Initiation Lecture with Indradyumna Swami

EMAIL INTRODUCTION by Giriraj Swami

On Vyasa-puja day Bhakta Sachin from Durban took his initiation vows, and we were pleased to give him his new beads and name, Sacinandana dasa. Some days later, in the presence of His Holiness Indradyumna Swami, Bhakta Nithia from Durban also took his vows, and we gave him his beads and spiritual name, Nityananda dasa. We also gave Gopala Raja dasa (and his wife, Tulasi Priya Mataji, who was in Durban) second initiation.

Then, on the auspicious day of Sri Rama Vijayadashami, seven devotees from Sri Sri Krishna-Balarama Mandir in Vrindavan, Mauritius, took their vows and became officially connected to Srila Prabhupada’s line and spiritual family. Thus Bhakta Assish became Asita Krishna, Baboosigh became Balabhadra, Bandhu Niranjana became Ramachandra, Pradeep Asculum became Premananda, Deoprakash Khooderam became Madana Gopala, Pritee Khooderam became Priya Sakhi, and Bhaktin Babita became Banumati dasi. Then we awarded second initiation to Nikunja Vasini dasi. Please bless them that they may serve Srila Prabhupada and his devotees nicely.

Here are what His Holiness Indradyumna Swami and I said when he was here on the occasion of the initiations after Vyasa-puja.

Indradyumna Swami: Today, on this auspicious day, His Holiness Giriraj Swami Maharaja is accepting two disciples into our spiritual family, Gaudiya Vaishnava sampradāya. Generally, these initiation ceremonies are held on auspicious days—- Janmashtami, Radhastami, Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva’s appearance day, Lord Ramachandra’s, or perhaps the appearance day of some great Vaishnava acharya. These are considered auspicious days. So how can we say that this is an auspicious day?

For a Vaishnava, every day is auspicious because a devotee is engaged in the devotional service of the Lord. “Auspicious” is any activity which brings us closer to the lotus feet of Guru and Gauranga, and “inauspicious” is any activity which takes us further from the lotus feet of Guru and Gauranga. It may appear that someone is very pious in this material world. He is doing good deeds, giving charity, helping the sick, educating the ignorant with mundane knowledge, etc., but if these activities are not connected to the devotional service of the Lord, to uplifting the conditioned soul from the repetition of birth and death, they cannot be called auspicious. As Kaviraja Gosvami says in Caitanya-caritāmṛta, “In this material world, conceptions of good and bad are all wrong. This world is all bad.” It is a very heavy statement. Conceptions of good and bad in this world are wrong. It is all bad except that we are here for a particular purpose, to revive our dormant sense of Krishna consciousness. That is the prime goal of life, and everything should be performed with that consciousness. So any activity that helps us come closer to the lotus feet of Guru and Krishna is transcendental activity and is actually auspicious. So although today may not necessarily be an appearance day of the Lord or an appearance day of a great devotee of the Lord, still we categorize it as an auspicious day because these initiates, by taking their vows of initiation, by committing themselves to the service of Guru and Gauranga—- their lives will become more auspicious.

brahmāṇḍa bhramite kona bhāgyavān jīva
guru-kṛṣṇa-prasāde pāya bhakti-latā-bīja

Caitanya-caritāmṛta informs us that since we left the spiritual world we have been traveling from body to body, from species of life to species of life, from universe to universe. Bahmāṇḍa means universe. And our business has been sense gratification, forgetfulness of the Lord. Somehow or other, by chance or good fortune—- actually nothing happens even in the material world by chance, what to speak of in the spiritual world. In spiritual life everything is coming by the grace of Guru and Krishna, so when we meet our spiritual master or spiritual preceptor or spiritual teacher after a long sojourn through the material world, that’s the beginning of the end of our material existence. Of course, it is a very happy day when the living entity finally takes the big step and turns around and goes back to the spiritual world. We can imagine the living entities are falling, falling from the spiritual world into the material world, falling, falling, so many years, so many lifetimes, and then, brahmāṇḍa bhramite kona bhāgyavān jīva guru-kṛṣṇa-prasāde, when he gets the prasāda, the mercy of the spiritual master in the form of his instructions, and he follows these instructions, then his life becomes auspicious; he is going upwards. It is like Lord Jagannatha’s smile, big smile. There is one song, “Oh happy day.” So this is a happy day. If one sincerely follows the instructions of the spiritual master, then it is only a question of time before one goes back home, back to Godhead. There may be some rough patches, some rough days. Still, in this material world if one clings close to the instructions of the spiritual master, one can even transcend the miseries of this material world to a greater or lesser degree.

