20021227 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.3.21-22 (Initiation Address)

(Disclaimer: The following is a machine-generated transcript and may contain errors or inaccuracies. It will be reviewed and verified against the original audio soon.)

The following is an initiation lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on December 27, 2002 – in Melbourne, Australia. The lecture begins with a reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.3.21-22.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.3.21

tasmād guruṁ prapadyeta
jijñāsuḥ śreya uttamam
śābde pare ca niṣṇātaṁ
brahmaṇy upaśamāśrayam

Foreign. Satojayamudi. So today we’re having some samskaras, having the first initiation, Second initiation and maybe Anupressa, the baby’s here. About half hour ago he asked me, what does it entail? I said, you need sweet rice and the baby three rice offered to the deities. And the fire is invoking Kṛṣṇa in the form to come as a fire. It’s a form of witness. Just like you make a declaration before a magistrate or a notary public in the material world and that notarized, it’s something more. Maybe you can’t say I never said it. Both in the Indian culture or both in the Vedic culture as well as in the modern world, if you give your right hand and shake on something, it’s supposed to be more of okay, let’s shake on it.

So there’s degrees of making a problem if you just say something, okay, I will do it. It’s one level. Then if you shake on it’s another level. And then if you say it in front of others as witnesses. So here we’re taking vows before a lot of witnesses, before gor ni thay shala gramshila swadnysis devotees, pious men and women, and before the fire. So that means it’s a very solemn, very serious. Responsibility. We have here Canto 11, chapter 3, text 21 and 22, which gives the process of liberation from illusory energy. Sripa Buddha is giving instructions. He’s explained how people unite and form relationships in order to work together, to eliminate unhappiness and to unlimitedly achieve pleasure. But ultimately the opposite result is achieved. He advised how wealth is a source of distress, difficult to acquire.

He said, in this material world there is no permanent happiness. Even in the heavenly planets. It’s like kings are ministers who are admired by the ordinary citizens and their followers, but are constantly being harassed by enemies, enemy kings or politicians. So therefore, they never actually attain happiness. Therefore, what is the solution is given in verses we’re going to read today. Translation Therefore, any person who seriously desires real happiness must seek a bona fide spiritual master and take shelter of him by initiation. The qualification of the bona fide guru is that he has realized the conclusions of the scriptures by deliberation and is able to convince others of these conclusions. Such great personalities who have taken shelter of the supreme Godhead, leaving aside all material considerations, should be considered to be bona fide spiritual masters.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.3.22

tatra bhāgavatān dharmān
śikṣed gurv-ātma-daivataḥ
amāyayānuvṛttyā yais
tuṣyed ātmātma-do hariḥ

Translation: Accepting the bona fide spiritual master as one’s life and soul and worshipable deity, the disciple should learn from him the process of pure devotional service. The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Hari, the soul of all souls, is inclined to give Himself to His pure devotees. Therefore, the disciple should learn from the spiritual master to serve the Lord without duplicity and in such a faithful and favorable way that the Supreme Lord, being satisfied, will offer Himself to the faithful disciple.

Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda: According to Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī the Lord’s tendency to give Himself to His pure devotee is demonstrated in the case of Bali Mahārāja, who sacrificed his universal kingdom for the pleasure of Lord Vāmanadeva. Lord Vāmana was so pleased by the selfless surrender of Bali Mahārāja that the Lord became the doorman in the palace of Bali who was reinstalled as a great leader in the universe.

Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī comments that the spiritual master is to be considered the ātmā, or the very life, of the disciple, since real life begins when one is initiated by a bona fide spiritual master. Although one may experience many seemingly wonderful or important events in a dream, one’s real life begins when he wakes up. Similarly, since the spiritual master gives birth to the disciple by awakening him to spiritual life, a bona fide disciple understands that his spiritual master is the very basis of his life.

According to Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the reservoir of all pleasure, and thus the Lord’s giving Himself to a pure devotee indicates that such a devotee becomes immersed in the highest possible ecstasy. In this connection there is the following śruti-mantra: ānandād dhīmāni bhūtāni jāyante. “Indeed, it is from the all-blissful Supreme that all these creatures have come into being.” Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura has further pointed out that when the Lord bestows His own self upon a pure devotee such a fortunate devotee can actually see the Lord, touch Him and directly engage in His service.

