The need to create Asramas for aging devotees

[Guest guest]

The need to create Asramas for aging devotees

by Jaya Lalita d.d.

 

Posted April 6, 2004

 

Hare Krsna Prabhus,

 

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

 

Some of you know me. Most of you do not. I tend to be a very quiet and very opinionated person. I have one of those opinions now that I want to put forth and try to stir up general concern for this topic.

 

One of my main concerns for our future as devotees is not the future of ISKCon, but the well-being of aging and retiring devotees. It is obvious that we have not been able to establish a real social setting. Over the last 30 years, we have failed to develop a system that will shelter devotees through the entire cycle of birth, aging, disease, and death. HH Giriraj Swami along with Sangita dd and others are in the process of building the Vaisnava's care network to see devotees through a hospice like stage before they leave this world. This is a wonderful and difficult service that is especially needed because so many of us spent our lives inside of temple complexes and never considered materially caring for our bodies as they deteriorated. They are addressing the most difficult point in our material existence, giving it up. Still, as wonderful a service as this is, it is not the whole "ball of wax". It is no one's fault that we have not dealt with aging, and at the same time it is all our fault. Immediate problems have always taken center stage. Now old age is upon us. As a group, Srila Prabupada's disciples are growing old quickly. Do you remember how you used to look at a 60 something person when you were young? Here we are. We are not just getting oldER... but old... in many cases infirm and capable of little physical service. Where do we turn next?

 

My particular focus is on retiring devotees who have little measurable means of self-maintenance. I have been thinking for several years now of the need for asramas for retiring women devotees. There are many devotees in need, but I always think first about women since they tend to be among the most vulnerable members of our organization. I do not mean to be sexist, but I have "been there and successfully done that" as far as the single woman trying to find a means of support that can maintain her through her old age (we'll see). I do not see most vaisnavi's having that facility.

 

I am hoping that there are enough devotees in the audience who are of like mind as my own. Those devotees who individually have a deep desire and a little talent for community planning are those I am looking for. I am looking for people who are familiar with designing floor plans, meeting building code specifications, and a grant manager. In short, we need a team that can start to finish, design, fund and implement a project. I would like to hear from those devotees so we can try to organize into a team who can make these concerns a reality. I myself am an economist and a planner. Those are my limited material qualifications. If there are others out there who have the desire help, please let me hear from you. When enough of us come forward, I know that Krsna will indeed carry what we have and provide what we lack to make this happen.

 

Yours in the servant of Sri Sri Guru and Gauranga,

JayaLalita dd

 

Email Jayalalitadd@netscape.net

 

[moderator's note: title changed]

[Dervish]

The most important thing to do is to teach our society to respect the elderly and care for elderly relatives in the home. Such homes as the one ISKCON plans should mostly have those of the renounced order, or grhastas who have no family.

 

This conception of putting the old in old folks' homes is a recent western invention, designed to provide maximum enjoyment potential for the modern "nuclear" family.

[theist]

To help people go thru the death experience with the best chance of remembering Krsna. Great service.

 

But for the aging devotees don't count on it. If it comes fine but be prepared to crawl off in the woods and die "alone" with the hands on your beads just in case.

[Guest guest]

I hear ya, brother...

[krsna]

 

 

Father Hari and Mother Hara Revelation

 

This chanting is exactly like the genuine cry of a child for its mother. Mother Hara helps the devotee achieve the grace of the supreme father, Hari, or Krsna, and the Lord reveals Himself to the devotee who chants this mantra sincerely. No other means of spiritual realization, therefore, is as effective in this age as chanting the maha-mantra: Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

[krsna]

 

Chanting Defeats Death

By the grace of the Lord, if a devotee, at the time of death, can simply chant His holy names -- Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare -- simply by chanting this maha-mantra, he immediately surpasses the great ocean of the material sky and enters the spiritual sky. He never has to come back for repetition of birth and death. Simply by chanting the holy name of the Lord, one can surpass the ocean of death.

 

Srimad-Bhagavatam (4.10.30)

[theist]

Nice pictures Krsna. Very apropo. Either way is the ultimate blessing, yeah?

 

The devotee hospice idea makes so much sense. Afterall we stress the last moment so much. I know from when my aunt passed some years back that the hospice people were a great help to us.

 

She was rather agnostic but passed hearing Caitanya Charitamrita, so who knows.

[Kulapavana]

ISKCON in the west can barely keep the temples open, the chances of them coming up with a hospice program for devotees is very, very small.