māṁ ca yo ‘vyabhicāreṇa
bhakti-yogena sevate
sa guṇān samatītyaitān
brahma-bhūyāya kalpate

One who engages in this process of Krishna consciousness, devotional service, does not falter in any circumstance. He at once transcends the modes of material nature and comes to the spiritual platform, the level of brahman.

This can be achieved by following the instructions of the spiritual master, the most important of which is to chant:

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

There are many instructions that the spiritual master will give us to help us become detached from this material world and attached to the lotus feet of Sri Sri Radha and Krishna, but the most important instruction, as Srila Prabhupada says in the purport of Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, is to fulfill the vow one takes at the moment of initiation to chant sixteen rounds. This may seem very simple: “All problems are solved by fulfilling the vow of chanting sixteen rounds a day.” But actually it is a fact, because the chanting of Hare Krishna is in and of itself the yuga-dharma. What was achieved in Satya-yuga by thousands and thousands of years of meditation; what was achieved in the Treta-yuga by performing the agnihotra, the fire yajñas, for thousands and thousands of years; what was achieved in Dvapara-yuga by the worship of the Lord in the temple, can be achieved in Kali-yuga just by adhering to this one instruction to chant sixteen rounds of

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

We should never underestimate the potency of chanting this mantra. Of course, Vedic scriptures recommend many mantras, but this mantra is called the maha-mantra, the great chant for deliverance from the repetition of birth and death and for entrance into the kingdom of God, the spiritual world. Although it consists of only three simple words, Hare, Krishna, and Rama, they are non-different from the Supreme Lord Himself, nāma cintāmaṇiḥ kṛṣṇaś caitanya-rasa-vigrahaḥ, and thus they have the potency to liberate us. Mukunda, the name of Krishna, means the giver of liberation. Krishna is nondifferent from His name, and there is so much to be derived from associating with the Lord in the form of this transcendental sound. In a discussion between Lord Chaitanya and Srila Haridasa Thakura, Lord Chaitanya was inquiring from Haridasa Thakura about the chanting of the holy name. Mahaprabhu was inquiring about the welfare of the immovable living beings like trees and plants, living entities who really have no chance for liberation because they do not have a human form of life by which one can understand God. Still the holy names are so powerful that Haridasa Thakura said that even these living entities whose consciousness is practically manifest can also be delivered by the chanting of Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

And in another discussion with the nāmācārya, Srila Haridasa Thakura, and some brahmans about the glories of the holy name, it was revealed that by chanting this transcendental sound vibration, first all of one’s sinful reactions which were dormant within one’s heart for thousands of lifetimes, hundreds of thousands of lifetimes—- millions of lifetimes’ sinful reactions are destroyed just by unconscious chanting.