According to Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, one should never consider one’s spiritual master to be mundane or on an equal level with one’s self. One should see the spiritual master as being always under the shelter of the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord. One should never try to engage the spiritual master in one’s personal service with the mentality of lording it over the spiritual master and attaining through him some material gain. One who is actually advancing will become more and more eager to serve the spiritual master, and thus such a disciple experiences the pleasure of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has delineated four preliminary requisites for advancement for the sincere disciple:

guru-pādāśrayas tasmāt
kṛṣṇa-dīkṣādi-śikṣaṇam
viśrambheṇa guroḥ sevā
sādhu-vartmānuvartanam

“[1] Accepting the shelter of the lotus feet of a bona fide spiritual master, [2] becoming initiated by the spiritual master and learning how to discharge devotional service from him, [3] obeying the orders of the spiritual master with faith and devotion, and [4] following in the footsteps of great ācāryas [teachers] under the direction of the spiritual master.” (Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.2.74) One who has executed these preliminary duties is qualified to relish Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

When one actually hears the sound vibration of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam as it is, he becomes free from the desire for sense gratification and mental speculation and is happy and satisfied in the service of Lord Kṛṣṇa.

yasyāṁ vai śrūyamāṇāyāṁ
kṛṣṇe parama-pūruṣe
bhaktir utpadyate puṁsaḥ
śoka-moha-bhayāpahā

“Simply by giving aural reception to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the feeling for loving devotional service to Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, sprouts up at once to extinguish the fire of lamentation, illusion and fearfulness.” (SB 1.7.7) One should hear Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam from a bona fide spiritual master who can expertly engage the propensity for loving Kṛṣṇa that arises from hearing the transcendental sound of the Bhāgavatam. Such a transcendental, authorized engagement is called bhāgavata-dharma. Within the International Society for Krishna Consciousness there are many thousands of authorized engagements pertaining to the Society’s missionary activities. And by hearing the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and performing such engagements the Society’s members feel relief from śoka (lamentation), moha (illusion) and bhaya (fear).

According to Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, those who have achieved a mature understanding of the transcendental sound vibration of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam may adopt the order of tridaṇḍi-sannyāsa, as described in the Haṁsa-gītā, the Thirteenth Chapter of this canto. A so-called Vaiṣṇava who whimsically neglects the strict control of the body, mind and speech cannot actually achieve shelter at the lotus feet of a bona fide spiritual master. Even if such a whimsical sense enjoyer makes a show of assuming the dress and daṇḍa of Vaiṣṇava sannyāsa, he will not attain the desired result, love of Kṛṣṇa. A bona fide Vaiṣṇava should work earnestly to free himself from any tinge of sense gratification and mental speculation, and with a loving heart he should carry out the orders of his bona fide spiritual master. By always remembering the exalted position of the bona fide spiritual master, the disciple will achieve shelter at the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa.

Thus end the purport for text 22 and the translation of text 21 of the Rmad Bhagavatam, liberation from the illusory energy.

So, as Rūpa Gosvāmī mentioned, we should go through four steps accepting the shelter of the bona fide spiritual master. Even before one is initiated. The system is to accept the shelter of a bona fide spiritual master and to serve him. By serving the spiritual master under his guidance, serving Kṛṣṇa under the guidance of the spiritual master. Then one gradually gets refined in their devotional service, gets purified. In the Hari Bhakti villas, it says that before initiation someone should be under shelter, should be testing the guru. Guru should be testing the disciple for a period of one to three years. So in our Krishna conscious movement, we have that gurus, Prabhupada Sri Guru Asri, the first one that for about a year one chants 16 rounds and follows the four principles. And that way they can test whether the process is working.

They can also test how their relationship is with the spiritual master, whether under the spiritual master’s shelter and guidance they’re able to make progress this way, when they’re sure, then the disciple asks the guru for initiation. The disciple has to ask the guru for initiative, shelter has to ask the guru for initiation. Everything the initiative is on the health or the part of the disciple as far as who they want to accept as a spiritual master, whether initiating spiritual master or whether Sikhsha guru disciples, aspiring disciples need to say that I want you to be my spiritual master, Diksha guru, I want you to be a Siksha guru. And especially in iskcon it’s prohibited to canvas anybody. You should take me as your disciple, as your guru, like something like that.

But that’s anyway the tradition that the disciple has to say that I want you as my spiritual master, I want you to give me shelter once you give me initiation. So that’s the principle given here. Accepting the shelter, bona fide spiritual master. Someone accepts the shelter, they serve, they verify that, yes, it’s working for me. And then they ask for initiation. They become initiated and they learn how to render devotional service. After being initiated, then one follows the orders of the spiritual master. That’s the third. And the fourth is following the path of devotional service, following the footsteps of the previous cryas under the guidance of the spiritual master. So this particular chapter gives many advice as how the disciple disassociates the mind from materialistic things and dovetails the mind in the spiritual activities.

Prabhupada used the example that spiritual master is like a cow and the disciple is like the calf. So just like the calf goes to get milk from the cow, the disciple has to go and get association, get mercy, get answers to questions from the spiritual master. The tradition is that disciple has to come forward. Of course, non Kali Yuga people are so kind of shy or whatever that sometimes we go out and preach to people on the street. We bring the message to them, or we go to people and see if they have any questions. But actually the disciples should go and get association from the guru. That’s the normal. If the guru is giving association even without the disciple asking, that’s like specialness.

