19950417 Evening Initiation Ceremony

Lecture Code: 19950417

Initiation-ceremony Lecture By

His Holiness Jayapatākā Swāmī Mahārāja

In Bangalore, Karnataka, India

17/APR/1995

                   https://archives.JayapatākāSwāmī.com/courses/306577/lectures/5016113

                                         H H Jayapatākā Swāmī Mahārāja

                                      gave lecture during Initiation-ceremony

                             In Bangalore, Karnataka, India

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swāmī Mahārāja on 17/APR/1995 In Bangalore, Karnataka, India.The class was given on the occasion of Initiation-ceremony.

Today, in this very sacred temple of śrī śrī Kṛṣṇa BalaRāma, śrī śrī Gaur Nitāi, in the presence of Lord Nṛsiṃhadeva… śrī Nṛsiṃhadeva, in the presence of śrīla Prabhupāda and all the assembled vaiṣṇavas. We are celebrating the birthday of these devotee’s…spiritual birthday. People celebrate the day we appear in the world as their birthday. Then the day when we take initiation that’s also our spiritual birthday. “” we have taken our spiritual birth from Guru, and śāstra. It’s a matter when we born in the world we born to die. When we born in the spirit, we born to live eternally to achieve mortality freedom from repetition of birth and death, more than that we able to achieve our original constitution position and pure devotional service to the Lord. Devotional service is only possible if somebody their own free will decides to serve Kṛṣṇa. One has to voluntarily want to serve Kṛṣṇa because bhakti by its very quality is voluntary it’s by use of our free will it’s by misuse our free will, we come to this material state of conditional life. We misuse our free will and instead of serving Kṛṣṇa we become godas we become a servant of the senses and even life after life we wonder in the material world trying to fulfil the unfulfilled desires of the material body. So, the real purpose of human life is to serve Kṛṣṇa, when that happens then Kṛṣṇa reveals himself to us, reveals the mystery about Himself to us and He explains

janma karma ca me divyam

evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ

tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma

naiti mām eti so ’rjuna

(B.G. 4.9)

That anyone who knows the divine nature of My appearance and activities upon leaving this mortal frame will not be subjected again to taking rebirth in the material world in conditional life. So, in other words by serving Kṛṣṇa we become liberated but beyond that liberation is that we become very attach to Kṛṣṇa and we want to serve Kṛṣṇa that desire to serve Kṛṣṇa increases step by step ānandāmbudhi-vardhanaṁ prati-padaṁ pūrṇāmṛtāsvādanaṁ. The ocean of nectar expands whatever step we are testing the full bliss prati-padaṁ pūrṇāmṛtāsvādanaṁ. So, because of all this glorious aspects of achieving Kṛṣṇa consciousness taking initiation is a very joyful occasion all the candidate for initiation are on the way back to Godhead. Their success is assure simply if they stick to the path of serving with disciplic succession the Guru paramparā from Lord Kṛṣṇa to Brahmā, Brahmā to Nārada to Vyāsa to Mādhava ācārya down to the disciplic succession to Lakṣmīmitirtha then Mädhavendra puri īśvara Puri and Caitanya Mahāprabhu from Lord Caitanya down to His Divine Grace śrīla Viṣṇupāda Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākur   and then to ISKCON founder ācārya śrīmad Abhay Charnāravinda BhaktiVedānta Swāmī Prabhupāda and now continuing and humbly coming in the disciplic succession from Prabhupāda. śrīla Prabhupāda said one of the secrets for success is to please the previous ācāryas. You know that Kṛṣṇa is more pleased when His devotee is pleased, He become very fully satisfied. So, we can please our Guru and previous ācārya or before that previous ācārya by their mercy we can get the full Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Actually, it is very rare to be Kṛṣṇa conscious very rare to be situated in pure devotion of Kṛṣṇa conscious, if we take the normal statistics then Kṛṣṇa says

manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu

kaścid yatati siddhaye

yatatām api siddhānāṁ

kaścin māṁ vetti tattvataḥ

(B.G. 7.3).

