Is initiation essential? What if devotees after initiation become proud?

From: Keshav Is Diksha ( Initiation ) very cheap thing to get ? First of all sorry of any offences by asking such question. I want to understand the importance of Diksha . Do every person need to make Guru to progress spritually , what about those who dont get initiated throughout lifetime , but they are Krishna Concious . ? In past i have associated with many devotee’s , i felt they are dying to get initiated. But i see they are more like getting title’s and post than serving Prabhupada and most importantly his mission . This statement is not generic , so please do not take it otherwise . There are many disciple’s of Srila Prabhupada who never saw Prabhupada , but they are dying to serve his mission . Shouldn’t serving propensity to Krsna and Prabhupada be checked with more high standards in order to get initiation . I saw most devotee’s becomes satisfied after getting initiation and not interested in serving Prabhupada’s mission , they become imbibed with pride sense and often quote their status to others. Please answer my question in both  positive and negative perspective.

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

Question for Keshav Pramod. Is Diksha a very cheap thing to get? First of all, sorry for any offences by asking such question. I want to understand the importance of Diksha.

Does every person need to make Guru to progress spiritually? What about those who don't get initiated throughout lifetime but they are Krishna conscious? In the past I have associated many devotees. I felt they are dying to get initiated. But I see they are more like getting titles and posts and serving Prabhupada and most importantly his mission.

The statement is not generic so please do not take it otherwise. There are many disciples of Srila Prabhupada who never saw Prabhupada but they are dying to serve his mission. Should serving propensity to Krishna and Prabhupada be checked with more high standards in order to get initiation? I saw most devotees become satisfied after getting initiation and not interested in serving Prabhupada's mission.

They become imbibed with pariahed sense and often quote their status to others. Please answer my question in both positive and negative perspective. Answer.

Initiation is vital but not final. It is not that just by getting initiated one will go back to God automatically. It is not guaranteed.

So in that sense it is not final. It is vital in the sense that we do need initiation to make substantial spiritual advancement in our mind and in a committed way by practicing devotional service and thereby we can actually go back to Godhead. So certainly at the time of death Krishna is not going to check in a register one's attendance at some fire sacrifice or ritual.

So it is not that just because of initiation one will go back to Godhead. One has to remember Krishna at the time of death and that remembrance comes when one practices remembrance of Krishna throughout one's life and for that one needs to practice devotional service seriously. So initiation is a commitment to serious practice of devotional service and that's why it's important.

So those devotees who consider initiation like a title and become proud and complacent about practicing devotional service thereafter, they are actually misunderstanding the principle and the purpose of initiation. The principle of initiation is that it is a vital limb of devotional service or vital aspect of devotional service and its purpose is to increase our commitment to devotional service. So an initiated devotee should feel more responsible for his or her own conduct and for also making practical contributions to sharing the message of Krishna consciousness with the world.

Now if that doesn't happen then one may get the satisfaction of being respected in a devotee circle because of one's initiated status. But over a period of time, sincere devotees will recognize that that satisfaction is not the same as spiritual advancement and they will hopefully become more serious. Now if that doesn't happen ultimately every soul has free will.

So initiation standards, Srila Prabhupada kept reasonably high at least one year, chanting sixteen rounds, following four aggregate principles and some responsibility masters keep their standards even higher two years, three years, whatever. So that is basically to check whether a person is committed to the practice or not and only when the person shows the commitment then the person is doing initiation. But the whole purpose of the pre-initiation test period is defeated if one thinks of initiation as the goal.

Initiation in one sense is the formal beginning of devotional service. It's not that what we do before initiation is not of use. Certainly whatever devotional service you are practicing, it is never lost.

It is always there as Krishna says in 2.40 in the Bhagavad Gita. So it is always useful for us. At the same time it is not that all the initiations are at the same, it is not that initiation is like one door if it opens one goes back to Godhead.

If it is closed one forever stays away from Godhead. So that's the one part that devotees if they become complacent and what we should see is we should not take them as the role model. There is another question answer I have on the site about when senior devotees don't behave properly how should we see that.

You can hear that answer if you want to see a proper perspective to such behavior among initiated devotees or senior devotees. But we should look for those devotees who are committed to the practice of devotional service and whether they are initiated or uninitiated is not as important as whether they are committed. And if they are committed we can take inspiration from them, we can take their association, take their guidance and keep moving forward in devotional service.

So even among initiated devotees we will find committed devotees and that's they should be our guides, inspirations and models. And as far as is initiation essential as I said we cannot make an absolute rule that nobody can go back to Godhead without being initiated. Bhakti is independent of all rules and we cannot legislate Bhakti Devi.

She can give her mercy to anyone and that can lead to spiritual advancement and even to the point of going back to Godhead. So in theory it is possible that there may be some people who may have taken initiation in the previous life and is completing the final stage of their devotional life. So they may not take initiation and still evince very advanced stages of devotion.

But we shouldn't assume that we are in that category. We should understand that actually if I have to practice, if I have to make spiritual advancement, go closer to Krishna and return back to him eventually, then I have to practice devotional service seriously. And if I have to practice devotional service seriously, the commitment of initiation will help me to practice it more seriously.

So why should I avoid it? Rather I should take the initiation as a very vital aspect of my devotional service and by that we can make spiritual advancement steadily because the initiation vows inspire us, compel us to become committed to the practice of devotional service in a diligent way. So that is the primary purpose of initiation. To commit ourselves to practicing devotional service in a more serious way.

Thank you.