19871018 Initiation Lecture

The following is an initiation lecture given by Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on October 18th 1987 in Atlanta ,Georgia.

Performing activities with those karmically actions that causes suffering with our putting ourselves according to the laws of karma according to the vedas we should understand that if we commit violence on another living entities we are going to have to suffer violence upon ourselves it’s a common sense even a other religious takes place similar things an eye for an eye , tooth for  a tooth something like that but the people being attached, the conditioned soul being attached he thinks that if I give up something then I have to suffer, so therefore Lord Chaitanya mahaprabhu is very merciful you don't have to give up anything to practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness. You can practice it without giving up anything and by practicing it if you feel greater happiness.

If you feel a greater peace of mind, if you feel a greater spiritual understanding, then at that point then you can consider what you should give up or what you shouldn't give up or what you should regulate. Initial stage no one has to give up anything but people the conditioned soul generally are so attached they say look if I see this person is chanting that person is chanting this one is practicing, they all given up eating chicken, so if I chant maybe I'll have to give it up, so better not chant this is the devious type of mentality.

Why is it they anyone is forcing anyone to give anything up? If they gave it up mean they must think something better that they don't think. They think no no I can see, look if they gave up taking wine they gave up this so I better not chant because I certainly don't want to give up these things, this is how the mind takes up. So we don't say like that you have to you’re going to be damned to this or the other what we don't say that whatever your karma you'll have to take the responsibility that's another thing that’s anyway there, we're saying chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and be happy if you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and don't feel happy well alright that's another thing but if you chanting they feel so happy at also I don't have to have the blood on my hands of any chicken or cow, anything to be happy, I can be happy eating if you like the peace that I give in here and you go out eat anything well this is a better meal here why cause innocent animal suffering. When that consciousness comes it'll come, if it doesn't come it doesn't come so for those who have taken the initiation it's already come they already convinced for years together possibly but now I like this diet, I like this way of life I feel happy chanting

Hare Kṛṣṇa, you see most of the today there are persons who are taking the initiation there all have basically going to school or having jobs or working and outside the temple in some capacity but they are finding peace of mind and happiness and sharing Hare Kṛṣṇa so where is the difficulty. So the people that are receiving here tonight not to be scared but they chant Hare Kṛṣṇa no one ever forces anyone to give out anything but if by chanting you actually feel in your own heart better to not do something then, where is the problem? some of us smoking you lie I don't want to go to that place we go here but everyone hold on every sign is you get cancer so when we're smoking we can’t stop very easily it's a big problem but it just by associating with devotees and by eating and chanting it suddenly someone gets the inner strength and I don't need it anymore, then what's the problem because there is a saying in Bengali that,“one should eat to please oneself but you should dress to please others” common sense. You don't see what you look like the other people are going to see what you look like so you should dress to please them. So they don't know what it tastes like when you eat so you should eat to please yourself in other words if someone else tells you how much these this is a analogy I'm trying to use maybe it could be a miss applied in this country, but signal what I'm trying to say that I will we're happy just like when we eat we know what it tastes like the third party doesn't know he has his own taste buds he has his..so this like maybe some of our devotees here would like prasadam with lots of chilies (laughter), but several I guess they don't like hot prasadam , they don't like hot food because they are not having that tradition, the American way doesn't have hot chilies, so we have to balance some of our Indian visitors they like to have the spicy preparation in the other Western some of the Western anyway they are not accustomed if they have the burning feeling in their mouths from the spices they complain that this is a bit hard to eat, to see so each person has their own you see just like our Gopurachi, he may like chilies he also likes cheesecake (laughter) east and west and others they may not.

So similarly we should worry about our being happy as a present not looking into the future but where we are at that particular time if by chanting our consciousness develop if we develop higher taste if we are less dependent upon such things which help bad karma condors if we're happy at that time when that time in space when we reach that level of there if you feel happy then where’s the problem? Is a type of illusion a type of cloud over our intelligence that we are anticipating we should ask the people who are doing when they’re doing it how do you feel about it? I like being a vegetarian eating Kṛṣṇa conscious food they may hide it only it's at that time if he don't like it that's all right chant Hare Kṛṣṇa eat whatever you’re eating have your own risk (laughing) apart from subtle suggestion we're not going to make any that's every person's individual conscience that if by chanting or by association if you develop a different and this is it as an example then where is the problem? so no one should be afraid I heard sometimes people are afraid to come to the Hare Kṛṣṇa temple so if they come that their diet may change in the future so we are anticipating to see for that let’s like someone saying that I’m afraid if I take the medicine I’ll become healthy we're very happy that of course all of you are here you're the brave souls you're here because you’re the pious individuals and you want to know something, you are devotees most of you like that but you can convince the others “don’t worry you come there will be no you see problem anyway as you like eating Kṛṣṇa prasadam then where is the problem? and if no harm in coming to the temple chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa with the devotee.

