Living with Blindness as a Hare Krishna Devotee
Dear community, On Wednesday 29 May 2024, a very pleasant and courageous Vaishnava visited me at my home for the first time. Isvara Puri Prabhu, like me, is totally blind, but I was surprised to learn that he has been living as an aspiring travelling devotee for some time. What started as a social visit for SadhuSanga turned out to be a discovery of many incredible shared interests upon which we wish to explore jointly. One of these areas regards the establishment of a community of blind bodied/visually impaired devotees world-wide. Presently he is hosting a reading session group for Telugu speakers, and now we wish to extend into the English speaking audience. The following is a tentative program structure: 1. We have discussed Whatsapp as the most likely meeting client since most people already use it, and since it is also reasonably accessible on the various computer and phone platforms used by the blind community. 2. We will systematically read Bhagavad-gita from beginning to end, followed by Srimad Bhagavatam, Caitanya Caritamrta, Nectar of Devotion and Nectar of Instruction. Devotees who are able to read in Braille, from computer or phone text-to-speech may like to take turns to read to the group. Reading of the Sanskrit can be illiminated if the reader cannot read from their given reading platform. This segment will last for 1 hour. 3. We can dedicate time to any other topics related to living as visually challenged devotees, in which experiences can be shared and possible solutions explored together. These may be requested by group members for consideration in future meetings. This segment may last 30 minutes. Examples of such topics may include things like living with visual challenge in a non-devotee family setting, navigating to temples, taking help at temples, staying overnight, preference for on-line sanga due to mobility challenges, the future for those of us living without sight, practicing devotional service as our world changes, how the Vedic civilization may be either supportive or disadvantageous to living as blind devotees, navigating in a Varnasrama community being blind, and the level of acceptance and assistance from sighted devotees in the various settings in which we find ourselves seeking sadhu sanga. 4. The frequency of these gatherings are still tentative, but I propose here once weekly during a Saturday or Sunday afternoon or evening to accomodate most people outside of work and other commitments. 5. The conditions for participation shall be as follows: 5.1. The participant should be living with blindness, or have a very strong affinity for, or experience in dealing with blind people. Taking turns to read will be given preference to totally blind participants. 5.2. The participant should specifically have an affinity towards spiritual life, but more particularly towards the Krishna Conscious way of life. 6. I'm still thinking of a short name for the group that will ring well in English. Anyone interested may contact me privately for further discussion. Should you know any persons or groups fitting the target audience of this invitation, please share with them. With kind regards, Yamuna Jivana dasa Whatsapp No: +27 82 2916081 India Phone number: +91 70372 95962 E-mail: ykhan...@gmail.com -- Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list.. Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "AccessIndia" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to accessindia+unsubscr...@accessindia.org.in. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/accessindia.org.in/d/msgid/accessindia/002d01dab749%246d81ce10%2448856a30%24%40gmail.com.
