Initiation Lectures—with Indradyumna Swami

Indradyumna Swami: . . .will be receiving today- the sacred Gayatri mantra and the [Unintelligible] mantras for the performance of deity worship, which is our yajña or sacrifice. And so these five items, they constitute the formality of initiation. So now we can hear from the great souls on the meaning of initiation and the offences to be avoided in the chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.

No, we worked it out before. Should I speak first?

Devotee: Yes.

Indradyumna Swami: First of all, I would like to thank my dear godbrother His Holiness Giriraj Maharaja for allowing us to have this very wonderful and auspicious ceremony here today on this property, and for his presiding over the ceremony as well. It brings very nice memories back to me because the last initiation I did with the godbrother was with His Holiness Tamal Krishna Goswami Maharaja. And I know that Maharaja and Goswami Maharaja and Giriraj Maharaja were very close, so somehow this is bringing memories to me of Tamal Krishna Maharaja. That initiation was in Sydney, Australia. And we both sat and we both accepted disciples that day, and Maharaja also asked me to speak first. I think I spoke a little too long because after about an hour I could see Goswami Maharaja was getting a little restless and I thought maybe it wasn’t so appropriate that the junior godbrother speak so long in front of the senior godbrother. So I won’t make that mistake again today. But it is just very nice to do this with Maharaja.

I love Maharaja very much and it is very nice to come here and have his association and do these type of things together. There are certain things we do in devotional service that make indelible impressions upon our hearts and I hanker for these type of moments in this type of association where we work very closely together serving Srila Prabhupada by, in particular like today, accepting these disciples, helping them get connected to Srila Prabhupada and our guru-paramparā. I thank my constant eternal companion Sri Prahlada, for once again for letting over get another initiation ceremony. If I close my eyes I think of Prahlada in different ways on the hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana giving the classes. And one of the impressions I always, in my mind’s eye is- I am sitting here and Prahlada’s doing the yajña, we are initiating disciples. And I thank all the respected devotees for coming today, with their presence making this a very auspicious event.

A special thank you to Natasha’s sister, her twin sister, who made a special effort to come today as the camerawoman for this event. And of course, this is a very special day for two ladies here. This initiation ceremony has been compared by acharyas to second birth. Our first birth is not anything very wonderful but this birth, this spiritual birth, this is something very significant. Our first birth is into the womb of material nature. The garbha means the womb. Just like the householder couple they have the Garbhadhan Sanskar, that before they unite for producing a child there is a certain ceremony that takes place to purify the womb, garbha, to receive the child. If it is auspicious, the Garbhadhan Sanskar, then it is guaranteed an elevated soul will take his birth. So we are born into the garbha, just like we have Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, he appears in the womb of material nature. But what is the nature of this material nature? This material world, it is tamas, it is the ignorance, it is darkness, the darkness of ignorance. So although people have a tendency to celebrate their birth every year at a certain day celebrate as a birthday party, now we are not making any comparison to yesterday because we were honoring the Vaishnavas who have taken proper advantage of the human form of life to become Krishna conscious, so that is something wonderful. But we are talking about the 99.999 percent of human society who has no clue as to what is the purpose of life. [Unintelligible 00:06:26]. They take birth in complete illusion, as to what is the goal of life and how to achieve it? It is very sad, it is very unfortunate and it is like a festival of fools when they come together to celebrate their birth into the material nature because what is the nature of this birth that it is accompanied by endless suffering? We get the material body which is the birth process, we get the material body, but what is the nature of the body?

The body is an abode of suffering. The major sufferings of birth, disease, old age and death. And I mean practically speaking, although we consider the body, we try to enjoy the body, the body is more- it is more made for suffering so that eventually the living entity will come to his senses and desire to go back home, back to Godhead, to the spiritual world. So if one is in a suffering condition, if one is ignorant; our suffering is due to our ignorance of who we are and what is our relationship with God, if one is in ignorance one should try to come out of that ignorance by approaching a teacher. Just like, everyone will accept that the child is ignorant so therefore an education is required in order to be maturely successful. So we have so many teachers in school. We begin from Kindergarten, and we go to grade school, and we go to High school, and we go to University, we go onto our PhD. At every step we are being instructed how to achieve success in material life. So we require teacher. But if we realize that we are in the greatest illusion, is that we have forgotten who we are, who is God and what is our relationship with God, then we have to seek out a teacher who can enlighten us in that subject matter. And that is the spiritual master. Sometimes the spiritual master is compared to a father, a spiritual father. But the type of father that we get in Krishna consciousness is very unique. Canakya Pandit has stated very nicely that, there does not exist a ruby in every mountain, one will not find a pearl on the head of every elephant, one cannot find sandalwood in every forest and neither can one find the association of sadhus in every birth. Pearls are very rare and rubies are very rare and sandalwood is actually very rare, well it only grows in certain parts of the world, and similarly the association of sadhus is very rare. But what does one achieve by the association of the sadhus?