That out of thousands somebody is interested in spiritual life and out of self-realisation thousands those who are interested. Somebody actually understands something. Lot of people are interested but they don’t understand. So many people read Bhagavad gītā

they can’t figure out what it’s saying very much. And there are some they actually know what it means to some extent at least what is spirit what is matter and out of those that know something that those who are actually liberated out of thousands those who know one is liberated thousands were liberated it’s very rare to find even a one Kṛṣṇa bhakta. Nārāyaṇa-parāyaṇaḥ koṭiṣv api mahā-mune (S.B. 6.14.5) out of thousands of great munis and ṛṣis to find one pure devotee of Nārāyaṇa, Nārāyaṇa-parāyaṇaḥ durlabha su-durlabhaḥ praśāntātmā very rare very peaceful personality divine situated personality. So, then sometimes devotees think it’s so rare to be a devotee what hope is there for me. That’s why Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu has been glorified as bhuridha, bhuridha dha means one who is giving out a benefactor and bhuri means immense, immense distribution of mercy mahāvadanya great merciful benefactor. In another word just like sometimes government they are having reservation policy so many percent for this or that they have normal but if there were some change in the policy okay for this week everybody can get no reservation like America. Someone told me American government they do lottery to get green card and in every…many countries except for India. I don’t know why they don’t do for India maybe if they do for India the whole country would apply or overload I don’t know. But for fifty-five thousand slots eight hundred thousand people not eight million or eight hundred thousand they apply to get any way I think it eight million. Eight million people applied to get fifty-five thousand chance of fifty-five thousand actually quite good odds. Any way so many people they are running to get that card. Now you can imagine anyone who want anybody wants this apply that’s all. So may people who are interested in going to that place then they could get these are unheard of things. So, in the history of the universe is almost unheard of. If you want to get Kṛṣṇa conscious you want get Kṛṣṇa bhakti you have to go through so many births, so many samskara’s, so many rituals, so many activities, so much mercy, sukṛti then finally you can get. It not a contradiction this is just illustrating, how merciful Lord Caitanya is we cannot imagine, but He has changed the rules for this one period of time. Anyone who take shelter of Him he can get the bonus opportunity by here some time they are having some special holiday… in the stores… all give advertisement discount 50% off, clearance sale everything must go. Of course, some time we heard a jack up the price and then they give you discount so in the end it doesn’t come out so much… some kind of… But Lord Caitanya there is no such no gimmick no tricks He is actually giving out that which is the most valuable thing which Brahmā, Śiva and the great learned devotees or learned pure devotees of the Lord, they know what the value of this is they are very eager to get it. So Lord Caitanya is giving this out to everyone but if we get it then we are very intelligent, very wise, and very fortunate.

