20080817 Initiation Address

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on August 17^th, 2008 in Bangalore, India.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.12.25

dhṛtyā bali-samaḥ kṛṣṇe
prahrāda iva sad-grahaḥ
āhartaiṣo ‘śvamedhānāṁ
vṛddhānāṁ paryupāsakaḥ

Translation: This child will be like Bali Mahārāja in patience, a staunch devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa like Prahlāda Mahārāja, a performer of many aśvamedha [horse] sacrifices and a follower of the old and experienced men.

Purport: Bali Mahārāja: One of the twelve authorities in the devotional service of the Lord. Bali Mahārāja is a great authority in devotional service because he sacrificed everything to please the Lord and relinquished the connection of his so-called spiritual master who obstructed him on the path of risking everything for the service of the Lord. The highest perfection of religious life is to attain to the stage of unqualified devotional service of the Lord without any cause or without being obstructed by any kind of worldly obligation. Bali Mahārāja was determined to give up everything for the satisfaction of the Lord, and he did not care for any obstruction whatsoever. He is the grandson of Prahlāda Mahārāja, another authority in the devotional service of the Lord. Bali Mahārāja and the history of his dealings with Viṣṇu Vāmanadeva are described in the Eighth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (Chapter 11-24).

Prahlāda Mahārāja: A perfect devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa (Viṣṇu). His father, Hiraṇyakaśipu, chastised him severely when he was only five years old for his becoming an unalloyed devotee of the Lord. He was the first son of Hiraṇyakaśipu, and his mother’s name was Kayādhu. Prahlāda Mahārāja was an authority in the devotional service of the Lord because he had his father killed by Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, setting the example that even a father should be removed from the path of devotional service if such a father happens to be an obstacle. He had four sons, and the eldest son, Virocana, is the father of Bali Mahārāja, mentioned above. The history of Prahlāda Mahārāja’s activities is described in the Seventh Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

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Jayapatākā Swami: This morning, we read a verse that reads here. So, this is glorifying Parīkṣit Mahārāja, how he will be very patient like Bali Mahārāja. Bali Mahārāja was determined to serve the Lord. In fact, see today we are having initiation ceremony where the disciples take vows to follow the spiritual master and the guru-paramparā. And the guru by accepting them is also committing himself to representing the guru-paramparā and taking them back to Kṛṣṇa through His guidance, taking them to Śrīla Prabhupāda.

But, in the case of Bali Mahārāja, his guru told him do not serve Lord Kṛṣṇa. So, he had a difficult choice – follow his guru or follow the instruction that the guru gave before that is to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. The śāstras say to surrender to Kṛṣṇa, the Vaiṣṇavas say to surrender to Kṛṣṇa, the sādhus say to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. So, he rejected his guru and surrendered to Kṛṣṇa. It is a very rare case. Normally, you never have to reject a guru. In fact, the śāstras says if we reject the guru, it is a very big offense. If you take the first initiation from the guru, you should take the second from the same guru. You already committed to this paramparā. But the exception is the guru tells you, “Do not surrender to Kṛṣṇa.” If he goes, becomes like a demon and goes against Viṣṇu and Kṛṣṇa then he cannot be followed. So, this is a two-way commitment here.

So, this is important to see that it is a spiritual contract. We serve our guru and the guru-paramparā; guru also represents the guru-paramparā and guides us. So, Bali Mahārāja was very determined. Prahlāda Mahārāja is also mentioned because he was the grandfather of Bali. So, it is said here that Parīkṣit Mahārāja will be like just like such strong devotee like Prahlāda, very fixed in Kṛṣṇa. Prahlāda had a different situation. His guru was Nārada Muni. No doubt about the guru, he is the devarṣi, he is the incarnation of kṛṣṇa-bhakti. So, he was very dedicated to his guru. But unfortunately, the father was Hiraṇyakaśipu. The father was chastising his son so much why he was a devotee?

Sometimes in our modern society, you get relatives if you become a devotee, they chastise, they criticize, “Why are you being a devotee?”. They are in hiraṇyakaśipu-sampradāya (laughter), but they are not so strong like him. Now you can also convert them. Once they see sometimes husband or wife, they initially object. Then they may see that wife is very happy, and she is serving very nice, or they see the husband is being very responsible plus being devotee. Then the relatives sometimes change their heart. Here today we have many husband-and-wives who live here together. Some are taking initiation together. One is going ahead but has the blessings of the other. So, we like that they are together, because this process is gṛhastha-dharma is called saha-dharma. The wife likes, she is called saha-dharmīnī. So, to do the religious activities together – husband and wife.

Again, the husband and wife can take it together but sometimes because maybe the husband is working in such a way he is not able to strictly follow everything. He is in marketing or something and he has to go out so he could do it but he may not feel that determination yet to do it. Say, he still drinks coffee with his customers or whatever.