’sādhu-saṅga’, ‘sādhu-saṅga’—sarva-śāstre kaya

lava-mātra sādhu-saṅge sarva-siddhi haya

That one gets the impression of Krishna consciousness.

Bhaktivinoda Thakura has described that Krishna consciousness is something which is imbibed. He uses this word, he is writing in the English language, “Krishna consciousness is imbibed from the devotees.” And Prabhupada, he also spoke in a similar way that Krishna consciousness is like an infectious disease but in a good sense. It is like, how do you catch a disease, now there is a disease going around the world, some kind of pneumonia/flu they call, and people are very scared because you get it in public places when someone sneezes aachhoo. If you breathe in you get the disease. So probably Krishna consciousness is like an infectious disease but in the good sense, that we come into contact with devotees. ādau śraddhā tataḥ sādhu-saṅgo. And by that sādhu-saṅga, by their association we develop a desire to be like those sadhus—to imbibe their qualities, to have their realizations that is something very unique, something very special, something desirable.

One time a devotee said to Prabhupada,

Disciple: “Prabhupada, I want to be just like you.” 

All the others, there were some sannyasis: “What! This is offense.”

Prabhupada said, “No, that is very nice. You want to be like your spiritual master. Spiritual master is setting the example.”

Lord Chaitanya glorified Haridasa Thakura, “You are the spiritual master of the three worlds because you practice nicely, you set the example and you preach. Some people practice but they don’t preach, some people preach but they don’t practice.” So the spiritual master sets the example for the disciple what it means to be a perfect devotee. So if we follow in the footsteps of the spiritual master then we imbibe, almost mystically imbibe that Krishna consciousness. So he is our spiritual father. Just as the mundane father plants the seed of life into the womb of the mother, similarly, the spiritual master plants the seed of devotional service in the heart of the disciple. Actually it is not a perfect analogy. No analogy in this world is perfect in consideration of the perfectness of the spiritual world but analogies help bring the point closer because the seed of Krishna consciousness is actually already there in the heart of the living entity. This is described by Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami: The seed of Krishna consciousness is already there in the heart of every living entity.

It is something like a pilot light that never goes out. We use gas here in the [Unintelligible 00:12:27] in the houses and we turn the flame on and we turn the flame off, but the place where the gas is kept, the gas tank, there is always a little light there- it never goes out, it never extinguishes, never meant to be extinguished, it is always there. You simply turn the little handle and because of the presence of that little pilot light, we call it, the gas comes into a big flame and then we get hot water. So similarly, the Krishna consciousness and the living entity can never be extinguished. One can deny God to the umpteenth degree—“There is no God. There is no soul. There is no life after death. Everything happens by chance.” He can make so many atheistic claims and deny the nature of the soul and nature of God. He can go on ranting and raving like this. Deny it, but the fact is that, that flame of Krishna Consciousness is always there in the heart, it is never completely extinguished. But when we come in contact with the devotees the flame begins to grow.

So Krishna consciousness is something, there is always the seed, bhakti-latā-bīja, its always there. And what is the spiritual master’s duty? It is to fan that fire of Krishna consciousness. So by his association, by his instructions, by his example that flame of Krishna consciousness in the heart of the disciples ignited, turns into a flame. So the seed is always there, the bhakti-latā-bīja. And the spiritual master gives us a very powerful tool, a very powerful medium by which we can water that bhakti-latā-bīja, just like Giriraj Swami Maharaja. He has his book Watering the Seed. So essentially, the seed of Krishna consciousness is watered by the most important instruction of the spiritual master. The spiritual master may give many instructions to his general body of disciples or devotees, he may write many books on the science of Krishna Consciousness, he may set many wonderful examples in his own personal life in his preaching, but Prabhupada took the essence. He said, “The most important instruction of the spiritual master for watering that seed of Krishna consciousness is the chanting of sixteen rounds a day.”

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

And that instruction by Srila Prabhupada, especially that number sixteen, that is a concession because Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, as we know, he instructed his disciples to chant sixty-four rounds a day. Of course, that Prahlada has informed me that sixty-four rounds a day was generally for the devotees living in the math. Is that true Prahlada?

