u/Lunaurel

Hello,

I was just wondering if there is anyone here who still follows Hinduism/Sanatana Dharma who knows of ways of connecting/relating to Lord Krishna outside of ISKCON?

For context, I was not born into the religion, I live in Europe, and came to ISKCON because I was interested in Hinduism and ISKCON make themselves very accessible.

The thing is, I want to explore connecting with or relating to Krishna. I still find him loveable, and I know there are other sampradayas etc, and plenty of people who just relate to him as their deity and love him. But Krishna is so tied into ISKCON in my mind that it's hard to separate the two?

I was a teenager when I first got involved with ISKCON. And they talk about the unconditional love of Krishna and so on, but I feel that is not the case in practice?

Like it's like, oh Krishna is so loving anyone can worship him... But actually if you're not pure enough you should worship him as Jagannatha... Oh but if you're not pure enough you might offend him, so actually worship Lord Chaitanya/Gaura-Nitai... Oh but actually if you're not pure enough you might offend them, so worship Prabhupada instead... And doing this you might be worthy to become a blade of grass in Vrindavana.

Krishna is supposed to be this loving and intimate deity but I feel that, through everything I've absorbed from ISKCON, I in fact associate him with distance and ritual stringency and worrying about whether or not I'm pure enough for him.

Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks

Hello,

Over the past few years I've developed an interest in psychoanalysis.

This started when I was doing a Master's degree at a university that has a psychoanalysis department. My degree was in translation and for my dissertation I translated a text written by a therapist in the language I was translating from. Then one thing lead to another.

Beginning in autumn 2024 I then attended the year long Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis held by the Institute of Psychoanalysis in the UK. Though, I was not able to complete the year because of work commitments getting in the way. Still I loved what I learnt.

I took an introductory course in counselling skills, there it was Person Centred/Rogerian, because that was what was on offer in my city. I did also love that.

I am currently attending therapy, weekly, with a therapist who is integrative, but, the counselling has taken something of a psychodynamic turn. Not easy work but doing me a lot of good.

Anyway I sort of stopped being interested in psychoanalysis for a while. But the interest has come back lately. My only reason for being interested in psychoanalysis is "because I am" essentially. Though, when I do explore my interest in psychoanalysis I do become a bit overwhelmed by a feeling that it is a world I cannot have a part in? I am on a very low wage with next to no savings, in a city that has no analysts. So the main thing, which is to enter my own analysis, something which I would be interested in if I could, is out of reach to me. Not that you can't be interested in something just for the sake of it though. (My current therapy is being financed by funding I applied for).

Anyway TL;DR I am very interested in psychoanalysis but it feels like a world that is not within my reach, even though I know you can enjoy something for its own sake, but I don't know what to do with this.

Hi,

Since the beginning of this year I've been in therapy. I don't know how to explain my situation. I'm 29, guess I live as a gay man but, one of the reasons I'm in therapy is discomfort with my gender, the other reason is that I keep ending up in situations where I become a confidant and armchair therapist to straight-adjacent men who sometimes then have confused feelings towards me and the intimacy of it confuses and hurts me.

I chose to go to a male therapist because I'd only ever been to female ones and so I wanted to challenge myself.

But what this has done has opened so many wounds I didn't know were there. It took months of work to let him in and now he's in, I feel so much tenderness for him, for which I am grateful. I sometimes have sudden imaginings out of the blue where I am a child and he is a paternal figure. But while I feel tenderness for him I seem to feel so much bitterness too.

My biological father died when I was 2 or 3. Then when I was 6 or 7 or so a stepdad came who stayed for ten years. But he made it very clear that my sister and I were just an inconvenience he put up with to be with our mum. I never experienced feeling relaxed in my own home. I have a different stepdad now but he came too late in my life.

I just feel so broken down by all of this. It's clear I have been longing for a father figure all my life, but it was buried in my unconscious. I didn't think I used to care.

And I just wish I had had an actual father who could hold me while I cry and break down, who could have loved me unconditionally for every part of me, who I would never have had to question if he was on my side and in my corner, who could have told me I was beautiful when I felt ugly, and whose image I could called upon from within when I needed a source of compassion and strength.

I am devastated by all of this. I need to cry and be held.