The human life has got actually a higher purpose that is the point instead of being worried about minor things we should see what is actually the purpose of our human life, where have we come from, where are we going to, what is the purpose of our life human life is not that long so Vedas say 100 years is the normal in this age is like the maximum. So very few people I think our national average in this country is about 70, 65, 67 so there's 67 percent 2/3 so that mean that much time, time is ticking and we have within this lifetime the opportunities whatever our material activities also going on at the same time we need to give some attention to our actual spiritual development the process of bhakti-yoga, yoga of devotion which is then recommended by Kṛṣṇa for this age. Is a type of complete holistic approach to yoga for one practices 24 hours a day meditation but active meditations whether one's raising a family whether one’s chanting whether one's working whether one’s having resting or even if one’s defending oneself from some aggressor all the different activities can be performed in a yogic consciousness. The one learns the various techniques the essential factor of course is to spend some time every day charging up the spiritual batteries to go through the rest of the day's various trials by chanting the mantra, mantra means transcendental vibration, a vibration which is you can say figuratively on the same wavelength as the soul as the spirit living force in the body, it's a non different from the supreme personality of Godhead. So by chanting that vibration that uplifts our spiritual consciousness and helps us to cross over the obstacles accomplished, even we escape from the obstacles just like our hurdles we can jump over them or the hurdles become diminished in size in relation to our consciousness so what would be an insurmountable hurdle, the time significant hurdle for Kṛṣṇa conscious person this is described in the Vedas by this shloka

samāśritā ye pada-pallava-plavaṁ

mahat-padaṁ puṇya-yaśo murāreḥ

bhavāmbudhir vatsa-padaṁ paraṁ padaṁ

padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadāṁ na teṣām

so the entire bhavāmbudhir this entire material world is like the ocean of repeated birth and death of reincarnation well once we're in it we are to again and again born and live our life die again reborn and gone like this, life after life. So that ocean to cross over that and to achieve complete liberation, to achieve our original spiritual position as I crossing over an ocean but to do that one needs a good boat the boat is a lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa as the lotus feet his lotus feet are the boat to cross over this ocean.

In other words by taking shelter of Kṛṣṇa he takes shelter figuratively at his lotus feet on a humility when we approach someone for shelter we may look at his feet rather than that directly at his eyes to begin with so by taking the shelter of Kṛṣṇa then we said the entire ocean reduces in size to the size of the impression of a young cow hoof print the little cow stepped in the mud how much water does it hold that little puddles it reduces to that size so you can just step right over and when the other side is the supreme destination padaṁ padaṁ all the intelligence why spiritual people they take advantage of this shortcut take shelter of the lotus feet of the Lord chant His mantras engage in His service and easily cross over this ocean this in one sweep and both the door for them this padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadāṁ  the danger every step is in this world, hear that danger every step siren, ambulances police danger every step padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadāṁ.

It was interesting how there was one man he once went to an astrologer and the astrologer told him that you're going to die by drowning so his whole life he stayed away from water never took a bath, took a shower he was so afraid that he would drown everyone swimming - the astrologer told him you'll die by drowning, so he wanted to escape so one day there was a rainy day in New York City and on the sidewalk he slipped and he fell down and he hit his head he didn't get up, so the police found is this he is dead they took him for an autopsy why he died, he died of drowning on the sidewalk there was a half inch of water collected from the rain his mouth fell right on the sidewalk breath the water and he died of drowning.

When we make different plans provide some material efforts we can’t change what the Karma will be from our previous life but if we take shelter of Kṛṣṇa

sv-alpam apy asya dharmasya

trāyate mahato bhayāt

he can saved from the greatest danger by a small amount of practice of Kṛṣṇa conscious activity. By little practice of yoga one can change one's karma, by manoeuvring material you cannot change your karma material you can't reproduce new Karma for the future birth for the future life for this but what the Karma's are coming from the past that you cannot stop by material means.

So many examples of this interesting example. Astrology is what according to your birth date, your birth time there is a particular influence of the stars. These stars control the different parts of our body and they lead us to life and almost naturally by our conditioning, by our environment we tend to act and pre determinable ways if we just follow up our own mind if they follow our instincts or thus we go according to our own Karma how do they lose from that, the astrology can tell us what is your birth Karma whether you are intelligent you should be at the time of birth even before the child grows the parents can see oh my child is going to be like this just like Lord Chaitanya parents they wanted to know what is our child's gonna be like, what is He like because you said my baby you don't know what is at that time he or she so the astrologer told so your child can hold the whole universe He is Viswamber in the previous life and then He gives her what previous type of future they give their the nature the glories of Chaitanya mahaprabhu so when Kṛṣṇa Lord Chaitanya come they come in a very auspicious moment.