Prahlada: Yes

Indradyumna Swami: And the household disciples may not have had the same prescription of sixty-four rounds a day because they were very busy. In the math the business is śravaṇam kīrtanam, [Unintelligible 00:15:36] and the preacher. So householders had to go to work very early, so you can imagine if our householders had to change sixty-four rounds it would be very difficult. They have trouble chanting sixteen rounds. But there was a particular instruction, a particular practice which the householders didn’t get off easy, it is not like that. The householder disciples of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, at the end of the month when they received their money, I don’t know if they had pay checks, maybe they had pay checks, they would bring the entire amount of money to the math and they would put everything on the table. This was Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura’s policy- they would put everything and then guru Maharaja would say, “Thank you very much. How much do you need for your maintenance?” “Oh guru Maharaja, we need fifty rupees, two hundred rupees, a thousand rupees.” He would take from that pile of [Unintelligible] and give back to them.

So it wasn’t that it was easier being grihastha. Grihasthas had their [Unintelligible 00:16:41] and it is not easy to perform like that. But because they were working very hard they weren’t chanting that but in the math they are chanting. So when Prabhupada came he asked disciples to chant 64 rounds. He saw that it was difficult for Westerners to do that. [Unintelligible] was very restless. So then he said, “Okay, thirty-two rounds,” and that they couldn’t follow. He said, “All right, sixteen.” But he said sixteen minimum, that means you can chant more. So,

kaler doṣa-nidhe rājann

asti hy eko mahān guṇaḥ

kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya

mukta-saṅgaḥ paraṁ vrajet

Śukadeva Gosvami speaking to Maharaja Parīkṣit, “My dear King, this age is an ocean of inauspiciousness. But there is one good thing left in this age. You just do kirtan. Kirtan means you sing, and by singing you’ll achieve perfection.” So people are singing here, there, and everywhere but he specifies what type of singing we should do—kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya, we should chant the holy name of Krishna because Krishna is none different than His name.

So this is the wonderful gift which Lord Chaitanya has brought, which Srila Prabhupada has brought to Western shores but our acharyas inform us that along with that chanting of Hare Krishna we must be very careful to avoid offenses to the holy name. Krishna is very merciful. In the form of His holy name we can achieve so many perfections. The sinful desires in our heart can be purified, the material desires in our heart can be uprooted. And as according to Haridasa Thakura, the most blessed result of chanting Hare Krishna is that the prema can come, love of God becomes manifest. So that opportunity is there for each and every devotee. But as we know in medicine, when you get a certain. . . you go to the doctor, he gives you the do’s, he also gives you the don’ts. There are the two combined instructions you get [Unintelligible]- you do take this medicine, you do stay in bed, you do drink the orange juice, and don’t go outside, don’t go to work, don’t overeat like that. So there is certain do’s and there is certain don’ts. If you want to become really healthy, and what is the real healthy condition? The healthy condition isn’t that you see the joggers down on Venice beach, that is not healthy. They are running and jogging and lifting weights and breathing the fresh air and swimming in the surf and taking their smoothies or whatever. They are not healthy because with every moment they are coming closer to death.

There was one songwriter in the 1960s - he not busy being born is busy dying. For one who has taken his birth death is certain and for one who has died birth is certain. So what is the healthy condition life? The healthy condition life is to live on the platform of eternity, knowledge, and bliss. Eternally. No more birth, no more disease, no more old age, no more death, that is the healthy condition. You can’t say “I am healthy,” if any moment you can die, that is not healthy. So the real healthy condition is the stage of the liberated stage when you have your [Unintelligible 00:20:15] your eternal form which you serve Krishna. That is the healthy condition, that is the real healthy condition.

So much talk about health. The real healthy, like Prabhupada said, “Deathlessness begins at the moment of initiation.” So to get to that healthy condition there is certain do’s and there is certain don’ts. So the do’s are very simply. chant sixteen rounds.

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

And the don’ts- no more meat-eating, no more eating dead bodies, be merciful to the other living entities, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, no intoxication, no illicit sex and no gambling. So that combination is very powerful. Prabhupada often writes, “Just this combination of chanting 16 rounds a day and following regulative principles one can achieve perfection.” Other don’ts are mentioned in the shastra and they are noted as ‘Offenses to the holy name.’ We will briefly go over the ten offenses to the holy name because Srila Prabhupada requested that at every initiation ceremony.

