By Govindanandini dasi
Due to my son’s disability, I remained a stay-home mother for many years, though I studied Srila Prabhupada’s books and served the Sunday School at ISKCON of Central NJ for about 15 years. I learned so much about the selfless work in devotion during these formative years of my life. About 8 years back, I began to do another service that trained me further in empathic and compassionate work – ISKCON prison ministry service for corresponding with prison inmates about Krishna Consciousness. In 2017, while visiting a hospital, I stumbled upon their pastoral care office and came to know about the spiritual care given to the patients. It was a novel concept for me and I checked with my dear friend and mentor Her Grace Sangita mataji. She encouraged and supported me to take the next step. I felt instantly attracted to the spiritual caregiving profession, though I had very little idea of what Krishna had planned for me and what potential my calling would unfold.
At the beginning of 2018 I enrolled in the hospital’s “clinical pastoral education” or CPE training program given to the healthcare chaplains. Since then, whatever unfolded is completely Krishna’s grace and mercy upon me. I was welcomed since I was the only “Vaishnava Hindu” chaplain intern in the hospital’s history and they loved the diversity I would bring to their pastoral care. As I began to work as a chaplain intern to attend to the spiritual, emotional needs of the patients, it dawned upon me that the wisdom I found in Srila Prabhupada’s books gave me a framework and a foundation of my work.
I attended to a variety of patient-population, diverse in illness, cognitive ability, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and spirituality. The openness that Srila Prabhupada taught in Bhagavad Gita As It Is – of seeing and accepting spiritual unity in the material diversity of living beings – was exactly the thing I needed for this work of empathy and compassion. The essential teaching of the Gita about Lord Krishna’s repeated instructions in the human society according to time, place and circumstance is another concept that helped me tremendously in relating to and listening to the patients who had different religious scriptures, practices and theologies than mine.
In this training there is no memorization of theory or examination. Rather it is called an “action-reflection” model, which means, first I visit patients and then I reflect on those experiences with a group of peers and supervisor to discuss and learn why I did what I did and what I missed. Before hastily offering any spiritual or religious resources to the patient, we chaplains are trained to be present with, listen to and accompany the patient in their grief or distress, relate and build trust.
The training broadened my perspective about the term ‘spirituality’, to include many aspects of human psychology and also trained me to see how spirituality is practiced in other religions, or in the lack of it. This opens opportunities for me to work as Interfaith and inter-spiritual chaplain.
In January 2021 I completed the clinical pastoral education training and I am now working as a chaplain in a hospital. Looking back, I am amazed to see how I entered and thrived in a profession that was unknown to me, solely due to the wisdom from Srila Prabhupada’s books, the practice of sadhana-bhakti, and with the mercy and guidance of Lord Krishna from within the heart. As I competed with my peers who came with educational degrees in their respective faith traditions like ‘Master of Divinity’, Srila Prabhupada’s books on Krishna-bhakti were enough for me to prove my education in Divinity!
It is win-win situation for me: chaplaincy profession based on empathy and compassion allows me to openly and officially practice and share my Vaishnava values and history with supervisors, peers and patients. While I earn a living, I get to serve the Supreme Lord, Srila Prabhupada and also get spiritually nourished at every step!
Source: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=93035
Comments