Somehow – three-four times - I gone to Amazon in Singapore but they never tell me when there computers fairs are, I always go day after the computer fair and during that computer fair they always give big discount so the same story the fair is over - no more discount. Of course, I know a few people, I can maybe “okay one day extra come on”. They say sorry no stock out of stock sold out may be with great difficulty you can try. But here is like that we are here now Lord Caitanya is offering the sale if we don’t take advantage now, we may come we may not get that opportunity. Prabhupāda mentioned that this movement is here for ten thousand years, which we discussed one-night conforming from the Brahmā Vaivarta Purana. Now if one chant Hare Kṛṣṇa they can easily go to svargaloka, but if you take birth in svarga then ten thousand years is nothing peanut there one of the years is one of our year is merely one of their day. So, ten thousand of our years how many of that ten thousand of their days and they are living for thousands of years so what is the… you know very long life even more than that. So, if we take the mundane benefit of serving Kṛṣṇa like going to heavenly planet, He said that if someone doesn’t make it My Lotus feet then they can take birth in heavenly planet and enjoy for a long time, then again they take birth this time good family so by that time saṅkīrtana movement is over. So, we come down here may be in the middle of kali yuga something when it’s really hellish, then you go fishing around for the bonus very difficult already sold out. Even great devotees they are praying they have to take birth again they want to take birth now as a devotee. So, gṛhastha’s are doing great service to give such great souls an opportunity to take birth and become devotee and practice devotional service. Of course, more important is that if we don’t take birth at all and we are fully focus on serving Kṛṣṇa and at the end of this life we can go to Kṛṣṇa directly. Now many people say well so this you can ask my mother she is here not here right now, but she is in Bangalore. She came to me and told me first of all you join Hare Kṛṣṇa movement to become a priest very nice but why don’t you do that when you are old just before you die then do it, why now you are young, so I was only nineteen college scholarship and so different facilities all available for me. So, then I told my mother that you tell me how long I leave then I can join fifteen years I can you know fully dedicate fifteen years before I leave my body. She said “no mother and father can say how long their children going to at present” it’s true. Someone just told me today that daughter was saying just chant Hare Kṛṣṇa after five-ten years now I want to watch MTV. Of course, some of the MTV performance also chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, may be not on MTV but in their own private lives some don’t. But we should deposit now for those who are partial depositors they are the once may get the swarg, they may not get back to Godhead in this lifetime. If you really want to get back, then this is the process surrendering to Kṛṣṇa, taking the initiation and carefully serving Kṛṣṇa through the disciplic succession throughout once lifetime.

One should choose a bona fide master by ISKCON the Śāstric evidences by ISKCON their own personal inspiration by spiritual reason. Sometime there was someone who has advertising chant gītā go Washington things like that. So many people get attracted some time people puts adds in the paper go to Hawaii for spiritual education and it’s a kind of gimmick of this way. People are interested from developing countries to develop countries that is the whole propaganda. But these are not the criteria for choosing a bona fide Guru, criteria should be purely spiritual shouldn’t be contaminated by any upadhis by any mundane profit motives by any mundane sentimentalism. Like the lady who is crying every time she saw the Guru one sādhu preaching. Because she had loved pet goat just died that sādhu had little beard and every time he was speaking and shaking his head the beard was shaking that lady was remembering her pet goat, so decided this is my Guru because he looks  just like my goat. All these kinds of reasons will not be the very bona fide reasons. Right? The reasons had to be based on scriptures and śāstra and of course our own spiritual inspiration if we let other things motivate us then when we need help from the Guru - spiritual help - we may not get it. If we don’t have a bona fide Guru, we won’t get it - that’s the point. So, these devotees have been aspired by śrīla Prabhupāda and disciplic succession and decided to take shelter of the succession taking as in behalf in the disciplic succession and to accept the sincere candidates in the service of Kṛṣṇa. So, being a birth, this is the beginning of a big festival we got together it’s a festival. This year I was formally given the service of Minister of congregational preaching many other members of congregation and although there are like the terminology we use but always had difficulty because in orthodox religion you have clear distinction between the priest and the congregation. Really Caitanya  Mahāprabhu’s movement  everybody is a preacher some people may be in the  vairāgī āśRāma someone may be acting in a Brahmānical role someone may be more responsible for others spiritual lives but to some extent everyone is a preacher not they only the priest should preach. But everyone to their friends to their relatives they need to also preach and that’s when the Kṛṣṇa conscious movement can really multiply many, many times is when every devotee takes the mercy of Gaur Nitāi, mercy from the Guru, and being empowered they preach through distribution of books through so many kinds of preaching. To explain, this is a just like every devotee in the room made one other person very serious about Kṛṣṇa consciousness to commit to be part of that temple congregational temple activities may be they have two three other on the line who are partially committed this way. We can see that every year we were doubling two three time in a year we double then with in a very short time we can go from five hundred to thousand two thousand to four thousand eight thousand to sixteen thousand to thirty two thousand sixty four thousand, one hundred and twenty eight thousand it start to become massive. That’s not possible only the priest in the temple or even the temple president or the Guru they are the only preachers to give out this mercy of Lord Caitanya he said that I want everyone I want everyone to help me. Because now is the time giving out this mercy He said I may not be able to reach every one if I do it myself I want everyone to help me so you take the mercy of Lord Caitanya and give it to others.