The first offense is to blaspheme great devotees who are great personalities associates, who are engaged in distributing the holy name of the Lord. Certainly we should not blaspheme the great souls. Like Lord Shiva, he is a great soul. He is actually the greatest of Vaishnavas. vaiṣṇavānāṁ yathā śambhuḥ. He is the greatest of all Vaishnavas. So we wouldn’t want to blaspheme Lord Shiva because he is Ashutosh. Ashutosh means he is very easily pleased and he is very easily displeased. You can please Lord Shiva by offering that special red flower plant. What is it called?

Devotee: Hibiscus

Indradyumna Swami: Yes, you offer the hibiscus, he likes that. Hardly has any scent, I don’t think it has a scent. But he is very merciful. He will be pleased with you if you offer him the hibiscus. But similarly, if you offend him, he is easily offended, then watch out. Similarly, to please the great souls is very easy, they are very merciful, the great souls. It is very easy to please them. But if you displease them then you have to be very careful.

One time one of Prabhupada’s disciples fell under so much illusion that he left Srila Prabhupada’s association. He was actually a secretary of Srila Prabhupada. He left Prabhupada’s association, and he had the audacity later on, because he went out in India and associated with sadhus, and he wrote back to Prabhupada, “May I have your permission to please take initiation from another spiritual master?” Can you imagine? You don’t even like to speak like this but this is historic. He wrote back to Prabhupada, “I would like to take initiation from another spiritual master.” So Prabhupada wrote back, “You have my permission to go to hell.” It is such an offense.

So my point is that this, first offense is that to blaspheme the great devotees who have dedicated their lives, and probably great devotees, the great personalities here, who have dedicated their lives for preaching the glories of the Lord. They are very very merciful and we can very easily get the mercy of a pure devotee, very easily. They are so approachable by their mercy. Although we are very fallen and contaminated, they allow us to come into their association and serve them personally and hear from them and receive their blessings. But we should never become familiar. Familiarity breeds contempt because if we displease them like Ashotosh Lord Shiva then it can be very serious. Our spiritual life can be curtailed. But actually, we should be very broad-minded in this understanding because Prabhupada said, when Brahmananda Prabhu was lecturing in Prabhupada’s presence on the ten offenses, he said, “This means that we should not disrespect the spiritual master.” Prabhupada said, “Yes.” He said, “But not only spiritual master,” he said, “We should not disrespect any devotee, we should respect all the devotees. This doesn’t just mean a spiritual master.” As we pray every morning,

vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaś ca
kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca
patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo
vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ

that we are bowing down and we are not excluding any Vaishnava, except this Prabhu or this, no, all the Vaishnavas.

Second offense is to consider the names of the demigods to be equal to independent of the name of Lord Vishnu or Lord Krishna. Certainly, we offer our respects to the demigods. They are acting. Brahma is the engineer, Prabhupada said, of the universe. And the other great demigods. The Lord deputes them to control the different functions of the material world and there is an intimate connection between human society, the demigods and the Supreme Personality of the Godhead, so if we respect the demigods, if we respect the ishta-deva as Krishna, demigods will shower their blessings on us. We will have sunshine during the day and only rain at night. There’ll be abundance of flowers and fruits and vegetables so we can serve Krishna as we please. So we don’t want to disrespect them but at the same time we understand their position that they are jīvātmās. They are exalted jīvātmās. But there is a great difference between the jīvātmā and the Paramātmā or the Supreme Personality of Godhead. At best the demigods can give some material blessings. But as Brahma said when he was requested by Hiraṇyakaśipu to receive a benediction of immortality, he said, “I cannot give you immortality because I myself am mortal.” Demigods have their limitations; they have their limitations. But the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is unlimited. So we should not equate them.

Third offense is to disobey the instructions of the spiritual master. Our connection with the spiritual master is through his instructions. Just like the child is connected to the mother in the womb through the umbilical cord, and at that stage, to cut the umbilical cord would mean death to the child. Similarly, if we disrespect our spiritual master by not following his instructions then it can bring a very inauspicious result to our life. So we should imbibe and follow each and every instruction of the spiritual master. Even if we can’t follow a particular instruction immediately we should keep it in our heart with the aspiration that one day I will fulfil that instruction of my guru Maharaja. And the example is of course Srila Prabhupada, who received an order from Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura to preach Krishna consciousness in the English speaking language. But due to the fact that he was a householder of that time he could not be so active. But he kept that instruction within his heart. And one time he read a particular verse in the Bhagavad-gītā in which Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura made the comment in this regard, that one should consider the instruction of the spiritual master like one’s very life and soul. Well, we have all received many instructions. Some devotees that were fortunate to receive personal instruction, we have all received the general instructions of Srila Prabhupada to follow the process of Krishna consciousness, and Prabhupada’s, one of his deeper desires to spread the saṅkīrtana movement of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So a first class disciple does not consider his life successful until he sees the desires of his spiritual master fulfilled. We know how many programs were dear to Srila Prabhupada and how he envisioned the Krishna consciousness movement is spreading all over the world. So a disciple actually considers that we are prepared to take birth as many times as necessary until we see that all of Prabhupada’s plans that he implemented, that he began are actually successful. And before we actually ask for higher benediction, we may consider that first we should fulfil all of Prabhupada’s desires, that at least we should think like that. That is another way of thinking of the instructions of our spiritual master. It may take us many lifetimes to complete, to fulfil the desires of Srila Prabhupada.