Sometimes people just refer to the Hare Krishna movement, The Hare Krishnas or The Krishnas. The holy name is so powerful, so merciful, that even chanting unconsciously, not knowing that Hare, Krishna, and Rama are names of the Supreme Lord, even without understanding that fact, just repeating that name or a portion of that name, krs-na, ha-ra-ma, one derives so much benefit: Sinful reactions are destroyed within the heart. These sinful reactions are so nasty they cannot be destroyed even by death. When one dies, death destroys the gross body, but death does not destroy the subtle body where the sinful reactions are residing. Thus we carry them birth after birth after birth. Even if one is in the middle of a battlefield and a missile happens to hit that person in the middle of the battlefield and he is completely obliterated, there is nothing left; still, the sinful reactions in the heart are not destroyed. He carries them with him life after life after life after life. But even unconscious chanting of Hare Krishna destroys millions and millions of sinful reactions. So only for that reason one should chant Hare Krishna. It is not the ultimate reason we approach the Lord, but certainly it is something amazing. No one wants to suffer, but we suffer because of our past actions; either good or bad, we have to take birth in this material world and experience disease, old age, and death. But if we just chant Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, we can avoid so much suffering, so much anxiety in this world.

Another benefit of chanting Hare Krishna is that the material desires which are themselves the sources of our sinful reactions—- because we engage in a material way we get a reaction—- those material desires also are destroyed. But the greatest benefit of chanting Hare Krishna is that one can reawaken his love for Krishna, his love for God. So any way if one chants, it is always beneficial.

Once Prabhupada was describing a Simply Wonderful. Actually the Simply Wonderful is not a Vedic recipe. It comes from the back of the box of Carnation Instant Milk. The devotees were using instant milk for some purpose; maybe milk wasn’t available. And on the back of the box there was this recipe for a sweet. The recipe said if you take the powdered milk and some butter and some sugar and you mix them together and roll them, you get these little yellow balls. So they started making them because they were simple and easy to make, quick, and they could offer them to Krishna and distribute them to the public. Then when Prabhupada visited New York they gave Prabhupada one and asked, “Prabhupada, what do you think of this?” “It is simply wonderful.” So the name stuck. And Prabhupada said,” The Simply Wonderful is so nice that wherever you bite into it, you are going to enjoy.” There is no direction: whether you bite into the west side, or the east or the north or the south, just bite into it and you’ll enjoy the Simply Wonderful.

So chanting Hare Krishna is like that. One does not even have to understand the whole science behind the chanting or the laws of the chanting. If one is fortunate enough that the tongue vibrates Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, one is going to get the benefit. Just like medicine—- you go to the doctor, you are sick, you place your faith in the doctor, “Make me better,” and he gives you a few pills. You don’t know how the pills are working. You don’t have the time to study the science behind it, the pharmaceutical combination of ingredients that make up the pill. But it goes in your body and even without your understanding very much, you get better. You get cured. So even if one just chants Hare Krsna like that, “Oh it is fun"; “I like the song"; “I like the beat"; “I like the atmosphere because I like the devotees"; “It is nice to chant"; “It is a nice song"—- OK! You just chant like that, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, you are going to get some benefit.

So we can chant like that and get freedom from sinful reactions, and we can uproot our material desires. But the third benefit, the ultimate benefit of chanting this Hare Krishna maha-mantra, is that our dormant love of God is awakened. Srila Prabhupada says Krishna consciousness is not an artificial imposition on the mind. It is not something artificial that we have to learn. Krishna consciousness or God consciousness is there within our heart already. Everyone by nature is a devotee of God, a devotee of Krishna. That love of God burns forever within our heart like a pilot light. I am sure somewhere in this house there is a little pilot light burning, and when we go to turn on the hot water, we turn the knob and the pilot light bursts forward; it gets bigger and heats the water that is going through so you get a hot shower. It is always there; the pilot light was always burning somewhere in the big canister of gas. Likewise, fire is always dormant within wood. Wood has the capacity to burn; you just have to learn the art of releasing it. Touch a match to the wood, and it catches fire. So within our hearts, regardless of who we are, where we are born, what we are doing, that capacity for love of God is always there. It is just sleeping now, dormant. The whole science of spiritual life is to awaken that sleeping soul to his real position, jīvera svarūpa haya kṛṣṇera nitya-dāsa: I am eternally a servant of God. I am not black, white, yellow, or green. I am not man; I am not woman; I am not a human being, a dog, a cat, or a fish. What am I? My eternal position is servant of God, servant of Krishna. So that dormant sense of love of God is there, but that can be perfected only when we receive this maha-mantra through disciplic succession. That’s the point.