When we take initiation, it’s not only the spiritual master that we’re being connected to, but the disciplic succession, like the fourth advice of Rupa Goswami, is following in the footsteps of the previous cryas under the guidance of the spiritual master. So we get connected to the whole disciplic succession. The idea is we need to be always engaged in Kṛṣṇa service. The devotional process or Bhakti Yoga means to always be engaged in Kṛṣṇa service. So almost everything we do can be transformed into a Kṛṣṇa service. Our occupation can be a Kṛṣṇa service. Our various ways, we can also serve Kṛṣṇa. Just like today, all these garlands are made. So some devotees are making garlands, some devotees are doing deity worship. Some devotees have made the yagya, the sacrificial arrangements. Yesterday there was cooking. Every day there’s cooking. Actually it’s a regular daily need to eat.

There’s telling people about Kṛṣṇa that offers unlimited opportunities. Because book publishing, recording videos, meeting people, unlimited ways that we can tell people about Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Because Bhagavad Gita explains how we are not this body. We are the eternal spirit, soul. And soul is a part of God. So we are all eternally parts of the supreme Lord. Supreme Lord is never born and never dies. We also never born and Never died as a soul. Eternally the souls are existing as part of God. But temporarily we come into the material world and then we are born in a material body. And the material body goes through so many changes and follow me. Finally ending up in death. But the soul never dies. So we go wandering from one birth to the next. So many different births. Until finally we find a bona fide spiritual master.

It’s called Brahmanda Brahmite Kono Bhagyavan Ji Guru Krishna Prasadhai Bhakti Lota beach so when someone is really sincerely seeking the truth, then Kṛṣṇa is in the heart of every living entity. Then he brings one to a bona fide spiritual master. Then the spiritual master guides one how to get back to Kṛṣṇa. So there’s a natural cooperation between Krishna and the spiritual master who was looking for Krishna. And Krishna personally sent a guru. Who? Dhruva Maharaj? Yes. Dhruva was looking. He didn’t know what God looked like. He didn’t have any idea. But he was looking for God. So he went in the forest, like looking under the stones at the worms. Yugat Yu Bhagavan. Bhagavan. Sanskrit for God, Personality of God. So he’s asking the trees, the lions. He doesn’t know what God looks like. So he’s asking everyone, are you Bhagavan? Are you Bhagavan?

So the Lord immediately knows that this person is trying to find me. But that’s not the way you find me. That you have to find him by practicing some spiritual meditation and then you can find him. So then he sent Narada Muni in order to instruct Dhruva. Banarada Muni wanted to see whether Dhruva was for real, whether he was really serious about spiritual life or just so. First thing, Narada Muni said, what are you doing in this dangerous jungle with so many animals and dangers here? You should go back home and be with your mother. Because Dhruva was just a small child. But Dhruva said, look, if you’re going to help me find God, I am  willing to listen to you. Otherwise I have work to do. So then Narada Muni said, okay. I said the first. He asked Narada Muni, are you God?

Sometimes people, they think that, oh, the guru is also God. Are you God? But Narada Muni said, no, I am not God. I am sent by God. I am a messenger. And that’s the role of the spiritual master. To be a messenger. He brings the message from the previous cryas and delivers it Prabhupada says it’s not so difficult to be a spiritual master. It’s like being a postal delivery man. You have to deliver the letters and accept the service. The Prophet said if the delivery man opens up the letters and adds his own commentaries, They won’t be accepted by the people. So the guru also, he doesn’t have the right to add his own interpretation. Well, Krishna says, you should surrender me. But I think better is to do, you know, surrender to the impersonal void within Kṛṣṇa.

This is what some bogus guru is saying. Some bogus people are saying, actually Krishna’s got no void within him. Krishna is saying in and out. He’s spiritual. He doesn’t require a material biological machine to function. We have these biological machines which are functioning as a kind of virtual, real spiritual form. So when we accept initiation, that means we’re accepted also by the disciplic succession. We’re accepted by Kṛṣṇa. There’s also verses that say that Kṛṣṇa accepts the disciple. When the guru is accepting the disciple, then Krishna accepts the disciple on the same spiritual level. So in order to communicate directly with Krishna in a more constructive manner, in a proper way, very acceptable way, one should accept that, yes, I am eternal spirit soul and I am eternal servitor of Krishna. And that is done.

When we take initiation, We accept that we are not this material machine, but we are the living force, the consciousness which is within this material Mishnah. It mentions here. With a loving heart, one should carry out orders of his bona fide spiritual master. So the relationship should develop with the spiritual master. So there is actually some loving mood. Should not be just some type of mechanical carrying out duty. The disciple appreciates how the Guru is giving himself for my help. That’s what love is. A giving without expecting something in return. Even without the possibility of getting a full repayment. Like the mother is caring for the children, the Guru cares for the disciples. The disciple reciprocates with that and serves Kṛṣṇa through the Guru with a loving attitude. So Lord Chaitanya, he also. And his associates.

