20220616 Ātma-nivedana (Dīkṣā) Ceremony

The following is an initiation talk given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on june 16th,2022 at Iskcon new rajapur Jagannatha dham in Bangalore, India.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya iśvaram

Hariḥ oṁ tat sat!

Jayapatākā Swami: You heard the lecture on the ten offences to the holy name.

You have taken your vows.

I was listening to a lecture this morning and Śrīla Prabhupāda was saying how the human beings they should avoid doing sins.

So, by avoiding eating meat, egg, onion, garlic, not gambling, no intoxication and no illicit sex, any sex outside of marriage is illicit.

The gṛhastha life is very important.

It is the only āśrama where sex life is allowed.

There are two types of gṛhasthas – one is gṛhamedhī and the other is gṛhastha.

Gṛhamedhī means that they only work hard for sense gratification.

Gṛhastha means that they keep Kṛṣṇa in the center.

And they use their senses in a controlled manner to please Kṛṣṇa.

Being in this material world we are suffering and enjoying.

But the enjoyment is very limited and is simply on the basis of our material body.

However, the real purpose of human life is spiritual.

Athāto brahma jijñāsā.

Human being they have nice facilities, cities, apartments, flats, comforts, why? Dogs, hogs whole day they work and eat.

They fight with each other, sometimes they have sex on the street.

Because they have no spiritual life.

Human beings are meant for spiritual inquiry.

That is why a human being does not have to work as hard as an animal.

A human being should try to understand who is God.

In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it describes there is the impersonal Brahman, all pervasive Paramātmā and ultimately there is Bhagavān, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

So, in bhakti-yoga we focus on the Personality of Godhead.

But I read a letter of Śrīla Prabhupāda where he says if the wife is helping the husband in the spiritual life, she is very service minded, then he does not need to take sannyāsa.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura he was a gṛhastha all his life.

And he had Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda as his son.

He had various children who were all devotees.

Like Lalitā-prasāda Ṭhākura and others.

We want to use our senses in Kṛṣṇa’s service.

In the house we should have Deities, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, chant japa 16 rounds a day minimum, and we do kīrtana.

We read Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Caitanya-caritāmṛta, and in this way our consciousness is purified.

We offer our food to Kṛṣṇa and we take prasāda.

I think I told you about the drama that was done in Chennai.

Small children, they were playing the part of Yamadūtas.

One child was playing the part of Yamarāja.

The children playing the role of Yamadūtas they said, what do we do? What do we do?

These Kṛṣṇa conscious householders, they have Deities in their houses!

Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, is there.

Hare Kṛṣṇa nāma kartā hai! They chant Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Haribol! How can we take them to hell? So we have to find another job!

Everybody does like this, hell will be empty!

So it was a very nice drama.

At least we want our gṛhasthas, our devotees to be careful and stay Kṛṣṇa conscious.

And if you bring up your children in a Kṛṣṇa conscious way that will be very pleasing.

Please perform the nava-vidha-bhakti.

What King Ambarīṣa did was that he came into the temple, he cleaned the temple, he had darśana of the Deities.

He heard the classes, he chanted Hare Kṛṣṇa, he offered his obeisances.

This way he did all the nine processes of bhakti-yoga.

Even Durvāsa Muni he got unnecessarily angry at Ambarīṣa Mahārāja, cursed him, but Durvāsa Muni was chased by Sudarśana cakra.

So just taking renounced life doesn’t matter, who is a devotee that matters.

Ambarīṣa Mahārāja was a gṛhastha but he was a devotee and so he was protected.

Finally, Durvāsa Muni went to Brahmā, Śiva, Viṣṇu but they all said that the only person who can save you is Ambarīṣa Mahārāja.

He paid his obeisances to Ambarīṣa Mahārāja.

Ambarīṣa being a humble Vaiṣṇava, he said, please take prasāda!

Haribol!

So taking initiation is a very serious thing.

You are connected to the paramparā.

And we hope that you will be very careful and follow all the vows.

And make many other devotees.

Haribol!