December book marathon message from Gurumaharaj
My dear devotees,Please accept my blessings. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.Camp: Bombay, ISKCONDecember is the month Lord Krsna spoke the Bhagavad Gita on a sacred Ekadashi. It is also the time when ISKCON celebrates their annual book marathon and everyone concentrates on distributing books as the Brhat Mrdanga or Greater Mrdanga. The idea is that kirtan, represented by the playing of Mrdanga drums, can be heard for some hundreds of meters or a kilometer or less. But through the printing of…
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Since the beginning of Dec and Jan I've been taking therapies in
Southern California. I've been graciously offered a quarter in the Los
Angeles Temple, New Dwarka, by Svavas prabhu, the temple president. He said that as long as it takes I am welcome to stay for the therapies. Some of the devotees attending me are staying in the quarter and some are in the
brahmacari and brahmacarini quarters.
The therapy is basically centered from Monday thru Thursday at the
High Hopes Head Injury Rehabilitation Program. There may be around 50 to
100 students at High Hopes. They are a Charitable Trust so they charge
$2500 per month, where as other places in North America seem to charge about $1000 a day, more or less.
For the first month, December they had me do a lot of conditioning
work, and it took time to get to know me. There is a quadrisizer which gets
my left and right side to work together with the goal of walking and there
is the Lokomat robotic walking machine which they give me two days a week
for one hour each day to walk on.
In addition they have various other machines, walkers so that I can
spend walking. There is only a few of us that have suffered strokes, many
of other students are from car accidents and various types of head injury
accidents, so along with that, they are mentally somewhat challenged whereas
mentally I am ok, but I am physically challenged.
In January they started me on a program with two mornings a week, on
Tuesdays and Thursdays, for two hours I go to the gym where I do 9
different exercises in addition to stretching and warming up, legs, arms,
chest and abdomen.
In the afternoon I go to the swimming pool where I practice walking
in a 4.5 feet of water. In addition they have increased the Lokomat sessions
to 3 per week, three of the four days and one day, on the last Friday of the
month. One hour every day I have an Occupational Therapy for my arm, on
how to use my right hand with a computer for two hours each. Also I would
continue walking either with a walker or a side walker, but as of yet I am
not able to do it alone. I have now more strength, on some days I can walk
4000 steps or more, but am not able to walk on my own as I lack balance.
Doctor Mark, the head therapist, he said that in any week I could
start to walk. He had me stand up on my own, and I had my record of 2
minutes and 18 seconds, which yesterday was broken yesterday by 6 minutes 21 seconds. So gradually I am planning to keep my balance on my own, but it is a gradual slow process.
So Dr Mark said, when I asked him what he thought about me going to
India for 6 weeks or two months, and he said that if it was a week for
ten days they could adjust somehow, but to go off for so long he was afraid
that I might regress. That without keeping this strict regimen, in fact he
said that no matter what I do, that the stroke patients they either make
progress or they regress, and that I have to keep an hour or two a day of
some regimen of walking and exercising even once I get better.
We can always remember how Srila Prabhupada never failed to take
his morning walk or his daily massage, something like that I would have to do
every day for the rest of my life.
So at present I am asking your advice. This is how am doing now. In
addition I am also taking some chiropractic adjustments, which they said
that will help the blood flow to my brain stem. I am also visiting once in a
week or so, an autistic man known as Johnny, who is also known as the stroke
whisperer. He gives advice on how to overcome the challenges of a
stroke, and his wife who was bhaktin in the New Orleans Temple, do some
sound therapy, so this has been generally helpful.
On the weekends, I've been around in California, including Tijuana,
Mexico, which is on the California border, but I had to keep up with my
homework during these excursions which means walking everyday at least 1000 steps and doing squads.
Dr Mark said that he will increase whatever I am doing as I get
better. He said he would like it if I stayed, he said that I could go back to
India for the Ram Navani Festival.
It also became discover when I was in the Hinduja Hospital, that I
have hepatitis C. Apparently this happened during my blood transfusion
in 1989, when I was attacked at the Madrid Airport. Because the type of
hepatitis C that I have is only visible in Europe and I didn't have any other
occasion to do anything which would impress in this 20 or so years that
could give me hepatitis C. Normally when someone with hepatitis C would be more much worse, but because of my Krishna Conscious holistic diet, I am just
at the sedative first stages of degeneration of the liver, very first
stages.