The fourth offense is to blaspheme Vedic literatures, such as the four Vedas and the Puranas. The Vedic literatures are described in several places in the scriptures as the breathing of Lord Vishnu. The breath of Lord Vishnu giving life into the hearts of the living entities. So just as we do not disobey the instructions of our spiritual master we do not disobey the personal mercy of the Lord which comes in the form of the knowledge in the Vedic scriptures, neither just do we disrespect other religious scriptures. Although they may not be Sanatana dharma, eternal religion, they are coming from the Lord. He has sent his representative and they have preached according to time, place, and circumstance. So although it may not be Sanatana dharma it has a particular purpose ultimately to awaken the Krishna Consciousness of the living entities. So we are also respectful to other scriptures.

The fifth offense is to consider the glories of the holy name to be exaggeration. There are many wonderful descriptions of the holy names in the scriptures. One time, one of my godbrothers went to Srila Prabhupada and said, “Srila Prabhupada, here Nectar of Devotion, it says, that if anyone even a [Unintelligible 00:31:06] stands to accept or to greet the Lord as he comes by in his rath cart in the Rathyatra, that person is now considered an eternal associate of Vishnu. And that devotee said, “But Prabhupada, I’ve been trying for so long now to be strict in the principles and chanting sixteen rounds and render some devotional service, and in my heart I feel that I haven’t made that much progress and I am wondering if I’ll even make it Back to Godhead in this lifetime. So how is it that a [Unintelligible] can simply stand up to receive the Lord at the Rathyatra festival and be considered an eternal associate of Vishnu? It seems like an exaggeration.” So Prabhupada said, “Let me see.” The devotee gave Prabhupada The Nectar of Devotion, and Prabhupada said, “Yes, that is what it says. So it must be.” So we should not consider the glories that we hear in chanting the holy names. There is so many pastimes we hear of how great devotees deliver fallen conditioned souls.

Ramanujacharya was once sitting near the bank of a river taking prasāda and one pāṣaṇḍī, one atheist, one offender came and said, “You are saying this prasāda is something special. It looks like ordinary food to me.” And Ramanuja was saying, “No, it has been offered to Narayana, it has been offered to the Lord. It is something very special.” “No, it just looks like food.” Ramanujacharya took some of that prasāda, he took a bite and threw it into the river, and four little fish came up to nibble at that prasāda. When they nibbled that prasāda they attained their eternal spiritual forms- four arms, beautiful resonance of Vaikuntha and they ascended to the spiritual sky. So that pāṣaṇḍī was defeated. These things are not exaggerations.

The sixth offense listed here is to consider the holy name to be imaginary. How do we describe that one?

Devotee: Tell it from interpretation.

Indradyumna Swami: Interpretation. Yes. So, let’s say the name of Krishna means dark. So the dark is the mysterious, it is the unknown. So Krishna means the dark, mysterious, unknown, behind, like this. Krishna means Krishna, Shyamasundara.

Seventh offense, to commit sin on the strength of chanting Hare Krishna. We hear how by chanting one of the very first boons or benedictions of the chanting of the holy names is that the sinful reactions are cleansed from the heart, just like an initiation. Also the spiritual master accepts the karma of the disciple. And Prabhupada said, “So the disciples get a clean slate to progress in devotional service.” Like a clean slate to progress. So if one thinks, ‘Oh, this is very nice. It is very powerful, this tool. I can chant Hare Krishna, it frees me from the reactions of sinful activities, so I utilize it as a tool like that, that I’ll go out and sin and just chant,

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

It is counted as a sin. It will not work like that. We can’t make a fool of Krishna, that is a special blessing especially the special benediction. But if we commit sin on the strength then the mercy is withdrawn. Just like one time Prabhupada was very angry at a devotee. I will not mention his name but he was very angry at that devotee, so angry for some nonsense that devotee did. Prabhupada said, “I have now withdrawn my mercy.” That devotee cried and cried, and Prabhupada said, “All right, okay, I give you back my mercy.” And at the guest house of Krishna-Balarama mandir, he is very angry, “I withdraw my mercy!” We shouldn’t take it for granted that we have the mercy of our spiritual master. We can always consider it a very special blessing, a special benediction, take full advantage of it, an automatic thing. So we should not take advantage of the mercy of the holy name. It can be withdrawn if we are nonsense.

