HE SURE ISN'T PRACTICED IN TRANSCENDENCE

Stew: 

As you know my Dad is experiencing dementia too. He was raised by his Uncle who he named me after. Half the time I am not sure who he thinks i am, Uncle Tom or his son Tom. When ever I do something he does not like I become to him even another Tom, the one he does not like that much. 

Meena Devi Dasi:
It's bizarre for sure. My Dad does the same thing. If he decided he doesn't like what I said or did, even though it was just something that needed to be done, practical, he identifies me with a step mother he had when he was little that abused him. How she took his tricycle away.
Thank God he is in a facility with professional care.
Just the constant flow of stool and urine all over everything is too much for me.
and then he wants to tell me what to do. How he needs to go to the bank. Yikes.
Get his license back and buy a car...
They never should have taken his license away. We just settled the law suit for the people that were injured from the wreck he had 2 years ago.
According to him a car was parked on the interstate travel lane.
It goes on and on. Everything he touches auto-destructs....
A walking jinx.
About all I can do at this point is to see that he has the basics and is as comfortable as possible.
He's in the hospital again, this time influenza a. No one can go into his room without wearing a mask and he has a sitter 24/7 because he tries to take the antibiotic IV out.
There isn't anyone else. He is the center of everything. He is living in his mind. Doesn't matter if it connects to the physical world or not.
WWII generation. He has put all his faith into his own mind and physical body. There isn't anything else. But his mind can't solve this problem.... And his body is pretty much useless...
It's his life. He had every opportunity to consider a higher dimension but virulently opposed it. He would stop me from accessing transcendence by demanding I pay attention to him. He's kind of a demon...
But he is my father. I wish him well. He's not all bad. But he sure isn't practiced in transcendence.

Hare Krishna....


The picture is not my father's picture but that is the look he has....

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT?

It probably won't be long.
He is living in his mind.
His body has become useless.

He has not practiced Krishna consciousness
Although he had every opportunity to take it up
Preferring instead to take shelter of bodily and mental strength
But now... bodily strength is gone
And the mind races madly to find some shelter.

Where is my father? Where is my brother?
Where is my sister? They are all gone years ago.
Where is my wife? She must be in the kitchen getting something ready.
She has been gone 3 years.
Where is my son? He has been gone 20 years.

I can't see. I need to go to the eye doctor.
You have been to the eye doctor. There is no cure.

I'm not staying here in this room. This bed.
You  have influenza. There is an epidemic. You have to stay.
No I'm not staying.
I'm getting out of this bed and walking out of here.
You can't walk. You fall down. You had a stroke and your leg is too weak.
Don't tell me I can't.
They come to put a sedative in his IV.

Lying in the bed. Passing stool and urine in the bed.
The food here is lousy.

How important is it to practice Krishna consciousness?
There is nothing more important....

Offer your food to Krishna
And chant His Holy Names...

THE DAY THAT BEGINS FOREVER

Especially difficult times. The one person I am still attached to is my father, 96. Other than him there is no personal family. I used my youthful energy to sacrifice into the fire of the sankirtan movement.  No family members except my deteriorating father. For him it is a slow departure from the material world. I am responsible for his needs. His physical condition requires him to be professionally cared for in an institution. Everyday I see him deteriorate more and more. His is a natural aging and preparation for death. When he is gone there is no one.

I am completely alone. Now at 70 I am faced with a similar fate. Slow deterioration. It is not for me to live near a temple. I meditate on the communities surrounding the Deities. And I mediate on the Deities. The Pure devotees and the aspiring devotees. 

My life is one of solitude. After my active participation for 40 years my health began to fail. I considered I was more of a liability than an asset and removed myself to a solitary place to fix my mind on the transcendental sounds of glorification of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

My fears surface more and more. Who will help me when I can no longer help myself? What if I should have an accident. When the body ages it becomes brittle and even a slight fall can be incapacitating. But I didn't want to surround myself with others that may become a distraction...surround myself with fallible soldiers to try to become free from fear of death.

This morning I cried out. I am helpless who will help me at the time of death? Not so much with the physical body although there will certainly be a need there. But people earn their livelihood by servicing people in that helpless condition. So the mechanics of it will no doubt be taken care of. But who will help me to be Krishna conscious? 

