How can the Psychiatric Patients follow Krishna Consciousness?
A Girl devotee (Name hidden) asked like this:
“hare Krishna Prabhu ji.. I have a disease called schizophrenia. I feel i should not get married.. but my parents are already into searching a match for me .. please tell me the way to lead my life in Krishna consciousness.”
REPLY:
Krishna Consciousness is the best process and even a soothing factor for psychiatric problems of psychologically affected patients.
Just take the tablets prescribed by your doctors. Other than that, No other special treatments needed if you adopt Krishna Consciousness.
How do I say?
First, let us see what is Schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder that affects 1% of the population all over the world. The Schizophrenia Patients will have difficulties such as delusions, hallucinations, trouble with thinking and concentration, and lack of motivation. They may have Depression, Nature of Social withdrawal, Suspicion, Inability to bear Criticism, inability to keep them hygienic, lack of expressions, typical way of crying or laughing, loss of memory, lack of concentration and excessive sleeping, etc.
Review all the process of Krishna Consciousness. You can realize if the Psychiatric Patients follow Krishna Consciousness, it has many positive effects on mind including your disorder Schizophrenia.
(1) CHANTING:
Chanting helps you to focus your wandering mind, for psychiatric patients including schizophrenia. There is no other better way to focus your mind. You may have difficulty in concentration. This process of chanting is a practice or exercise for you to focus your mind on Krishna alone. This will increase the concentrating power of your mind. When you chant atleast an hour daily, your concentration power will increase.
So, spend as much time as possible for chanting the Lord’s names.
(2) DECORATING & OFFERING WORSHIP/ FOOD:
When you decorate the pictures of Lord, a kind of satisfaction seeing the rich outlook satisfies your mind.
When you offer incense sticks or dhoops, your mind becomes weightless and pure without much oscillation. You lose yourself to the charming look of Krishna, Radharani and you get a confidence that they will be with you in all your difficulties.
When you offer food to the Lord, you get a kind of satisfaction of treating Krishna as one of your family members and offering food to Him. This gives strength to you and your mind gets a boost.
So, clean and decorate the pictures of Lord and also offer food to Him daily. It will boost your psychology.
(3) TAKE PART IN KIRTANS AND GROUP OF DEVOTEES:
When you attend the sathsangha every week, or if possible, every day, and during festivals, you will get enormous boost to your psychology. When you see other devotees joyfully singing and dancing for Krishna, you too will get some interest in singing and you can sing with them. If you like dancing, you can even gently dance with hundreds of devotees.
The loud sound vibrations involved in the kirtans will make your mind recharged with Krishna. Your mind will get a boost and briskness when you actively involve in kirtans. (Click here to Read about the science behind kirtans)
So, never miss an opportunity to take part in kirtans.
(4) SERVICE:
You can get some service from the temple manager. For example, you can take part in cooking for Krishna and devotees in the temple. You can also do the cleaning of temple or kitchen or dining hall. You can make garlands using flowers for the use of the deities in the temple.
Such service attitude will help your mind dedicated in a certain activity meant for Krishna that will boost your mind to much extent.
When you do the above sincerely, you can have a feel that you too are doing some useful activities in life in spite of your psychological issues. This kind of feelings will also boost and strengthen your psychology.
Hereafter consider the Krishna Conscious practices mentioned above as the treatment for your psychological issues and keep them under control. Yes, under the control of Krishna.
Since you engage your disturbed mind in the service of Krishna, you get the mercy of Krishna too. So, your psychological issues (Schizophrenia) will be moderated by Krishna.
Thus, if the Psychiatric Patients follow Krishna Consciousness, it has many positive effects on mind. Just do what I said for atleast six months. You will feel the difference.
All the best.