And anyone can get benefit from chanting Hare Krishna. Even a dog, Prabhupada said, can benefit from hearing this mantra. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu demonstrated when He was going through the Jharkhand forest: He was chanting Hare Krishna, and by His chanting, by hearing the chanting of the Lord, the Krishna consciousness in the hearts of the tigers, lions, bears, and dears, rabbits and snakes bursts forward in love of God, and they were all experiencing the perfection of chanting Hare Krishna, love of God, which is manifested in ecstatic symptoms like crying, rolling on the ground, faltering of the voice, and unconsciousness. These are symptoms of one who possesses love of God. One time Prabhupada was discussing with a nun from the Catholic Church. He asked her, “What is your concept of love of God?” She said, “Love of God? Blue skies, white clouds, butterflies, soft breeze, baby smiling.” Prabhupada was incredulous. He said, “This is your concept of love of God?” Then she said,” What is your understanding? How do you recognize one who has love of God?” And Prabhupada said, “Love of God? ‘Oh Govinda, feeling Your separation I am considering one moment to be like twelve years or more, and tears are flowing from my eyes like torrents of rain. I am feeling all vacant in the world in Your absence.’ This is love of God.” All the loving sentiments that we have in this world are infinitesimal compared to the loving feelings we can have for God or Krishna, and that is the joy of life—- love. We were discussing in the car yesterday with Gaura and Kamila that the joy of life is love and that desire to love is completely satisfied when we engage it in loving sentiments for Krishna or God. And that can be felt by chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

But to get that prema, that love for God, one has to receive the mantra through guru-paramparā. You could just be a guy walking on the street and chant Hare Krishna, and you can destroy sinful reactions. You can chant for a long time perhaps to get moksa, to get freedom from all attachments from this world and some attachment to Krishna. But Prabhupada said to get prema, to get love of God, you have to receive that mantra through the guru-paramparā, from the spiritual master. You have to hear in the right ear. Traditionally when you get initiated you hear the mantra from the guru in the right ear. That authorizes us, blesses us to chant and get the full perfection of love of God. Actually initiation is essential. It is an essential part of our advancement in Krishna consciousness. Therefore it is stressed in the very beginning of The Nectar of Devotion to seek out a spiritual master, hear from that spiritual master, and take dīkṣā. We have to take initiation. Then we get the full benefit from chanting the maha-mantra. We get that very valuable blessing from the spiritual master, the authorization to chant, the sanction to chant, the blessing to perfect our spiritual life through calling out to the Lord in the form of His holy names.

The holy name is like a very valuable jewel. We have to carefully guard that jewel against thieves, because when there is gold or jewels, pearls or silver, you have to always be careful because there are thieves in this world. So you have to protect it, put it in the bank, in a safe deposit box. Or carefully you put it some place in your house. You do something to protect it. So this jewel of love of God that is given to us, the chanting of the holy names of the Lord, we have to protect it; we have to guard it. And what are we guarding against? Within our heart are our natural enemies like lust, anger, and greed. These are the enemies of every transcendentalist on the spiritual path—- his lust, his anger and his greed. If one is not careful these things can drag the aspiring candidate back down in this material life. We’ve seen that even great devotees have fallen from the path of devotional service because the thieves of lust, anger, and greed have dragged them down. So we have to protect this seed of love of God, which we water by chanting Hare Krishna, by building a little wall around it. That wall can be taken as the other vows that we take at the moment of initiation. The first vow is that we’ll chant sixteen rounds every day, and the other vows are there to protect the chanting so that it does not deteriorate. We promise no more meat eating, no more intoxication, no illicit sex, and no more gambling. And those vows give us great strength to protect our devotional lives, our devotional service. Then we can perfect our Krishna consciousness and go back home, back to Godhead.