The eighth offense is to consider the chanting of Hare Krishna like some ritualistic ceremony mentioned in the Vedas. Those [Unintelligible 00:35:27] ceremonies are basically performed for elevation to heavenly planets to enjoy the heavenly delights. So if one thinks, if people have this mentality in religion that they approach God for some food, for some freedom from disease, for a beautiful wife, a handsome husband or whatever, this is not the purpose of the Gaudiya Vaishnavas chanting Hare Krishna, we get very clear instructions. The mood of our chanting, Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu,

na dhanaṁ na janaṁ na sundarīṁ
kavitāṁ vā jagad-īśa kāmaye
mama janmani janmanīśvare
bhavatād bhaktir ahaitukī tvayi

My Lord, I have no desire to accumulate wealth neither do I want to enjoy beautiful women, have fame, prestige. All that I want as I might have your causeless devotional service in my life birth after birth.

So we must keep this in mind when we chant. We chant in this mood that the chanting is for the pleasure of the Lord. Just like you like to hear your name, someone calls your name, “Prahladi!” “Oh, someone is calling.” Giriraj Maharaja calls, “Prahladi!”

So Krishna is the original person, He loves to hear His name but chant to put the proper mood. “My dear Lord, my dear energy of the Lord, Srimati Radharani, please once again engage me in your devotional service.” Or as we often quote when describing the glories of the holy name in Boston, when the guest asked Prabhupada, one guest asked Prabhupada, “What does it mean? Always the same thing! Hare Krishna Hare Krishna! What do you mean?” Prabhupada said, “What does it mean? You didn’t give it is standard definition?” He said. He closes his eyes and said, “What does it mean, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare?” “It means my friend, my friend, my friend.”

The ninth offense is to preach the glories of the holy name to the innocent. Well, to the atheist who have no faith in the holy name. There is many wonderful glories about the holy name but if we explain these glories, people will think that it is exaggeration, they will think that it is imagination and they will say some comment and they are already fallen but by blaspheming the Lord they will become even more fallen. So we should just let them hear over and over again,

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

that will educate them. At the proper time we can explain the glorious.

Once we were in hari-nāma in Paris and one lady defiantly, she came in front of the kirtan party. She had her fingers in her ears, she was sticking her tongue out. I was shocked, a nicely dressed lady but she just put her fingers in her ear and stood in front of the kirtan party for a long time. And then we came back from hari-nāma that day and Prabhupada was at the temple. And Prabhupada said, “Well, how did it go that day? How was the preaching?” And I said, “Prabhupada, it was a little difficult.” And he leaned in and said, “When did I ever say that preaching was easy?” I said, “No, you didn’t say. I don’t know.” And then Prabhupada said, “So, tell me something.” I said, “Prabhupada, we were chanting in Lafayette, and there was one lady, she came and she stood in front of the kirtan party with her tongue out.” Prabhupada said, “Oh! She was like, oh!” I said, “And she had her fingers in her ears.” He said, “Oh! What did you do?” I said, “I didn’t do anything.” Prabhupada said, “No, you should have gone and pulled her fingers from her ears and said,

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare

Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

into her ears.” So we should just give them the kirtan. And after they become purified then they can appreciate the glories of the Lord.

The tenth offense is to maintain material attachments even after hearing so much on the matter. The idea is that this maha-mantra is very very powerful, and if we chant it in the proper way as described and we avoid the ten offenses then the natural result will be that we will make advancement in Krishna Consciousness. It is like a young child, I am sure that Radha is being fed, she is getting the very best treatment by her mother, very nice mother, perfect mother. And you can see it in the character of the child. And I am sure the diet of this child is exemplary, the diet of this child is because her mother is very good cook, very health conscious so this child must be reserving the very best of vitamins and minerals and prasāda etc. like, that should be very very healthy she will grow. So if we follow all these rules, and the do’s and the don’ts then we should grow. But if we are not growing then something mistake is being made. Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura says, he comments that if upon chanting the holy names one’s hair doesn’t stand on the end, tears don’t well up in one’s eyes, one voice doesn’t become choked, one doesn’t fall on the ground unconscious, that means that one is still guilty in some way or other these offenses. So we should not think, ‘Oh, I read these every day; every day we recite these, I am not doing.’ But tell [Unintelligible 00:40:55] Hare Krishna. The hair standing on it? Are you unconscious? Tears? Almost.