So sometimes there is a little bit of. But then if one person gets that is also bless the whole family. And hopefully that influences, just like one Prahlāda blessed the whole family. So, Bali became also became such a great devotee. So everyone has a guru. We choose, we get to choose. Some of the other sampradāyas they just offer, “Oh, you come here today. Welcome. Please sit down. Take dīkṣā.” Then after they say, “Oh, you took dīkṣā and I am your guru. Now you have to do what I say.” So like this they picked up. So we are not in the picking anybody. We have so many steps – aspiring, shelter. They get to know what the guru is like. They serve that spiritual master and all that process.

I had one disciple who was aspiring, a sheltered disciple. He went to some other maṭha, some other group and they immediately gave him initiation. Then he faced so many difficulties. He said, “I do not know why I took this from this other group like this they are offering cheaply to everybody. And I got impatient, and I took. And now I am suffering so much. They do not give any care. They do not protect us. They do not care for us. They do not really guide us.” We do not want to make like dīkṣā for us. Not like some kind of a business. We want people to take it patiently with full knowledge. I ask all the people outside, they all want to take. They all raised their hands that they want to take. They want to follow all these things. But if you have any doubts, this is your last chance. Nobody is getting up.

Of course we need all the blessings for them. First initiation, you know, a few mistakes. It is not so difficult, not so bad. It takes second initiation. It is more serious. So, we should take. Prabhupāda said we can be a little lenient with the first but should be very strict with the second. I told Viśāla Prabhu who is responsible for the initiation clearance. He is not the recommender, but he is the one who administers the test and everything. I said, he should do it ahead of time. So, get the people every month or so do it. Whosoever recommended candidate and build up the people who are ready. So, we have. You can say we have ten ready, fifteen ready, five ready, whatever it is. So then whenever we do, there was no big rush. This time, it was like some kind of a fire sale emergency, I was told.

What is the important thing is that everyone - gurum evābhigacchet (Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.2.12). The Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad says, everyone should have a spiritual master. We need to develop Kṛṣṇa consciousness under the guidance of our spiritual master. Of course we are all accepting Prabhupāda as our śikṣā-guru. Those who are not already His dīkṣā and śikṣā disciples like me. And He guides us, his teachings are the basis, books are the basis – Śrīla Bhaktivedānta’s books. At the same time, we have a spiritual master that personally is caring for us, praying for us, guiding us. We can go to if we have any doubts or questions. So, this is a formal example. Before we have informally like śikṣā, aspiring, shelter. These are more informal. We practice being a disciple of the guru, getting his help. But there are no vows. We make some mistake.

Even like in Middle East, I once had a devotee perfectly following everything. But he was a cook for the military. The militaries are not vegetarian. But he could not. He said his family will starve. There is no other job. So, we cannot give you initiation. But you can take shelter as an exception. But you can only get initiation when you get a new job. It is all… shelter means also like śikṣā. It is not... you do not get the karmas. So eventually he got another job which was not involved in animal killing or cooking or anything. Then we gave him the initiation. Sometimes for the shelter, giving him guidance and everything. But some people have very extenuating circumstances. So, sometimes we consider on a case-by-case basis. He was himself vegetarian. How he cooked. But he was vegetarian, and he was cooking. So, the rare case.

So, like this process we are following all over ISKCON. Prabhupāda said that, “My disciples will initiate the devotees and the people they initiate will be my grand-disciples.” It is very clear what He instructed. There are some people who want everyone to be Prabhupāda-dīkṣā disciple. But Prabhupāda, He did not say that when He gave His instructions to the devotees, He wanted that His disciples would continue on the paramparā. Now we also even have some grand disciples like Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja left and his disciples now also initiating. Like that, there is some even with the order of the guru, some disciples or present gurus also initiating. So, we are continuing the paramparā system. I mean in the future you should all be very qualified and also become spiritual masters, help to spread the disciplic succession.

So, maybe great ācāryas or someone maybe just caring for their disciples, the ācāryas by example, by the gurus for the disciples. So right now, we are not claiming to be the ācārya of the sampradāya. We are saying, Śrīla Prabhupāda is the ācārya but we are keeping the guru-paramparā going on. And Prabhupāda said whoever becomes an ācārya, that will become self-evident. And nobody is claiming like that. Like this is our system and we want to all become qualified and also continue with the paramparā. In the future we will find so many spiritual masters here in Karnataka, in India, spread here and also all over the world. Right now, there are so many thousands of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of devotees and they all need a spiritual master.

Also, apart from the dīkṣā-guru role, there is also the śikṣā-guru role, vartamāna-pradarśaka role — helping people, guiding them. So many of our senior devotees here are doing that already – guiding people, helping them. How many of you have been helped by one of the devotees? One or more. Wow. Everyone looks like more or less everyone is being helped by some devotee. So, you also can help like that. You help someone else. Each one, teach one. One is helped and that person helps others. This is our sanātana-dharma, Vedic culture.

