20220909 Initiation Address

The following is an Initiation Class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on September 9th, 2022 in Śrī Dhāma Māyāpur, India.

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

Hariḥ oṁ tat sat!

Jayapataka Swami: Ṛṣabhadeva had given the teaching that a guru has to teach how to stop rebirth in the material world. Father, mother, their children – they should help get out of the cycle of birth and death. Be he a king, a deva, it is their responsibility to get their people in the kingdom out of this material world. Here, have all of you assembled taken their vows? Those who have not taken vows please raise your hands. Taking these vows means, not committing any of the four sinful activities in Kali-yuga. And you will assist me in fulfilling Śrīla Prabhupāda’s instructions. Now bhakti-yoga means that we will do everything in the service of the Lord. Generally, people think that sense gratification is the only goal of life. But the devotees wants to serve the Lord. As long as we have this body we will have both happiness and distress. We have to bear both happiness and distress. The happiness of the material world is found even in the animal birth. Dogs, pigs, eat stool. They also have happiness. But the human being has a higher standard than that of happiness. Taking the name of God, doing serving to the Lord, we can experience spiritual happiness. That is brahma-soukhyam-anantam. Unlimited happiness. In the adhivāsa kīrtana we sing – ānandera-sīmā-nāi, ānandera-sīmā-nāi, nirānande dūre jāi, nirānande dūre jāi. Who all here want unlimited happiness? That can be got by serving the Lord. Lord Caitanya said, gṛhe thāko vane thāko sadā hari bole ḍāko. The scriptures say, that brahmacārīs will follow celibacy. And only the gṛhasthas can as husband and wife have a sexual relationship in marriage. Other relations outside of marriage between man and woman are not allowed. The only aim of our life will be to do everything to satisfy the Lord. In this material world we have a material body and we were involved in sense gratification. But if we continue to be involved in sense gratification and that be our goal then we will continue to come again and again taking birth in this material world. But if we try to satisfy the Lord, think of the Lord, worship the Lord, take His name and do kīrtana, then after this lifetime we can go back to Godhead. There is no birth, death, old age and disease in the spiritual world. And that way those gṛhasthas who have children, you should try to see that they also grow up in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and become devotees. I will not talk much as there are others also speaking.