There are many examples of associates looking for a spiritual master. Shrinivasacharya was seeking a guru went to Jagannath Puri to take Lord Chaitani as his guru. But by that time Lord Chaitani left. He found Gadadhar Pandit wanted him as guru. But his Bhagavatam was all washed away because of tears of love. So he had to walk back to Navadip in order to get a Bhagavatam copy. Wasn’t Available everywhere. If you wanted to get a book, you had to go to the nearest bookstore. It was 500km away. You had to walk there to get it. There was no bookstore as such. You had to ask someone to hand copy the book, pay him, support him for a couple months while he hand copied the 18,000 verses, get your copy. Then he went back to Jagannath Puri.

The day he reached there, went to the Totagopina temple. They’re having a big festival, says Gadahara Pandit had left. So he was devastated. Who’s going to be my guru? Who’s going to teach me the Bible? So he was pulling his hair out and crying. And then the other Prabhu came back and said, you go to Navadip and there you will find. By the time he got back to Navadip, where he just came from, the person who had been there before now had already left. Then the wife of Lord Chaitanya, the widow. Vishnu Priya, she communicated a message from Lord Chaitanya who had come to her in a dream and told him to go to Vrindavan where he would meet Rupa and Sanath and they could instruct him. Finally, when they got to Vrindavan, they were having a big festival there.

Rupin Sanatan had left the day before from the worlds. So he was being frustrated to find a bona fide spiritual master to take shelter of, to guide. He was so devastated when heard Rupert Sanatan also left that he just collapsed in the back of the Radha Govinda temple where the festival was going on. Disappearance festival There Jiva Goswami found him and said that Rupad Sanatan had come to him and told him that he should take Gopal Bhatta Goswami as his diksha guru and that Shiva Goswami should instruct him as Siksha guru. One may have only one diksha guru at a time, But one can have more siksha gurus. There’s no limit as such. Krishnadas Kaviraj said he has one diksha guru and six siksha gurus that may vary from one person to the next.

So finally Shiva Sinivasacharya, he got his guru and he got instructed. Gopal Bhatta Goswami was a direct disciple of Vocitanya and Jivanga Swami was a grand disciple. Disciple of a disciple. Ajita Goswami was instructing Gopal, but gave initiation. So in our own spiritual quest, it’s important we find someone who knows the truth and we take guidance from that person. If we don’t have a spiritual master, then Robert explained it’s like an orphan. In Sanskrit, orphan is called anatta. No, protector. Nata means protector, Lord master. Anat means snow protector. Sanat means who has a protector. So if someone doesn’t have a spiritual master, then they’re without protection. And if they’re having spiritual master, then they have protection. So initially we have spiritual. We have shiksha gurus. Different. Some may be showing us the way. That’s called vartama Pradashya guru.

Someone may be an instructing spiritual master, giving us instruction, clearing our doubts. Satusi, the instructing spiritual master who instructs us the most or gives us the most valuable instruction or to whom we have the most faith in that Siksha guru becomes the diksha guru. So even before having initiating guru, we have instructing spiritual master. When we take shelter, when we take shelter, that’s like a trial basis that we like a dress rehearsal. We act just like an initiated disciple. We try to carry out orders of the spiritual master. That way we can test ourselves. Okay, how is it working for me? If we have spiritual master, we don’t take his advice, we don’t take his guidance, we don’t take his association. It’s not the spiritual master’s fault, it’s our own loss.

But someone may be feeling perfectly alright with whatever guidance they’re getting, then it’s all right. But we should ensure that we get our doubts clarified when the guru is present. I was sitting once at Prabhupada and there was a disciple who was very depressed. And then Prabhupada was saying, why you’re unhappy. Your spiritual master is here, I am here, so why should you be unhappy? If you have any doubts, you can ask me, I can clarify. I could understand. You’d be unhappy if your guru is not present. Maybe guru is in a very distant place or you have some problem. Guru is here so you can get your problem solved. So I order you to be happy. So now recently they have been making a lot of studies about happiness in the material world. Scientists, you know, they always study psychologists.

So they find that people are happier when they’re always busy, when they’re keeping their mind to their work and when they keep a positive attitude and when they forgive and they forget. This is a modern, most recent discovery. But you can see that devotional service, practically we follow these principles. We always stay active in our devotional service and we don’t hold any grudges. We take everything as it comes. As Krishna’s mercy. If somebody else has some negative attitude, rather than getting upset about that and reciprocating with some kind of envy or resentment to that person, at best we might pity the person why they’re in such a negative attitude. We don’t get hung up by that. We don’t get involved. Preoccupied by that, we go on with our devotional service. So. People become unhappy just because of their own mental frame.