In some paths they only accept some prophet or very senior person. They say, “Why is this? You should not bow down to any man.” But our system will respect just like it says here, Parīkṣit Mahārāja. He was a follower of the vṛddhānāṁ, the old and experienced men. He had his guru. I think his guru was Kṛpācārya, not one hundred percent sure. But like that he had his spiritual master. He also respected the elders, the brāhmaṇas, Vaiṣṇavas. To our system as we bow down to all the Vaiṣṇavas, right in the morning, we bow down to the Vaiṣṇavas,

vāñchā-kalpa-tarubhyaś ca
kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca
patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo
vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ

We also respect. We teach our children to respect their parents. Once, the school of Bhaktivedānta Mission School in Mumbai had an idea that it was very difficult to maintain the school. So they were thinking about closing down. Some of the parents, I was called in to mediate, some of the parents who were very upset. They said, “No, this school cannot close because our children are getting a spiritual education. You know what it is like being a parent. When your children come back from school chanting mantras, they bow down to us, they touch our feet, they are reading, they are chanting mantras. Where will we get our children such an education like this, you keep the school open. We will do everything to help you. If you dare close it, we will do everything we can to destroy you.” They were very heavy because you would be destroying our children. So, the school is still open. We worked it out somehow. So, like that. It is all part of our culture.

Many other cultures, they have a different way. But we respect the elders, the spiritual master, even when you are taking a guru now, you should not disrespect the other elder devotees who are helping you or guiding you and will be guiding you in the future. It is a kind of a team effort to get you trained. Ultimately, there is a saying. I do not know if you know the saying, where the buck stops. Maybe that is American slang.

What happens is like, say, a group of young friends are going into the cinema or something. They each have to pay the entry fee. So, each one goes in, says the next one has the ticket. Who is the last one? He has got no one else to pass to. So that is where the buck stops. And He has to pay everybody else’s ticket, otherwise they will arrest Him. So that is ultimate. That is who is ultimately responsible. That is what it really means, where the buck stops. So spiritual master, He has to take the guru, dīkṣā-guru has to take the karma for the disciples. He is ultimately the one who is responsible, most responsible. See, the others are helping and everything. He is giving some form of special respect. But we should never disrespect the others.

If there is some confusion in the Kṛṣṇa-bhajanāmṛta by Nārāhārī Ṭhākura. He says, like if, say, the uncle guru and dīkṣā-guru give some kind of different instruction, who to follow. So, the uncle guru, if you are in a joint family and even someone is, what you call, your elder uncle or younger uncle and they have some difference. But ultimately you follow your father, or you follow your uncle. Everybody follows their father. That is the tradition. So that they were supposed to follow your dīkṣā-guru, of course, as one is, He is not saying to do something which is against the śāstras or His own previous instructions. That means that we do not know what to do. There are some conflicting instructions. We go to our guru and get the final instruction because He is the one who is responsible for us. Otherwise in the normal, there is no discrepancy, there is no difference of opinion.

So, we respect all the uncles just like we respect our father. It is only in some kind of a crisis that this question comes up because we get all this advice from our predecessor ācāryas on how we should behave. So today we are very happy that in this community there are about fifteen devotees taking the first initiation and one candidate for the second. So, this is important. We hope they also. Parīkṣit Mahārāja was following his family, you all are becoming followers of Śrīla Prabhupāda and Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, Jagannātha dāsa Bābājī Mahārāja, Gaura-kiśora dāsa Bābājī, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa, and so many other ācāryas, the Six-Gosvāmīs. So, it is a very illustrious chain, and we want to also try to follow the great example.

It is a great honor to be in such a wonderful great sampradāya, following Madhva in the Madhva line, also Lord Brahmā. By their mercy, it should not be difficult to get back to Godhead. Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “You follow these principles, you will get back to Kṛṣṇa even in this lifetime.” That is the purpose of human life. We are going to be working, used to be at work in one company until you get old, retired, get your pension. Now people jump from one company to the next a little bit. But anyway, we still work till we get old. Then in our retired life, side by side, we need to develop our spiritual life. Not just remember all the happy times and sad times we had throughout our life and remain on a mental platform, sentimental platform.

We need to develop our love for Kṛṣṇa so that we can transfer... we have our material remembrances and now we want to have spiritual experiences. So, taking initiation is a part of our spiritual experience. We pray that all of you will have a spiritually blissful time in the midst of this difficult material world. This gives you the path back to home, back to Godhead, back to Kṛṣṇa.

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

Yesterday there was about thirty, forty devotees took aspiring and maybe roughly about twenty taking shelter. So, I heard also today those who missed out yesterday get a chance to take today. Who they are supposed to talk with? Śivātmā? Pramoda Nitāi, where is He? So go home. Pramoda Nitāi.

If you wanted to be thinking aspiring means you are maybe not following all the principles or chanting sixteen rounds, but you are aspiring to take shelter and be initiated sometime in the future. And you want to get the blessings of guru and Vaiṣṇavas for that. More or less anyone on the one round, four round, eight round, twelve round or just beginning at sixteen rounds – śikṣā levels could be an aspiring.

And those who chant sixteen rounds for over six months and follow the four principles, they could be considered for shelter. So, who they see? These two, these two here, Śivātmā. These are the ones that have your future in their hands, (laughter) if you are an aspiring candidate. So, then I will do the Harināma first. (audio abruptly stops)