Nandini
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There is a quiet yet powerful revolution occurring within the safe and confidential walls of the Bhakti Recovery Group (BRG). With hundreds attending meetings happening daily worldwide, ISKCON members, leaders, and many of the BRG participants agree that this may be one of the most significant developments in devotee care today.
BRG combines bhakti yoga with the famed twelve-step recovery program developed in the 1930s by the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. Since then, the twelve-step approach has proven itself effective for other kinds of compulsions such as sex addiction, co-dependencies, eating disorders, drugs, and gambling. Some even consider the program “a bona fide spiritual practice,” as it has been the point of entry to acknowledge the existence of a higher power for thousands around the world.
STRUGGLE OF JIVA
BRG, was initiated by Jiva, an American-born woman whom many know from her appearances on the Bhakti Yoga Podcast, Wisdom of the Sages, and other media. She generously and bravely relates her own experience.
“After getting released from jail, dope-sick and desperate,” she says, “I got into a fist fight on the subway with two men. Flustered and shocked, I got off at the stop where I could possibly find some drugs but it was deserted. It was late at night, a cold February evening in Germany. I had no coat, no home, no money and no hope. I had lost everything.
“Then something simple but amazing happened. It started to snow. I watched snowflakes falling in the streetlights and thought how beautifully surreal the scene was. In that one small moment, I had a thought or perhaps heard a voice that said, “This doesn’t have to be the rest of your life.’ Then and there, I knew it was over.”