Because somebody takes a negative attitude, they start resenting things, they start pitying themselves. They start just getting focused on a whole material point of view. And that puts them in the mode of ignorance, which is madness, frustration, anger, enviousness, unhappiness. We don’t want to fall into those traps of illusion. If there’s something that’s really preoccupying us our mind, then we clear it up with the guru and we get back on the track and get very much fully absorbed in our devotional service. Rupa and Sanatana were so humble. They were the prime minister and the finance minister of one of the major empires at that time, India, top position. Can imagine, you know, the prime minister of Australia.

They went with a straw in their teeth to Lord Chaitanya and fell at his feet and begged him, please accept us as your disciples and guide us. We are very unqualified to be your disciples. We have no qualification, but simply we are depending on your mercy. Here’s prime minister. And of course, in those days, prime ministers were appointed by the kings. If you could maintain that king’s favor, you could remain a prime minister for decades. Now being a prime minister is a little more complicated. But rare to see some big politician so humble. They weren’t so humble with their king, but with the guru they were humble like that. With the king.

Even our prime minister, he asked us sometimes very politely give counsel to the king, which may not be that same idea the king has, but has to say what he thinks is best for the kingdom. This serving a guru is really practice. For serving Kṛṣṇa, we want to serve Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa. When we serve the deities, maybe sometime we’re giving sweet rice, it’s too hot. But the deity is not going to say the sweet rice is too hot unless we’re on a very elevated platform. But the guru may say, just like one time, Prabhupada took Charan Amrita and instead of the pujari, it put salt instead of sugar. So he took, you know, and said was salt water. And he chastised the pujari. What are you doing? No, there are some deities which are so Active that they will actually give a message to the Pujari.

Once Pujari in Mayapur put salt in the Charnamrita. That day, when he was riding on his bicycle back to the Mayapochanta Daimandir from the Jagannath temple, there was a madman lying in the road. And just as he went by, drove by on the bicycle, the madman jumped up and Ba threw him off the bicycle. And the puja was lying on the road, you know, sprawled out in the dust. Then he said, oh, what did I do wrong? Went back to the temple and finally put salt in the chair. And are you serving Jagannath? Anything can happen. We don’t have the time right now, but there are hours of pastimes. You can hear about Jagannath pastimes where he instructed his disciples, his Pujaris and worshippers, and even neighbors, anyone who comes. But that’s very rare to have deities which are so communicative.

Although some Sanatana, Goswami, he was so close to his deity that the deity was complaining. Why don’t you give me some salt and the chapati? Don’t put any salt. Sanatana goes on. I am just a mendicant. I am a sannyasi living here. I renounced the order of life living in Vrindava world. We’re going to get sold. Next thing you’re going to want ghee, you want something else. So just take what you get. Not your. But that kind of relationship where Krishna in his devi form is talking to you. And the devotee is so intimate, so familiar with the Lord, so close. It’s very rare, of course, in the Lord. He sent one salt merchant who gave salt to Sanatana even without asking. So not only gave salt, but gave him a whole temple for the Lord. So Krishna, once he can send a salt.

That was the message. But generally we don’t have that kind of communication. Since we cannot directly communicate with God. Sometimes in our heart we don’t know what to do. Sometimes we get. Krishna is telling us in our heart, he’s also in our heart. He’s telling us, don’t do that. But the mind is saying, you should do that. And so who do you listen to? Well, you know, then the mind may give some reason that, well, it’s really good for you to do this, but it may not be good. And it’s hard for us to distinguish who is Krishna, which is the voice is Krishna talking and which is our mind. So that’s why we have a spiritual master. The Guru in the heart is called Chaitya Guru. And the Guru externally is the instructing and the Adiksha Guru.

So Guru Krishna is instructing from within and the Guru from without. So we ask the guru what should we do? And he tells us he should do like this. Or we suggest to Guru I want to do like this. He said, well, that seems like it’s inspired by Kṛṣṇa or that seems to be not a good idea inspired by Maya. So we have the guru to always be sure that what we want to do is not going to take us away from Kṛṣṇa. The bona fide guru is working for the welfare of the disciple. He doesn’t have any personal interest. Other than the welfare of the disciple. If the disciple can get back to Kṛṣṇa, the guru was also blessed by that. So therefore the relationship between guru disciple is a loving relationship.