Initiation means to initiate, to begin. This is the beginning, although obviously these devotees have been practicing Krishna consciousness for quite some time. We have seen them for many years. Still this ceremony, initiation, is considered the beginning because a commitment, a formal contract is made. Once the contract is made, the signers of that contract do not break that contract. We follow those vows taken at the moment of initiation. If we do so we can perfect our lives and go back home, back to Godhead. So it is a very auspicious moment.

And just as the disciple agrees, “I’ll chant sixteen rounds, I’ll follow the four regulative principles,” the guru also takes a vow in a sense. A contract works both ways. What is the guru’s part in the formal contract at the moment of initiation? In essence, the guru is saying, “I’ll take charge of you. I’ll take responsibility for you and connect you to the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada.” In our case we connect our disciples to the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada, and thus the disciples are connected to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, Gaurakishora dasa Babaji, Bhaktivinoda Thakura. They have the shelter of the whole disciplic succession – six Gosvamis, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Radha, and Krishna. The spiritual master promises that within his capacity he will take that disciple back home, back to Godhead. So serious is that commitment in the heart of the guru that he is ready to come back if necessary. If the disciple does not make it back to Godhead in this lifetime, then by the higher arrangement of the Lord, the spiritual master will even come back to rescue his disciple, just like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu rescued His very confidential servant, Krishnadasa, who deviated from the path and got attracted to some lady in the gypsy camp and gave up the association of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu went and dragged that disciple back by the hair and reinstated him in his position as a servant of the Lord. So it works both ways: the disciple is taking the vows, and the guru is also taking the commitment very seriously, and that produces the wonderful result of the flower of love of Godhead within the heart of the disciple, and then—- back home, back to Godhead.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said once, “I see no reason why all my disciples cannot go back to Godhead in this one lifetime.” This is a very daunting perspective, to go back to Godhead in one life, because even Krishna says, vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti sa mahatma su-durlabhaḥ: after many, many lifetimes one who is actually in knowledge surrenders unto Me completely, and perfects his Krishna consciousness. But this is all possible by the infinite mercy of Lord Chaitanya, Srila Prabhupada, and the immediate spiritual master. We just chant sixteen rounds every day, follow the four regulative principles, and commit ourselves to the service of Guru and Gauranga according to our capacity; if we are sincere like that, then the infinite mercy, combined mercy of Guru and Gauranga, can take us back to the lotus feet of Gandharvika-Giridhari in the spiritual sky.

So this is a very auspicious day.

Hare Krishna!

Giriraj Swami: The original spiritual master or teacher is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, called Krishna. Of course, the Supreme Lord has different names in different languages and different cultures, but we call Him Krishna. So, Krishna imparts perfect knowledge to His immediate disciples, and one of His immediate disciples is Lord Brahma. Lord Brahma imparts the same knowledge to his immediate students, as he imparted the knowledge to Narada. Narada imparted the same knowledge to his immediate disciples, as he did to Vyasa, and thus the perfect knowledge that comes from God, the original spiritual master, is passed down from disciple to disciple to disciple to disciple in an unbroken chain called disciplic succession until finally the same knowledge reaches us.

The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam explains that the knowledge of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the ripened fruit of the Vedic tree of knowledge:

nigama-kalpa-taror galitaṁ phalaṁ
śuka-mukhād amṛta-drava-saṁyutam
pibata bhāgavataṁ rasam ālayam
muhur aho rasikā bhuvi bhāvukāḥ

“O expert and thoughtful men, relish Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the mature fruit of the desire tree of Vedic literatures. It emanated from the lips of Śrī Śukadeva Gosvāmī. Therefore this fruit has become even more tasteful, although its nectarean juice was already relishable for all, including liberated souls.” (SB 1.1.3)

Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura has given an example of how one gets the ripened fruit from the top of a tree. At least the system in the past was that the boys or whoever would climb up the tree. One would climb up to the top and perch there, one would climb to some branch a little lower, someone else would climb to another branch a little lower, and finally one would be stationed on the ground. So the boy at the top would take the fruit, say a mango, and pass it to the boy on the next branch down. The next boy would pass it to the boy on the next branch down, and he in turn would pass it to the next boy down. Finally the boy on the lowest branch would hand it very carefully to the boy standing on the ground, and thus the fruit that was situated at the top of the tree would be passed down from hand to hand until it reached the person on the ground. And when it reached the ground it would be in the same perfect condition as it was on the top of the tree – not damaged or bruised or broken in any way.

