Prayers for Jaggadhatri Devi Dasi (Or Practical Help)

Fundraiser by Raghu Giuffre : Mata Medical, Recovery & Tributes (gofundme.com)

Srila Prabhupada says that the administration

that does not care for its elderly citizens

has to be punished by Yamaraja.

Question: What Happens to Those Who in Authority (Guardians) Neglect the Elderly and Helpless Devotees of ISKCON??..........

Srila Prabhupada: The defenseless creatures, according to Manu-samhita, are the cows, brahmanas, women, children and old men. Of these five, the brahmanas and cows are especially mentioned in this verse because the Lord is always anxious about the benefit of the brahmanas and the cows and is prayed to in this way.


The Lord especially instructs, therefore, that no one should be envious of these five, especially the cows and brahmanas. Those who are helpless must be taken care of by their respective guardians, otherwise the guardians will be subjected to the punishment of Yamaraja, who is appointed by the Lord to supervise the activities of sinful living creatures. >>> Ref. VedaBase => SB 3.16.10

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Prayers for Jaggadhatri Devi Dasi, Srila Prabhupada's disciple!

Jaggadhatri Devi Dasi / Jean Prem. 

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Raghunath das: Mata was 194 pounds 6 months ago. 74 pounds 3 weeks ago and 73 pounds last week. She has maybe 3 pounds left at most. I’m fairly confident this could be turned around with the proper resources and so extend the offer to any 3rd parties that maybe interested to help in these regards. These are her last days. Whatever you may ever have considered offering by way of words, deeds or money, this is the last window for it.

One of several such projects would be to also finalize her biography into a book and a video tribute. They would cost $3,000 to $5,000.

Any additional health care upgrades would include regular massage, acupuncture, superfood smoothies, among other such services (if there was any interest or resources for these). My experience with her leaves me thinking it could well make the difference in her health. I consider this because she is making the effort to carry on and so offer to do my best to honor her wishes.

I've been taking care of Mata since 2017, single-handedly. For the most part, no help from other family -- or the hundreds of devotees and such friends -- and the dozens that have talked of Mata as their own kin. About a dozen of them are multi-millionaires - 5 of whom are worth more than $5 million each. As of today, none have offered help of any kind and Mata, of course, didn’t think to ask until just a year or so ago.

No response from any of her heroes – the list of old luminaries of her devotional career that she so adored, served and in several cases, made millions for their temple. I sent out a request for $3,500 portable oxygen tank and got back about $1,500 in donations. Not enough to buy it so never dared to try a fundraise for her again. 

If you can’t complete the purchase or purpose of the fundraiser, it is treated as a fraud and so without the resources of my own to guarantee the completion of these projects, I never tried to fund raise again.

This has left Mata confined to whatever I have been able to provide for the both of us, but had to so without leaving her side these last 6 years. I’ve struggled through extreme hardships to cover the care and finances for the both of us while in recovery of the knife attack in 2016 when I was stabbed 25 times with 40 cuts. 2 years later, my nose crushed in by a homeless man while stomping my head – head trauma for years after.

It is through this slow and gruesome recovery process that I have maintained this house, Mata and myself – with no gov’t assistance. Yes, test of my very best at all levels, but still managed to maintain some simple sadhan and complete 5 more books of the Raghu-nomics series, launch 2 campaigns for political office, plus a new political party and now, a new business venture as well.

The toll has been taken at the expense of other life options from lost for family and career opportunities, to financial development and then how that translates for health of mind, body and spirit – spiritual life.

During this half decade, I was able to muster about $200,000 from those of my life savings, a settlement and dear friends and family. This has paid off handsomely. The house is now worth about $550,000 with a mortgage of just $150,000 = just $700 a month. 

We have $400,000 worth equity – 80%.

As such, I was going to refinance and take a $50,000 loan out that would have allowed us to convert the house over into a Bed & Breakfast. The going rate for a 5 bedroom, 2 kitchen and 2 bathroom B&B starts at about $300 a day = $6,000 to $10,000 a month. We would have been set financially for life – for us both.

Unfortunately, an Indian fellow from Canada married Mata and secretly transferred the house out of trust and over into his name. He offered to transfer it to an LLC to formalize the B&B biz, but transferred it to himself instead.

A somewhat simple court case would allow us to retake it, for judges don’t like such elderly abuse. As of right now, there are no funds to take this to court. It would run between $5k to $20k. However, happy to provide equity stake in the house – if we win, or use my other property for such consideration.

Without it, there goes all of my lifesavings and work of the last half decade, along with Mata’s own legacy of the last 35 years that she has lived here. This has been crushing to her, but most of all, it has removed the resources we were both counting on to tend to her in these final days as well as my own. The equity from the home would have allowed her all the money for the very best care.

If there is any interest to help with either Mata’s care, legacy projects such as the book and or video, or with this court case, let me know. For now, falling behind and looking at the end of our financial plank. If there are those that wish to step in to help on this last leg Mata’s care or this dying wish to recover the house, there is a small window remaining to do so.

As a final note, Joe in the picture is a very dear friend, not Mata's caregiver. He was visiting and so they had a wonderful reunion. I'm her caregiver. I"ve gotten a number of letters asking why I was not tending to Mata myself. I am and to my surprise, have added years to her life.

[PADA: Sheesh! No response from any of her heroes. This does not look good for a spiritual society -- to have its seniors and elders run into such dire situations. If anyone can help here -- especially a wealthy patron type -- the time to do so is -- right away. I am very sad to see so many Vaishnavas hit their golden years in such very difficult struggling situations. 

I know that many devotees like to send thoughts and prayers, but more is required for these type of situations. And more harder to digest is the fact that many of the leaders are now living in luxury conditions with opulent dwellings, servants, all health care expenses taken care of etc. while the people who built the society (and / or their children) are generally neglected. 

Not looking good on the one hand, certainly not pleasing to Krishna on the other. Reminds me of a saying I kept hearing in my Church when I was a kid, "Those who give no mercy -- shall receive none." 

Meanwhile another senior Prabhupada devotee has been actually thinking of ending his own life due to various problems all combining at his late stage of life. Not good at all pilgrims! We predicted this type of outcome many years ago, and it is really sad to see our predictions coming to pass. Anyway, it is what it is, and we are hopefully going to do better for our next devotee generation -- who will (again hopefully) learn from the mistakes we made in ours.

ys pd] 

angel108b@yahoo.com