I am also taking some treatment prescribed by a chiropractic
disciple which is supposed to reduce and hopefully cure hepatitis C. The only
allopathic system for curing it and that's also not sure, is taking intra
vitamin, not sure how one spells that, but I have not been able to take that
yet, cause I have low blood platelets.
So this is my basic report on how things stand now. I am not
talking about all the other therapies that I've taken.
On the way from India to America, I went on a hoping journey through
Malaysia and Hong Kong and Hawaii and finally to LA.
In Hong Kong some of the Chinese devotees that met me, said that if
I go to China and take therapy there I could get cured. I've taken some
Chinese acupuncture but somehow it was not so successful, although she said
that she had cured some stroke patients before.
My type of stroke is a bit different being a stem case. so somehow
it didn't work, but they said that if I went to China to see the grandmaster
of acupuncture, they could cure me.
Other than that, they have the robotic machine in Chennai, and they
are open for 6 days a week, so I could use the machine for six days, but Dr
Mark is quite an experience guy so my secretaries appealed and said that I
should stay for the treatment until Feb and maybe part of March so that
they can see me walk at least with a clutch.
At present my eyes have little parallel movement although I
recently started some optical therapy and I see double at a distance so we have new glasses, which more or less bring it together to single vision. The left side of my face are still paralyzed but I am still able to give classes.
Badrinarayan prabhu in San Diego, said that my speech was understandable. So he said that the therapy seems to be working. The right side of the body is not paralyzed but lacks the sensitivity of the left side. The right hand lacks
some fine movements. My shaking in my arm has reduced since in India. In
India, Malaysia and America gradually my right side is becoming stronger.
So this is the present state of my physical condition.
MESSAGE FROM HG Gaura Nandini DD
Dear Godsisters, Godbrothers, Friends and Well-wishers,
Please accept my most loving obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!All glories to Guru Maharaja! All glories to all of you wonderful people!
Sarva Sakti Mataji, who is in Los Angeles with Guru Maharaja had a wonderful idea of starting a "Prayer Marathon" for quick and successful recovery of our beloved Guru Maharaja Jayapataka Swami.As you all know Guru Maharaja is right now in LA working very hard on his recovery, going everyday to the therapy.
This is an opportunity for all of us to come together and do some extra service, extra prayers and in this way be connect with Guru Maharaja and in a humble way support His process of physical recovery. Guru Maharaja would often say that the duty of a disciple is to take care after the body of a spiritual master as the spiritual master is always busy with taking care after his disciples. The power of united prayers are enormous and very moving...and appreciated by Krsna and Spiritual Masters. So please join this prayer campaign... which is starting NOW and is to last until Gaura Purnima 2010, when we will officially offer the results to Guru Maharaja.
What can be done?- extra japa rounds- bhajans events -reiki sessions-Yajnas- inform as much devotees as possible about this prayer marathon-and most important: personal prayers.
The goal of all prayers should be a humble request for Guru Maharaja's fast recovery so He would be able to WALK again.
Proposal of the prayer:
"Please Dear Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai and Srila Prabhupada, if you wish, kindly grant our beloved Guru Maharaja, your devoted servant His Holiness Jayapataka Swami, the capacity to walk again so he can continue with Your mission of spreading Krishna Consciousness all over the world"
Please, keep a record of all activities, extra rounds, prayers, realizations. .. and please send a little report to this address:gaura- nandini@hotmail. com or even better: share them with all of us on Facebook page 'Praying for HH Jayapataka Swami'.
If anyone of you have an idea how to improve or increase this wonderful campaign... please let me know as soon as possible!
With admiration and love,
your servant,
Gaura Nandini devi dasi
"Srila Prabhupada said in Krishna consciousness we need to emulate the Coconut or Palm trees which can bend under the stormy weather, but after the wind stops they bounce back upright. Stiff big trees often get blown over.
So please tolerate all kinds of difficulties and remain fixed in your Krishna Consciousness no matter what kinds of tests come. Always try to serve Guru & Gauranga under all circumstances."
HH Jayapataka Swami
May 25th 1997, Dairy
http://gauda.smugmug.com