Why is initiation so important?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so why is initiation important primarily for commitment just like say if we are in home we can study at home also if I want to become a doctor could say that I can study all the medical books at home also but you know two things are there there is the commitment if I register in a medical university there is a commitment that happens because there is a formal structure to the education and I become committed and then not only the commitment there is also a certification that comes because there are people other than me who evaluate me who observe me and that way I become certified as a doctor so it’s an initiation and a spiritual path so similar purpose ultimately it is not that just by registering in a medical college that’s all it’s not that by that alone somebody is going to become a doctor similarly, initiation should not be made everything but initiation basically so somebody could have been studying medicine outside the college also and if they have learned, they have learned we acknowledge that so we cannot say that bhakti, devotion is limited to those who have initiation wherever bhakti is present, we respect it at the same time you will see that especially if somebody is becoming an exponent of bhakti they usually they usually have some affiliation with some tradition some initiation is there just like sometimes even in our home our grandmother may have some home remedies for certain diseases if you have cold, if you have cough whatever but then our grandmother is not going to start her own practice as a doctor so like that we can make spiritual growth wherever we are and from wherever we are we should always be enthusiastic to keep growing at the same time initiation creates a formalization of the commitment and by that commitment by that formalization, our own conviction to practice increases we practice more steadily and we become connected with the whole community more formally just like somebody registers in university they are more formally connected with the professors with the teaching staff with the other students and the whole learning process grows much more and eventually there is a difficulty one becomes a proper spiritual seeker and one moves towards becoming a seer eventually