Disciple offers service out of love and the Guru accepts the service out of love and engages the disciple. So the guru is offering so much help to the disciples. Sometimes in the beginning the guru is giving more help to the disciple than what the disciple can do for the guru. Just like little children, the parents put more energy into the small children. But hopefully when the children grow up, they can help the parents also. So when somebody is taking second initiation, the mins are already a little bit grown up. They are taking more responsibility. Prabhupada once said that after the first initiation is spiritual birth. So after birth the babies, they need a lot of cleaning up. It’s not unexpected if the baby passes in the diapers and you have to clean the diapers, right?

But if you have a say 9 year old child and you have your son sitting on your lap and the sun passes, it would not be considered a very healthy sign. You have got serious problems. So as we grow older in our spiritual life, we have to also avoid making stupid mistakes and foolish mistakes which might have been alright when were brand new in the spiritual life. But they’re not acceptable when we are more mature. So one cannot complain the immaturity forever. And when we take second initiation, that means okay, now we’re formally accepting a more responsible relationship with Guru Parampara. It’s also a spiritual birth, but maybe like a little bit higher level.

So therefore one is allowed to do deity worship and to do sacrifices and do certain services which one should be very responsible because dealing directly with Kṛṣṇa and his incarnation as a worshipable deity. In the Padma Purana it mentions how about this taking a vow before the well there it just talks about making a promise with the Right hand somebody. Once there was a Brahmin boy. There was a Sudra, actually, who was very rich. He had a very beautiful daughter, Sudra of Aisha. I forget, I think maybe Sudra. But there was lower than Sudra, some guy in the neighborhood who was very attracted to the girls. So he dressed up as a Brahmin and he came to the house. So because the man was religious and there was a priestly type person coming, so he received him and was serving him.

So then he mentioned, He asked this person, anything you need? He said, well, I really don’t need anything. Only thing I need is I am not married yet. And eventually I have to get married and find a proper life partner who can assist me in my spiritual life. And so the person very generously said, well, I have a daughter. I mean, I am not the right cast or write, maybe social level, but I have a very good daughter. And if you think that she could help you in your spiritual life, I can try to arrange a marriage with her. So things like that progressed and finally they shook hands on it. And then he announced he’s going to give his daughter to this person. All the other relatives, who is this guy anyway? We should check his background.

We should see whether he’s really a good family or not. They weren’t accepting, but he said, well, you’re right, actually, but I already made a promise. So I went on, since I made a promise and Krishna, when I made him in front of Krishna, shook hands in front of Krishna or something. See, Krishna is our witness. So they had a yagyat, the wedding yagyat, and it was just time to give the daughter. Then Krishna himself appeared and he said that this guy is not worthy to be the husband of your daughter. But because you’re such an honest person, you promised before me and you’re fulfilling your promise just out of respect for me.

That’s why Krishna Presley came to protect him and said, because I am so happy with you for your high level of honesty that I am just taking you all back to Godhead right now. True story. So. If we’re really sincere with Krishna and Prabhupda and the Guru Parampara, we’re taking spiritual masters representative of Kṛṣṇa Guru Parampara. The Guru Parampra  will always protect us, no matter what happens. So Robert also mentions that joyful occasion people take initiation because it means that they’re going back to Godhead. It’s like, you see, I have seen a few airports in my life and seeing people bidding Farewell to others who are going on some journey. They’re going for a vacation. It’s very happy. So here they’re going to back to Godhead so everybody can wish them a good journey. Of course your ticket is booked, you’re on the journey.

Just have to stay on the train, stay on the plane. If you don’t, as long as you keep the vows and keep the practices you’re taking today, then your success is Adi. Hi. Om Tatsat. Any questions? Yes, there was a bit of controversy, so I am asking this. Once the guru falls down, if somebody takes initiation, then what is the position should he take? Should he or she take another guru or accidental photon? Well, that’s a big discussion. There’s a whole protocol what to do in circumstances like that. When one should continue serving, the guru. Threw a little writer at the end. Accidental, you know, if it’s a minor kind of problem which the guru could correct, then one continues serving the spiritual master and things go on.

But if it’s a major situation where the guru ceases to function as a guru, then one is supposed to find a Siksha guru or find some Vaishnava like a guru. If they can’t find one as a guru to continue serving Kṛṣṇa, and that means we should serve Krishna always through Vaishnava. Jiva, Goswami and Bhakti Sandarva stress this point that we’re always Dasan who Das. So we always wanted to help somebody in their service. We want to be in that humble role as a servant of the servant. So that mood shouldn’t cease. But sometime after losing, I go to in that rare case that may happen, then you may not have faith so easily in another guru. You may not find someone that inspires you on that level.

Even then, Jiva go find someone you see like a guru and take shelter of that person and serve Kṛṣṇa through that person. If they’re merciful to you and you have faith, well, they’re like a guru and they’re very senior. Vaishnava, a very well situated Vaishnava. The mood of service should go on. If you find someone like who you see as a guru and you take shelter, that’s okay. But one is under that this. So there’s some protocol what to do in that exceptional case. Just like when you get on the airplane, then there’s also they tell you, okay, probably you won’t need to know these things. But this is what you do in case you have to make a landing. This is where you find your life preserver.

