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Following a world version in April/May, the 18-hour Online Devotee Care Course, subtitled “Embedding Care in Krishna Conscious Communities,” can be provided particularly for devotees in North American timezones beginning September 18th.
The ISKCON GBC Devotee Care Committee, an initiative of the GBC Strategic Planning Team, was formally mandated in 2017 and supported by GBC resolutions in 2017 and 2019. Pre-Covid, the Committee’s course on devotee care was provided in-person a number of instances at numerous ISKCON facilities all over the world. Since the pandemic started, the course has been provided on-line as a substitute.
Now, regional Devotee Care Coordinators for North America Nrismhananda Das and Vraja Raman Das are providing the course for as much as 30 devotees from completely different “yatras” throughout the US and Canada, to encourage them to implement devotee care in their very own native temples.
The course is appropriate for leaders, caregivers, counselors, mentors, and another devotees who want to be concerned in instituting devotee care inside ISKCON and of their native, regional and nationwide communities.
“Devotee care as a advantage is all the time there in ISKCON,” Vraja Raman says. “But the principle purpose of placing collectively a committee and a course is to create a framework and construction round it in such a fashion that it may be applied in a really systematic approach. This ensures that it doesn’t get uncared for, and turns into a part of the establishment. Just like every temple has a deity division, kitchen division and e book distribution division, so we also needs to have a division of devotee care.”
The North American version of the Online Devotee Care Course can be provided throughout eight classes and 4 weekends, beginning on Saturday September 18th, and ending on Sunday October 10th. Each Saturday and Sunday, a two-and-a-half-hour session can be provided, starting at 9:30am EST / 6:30am PST, for a complete of 18 hours of studying.
Devotees should register at devoteecare.org, and can obtain a customized Zoom hyperlink for the course. Sessions may even be recorded and posted at devoteecare.org for contributors, in order that they’ll rewatch sections they missed at any time.
Teaching the course can be Global Director for Devotee Care and Govardhana Ecovillage Director Gauranga Das; and Harivallabha Das, who has been a devotee at ISKCON Chowpatty for the previous thirty years, and works as an HR consultant for a multinational firm in India. The two additionally developed the course content material.
“Gauranga Prabhu will lay out the ideas and imaginative and prescient of devotee care and its significance from the scriptural standpoint, discussing matters like how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu reciprocated with His devotees,” explains Vraja Raman Das. “Harivallabha Prabhu will discuss the best way to take these scriptural ideas, and implement them virtually in your yatra.”
Screenshot from the Online Devotee Care Course in April 2021 – From high to backside, left to proper: Gauranga Das, Baleshwar Ramana Das, Rasamrita Das, Achyuta Mohan Das, Bader Soma, Nrsimhananda Das, Krishna Kirtan Das, Nityodita Das.
The lecturers will begin off by defining devotee care and its scriptural foundation. “Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and His associates used to put devotee care as the highest precedence,” Vraja Raman says. “And in Mayapur, Srila Prabhupada constructed the Lotus constructing earlier than he constructed the temple, as a result of he needed to ensure that when devotees got here to Mayapur they’d a snug place to remain.”
The course may even train the six ideas underpinning devotee care: 1) Srila Prabhupada’s teachings and instance; 2) Vaishnava Seva; 3) Loving relationships; 4) Attentive listening; 5) Positive sense of belonging; and 6) Spirited management, in addition to the values that associate with them: 1) Wisdom and realization/shastric perception; 2) Expertise; 3) Affection and love; 4) Empathy; 5) Gratitude and Generosity; and 6) Responsibility.
Next, the course will cowl the twelve areas of Devotee Care: religious life; bodily, psychological and emotional healthcare; marriage and relationships; child-rearing and childcare; schooling; profession and employment; funds; housing; journey and immigration; client and way of life; authorized and civic; and mediation recommendation.
It may even focus on the twelve recipients of devotee care: girls, brahmanas, cows, youngsters and youth, the aged, brahmachari and grihastha communities, vanaprasthas, sannyasis, different temple residents, leaders, and senior devotees.
Finally the course will focus on the 4 broad causes for insufficient devotee care in a group; frequent pitfalls for caregivers; abilities for caring directors; core-skills for caregivers; the artwork of embedding a “tradition of care” in a group; and strategic planning.
The Devotee Care Committee’s mission is to make sure that the Vaishnava advantage of care pervades all features of the ISKCON Society; and to help and supply particular care-giving companies that improve the religious, emotional, bodily and social well-being of all ISKCON members.
Its imaginative and prescient, in the meantime, is one the place “Every devotee is spiritually glad and materially well-situated, positively figuring out with ISKCON as a caring society.”
The Online Devotee Care Course goals to achieve that imaginative and prescient by inspiring devotees to make efforts of their areas, all the best way from beginning a small initiative to establishing a devoted division of their temple.
“This course is complete, illuminating, and sensible,” says Nrsimhananda Das, co-chair for devotee care in North America together with Vraja Raman. “I’ve been an aspiring devotee for 50+ years, and I realized so many great new classes whereas taking the on-line pilot course. I actually by no means knew that caring for devotees is the essence and nectar of religious service. Devotee Care is excess of bodily well being. It reaches into each facet of an individual’s consciousness. Personal relationships tackle rather more which means and compassion. My life has develop into rather more joyful after having imbibed the information and temper of this extraordinary course. Even for those who merely need higher relationships and extra loving exchanges in household and group, that is the course for you.”
Register for the Online Devotee Care Course right here: https://devoteecare.org/online
Or e mail [email protected]