So we should take these ten offenses very, very, very seriously and try our best to avoid them. And this offense is that we have the greatest gift of Krishna consciousness, the future is very bright. When [Unintelligible] say, “Trust no future however bright,” I am sorry sir, we trust our future. You may not trust your future because you are ignorant fool but we have this knowledge of Krishna consciousness, we trust the future, it is very bright. We are very hopeful. We are very optimistic. We are very happy in Krishna Consciousness because we know that we are going back home, back to Godhead. But at the same time we have to relinquish the things of this world to achieve that world. You can give up something if you are getting something better. So we have this the better is Krishna consciousness, Krishna, Srila Prabhupada. So we should relinquish these nasty material desires. Why hold on to them? They are the obstacles which are keeping us.

They once asked Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, “Some of the sannyasis, they are not seeming to make very much advancement, they are not so advanced.” And he conceded. He said, “Yes because they are maintaining some material desires and keeping some bad habits.” So we should relinquish the material desires, give up our bad habits and make advancement in Krishna consciousness. Time is short. Why maintain this chewing the [Unintelligible] the same things that we have been doing life after life after life after life? Give this one life to Krishna. Just give, [Unintelligible 00:42:46] give everything to Krishna, surrender completely. Why not try? We have tried everything else in this material, the only thing we haven’t done is fully surrender to the Lord. So make an experiment,

śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ

smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam

arcanaṁ vandanaṁ dāsyaṁ

sakhyam ātma-nivedanam

Full surrender. Give up all the material desires. Fully embrace the mercy of the spiritual master. With full enthusiasm chant,

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

Become a devotee like His Holiness Giriraj Swami Maharaja.

Giriraj Swami: Love is blind.

Before I discuss the special significance of second initiation, I would like to comment on one point from the talk about the idea that the glories of the holy name are exaggerated. As His Holiness Indradyumna Swami Maharaja said, “There are many statements about the glories of the holy name and the scriptures. And there is one spoken by Queen Kunti in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam to the same effect, that just by uttering the holy name once even someone in the lowest position can be elevated to the highest position. In the purport, Srila Prabhupada raises the question, “Is her statement an exaggeration?” And Srila Prabhupada said, “No, her statement is not an exaggeration. But there is a question of the quality of such utterances, that if one chants the holy name without offense then the result mentioned in the verse will hold true- that even a person born in a family of dog eaters can, I mean of course this is from the third Canto, but even a person born in a family of dog eaters just by uttering the holy name once is immediately eligible to perform Vedic sacrifices.

So the statements in the scriptures are not exaggerations but there may be some conditions implicit in the statement that are made explicit with reference to other portions of the scriptures or other instructions of the acharyas. And in discussing the issue of exaggeration in the statements of The Nectar of Devotion in particular, Srila Prabhupada says that the statements are not necessarily true in all cases but for someone who has some background in devotional service, the results are not uncommon. And he even goes so far as to say that even if we take the statements as exaggerations, such exaggerations may be necessary to help divert the minds of materially conditioned souls to the transcendental subject. But the real fact as Maharaja said is, that if we chant the holy name without offenses then all the results of chanting that are mentioned in the scriptures will actually be there. And therefore, we have to be free of the offenses. Now coming to the question of second initiation or brahminical initiation, I will read one verse from Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā and the purport.

Bg. 14.26

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

TRANSLATION

One who engages in full devotional service, unfailing in all circumstances, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

One should not be disturbed by the activities of the modes of nature; instead of putting his consciousness into such activities, he may transfer his consciousness to Kṛṣṇa activities. Kṛṣṇa activities are known as bhakti-yoga – always acting for Kṛṣṇa. One who is engaged in the service of Kṛṣṇa is considered to be transcendentally situated. All the forms of Kṛṣṇa are fully transcendental, blissful, full of knowledge and eternal. Such personalities of Godhead are omnipotent and omniscient, and they possess all transcendental qualities. So if one engages himself in the service of Kṛṣṇa or His plenary expansions with unfailing determination, although these modes of material nature are very difficult to overcome, one can overcome them easily. This has already been explained in the Seventh Chapter. One who surrenders unto Kṛṣṇa at once surmounts the influence of the modes of material nature. To be in Kṛṣṇa consciousness or in devotional service means to acquire equality with Kṛṣṇa. The Lord says that His nature is eternal, blissful and full of knowledge, and the living entities are part and parcel of the Supreme, as gold particles are part of a gold mine. To be a personal assistant to a king, one must acquire the qualifications. Thus the qualification is to become Brahman, or freed from all material contamination. It is said in the Vedic literature, brahmaiva san brahmāpy eti. One can attain the Supreme Brahman by becoming brahman. This means that one must qualitatively become one with Brahman. By attainment of Brahman, one does not lose his eternal brahman identity as an individual soul.