You should see where the closest exit is to the this is how you untach your and attach your seat belt. So I guess there’s no harm in saying all these things, but you know, usually, I mean, I have flown a lot of times so far I haven’t needed that. I don’t know. But Paramara, she was in a plane crash. Yeah, this plane crashed, but somehow crash in a soft paddy field in the mud. And they nobody was hurt, the plane was finished. So you never know what’s going to happen. It’s Krishna’s mercy. He jumped out of the plane in the middle of the field somewhere. No roads, mud everywhere. But I have been in planes where the engines have blown up.

Fortunately it was before takeoff and they evacuated us and said another member, the pilot said there’s some technical difficulty, You can kindly leave the plane. We’re looking out of the window and the flames coming out of the engine, big explosion, some technical difficulty. So there’s some standard thing about what we should do under those kind of emergency situations. And disciples, they should know that. That’s part of our 13 questions that we ask disciples before they take shelter of a guru. One of them is when you should reject a guru. Because say the guru were to say, well, don’t worship Krishna anymore, I have become Kṛṣṇa. Or don’t follow Prabhupada. Now we’re gonna all go off and do something. You know, if they go against the guru Parampara against Krishna, then even you shouldn’t follow the guru. We don’t believe in like blood blind following.

But we have chosen a guru because we have faith that they’re going to properly guide us. In case something ever happened that they were to completely contradict the scriptures or Krishna or the previous Acharyas, they cease to be a guru. I remember once there was some ambassador in Panama of some country and he revolted against his president and started decrying the president in the newspaper. And when the president just sent him a fact, you’re no longer the ambassador finish. Guru is not independent of Kṛṣṇa. He’s only via media. He’s authorized by the institution of Kṛṣṇa to teach like a teacher. So teacher, if they start teaching out of the curriculum or against whatever the standard protocol, they can be derecognized apart from that situation. But if that happens, you’re still part of the school.

You don’t leave the school and you find another teacher within the school staying the same parampar. So this initiation links you with the entire disciplic succession. So one shouldn’t always remain following Prabhupada and the previous cryas. That’s the point. I don’t know if that answered your question. Any other question? Aswind? No. Is it Aswind? Huh? Ranganatha. Excuse me. Sometimes there is a tendency to think Krishna can instruct us through Vaishnavas, through Siksha, Guru, through many ways. If we have a doubt what this person is saying, it seems to contradict the scripture or contradict what my guru told me. We can verify it with our spiritual master, Prema Faci. I mean, basically, that seems to be a more valid instruction. We can also accept that only if we have some doubt, then we check with the guru.

But then if he confirms that we should follow, it’s not practical that every single thing we have to check, That could be an excuse for, you know, not doing anything. I mean, over a period of time, we will know a lot about what the guru wants. And we have to hear it every single time, again and again. Once we have heard it, once we know what the guru wants, you know that the guru is saying, you follow Srila Prabhupada’s books. There’s something very clearly in Prabhupada’s books. No contradiction. It’s when you get two kinds of contradictory instructions or doubt over which to do. Or there’s two scripture says two things. Sometimes one scripture says one thing, another scripture says something else.

So how to apply it in this particular circumstance under those kind of situations, then the guru is like the supreme court for us to decide what to do. But used to be, of course, that the guru, we stay with the guru. And so we’d get personally trained by the guru. Some gurus had only five disciples, of course. Durbhasya Muni had 10,000. Lord Chaitanya had thousands of disciples as a Sanskrit teacher. And he had senior disciples teaching junior disciples. So this idea where a senior godbrother teaches a junior. It’s a standard process. Now, the first thing you want to ask, if somebody tells you something before you say, well, I have to hear it from my guru, is, well, if you have a doubt, you can ask the person to clarify your doubt. Is it said in the scripture? Is it confirmed by Prabhupada?

Where does it say this? And then if the person can give you a valid explanation, then you could accept that. And if they can’t give an explanation, well, then you don’t have to accept it anyway. And if they give an explanation but it’s not so clear or you don’t think it really applies to you and you want to verify. Usually it depends how the gravity of it. If it’s just a matter of service, they go ahead and implement it. But in the meantime they may verify if it’s a major kind of decision which you can’t go back on. Like someone I was once told by my temple president, for instance, not exactly my temple president’s wife told me that you must get married right away. If you want to be Kṛṣṇa conscious, you have to be married.

