Aren’t we trivializing initiation by equating the promises of initiation with the promises of hearing Krishna’s pastimes?

Podcast:

Question, aren’t you minimizing initiation by saying that it is just like hearing or chanting or isn’t the promise of freedom from sin at the time of initiation far bigger than the promise of falashruti on doing a particular on hearing a particular pastime no I am not minimizing initiation in any way but what is initiation initiation essentially is the commitment to practice devotional service to practice bhakti yoga so why should we consider that the promises of initiation have to be categorically different from the promises of the practice of bhakti we can look in our scripture and see what is a central teaching and what is a not that central teaching so how often does the bhagavad gita or the bhagavatam or the chaitanya charita amrit say specifically that because you are initiated so now you are free from all sinful reactions and therefore take initiation that’s hardly the point of point for taking initiation if we say that have any of our acharyas stress that as a reason for taking initiation that you will become free from sinful reactions or have they raised questions about the validity of initiation based on its inability to fulfill that particular instruction that means that just because something didn’t happen that’s why what is the worth of initiation so we don’t see this as a central thrust of our teachings the central thrust is for example we are not the body we are the soul that bhakti is the best way to attain the absolute the absolute truth is not just an impersonal effulgence but is also an all attractive person so we can say that these are the core principles of bhakti so generally even in initiation classes if at all this is talked about that you should that the spiritual master take the sinful reactions how often is that an emphasis yes the idea is that the spiritual master should make sure that not take disciples casually and if we see Rupa Goswami when he talks about why a guru should not, why a Vaishnava should not take too many disciples his stress is not on the fact that if you have too many disciples you will have too many sinful reactions and all those reactions will get you down he says that that is not the main reason that can be a reason but since you might be taking too many disciples because of having too many disciples also means taking care of those disciples and that can distract one from one’s own bhajan so therefore we have to look at the statements that are given in our tradition in the light of how the tradition has understood them not not as we might have understood them based on a decontextualized absolutization of a particular statement if that is what we have unfortunately done then we definitely need to revise our understanding so we have Prabhupada in the early days of our movement there was one person a young American who had come because he was studying religious studies in a university and he had to do some kind of paper on the

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Hare Krishnas and their beliefs and practices so he seemed immensely interested in everything about the Hare Krishnas and he was asking questions, he also would come for the morning classes participate in the kirtans and the devotees thought that he was a very serious devotee so then when Prabhupada was giving initiation, they recommended that you can also take initiation and Prabhupada based on the recommendation of the devotees gave initiation and after initiation that person never came back and when the devotees tried to contact him he was repeatedly avoiding devotees and throughout the initial period he had not revealed to the devotees why he was coming, that it was because of writing a paper for his course, but he told that I wanted to have an experience of what you people do and I thought initiation will be another experience so then Prabhupada said that when Prabhupada was told about this Prabhupada said I never initiated him because initiation is a matter of the heart and his heart was never in it so we shouldn’t reduce initiation to simply a ritual, now what about if somebody’s heart is there in it yes, the purpose of initiation or putting our heart in initiation is not to get an insurance for suffering it is to get transcendence to suffering and transcendence to suffering comes by commitment to the practice of bhakti and absorption in Krishna, how often do we in our classes emphasize this fact that if you do this wrong your spiritual master will suffer therefore you should not do this yes, depending on particular devotees inspirations or their conception you could say of Krishna consciousness they may emphasize it a lot but that’s not the thrust of Prabhupada’s teachings how often during his interactions with his disciples Prabhupada sent them on a guilt trip saying that because of your particular sins I am suffering now when Prabhupada had sickness on some occasions not always in Prabhupada’s sickness he did say that this is because of my disciples not following the regulative principles strictly but that was not the basis of his relationship with his disciples and that was not the basis because of which the disciples practiced bhakti, he wanted them to practice bhakti because they understand the difference between body and soul because they can experience the ecstasy of absorption in Krishna and this was like an additional motivation, this was by means, by no means the main motivation so if you understand this point that this has never been repeatedly emphasized and central point of forming a relationship with the spiritual master of technization that we will henceforth be protected from sins, see every teaching has its particular stress and the stress is that we should not commit, that we have committed, we have taken vows not to do wrong and we should stick to those vows and not do any more wrong now so every teaching has a particular stress and if we don’t understand that intent of stress then we might have a completely misconstrued id conception of how things are to be so for example if it is said that those who slaughter cows will become cows in their future lives and be killed the point of saying this is that don’t slaughter cows but if somebody says oh if cow slaughterers become cows in the next life then may be the cows who are here now they were cow slaughterers in the previous life and therefore there is nothing wrong in them being slaughtered they are only getting their karma this would be a monstrous perversion of that of that statement which is primarily meant to make us aware that our actions have consequences and therefore we should be cautious about our actions similarly the purpose of saying that at the time of initiation the commitment that we are freed from sins that is meant to inspire us with a greater zeal to commit to the practice of bhakti and many devotees do experience a purging of their consciousness a deeper connection with Krishna a deeper ability to practice Krishna bhakti and to thereby rise beyond illusion rise beyond particular temptations and rise beyond whatever challenges we may have faced in the past because of our conditionings. Now those conditionings may not go away or they may decrease substantially we don’t know what specifically will happen but the stress is that commit yourself to the practice of bhakti and commit yourself to resisting indulgence those indulgences that take us away from the practice of bhakti that is the essential point of initiation to develop love for Krishna not to gain an insurance from suffering it is to gain a consciousness that gives us transcendence