SPIRITUAL MENTORSHIP SYSTEM

SPIRITUAL MENTORSHIP SYSTEM SPIRITUAL MENTORSHIP SYSTEM

Initiation

Rupanuga Bhakti dasa received second initiation on Wednesday 10th January. His spiritual master Janananda Goswami is currently in New Mayapur, France so the initiation took place over Zoom.

Jai Nitai dasa facilitated by placing the sacred thread on Rupanuga Bhakti dasa and training him on how to chant the Gayatri mantra. Maharaja spoke the mantra to Rupanuga Bhakti dasa in private on the phone. Rupanuga Bhakti dasa is a mentee in Jai Nitai dasa’s mens mentee group.

Mentorship Meetings

Mentors are continuing to have twice monthly online meetings during the lockdown as they cannot meet in person.

Chandravali devi dasi’s mentee group have been having regular reading sangas three to four times a week with a different speaker each time including Vamsivata dasa, Murli Manohara dasa and Nama Sankirtan dasa.

Bhava Bhakti devi dasi’s community ladies mentee group have been taking part in presentations on a particular topic. Each mentee has been presenting the talk in their own way. In one of the meetings, Bhaktin Sophie gave a talk entitled: “What is good association and how can I get good association during lockdown?” Bhava Bhakti devi dasi shares: “She had a really nice PowerPoint presentation on this talk and it led to a group discussion on being honest about what association we willingly take as we are weak, how we need to become good association for others, not forgetting the human touch in relationships, and always strengthening our association with Prabhupada.”

Dayal Mora dasa’s mentee group have been making pledges for the glorification of Srila Prabhupada in this 125th year of his divine appearance. Ideas included: 125 hours of kirtan, 125 hours of cleaning, extra daily reading of Prabhupada Lilamrita, cooking of Srila Prabhupada recipes, and singing of Srila Prabhupada bhajans.

The grihasta mentee group facilitated by Jai Nitai dasa and Bhava Bhakti devi dasi had a presentation by mentee Nimai Candra dasa and Prana Sakhi devi dasi on Srimad-Bhagavatam Canto 4 Chapter 10. Nimai Candra dasa and family ended the presentation with a pre-filmed short silhouette drama of the whole chapter which was super impressive.

Also during the meeting, group members all had to say one line each of the main pastimes in Chapter 10 as an exercise to see how well they had remembered the pastime from the reading. Next

they played the game ‘Articulate’ - each couple were a team and one of them had one minute to describe ten words from the pastime which their partners had to guess.

Jai Nitai dasa’s mens mentee group have been chanting Bhagavad-Gita verses 8.5 and 8.16 and learning them as part of their homework. One of the mentees, Yoga Pati dasa, gave a talk to the group on the topic “What does Initiation Mean?”. Jai Nitai dasa shared, “It was a wonderfully sobering talk with a good discussion.”

During one meeting Jai Nitai dasa gave a presentation on the topic “The Initiation Standards for ISKCON UK” and he went through them line by line. They also discussed their sadhana charts competition.

Ladies Ashram mentee group, facilitated by Bhava Bhakti devi dasi, took part in the ‘Be a Sage Page by Page’ challenge and read “Perfect Questions Perfect Answers” in one month. The challenge was to read two pages a day and share their realisations daily on a WhatsApp group. Everyone was enlivened after the challenge. They have also continued with studying the Mahabharata Chapter 20 - “Draupadi dragged to the Assembly Hall”. Bhava Bhakti devi dasi also arranged a drama about investigating the assault on Draupadi, to help dive deeper into this pastime. Each mentee played one of the main characters in this pastime and had to remain in character while Bhava Bhakti devi dasi (like a judge) questioned them about the incident. Bhava Bhakti devi dasi shared: “All the ladies acted so well and managed to remain in character while I questioned them. I was very impressed!“

Satya Narayan dasa and Madhvi devi dasi’s mentee group celebrated Advaita Acharya’s Appearance day in one meeting. The whole group joined Candramauli Swami’s class online at ISKCON Birmingham and then shared realisations from the class with each other. Bhaktin Gayathri also did a presentation on Ragunatha dasa Goswami, which was well presented and inspiring. The next month, Bhakta Amrit did a wonderful presentation on Rupa Goswami.