You can’t go back to godhead unless you’re married. You can’t preach unless you’re married. That was Himavati, wife of Hansadutta, who was my president at that time. Because in those days the mood was everybody iskcon went through various kind of moods. Sometimes everybody had to be married and everybody had to be sannyasi. Now it’s kind of more balanced, Mostly marriage, but you can also be a sannyasi. So in this situation, because I was a brand new bhakti, I just spent, you know, maybe a few months in the movement. And I didn’t feel myself at all qualified to take such a responsibility even as marriage, what to speak of. So I went to Prabhupada, who happened to be there in Montreal. And I asked him that the president’s wife is telling me I have to get married. What’s your advice?

And he told me that you should stay single till you’re 25. I said, practice Brahmacharya till you’re 25. And then the guru, in consultation with the guru can decide whether you should be married or not. He said somewhere between 25 and maximum 30, one should make a decision whether they can remain a celibate student their whole life or whether if not, then they should serve Kṛṣṇa as a Grihasta ashram. Or someone may prefer to serve Kṛṣṇa as a grihasta. Anyway, so in any case, with that, you decide after 25. So I went back to my president’s wife and told her I got till 25. I didn’t say, I don’t remember saying anything to her. I just, you know. But everybody knew. I told, of course, when I got to 21, Prabhupada gave me Sanya. So. That chapter was closed.

So because getting married is something you can’t really turn back on, you’re locked in for 20, 30, 40 years, right? So that was something I wanted to verify with my spiritual master before I just jumped into something like that. But if my temple President told me today you should clean the pots. I want to hear it from my guru. You could have serious problems. So the guru delegates the authority to local managers to give service to the disciples. So the day to day routine services, whether you go on Sankhya, if you’re a temple like ashram devotee, then you’re doing service on a full time basis. So what service you do that’s coordinated, not temple president tells you to do something which is illegal or something which is against our principles, then you could question them.

But if it’s just, you know, basic bona fide services which everybody’s doing, then we should not. Say that we have to hear that from the guru. That’s not okay. Last question. Surya. In the rain. Generally bonafide guru doesn’t reject a disciple. There’s a story about the son of Manu who was guarding cows at night. And it was a really storm ridden night, heavy rain. And the tiger came and attacked the cows. And the cows were screaming. So then he went out with his sword to save the cow. And the cow and the tiger were like together. So he went to cut the head of the tiger. But somehow in the dark and then they moved by accident he cut off the head of the cow. And he also cut the ear of the tiger.

And then the tiger freaked out because the ear cut off and ran. On next morning he saw that the cow’s head was cut off. He felt really bad. His guru was Vishistamuni. And the guru got very angry. He killed a cow, you rascal. And he cursed him. I curse you to be a worthy person to go to hell or be a Sudra or something next life. Heavy curse in the purport. The previous crya said that actually it wasn’t proper for Vasisthomuni to curse his disciple. That this was a bona fide guru should have. He should have patiently guided the disciple how to get free from the reaction for killing a cow and not have cursed him. And they even described that it’s a kumati. It’s a bad mentality for the guru to have done that.

But what this son of Manu did is that he just when he got tonight he was taken off his service. All service was taken from protecting cows and things anymore. So he just fully absorbed himself in devotional service. And by fully doing devotional service then actually he went back to Godhead. So since he didn’t take another birth, he transcended that curse of the guru. So there it kind of indicates that gurus should try to always Purify the disciple. But I read once that the Guru should reject the disciple if the disciple is contaminating other disciples. Say one disciple starts to preach mayavat to other disciples or preach some bogus philosophy. Something which would totally confuse them and destroy their spiritual life. If he doesn’t reject or separate that disciple from the others then that disciple  will cause the fall down of many other disciples.

So it’s like if one child is harming other children. You have to separate that child from the other children. Otherwise if anything not so extreme, then you try to reform the child, reform the disciple. We have here some special guests here. Some teachers from Radha Prema’s school. Maybe they’re teachers. They could say, what do you do if you have a really wild child? And in the class you would work both with the wild child and with the other group to help them. So you would all deal with it together. That’s what I do. And the parents and everybody involved. So unless the child was really violent or something, you wouldn’t. You just work with it. But you restrain, if you have to physically restrain the child so he can’t hurt himself or anybody else. But you wouldn’t exclude the child.

You might get outside professional help, but you wouldn’t exclude the child. You would also work with the others to understand so that they would model that child’s behaviour. Because you certainly wouldn’t want a whole class of wild antisocial children. That’s very practical. Unless a disciple was killing other disciples. Like King Vayner used to kill his schoolmates. So that was pretty heavy guy. Fortunately we don’t run into such people so very frequently. Otherwise even a disciple or just as like a student, even though they make a mistake, you have to work with them. You got to try to bring them back. What do you gain by rejecting? They’re just going to. Just going to suffer repeated birth and death. You don’t gain anything. The guru has to come back to save them anyway. Better work with them in this lifetime, isn’t it?

Okay, so we’re going to go forward now with the ceremony. Enough questions and answers and.