20231211 Initiation Address

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram
Harihi oṁ tat sat

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram
Harihi oṁ tat sat

Jayapatākā Swami: Where have the devotees come from today? East Medinipur and Howrah district and some from Assam and Odisha. Who all have taken the oath? Who have not taken the oath? Today is a special day.

Today is the disappearance day of Sāraṅga Murāri Ṭhākura. He had only one disciple, Murāri Caitanya dāsa. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu had told him that he should have at least one disciple. Mahāprabhu had told this many times. Then Sāraṅga Ṭhākura decided that, “The first person I see tomorrow morning I will make him my disciple.” He went to have bath in the Ganges and when he was in the water, a dead body came and touched him. Generally, if anyone has died of snake bite then it was the custom to put the body on a raft made of banana bark and float it down the river. That dead body came close to Sāraṅga Ṭhākura. Sāraṅga Ṭhākura thought that I had taken a vow that the first person I saw I would take him as my disciple. So he immediately gave the initiation mantra to him. Then that person woke up, came to life from dead state. He gave him the name Murāri Caitanya dāsa. His father and mother heard that their son had come back to life and came and told him to go back home. Murāri Caitanya dāsa said that, “I was your son but I died, now my father is Sāraṅga Murāri Ṭhākura and I will stay with him.” Because Murāri Caitanya dāsa had died and had been brought back to life, he was not afraid of death. He climbed up on a tiger and went into a village. If you saw a person coming into your village on a tiger what would you do? He would tell everyone chant Hare Kṛṣṇa! Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare! This way with the blessings of Sāraṅga Ṭhākura, he had many disciples. Sāraṅga Ṭhākura had one disciple and that disciple had a thousand disciples.

For becoming a disciple, one has to follow some rules. They have to make a determination that they will follow their spiritual master. Once I went to Bangladesh and had flown by helicopter. There was a situation that we were caught in a kāl-vaiśākī storm. The helicopter pilot said that in this situation we cannot fly and so he landed in a village. All the people came and surrounded the helicopter. How did this helicopter come here they were wondering as normally no helicopter comes to the village? Have you seen such a scene in your village? Then one lady came and said, “Ah, this is my spiritual master!” Then we got off the helicopter and went to their home. In their home there was temple kind of altar and there was my photo and there was the photo of another guru. “Okay, who is he?” I asked. The lady said, “He is my husband’s guru. He eats fish and cooks separately. He eats fish – I have a vegetarian guru and he has a guru who eats nonveg.” Now all have taken the oath that they will not have meat, fish, eggs or any nonveg in the future. The kula-guru, the family guru is not really a sad-guru, they don’t follow the regulative principles carefully. The scriptures say that having a sad-guru is not an offence. I hope that you will not think of vegetarian guru or nonveg guru, all of you will have vegetarian food.

This way, ISKCON means International Society for Krishna consciousness, means thinking of Kṛṣṇa all the time. So it is called Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We follow the four regulative principles but the sinful people do not. Caitanyadeva, in this Kali-yuga has delivered the sinful people under one condition – if you take initiation, you will follow all the rules all your life. In Kali-yuga no one can say that I have not committed any sin. Everyone would have committed some sin, more or less. But Caitanyadeva liberates us from all sins! Haribol! Those who are taking initiation, their sins will be washed away but no way that one can break the rules. So that way, all of you will make efforts that you will do this way. Husband and wife, staying together, there is no rule broken but when there is association with another lady or man, then the rule is broken.

Śrīla Prabhupāda said that the gṛhasthas need to have ācārya children, this is very much needed. Husband and wife should pray to the Lord that they should have a devotee of Kṛṣṇa as their child. There is a saṁskāra, gārbhadāna-saṁskāra. Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī had written this in the Sat-kriyā-saṁsara-dīpikā book. Also about the other rituals that are performed like anna-prāśana, marriage, etc. Among these rituals is the gārbhadāna-saṁskāra. Brahmacārīs, sannyāsīs and vānaprasthas cannot perform this ceremony. This is only for the gṛhasthas. Those who are in a particular āśrama, there are some things special to that āśrama. Generally, we want the sannyāsīs and brahmacārīs be paramahaṁsas. But Śrīla Prabhupāda said that husband and wife, it would be nice if they also became paramahaṁsas. How do they become paramahaṁsas? All the time think of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, all the time think of Gaurāṅga and Nityānanda.

Kṛṣṇa performed His līlās in Vṛndāvana and then He went to Mathurā. Then Jarasandha and other demonic kings were again and again attacking and so Kṛṣṇa created a city under water called Dvārakā. When Kṛṣṇa went from Vṛndāvana to Mathurā, the vraja-vāsīs day and night were thinking of Kṛṣṇa. Rādhārāṇī told a bumble bee, now a days bumble bees do not talk. She told the bee that you please don’t talk about Kṛṣṇa. Now whoever hears about Kṛṣṇa, they cannot think about anything else. Now the vraja-vāsīs were in the mood of separation, vipralambha all the time. Caitanyadeva taught us that if we serve Rādhā Kṛṣṇa, Gaurāṅga Nityānanda all the time in separation, if we think of Them all the time in separation, then we are with Kṛṣṇa all the time. The scripture says that Kṛṣṇa never took a step outside of Vṛndāvana. But for the ordinary viewers Kṛṣṇa left Vṛndāvana for Mathurā. But Kṛṣṇa was in Vraja-dhāma and the devotees could feel His presence by thinking of Him and He saw this situation of the devotees. So all of you can also think that Caitanyadeva was here 500 years ago. Kṛṣṇa was here 5000 years ago. But Kṛṣṇa, Gaurāṅga are the Absolute Truth. There is no difference in chanting Their names. Their name, their thoughts, their pastimes are all the same.

Akrūra saw the lotus footprints of Kṛṣṇa and started crying and fell down on the lotus footprints and paid obeisances. Yesterday I was reading and I remembered that Kṛṣṇa in the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa had predicted that 5000 years after the beginning of Kali-yuga, there will be a golden age for 10,000 years. These ten thousand years there will be expansion of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Caitanyadeva came 4,500 years after Kali-yuga started. After 5000 years of Kali-yuga started, who came? His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda had come! If you all stay in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, in the consciousness of Caitanyadeva, you chant, eat prasāda and do kīrtana do various Nāmahaṭṭa etc. that means the caitanya-līlā is going on. Śrīla Prabhupāda left this philosophy all over the world and he had instructions to spread this in India. So Caitanyadeva had said:

pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi grāma
sarvatra pracāra haibe mora nāma
[CB Antya-khaṇḍa 4.126]

You are actually participating in the caitanya-līlā! As long as you are in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, you are also in this caitanya-līlā! How does it feel to be part of the pastime, the līlā? Our His Holiness Gaurāṅga Prema Mahārāja other Nāmahaṭṭa preachers, for their sake, you have all been kept in caitanya-līlā. Generally, when the guru is alive, no disciples can give initiation. But there are many examples in the scriptures that if the dīkṣā-guru orders then the disciples could be initiation gurus. His Holiness Gaurāṅga Prema Mahārāja, this way has become an initiating guru and more will also become initiating gurus. Now, those who had taken shelter and aspiring from me in the past, I am giving them initiation. But in the future, I will reduce giving initiation. Those who are taking initiation, they should realize that they are part of the caitanya-līlā, that they will always think of Kṛṣṇa, they will always think of Caitanyadeva. Hare Kṛṣṇa!

I will chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra now:

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