20160117 Initiation Lecture

Initiation Lecture 

Date:

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Collection:

Inspiration series - 2016

Audio player:

20160117_Initiation_Lecture_@_Chennai_India Many people are visiting the temple and we are holding initiation ceremony infront of Nitai-Gaur, Radha-Krishna, Lalita and Visakha and Jagannath, Baldadev and Subhadra and sudarshan chakra. Also Prabhupada. Also in front of the guru and all the vaisnavas. So the ah... vows are taken infront of the dig pals, the ten directions. In this material world everybody is working hard but they are paid by their boss some money in return for their work. There is no question of love. You work you get paid, you don’t work you don’t get paid. In fact sometimes you work and you still don’t get paid. I worked in a printing press to learn how to print, and this was in 1968 in Montreol. So we didn’t have any books then, and I was going to give a pay-check to Srila Prabhupada to pay his rent. And at the same time my fellow bhakta was Gopal Krishna Goswami. At that time he was a grihastha and he was working as an executive, but I was a young college student and during the summer it was hard to get a job, so that printer he didn’t pay me. Then I realized that he was cheating me. I was working but he was not paying. I asked him for the money then he replied, “ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha”, that was the answer. (laughter) So..but one thing we learnt is that Lord Chaitanya Krishna, He never forgets. He always is grateful for any service rendered. There are two types of devotees- sakam bhakta and niskam bhakta. The sakam bhakta, they pray to the Lord, dhanam deya, striyam deya, give me a good car, give me a good wife, give me a good house, give me this, give me that, and the niskam bhaktas they pray to the Lord, give me service, I want to serve you, I want to serve your devotee, please give me your service. The chant is a cry to get the His service. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. So niskam bhakti, we don’t want anything in exchange, we do not put any conditions. We know that Krishna knows better than us what we need. So ask Krishna to fulfil... we just ask for service, and He will fulfil. Vipra sudama was His friend, and he wanted to see Krishna in Dvaraka. He brought some flat rice with him and it was broken and not so nice because he had begged it from a lot of different houses. And although he was very poor, and dressed with clothes that had holes in it and not so nice. And although Krishna was staying in a palace of gold and jewels, Krishna when he saw his old, friend and devotee, Vipra Sudama, He didn’t hesitate to embrace him, and Vipra Sudama felt that he was not worthy to be embraced by Sudama, but Krishna, He didn’t care all this things. Then they were talking about diksha guru, siksha guru and so many things. How Krishna and Sudama were lost in the forest, then how the guru came looking for them with the other students, and Vipra Sudama’s wife was asking him to ask Krishna to ask something, but he couldn’t ask Krishna for anything. When Krishna saw he had flat rice tied in his clothe. Krishna said, “Oh, you brought something for me.” He said, “no, no, it’s not worthy for you.” “Whatever if for my devotee, is good for me also.” So Krishna reached over Vipra Sudama and got the chipped rice, and he forcefully opened the clothe. He took some rice, he looked again, he was going to take three times and then Rukmini who is the goddess of fortune, she said, “don’t take three times because he begged this from others, so if you take three times I should reward him more than your capacity, and that’s not possible because you have no limit. So vipra Sudama couldn’t ask anything from Krishna. When he walking home, he was just remembering how nice Krishna was, how wonderful Krishna was, and when he reached home where there used to be his grass cottage there was a big palace and a beautiful lady came out surrounded by maids. He was bewildered, who is this, how has this changed, and then he saw that the beautiful lady was his wife. She said come home, see what Lord Krishna has sent us. So the materialists, they like this story very much, because they think, O Krishna should send us a palace but the pure devotee they like the story, how vipra Sudama was so pure, he could never ask anything of Krishna, but Krishna gave him so many things, but he was not destructive. He simply wanted to engage, use all this facilities in the service of Krishna. So Krishna will give you, when he sees you are ready. So the pure devotees they are more interested in getting the service of Krishna. After the Kurukshetra battle, when Yudhisthir performed the Rajasurya sacrifice and he was successful in conquering the four direction, then Krishna went home to dwaraka. The Pandava’s had a special secret meeting in their war room and the topic was, “how to get Krishna back”, one Pandava said, “We will tell Him that we are being attacked” “that wouldn’t work, He has already killed all our enemies, you should give me some idea.” Each was giving some idea, “we have to get Krishna back, how can we live without Krishna?” Then Narad Muni came and he praised, “Oh you Pandavas, you are the greatest of all devotees.” The Arjuna stood up, “Yes we are devotees, but we are not the greatest, you can go to Dwaraka, see the vrshnis, Krishna is with them all the time, they are associating with Krishna all the time, they are the greatest devotees, so like this the devotees want to serve the Lord and His devotees. So when take initiation you pray for the love of Krishna, then when you get love of Krishna you feel separation and then that’s a very intense feeling, and that... it looks like suffering but it’s a type of spiritual ecstasy. Many people see the picture of Prabhupada. In some pictures he looks very grave, but being close to him I could see that I had never seen anybody as happy as he was. How his eyes would be filled with tears, and how he would be praying for the upliftment of the devotees. So his guru blessed him that by preaching Krishna consciousness in Western countries, he would get spiritual blessings, and Srila Bhaktisiddhantha Saraswati Thakur also said that those who will help you will also get blessings. So who would like to help Srila Prabhupada? So one of the additional vows we take is that the initiates will help me in carrying out the orders of Prabhupada. But others they will also help me, the can by helping me to fulfil Prabhupada’s mission and also helping Srila Prabhupada. So I am very glad that you are maintaining this temple. In the Global Hospital, the chief doctor Md. Raila, he came to this temple and he was praising it, he said nice and clean, they gave me some prasadam, so he was very appreciative. And we are also happy that you are doing the bhakta prahlada school, and also the bhaktivriksha and I plan to spend the whole day here to see what you are doing. (Haribol....) I heard that some secret message came that there is a restaurant here, and only prasadam is served. So who has taken their vow to fulfil Prabhupda’s mission? Who would like to help me in fulfilling Prabhupada’s mission? I have been compiling the book on Caitanya’s life, combining about 10 books. So in the marriage of Lord Caitanya with Laxmipriya... to make a long story short, it’s said that the whole Nabadwip was flooded with Krishna prem. Just after that my door knocked, “yes, come in.” Vango. (laughter) The person came in. He said Mayapur is flooded, although Prabhupada said when Mayapur floods, he wants the whole world to flood with Krishna prem. Just after that we saw in the TV how Chennai flooded. So I think that Krishna is sending us some message. From South India, from Chennai, we have to flood the whole world with Krishnaprem. So tonight I will be meeting the Bhaktivriksha members and other preachers, than we can talk more. So I hear there were some shelter and some aspirants. So before I hand over the mike I would like to say the Hare Krishna mantra. No one should chant until I finish. And the initiates should open their right ear. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

Transcribed by: Sadananda Krishnaprem Das Date: 26-01-2016