. We

> know the Bhagawad Gita continues to be a source of solace and

> enlightenment for millions everyday. Would you believe it has been

> used successfuly by a Counselor in an adolescent prison too? Do

> continue to share and participate and help make our satsangh

another

> point of light that joins the millions others that shine everyday.

>

>

> My continued thanks to pyari for consistently supplying us with the

> nectar of all knowledge. Safar, erica, dhyana, (good to hear from

> you! ) yogivishwa, radhakutirji, chamundakijai, krsnajoe and all

> members, silent and active, thank you for your presence and may you

> all be blessed. Thank you dear svcs for your consistent

> participation, moderation, direction and showering us with the

jewels

> of Bhagwan Ramanna Maharshi. I miss our original founder

silentsoul,

> and send our best wishes to him and his family.

>

> A few days ago, a member and I were recounting our last year, and

we

> spoke about what a tough year it has been for so many people. We

> spoke about the negativity and how easily it bands together, across

> all geographical divisions. I asked -

>

> 1. What is it that stops "positive" energy to come together in a

> similar fashion? If one does manage to come together, it seems to

> stop at the man-made boundaries of path and methodology? Shouldn't

> truth cross any such boundaries?

>

> 2. What stops sincere sadhaks from joining forces with the same

> intensity to create a force of change? As in any individual

creation,

> any collective creativity also needs clarity of thought, intention

of

> creation, and united enforcement of energies. This works from small

> endeavors like our little satsangh which then joins with the larger

> endeavors in the world.

>

> 3. Does the belief in karma make people complacent about our

personal

> roles in the upliftment of the world in general? Or is it simply

> people being selfish and self contained with pursuance of their own

> ego-needs/lives.

>

> To start off the new year, I offer these questions to our members

for

> sincere thought, discussion and debate.

>

> I hope this year we have many, many members enthusiastically join

us

> in our effort to learn, grow, and build a small community that is a

> microcosm of the world we would all like to see our world be.

>

> _/\_ Tat twam asi

>

> Uma

[Guest guest]

Hi Mark

 

I'm afraid I can't give too much details of the program. However I

can give you the gist.

 

A friend of mine used to work as a Counselor at a adolescent prison

in CA. He was a sadhak, a practitioner of "Hindu" practices and his

source of all comfort was the Bhagwad Gita. He would constantly

say, "I survived the Vietnam War because of the BG".

 

The prison system usually has certain packaged therapy modalities

that they purchase and support. In this case too, there was a system

in place which was supposed to be used on these kids. Mind you these

were hard core criminal adolescents - sad but true. He had to stop

knife fights more often than anything else. While having lived

through Vietnam had exposed him to enough horror, the stories he

related of the prison environment was hard to believe.

 

He found that the therapy modaliy that was being used, wasn't

working. So he took it upon himself to experiment with using the

Bhagwad Gita and its teachings. He used it symbolically as if each

individual has their own "bad guys" to fight, all within themselves.

He compared thier challenge to the "battle" within between the "bad

guys" and the "good guys". He used the messages from the text to help

explain the challenge and how to overcome it. Apparently from what he

told me, there were some young men in there who even read portions of

the text. In his almost 5-7 yrs of work there, he felt he reached

more "kids" using the messages of the BG than any other system he had

tried, at least for this group of very violent kids.

 

He didn't really want to give more details, since it wasn't an

official program and I didn't insist. I was very excited about the

successful practical application of the text and its message.

 

 

 

 

post 4668, markedmund> wrote:

> Uma, I am very interested in how I can find the details about the

Bhagavad Gita being ......