In the same way, the perfect knowledge given by God Himself is taken by the first disciple, who in turn becomes a spiritual master and gives the same knowledge to the next disciple, who in turn becomes a spiritual master and gives the same knowledge to the next disciple, until the same knowledge is passed down through disciplic succession to us.

So we have received the knowledge from Srila Prabhupada, who received it from his spiritual master, who received it from his spiritual master, and so on, and ultimately from Krishna. And now the same knowledge is available to us through Srila Prabhupada’s books and lectures and conversations, and from those who have received instructions and guidance directly from Srila Prabhupada.

Now, just as the knowledge begins with God or Krishna and comes down through disciplic succession, one has an obligation when one receives transcendental knowledge to reciprocate and render service, to offer service up. So just as the knowledge comes down through disciplic succession, the service is offered up through disciplic succession. I offer service to my spiritual master, and he in turn offers service to his spiritual master, who in turn offers the service to his spiritual master, until the service is offered to the original spiritual master, to the Supreme Spiritual Master, God or Krishna.

So, disciplic succession is most essential in devotional service, both for receiving knowledge and for offering service, and at the time of initiation the link or connection between the disciple and the personal spiritual master who is the immediate link in the disciplic chain becomes solemnized and consecrated and formalized. Of course, because we do receive knowledge from Srila Prabhupada’s books and recorded lectures and conversations and from his followers—- not just from our immediate spiritual master, but from so many other disciples and followers of Srila Prabhupada, even other disciples of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples—- we are indebted to all of them, and they are all our gurus or śikṣā-gurus. Guru has two divisions, śikṣā-guru, or one who imparts knowledge or instructions, and dīkṣā-guru, or the one who gives initiation and the mantra. According to scripture, one must have only one dīkṣā-guru but one may have many śikṣā-gurus. And because we have all been delivered by the mercy of Srila Prabhupada, we have all been given transcendental knowledge by the efforts of Srila Prabhupada, he is a very important śikṣā-guru, and in most cases the most important guru. Although in an ultimate sense Krishna is the supreme guru, for us, in the context of ISKCON, Srila Prabhupada is the supreme guru, and everyone who repeats his message—- his various disciples and disciples of disciples and other followers—- they can also be taken as śikṣā-gurus and served.

Therefore Srila Prabhupada instructed us to address the other devotees or disciples as Prabhu. Prabhu means “master.” And Lord Chaitanya also taught, gopī-bhartuḥ pada-kamalayor dāsa-dāsānudāsaḥ: we are the servants of the servant of the servant of Krishna. We are servants of the servant of the servant in the line of disciplic succession beginning with our spiritual master, and we are also servants of the other servants of our spiritual master, and of the other servants of other servants of his spiritual master, and so on. Thus we can remain perfectly situated as servants of the servants of Krishna.

As His Holiness Indradyumna Swami Maharaja mentioned, at the time of initiation the connection becomes formal. The disciples take their vows, which they promise to keep for their whole lives and into eternity, and the spiritual master also accepts them as his spiritual charges to guide and help in their spiritual lives until ultimately they attain full shelter at the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada and the disciplic succession – through the six Gosvamis, to Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and ultimately back to Sri Sri Radha-Krishna.

Of course, many of the devotees here have heard the philosophy of Krishna consciousness before. But we also have some visitors who haven’t heard so much of the philosophy.

So now we shall proceed with the taking of vows.

Hare Krishna!