What will happen to me when my mind may not be functioning properly at the time of death? My mind goes into a panic when I can't find the house keys. What about the time of death? At the time of death the mind races insanely looking for a solution to a problem that cannot be solved materially. 

I know who will have to help me...he Vishnudutas. They will have to help me. That is who will have to come.  When they hear me cry out in complete helplessness the Holy Name of Krishna they will come with an airplane from Vaikuntha. They will take me by the hand and I will step into the airplane with them and leave this material world. We will head for the spiritual world. What a day that will be! 

The day that begins forever. 

"Ajāmila has already atoned for all his sinful actions. Indeed, he has atoned not only for sins performed in one life but for those performed in millions of lives, for in a helpless condition he chanted the holy name of Nārāyaṇa. Even though he did not chant purely, he chanted without offense, and therefore he is now pure and eligible for liberation." 
http://prabhupadabooks.com/sb/6/2?d=1

WHEN HE LEFT

Today You flooded in on me.
I have been fighting for weeks.
Today there was a small tear in the corner of my eye
And my heart fluttered
I remembered love
How much I loved my god-brothers and god-sisters.
Because we had the same spiritual father.

When He left
Things changed.
Where did that love go?
Now there is mistrust, anger and hate.
We look at each other as if we are strangers.
I am not welcome in my father's house.
Was I supposed to change when He left?
Become something other than His disciple?

DOVETAIL

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• From a Facebook exchange.....
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  Krishnapriya Devi Dasi Acbsp Cannot dovetail any rubbish!

  8 mins · Edited · Unlike · 1
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  Meena Devi Dasi Dovetail means more like talents abilites used in Krishna's service

  7 mins · Edited · Like
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  Meena Devi Dasi varna ashrama is one big dovetail

  2 mins · Edited · Like
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  Meena Devi Dasi This is what a "dovetail" is... it is type of connection that makes a structure secure...
  

  
  

  

  5 mins · Like · 1
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  Meena Devi Dasi this is not what they are talking about when they say "dovetail" in Krishna's service
  

  
  

  

  3 mins · Like
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RESPONSE TO: TODAY WAS THE LETTERS

TODAY WAS THE LETTERS Suresh Ramaswamy Yesterday at 09:49 pm

Beautiful and touching. A few weeks back my wife and I went through the same ritual. My father passed away sometime in March this year having led a full life. So many memories were involved, in the letters, cards and knick knacks, but as rightly said, they were full of silverfish and others. And we too have a trunkload of photographs which have to sorted out and dealt from the fded beige of the 50's to the modern colour photos of the noughties and also the current decade. REPLY

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Meena Devi Dasi Replies to Suresh Ramaswamy A min ago Our love is meant for Krishna. Lifetime after lifetime we have mother and father. In so many species of life not simply human. And lifetime after lifetime death comes and ends it. Only to start again somewhere else. It is disturbing for the spirit who is eternal and doesn't die when the body dies. Death is a big problem. Death is there because birth is there. But for the soul, the spirit there is neither birth nor death. That is the illusion. Simply liberation is not enough. Because it is not pleasurable. Liberation gives relief but not real pleasure. Only a relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead can actually bring pleasure.

TODAY WAS THE LETTERS

Okay. Today was the day to throw away all the letters my mother saved. Mum saved every letter anyone ever sent to her. They were filled with silverfish. Flipping through them one last time that anyone would read them...tracing the family history. How many times the words, I love you and then signed...the Birthday cards and Valentines cards from my father to my mother, to my father from me, to my mother from my brother. I love you, I will always love you, You are the one in my life, love forever, over and over and over...in a million different ways, on hundreds of cards and in hundreds of letters. 

Then under the huge pile in the bottom of the drawer a black ribbon. This is what is worn during a funeral. 

I did find a poem Mum saved that I wrote in 2008:

I am more than stool and urine...
More than rotting flesh and teeth.
look beneath.
I am here.
I defy.
There's more to me than meets the eye.

Passed language, thought and words
Bound not by routine and ritual.
By sheer will.
I persevere.
I do not die.
Through love you see me, hear my silent cry. 

Today was the letters and some day in the near future I'll have to deal with all the photos.