The astrologers whenever they see my chart how is this person become a guru he has such an inauspicious chart that’s what I heard I haven’t (Laughing) so for me that's the special mercy I have, no person, was only by the mercy of Śrīla Prabhupāda there's a Kripa sidhi someone gets the special mercy by the by his guru then they can become qualified but someone like all of you are probably very fortunate people so you for me have very good chart but whatever the chart is there’s nothing clearly good except for you see Kṛṣṇa's or Ramachandra’s or Lord Chaitanya’s chart their chart they come just at that most auspicious moment everything is arranged for their coming.

So maybe understand astrology who’s understand  astrology raise your hand (not clear) when I hear another story about astrology (jai jai).  There was you know in India about 2500 years ago there was a great king Chandragupta and he had navaratna nine jewels in his court he had nine ministers they were like the you know present cabinet members that had to resign because of different dates they were highly qualified people in a particular field like one was the greatest astrologer one was the greatest scientist one was the greatest politician one like that their  military they were rather the most highly qualified where at that time this King he only had eight he wanted ninth one greatest astrologer so at that time the more famous astrologer was Mihir full name Mihir i don’t remember the full name Mihir something but how to test who is the great because there were many astrologers at that time, so when the King’s son was born one of his princess was born he has all the different astrologers to do his chart, so that time all astrologer’s said that well this is it'll happen but there’s one astrologer he said the age of nine the boy will die being stabbed by a boar he was stuck and he was like impacted this is like he doesn’t change his life apart from his spiritual activity this is his Karma for sure so the king was very upset all the others said no no how can he do so? he was very upset he wanted of attractions and I won't reject this is the thing happening  so then they gave him so much pressure because he said a wrong thing but he was so truthful he just said whatever that he had to leave that court palace he just stayed in his house so that time the king didn’t take any chances he kept him up in the house in the palace guard and he kept in a watch out no bores anywhere no way to come, finally when the boy was 9 years coaching that they making  sure are you sure you are not gonna change your verdict he says no way I'm not changing my verdict and finally that day came and the King had guards everywhere I looked in this field keeping this everywhere that the no one could come and he looked still nothing happened he saw her boy was playing with the other two he went down he went to the astrologer at his house he said so nothing has happened yet now what are you going to do the throws of the rescue like that whatever she didn't have watch this movie(laughter) he said you go now your son is dead if I warned you he wanted to make material change but and he surely dead now I put my whole credentials is a solid run it so the king went and the guards were outside anyone going there he said no he went inside and he saw the children playing he said “where's my son?” they said “he is not here,we don’t see your son”, he went out under porch his son was lying dead around the palace there were brass boar lion ,boar lion around the thing and one brass boar fallen loose when he was outside on the porch and throat and the cuts that right in his heart and killed him instantly and the king went and rewarded the astrologer, very unhappy over the death of his son but then he made him the chief astrologer for his kingdom.

These are like the various kind of histories of that are in India of course I don't know nowadays if there’s such qualified astrologers but at that time they were so a suit. Even they can tell what is your previous life everything.The point is that the same astrologer the same chartist if you surrender the Kṛṣṇa if you serve Kṛṣṇa if you engage in devotional service because Kṛṣṇa is the supreme personality of God he can change your destiny but materially or someone just tries to change your destiny they create a new destiny in the future but the present destiny they're bound to it whatever you do we are creating the future so actually what the Kṛṣṇa conscious movement is trying to is save the people from suffering save them from the otherwise inevitable suffering that is there waiting for people live a peaceful life be happy and at the end of this life go back home back to Godhead it's a very positive alternative .The alternative is please chant Hare Kṛṣṇa eat Kṛṣṇa prasadam read the nice philosophy for using the intellect help other people are suffering this way in India.

