I Krishnas tjänst : En etnografisk studie av en grupp svenskars väg från ett liv i drogberoende till hinduiskt klosterliv i Radhakund

Sammanfattning: In the following essay, I will present my fieldwork that I've conducted in Radhakund India. For three weeks I was living in a hindu monastery (eg. ashram) that primarily houses a group of swedes who have formerly suffered from substance-abuse and have gone through medical detoxification, rehabilitation and 12-step treatment. They have all eventually taken up the religious/spiritual practice that the monastery focuses on; meditative and ritual practice in the tradition of gaudiya-vaishnavism. The monastery, namned Bhajan Kutir Ashram, was formed by the psychologist and author Torbjörn Fjellström, who himself is a practitioneer of gaudiya-vaishnavism. Besides rituals and meditation, pilgrimage to Radhakund is part of the religious practice and tradition these people adhere to. My ambition has been to investigate if their religious/spiritual practice in this tradition has been helpful in their recovery. My conclusion is that they have recovered through the cognitive and emotive tools, analytically called Sense of Coherence (SOC) that are found both in the 12-step treatment and the gaudiya-vaishnava-tradition. While the 12-step treatment has helped the respondents to recover from substance-abuse, their religious/spiritual practice in the context of gaudiya-vaishnavism is seen as a natural continuation of the 12 steps and a deepening of its principles. Another theoretical conclusion drawn from the material is that the way the respondents describe recovery, is practically impossible to separate from their religious/spiritual practice and perspectives.