in the previous article<\/a>, living with my biological mother for almost six months was very difficult. Things that were a natural part of my life are now a penance as a result of my lack of discipline while I was away with her. For instance, I had been chanting 16 rounds since I was 11 years old, but immediately after I left my father’s house I stopped chanting. After many attempts to get me back, my father decided to contact Trivikrama Maharaja and asked him to call me. It was just a five minute call and Trivikrama Maharaja didn’t talk much, but he kindly requested that I chant the mahamantra along with him. I couldn’t utter the holy names at first, but I forced myself. Understand that at this point I was falling deeper and deeper into an ocean of sorrow created by the drugs, sex, and alcohol around me, but a month after Maharaja’s call, I was back under the protection and affection of my father. You may wonder how all this happened. <\/p>\nAfter all, I had been given a devotional education and devotees often praised what they called my natural inclination to bhakti. Yet, I quickly lost that higher taste for chanting Hare Krishna. I’ll tell you how it happened. My father raised me with discipline and love. Last year I asked him to send me to a devotional summer camp for girls. He conceded and told me to see it as an extension of my homeschooling. I was very happy to meet devotee girls my age and be with them for three weeks. Yet, as soon as the girls started talking, I got confused. Srila Prabhupada often emphasized the importance of devotee association to help us advance in spiritual life. “Association with devotees means association with the Lord.” (Purport to SB 3.25.25) However, my association at the camp was not making me think of Krishna but of the Jonas Brothers, Twilight, vampires, and werewolves. Prior to my homeschooling, my bad association at a private school had made me feel attraction for those things, but I didn’t want to give in to that lower taste. I needed reinforcement from girls my age. <\/p>\n
It only got worse when the girls started talking about the things they did, like going on dates to the movies, eating bhoga, and wearing bikinis at the Springs! Even the matajis in charge of the tour took us to eat bhoga at Sbarro and other places. Now I was really confused. In New York, Radhanatha Maharaja gave us a class about Srila Prabhupada and ISKCON’s history. I knew all the answers to his questions, while most of the girls could not answer any of them. I knew about dates, names, places, and even scandals. That led to a conversation with Radhanatha Maharaja that made me feel proud. <\/p>\n
Although my father had taught me not criticize anyone – or one risks falling lower than them – sadly I began to look at the girls with disdain. When I returned to Puerto Rico, my mother wanted me to spend some time with her. The way she lives reminded me of the relaxed mood I had experienced that summer. I thought my father was exaggerating with all the rules we had at home. If other devotees didn’t live that strictly, why should we? Little by little I fell more and more, until I ended up at my mother’s house. I have yet to gather the spiritual strength to write about some of my experiences during that time. Suffice it to say that it was the twilight of my destruction. I wonder how I came out alive. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ishvari Devi Dasi: After reading Slaughtering Chastity, Indradyumna Maharaja requested I write a follow up story focusing on how the chanting of the holy name saved me from destruction<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8615","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=8615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}