When we have the flood around our temple we distributed prasadam for about 100,000 people in a month months period, taking a bike to that I wanted to I they sent these slides on the16th I was hoping to reach by today it was Sunday that DHL didn't deliver he wanted to show you the size of the floods in eastern India and our relief operations there feeding 5,000 people per day delivering their food by motor launch outboard motor going through that inundated villages to the stranded people who couldn't get any food devotees are also fed thousand people who took refuge within their ashram even though they were under 10 feet of water themselves another thing on the roof for a lake in not only we give physical spiritual all type of work to those relief to people who are within the vicinity of our temple without like the government you know unlimited resources but within that vicinity of our temple to serve philosophy to help people and that's where we go on expanding temples expand the people that are covered we don't have a commando crew to go everywhere so this is another activity helping others spiritually materially serving and ultimately serving Kṛṣṇa developing our natural relationship of loving god so as Prabhupāda was brought here 1965 Prabhupāda left India brought it here it's only was 21 years 22 years Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement was established in 66 this is the 21st anniversary this September this past so in 21 years now there are millions and millions of persons who are all over the world outside of the gate what to speak of persons in India who have taken the advantage of this process it's an ancient process handed down and we have therefore you may ask why we're doing this fire sacrifice but these are part of the ancient rituals we’ll not always do these rituals it is only we do on the special occasions like weddings, initiation ceremonies but because today we’re having initiation ceremony so we are doing  one of the original fire sacrifices going to the pancharathric system and we like to invite all the persons present that they can also participate by chanting the mantras and by those with Tilak can throw the grains into the fire

Now I like to request that you have some akshat can you make akshat? Can you make some, quick you know what is akshat? rice and turmeric the customary since today we’re having three types of initiation we’re having Hari naam Brahman and Kṛṣṇa sevaka Pre-initiation blessing for advancing in Kṛṣṇa consciousness so the Hari naam is the beginning of the spiritual life for one dedicates life for ultimately satisfying Kṛṣṇa they'll live the normal life but every day they chant at least sixteen meditational beads and they (aside) Brahman initiation or the Gayatri mantra qualifies the person to do such things as fire sacrifice deity worship these deities are worshipped according to our ancient process these deities are Kṛṣṇa himself coming in the form of material form on the request of some great devotee of the Lord some pure devotee of the Lord for the purpose of training the devotees of preparing the devotees for personal direct worship in the spiritual world we can worship him in the deity form depending on one’s realization the Lord reciprocate even in this form so well to order to do the worship one needs to receive certain pancharatric mantras these are secrets mantras which are not spoken out loud. One after chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa after first initiation for a period of approximately one year or more one can receive these mantras so the husband and wife mathureshwar and bhaveshwari are receiving this mantras today so it’s customary when we give this that we have that already initiated Brahmana we ask the Brahmana we chant the mantras to clear away all inauspicious influences and attract then we chant mantras first to bringing the auspiciousness when we ask the brahmana to those who already have received these mantras through some of the sanctified rice sanctify they hold in their hands chanting mantras then they sprinkle over the heads of the candidates if any of you would also like to receive some of these rice on your heads you can raise your hands. You know where they throw it ,anyone who doesn’t want? I understand no one said so you don't want duck now I'm going to chant the swasti vachan mantra when I chant Om swasti om swasti then you can throw these the brahmanas can take a little of this and then you can throw (aside)

(Swasti mantras recited) (In audible: 29.54-32.41)

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare

oṁ tat sat

There is another preliminary ceremony with preliminary initiation pre initiation called prak diksha or Kṛṣṇa or Gauranga sevaka Nitai Gaura Chandra or Gaura sevaka it's a pulmonary in the sense that one chant at least four or more rounds in a day and believes in four basic principles tries to practice them.  Joe and the alexis is taking Gaura sevaka or sevika shall I ask her if she accepts these four principles,

The first principle is to that Kṛṣṇa Shri Kṛṣṇa is the supreme personality of Godhead the absolute truth paraṁ brahma that he has appeared in the age of Kali and the form of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu if you will believe that then you say Hare Kṛṣṇa,

Second is that if you are convinced that conviction the pure devotional service to Kṛṣṇa is the perfection and goal of human life and it's your personal goal in life to reach to pure devotion than say Hare Kṛṣṇa.

The third is that is for treating (Not clear 34:40) us in pure devotion you want the blessings of His divine grace A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda and he wants to receive the guidance to his representatives then say Hare Kṛṣṇa

And the fourth is that if you're having conviction for practicing and trying to improve in your devotional service to increase it you say we should maintain and try to increase then if you have that desire in the future so you get the full shelter of Kṛṣṇa then you say Hare Kṛṣṇa

Ok those four principles Mrs. Joe see you also accept those four things say Hare Kṛṣṇa additional devotees from Columbia Gaura sevika Alexis Hari bol(conch blowing) Gaura sevika Sushila(conch blowing) I have to chant on the beads it's customary for the Guru to chant on the beads he gives so you can start the fire and we'll just chant one round anyone all of you can chant along if you like also those don't have beads you can just chant or you can sing with Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

Transcripted by : Pundarika Mahajana Das

Transcripted on : 12-07-2020

Proof Reading by : Paramesvari Pavitra Devi Dasi