COMMENT

So Krishna is the Supreme Brahman, and in order to serve Him properly we must come to the brahman platform. And the whole process of bhakti-yoga, especially the chanting of at least sixteen rounds and the following of the regulative principles is meant to establish us on the spiritual platform or the brahman platform. And when one acts on the brahman platform he is eligible or she is eligible to serve the Supreme brahman. As Srila Prabhupada said, “In order to enter fire one must become fire. In order to enter the brahman realm one must be brahman or act on the brahman platform.” And again we attain the brahman platform and remain established on the brahman platform by following the regulative principles and chanting,

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

Therefore, although traditionally one would receive dīkṣā or brahminical initiation, in the same ceremony Srila Prabhupada introduced the practice of waiting for some time to see that the disciple was steady in the regular practices of Krishna consciousness so that he or she could maintain the brahman platform. Lord Chaitanya instructed Sanatana Gosvami that from the time that the disciple surrenders to the spiritual master and is accepted through the process of dīkṣā, the disciple is accepted to be as good as the Lord. And of course, we mean as good in quality spiritual not as great in quantity. And then when one is accepted by the Lord to be of the same quality, one can serve the Lord in the deity form. And The Nectar of Devotion further states that only one who is following the regulative principles of the Vaishnava standard is allowed to touch the deity. So one has to maintain one’s spiritual position by chanting the holy names and following the regulative principles then one can touch the deity and engage in the service of the deity. It is not that just because one is initiated and receives the mantra that one is qualified. If one does not maintain the standard then one can become like the caste brahmans in India, who Srila Prabhupada said, “They may be proud that they are brahmans because they have a sacred thread but they are not really accepted as the brahmans because they don’t have the qualities of brahmans.”

So basically, the whole program that Srila Prabhupada has given us is to develop brahminical qualities, to develop the mode of goodness, and from the mode of goodness one can be more steady in one spiritual practices and actually you remain established on the spiritual platform. So we have every hope for every devotee that if he or she remains steady in chanting the holy name and following the regulative principles then he or she will continue to make spiritual progress. And here, one of the most important factors is association. If we keep good association, then it is easier to be good and if we get into bad association then it is very easy to become bad. So, we are weak and maya is strong, so we need to always stay in the best association- in the association of pure devotees, and then we can remain pure. So we should take full advantage of the association of pure devotees and be very wary of the lure of material association, and then we can remain fixed. And we have every hope that you will.

Hare Krishna.

Indradyumna Swami: You can come forward now and make your vows. So what are the four rules and regulations that you promised to follow for the rest of your life?

Devotee: No meat eating, no illicit sex, no intoxication, no gambling.

Indradyumna Swami: And how many enchanting, how many rounds?

Devotee: At least sixteen rounds daily.

Indradyumna Swami: So we are very happy to accept you as our duly initiated disciple and we will do everything in our own power to connect you to lotus feet of our spiritual master who is Prabhupada at whose feet all masters sit. He is delivering both guru and disciple here to lotus feet of Krishna. So, my duty, as your spiritual master is to connect you to Srila Prabhupada and that is all of our previous acharyas who are in abode of mercy. Please, study Srila Prabhupada’s books very carefully because everything that we need to know about Krishna is there in Srila Prabhupada’s books- what we need to know about getting out of material life and entering into the spiritual world is there. So probably we should know the books like the lawyer knows the law book and continue to assist your spiritual master and Srila Prabhupada in the saṅkīrtana mission. Our whole life we should have the same [Unintelligible] spirit. We may not always be active on the street or door-to-door but we should always be participating in some way according to time, place, and circumstance in the missionary activities of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Never leave this movement. Always remain faithful to our Governing Board Commission, the GBC. And as Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati said one time, “I see no reason why all my disciples cannot go back to Godhead in one lifetime if we take proper advantage.”

So [Unintelligible 01:00:26] a beautiful name. We are giving a name that means one who follows Srimati Radharani. Aṇu means to follow Radha. So from this day forth your name shall be Anuradha dasi.

Anuradha devi dasi ki jaya!
Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!
Gaura premānande Hari Haribol!