{"id":85536,"date":"2024-05-20T09:05:33","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T07:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=17092"},"modified":"2024-05-20T09:05:27","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T07:05:27","slug":"a-hospice-miracle-serving-jayanandas-mother-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=85536","title":{"rendered":"A Hospice Miracle\u2014Serving Jayananda\u2019s Mother"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

In honor of Jayananda Prabhu\u2019s disappearance day, we submit the following account, derived from a letter by Kalindi Dasi to her spiritual master, Candramauli Swami.<\/i> \u2014 Giriraj Swami<\/i><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

A Hospice Miracle\u2014Serving Jayananda\u2019s Mother<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

In mid-July I started wearing tilak<\/i> to my work at the hospice. I thought that since many other spiritual practitioners were expressing their faith by wearing crosses, doves, silk threads, pentacles, and other items, I would wear my tilak<\/i>, which tells the world that I am a devotee of the Lord. And I have found that wearing tilak <\/i>at work has opened the door for spiritual questions and conversations. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

On the morning of Monday, August 6, 2007, after our daily report and medical-staff checks, we began doing our usual tasks of caring for the patients. As ours is only a ten-bed facility, we are able to give loving care to each patient individually. Often, while I care for or bathe patients who are unable to do such tasks for themselves, I chant or sing the Hare Krishna maha-mantra<\/i>. On this particular morning I was caring for a woman named Jane Kohr, who had been with us for almost a week. She was a kind and polite person, and I enjoyed the time I spent with her. Around 8 a.m. on August 6, I entered her room and found that she was getting closer to leaving her body. She was unresponsive to verbal cues, and her body was limp. I sang the maha-mantra<\/i> one last time, while she received her final bath. Hospice staff called her family, who were always friendly and appreciative for her care. When I was finished, I spoke with some of the family members in the hall. Jane\u2019s grandson approached me to thank me and then pointed to his forehead and to my tilak<\/i> and asked if I was a Hare Krishna. I smiled and said that yes, I was a devotee of Krishna. \u201cWell,\u201d he said, \u201cthen maybe you know of my uncle Jayananda.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe<\/i> Jayananda?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d he said. And he told me how his uncle had built the Ratha-yatra carts. He then went in to inform his mother that I was a Hare Krishna.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Gaynelle, Jayananda Prabhu\u2019s sister, came out of the room and said that she was so happy that a Krishna devotee had cared for her mother. The whole family expressed that it meant so much to them. Gaynelle kept saying that she couldn\u2019t believe that I was a Hare Krishna. She said that she told her mother but wasn\u2019t sure that her mom could hear her. I said that I had a feeling she already knew, and I laughed. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Jane, a granddaughter, mentioned that she remembered her uncle making really great Indian food and offering it to God and then the family sitting on the floor and eating it. She remembered his robes and how happy he was. Jane said that he had been pretty depressed before meeting devotees. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

I let Jayananda Prabhu\u2019s family know that during the Ratha-yatra festival we hang a nice photo of him next to Srila Prabhupada\u2019s photo. They told me that an old friend of Jayananda\u2019s (who is not a devotee) happened to be in Durban, South Africa, several years ago and saw his first Ratha-yatra festival there, and to his astonishment there was a huge photo of Jayananda Prabhu on the front of the cart. He had called Gaynelle to share the news. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

They told me that Jayananda was always very kind, even as a child, and never spoke badly of others. From the many stories they told me, his saintly qualities shone through even in his childhood. Gaynelle told me that her brother once spent hours on a family vacation at the beach picking ticks and fleas off a homeless dog. He couldn\u2019t stand to watch it suffering. Jayananda\u2019s nephew told me about running around the kitchen table as a small child with his uncle, who was laughing and chanting Hare Krishna. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

When I went back into Jane\u2019s room, the family was gathered around her bed holding her hand. Her breaths were faint, and she was about to leave her body. I stepped out to give the family some space, and about five minutes later they came to the front desk and asked for me to look at her. When I opened the door, I saw that her body had turned yellow and waxy. It was apparent that the soul had left and that the physical body was all that remained. The nurse reported that she had passed, and the family, though sad, also felt relief.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Gaynelle told me that she had asked her brother for support. Since he couldn\u2019t physically be at their mother\u2019s passing, she had been looking for a sign that he was supporting her. She felt that a devotee\u2019s being present and caring for her mother was not a mere coincidence. It was, I believe, Krishna\u2019s endless mercy! <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

I thanked the relatives for allowing me to serve their family, offered my pranamas<\/i>, and said, \u201cHare Krishna.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"HareBy Giriraj Swami<\/strong><\/p>\n

On this particular morning I was caring for a woman named Jane Kohr, who had been with us for almost a week. She was a kind and polite person, and I enjoyed the time I spent with her. Around 8 a.m. on August 6, I entered her room and found that she was getting closer to leaving her body. She was unresponsive to verbal cues, and her body was limp. I sang the maha-mantra one last time, while she received her final bath. Hospice staff called her family, who were always friendly and appreciative for her care. When I was finished, I spoke with some of the family members in the hall. Jane\u2019s grandson approached me to thank me and then pointed to his forehead and to my tilak and asked if I was a Hare Krishna. I smiled and said that yes, I was a devotee of Krishna. \u201cWell,\u201d he said, \u201cthen maybe you know of my uncle Jayananda.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-memoriam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85536"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97744,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85536\/revisions\/97744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}