Nobody should say I am not very educated so I only even female body I am an old body I am a young body this is Sarvopādhi vinirmuktam transcendental to any kind of upādhi. Try to reach any one who is reachable and bring that person to Kṛṣṇa and in this way, in fact if we utilise this opportunity you can see the movement can explode, Lord Caitanya’s saṅkīrtana movement can really explode… people gather together to take this mercy. So, those of you who are taking initiation or those who are already initiated or those who are not yet initiated whatever, everyone can preach especially this is our opportunity. If you don’t know how that’s why we have special training program to train people, they don’t know how what to say what way to say it. So therefore, there is some Sunday program here some house program Prabhupāda books and tapes, that way if we help others to be Kṛṣṇa conscious then by preaching, we get a special mercy of the Lord also. Now big temple is coming up… big number of devotees then the temple becomes important. Actually, temples are facility. The real temple is built up by the love of the devotees it’s by… It’ actual devotees serving and preaching and participating in the activities, either in the temple, around the temple connected to the temple that make a living monument. Otherwise we see some time very ancient temples where there is no nothing much happening kind of dry. And then you can see when there is a lot of devotion, festivals, and kīrtans things going on then you feel more inspiration small life. So, Prabhupāda quoted that prāṇa āche yāra sei hetu pracāra those who have got spiritual life, they have the ability, they have the nature of preaching to other the glories of Kṛṣṇa. So, doing this ceremony we hope that everyone would  through the fire scarifies and through the… for initiate through their vows and determination that they will become further empowered to give out the mercy of Lord Caitanya and fully qualified to get all the mercy of Lord Caitanya. 

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

Any other comment?

Anyone has done their āchamans? Discuss the ten offences? Done all the other purificatory, Brahma-Saṁhitā everything? We have, any beads to give out? The neck beads had been tied around the neck. Everyone wearing tilak? We have all the way from Hubli mother and daughter Usha and Anushruti Hegde. What are the four regulative principles you are following or continue to follow for the rest of your life? No meat, fish, egg, onion and garlic and how many times you chant mahā you chant the mahāmantra every day, you have the neck beads?

 Your name is Putalarupa devī dāsī name of Rādhārāni and your name is Anang Rādhā devī dāsī. They all pay obeisances to Prabhupāda and take your sit again. Make a way. Kānchana, what are the four regulative principles you have been following? And how many times japa? Came all the way from Melur side of the ocean you came up here to the hills. Sixteen rounds you said. How many mala per day minimum? So, your name is… to change your name a little bit this is the name of Rādhārāni and Laxmi your name is Kānchanamāla devī dāsī.

Dharam Prakash and Meena Goyal see there is two ways you can offer praṇāma ladies usually offer panchāng the heads, the knees, the arms and the eyes or mind what’s another one too nose one two three four five two hands touching. And then the sāṣṭāṅga is the chest and the hand say the Guru praṇāma mantra. What is four regulative principles you are continuing to follow for your whole life.

Devotee: - Not audible.

Guru Mahārāja: - And how many times japa per day? Here a nice name Dharmaprakāsh one who is manifesting dharmā of course there are so many dharmās. Even Kṛṣṇa says sarva-dharmān parityaja you will be the servitor of this devotional service is the transcendental dharmā. So, your name is… it also another hidden meaning is also Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa dual meaning at this time. Your name is Divya dharmā dās Adhikari and your name is Medha Rādhā devī dāsī. 

Transcribed By: Subhadra Shubhangi DD

Transcribed on 1^st of October 2020

Proof Reading By: Amrita Padma devī dāsī

On 12/10/2020

Proofread by :Srivani Mataji

Date:04/Dec/2020