Initiation into Spiritual Life

[Guest guest]

below are excerpts from an article written by Sri Srimad Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami

 

INITIATION INTO THE SPRIRITUAL LIFE

 

THE ceremony of diksha or initiation is that by which the spiritual Preceptor admits one to the status of a neophyte on the path of spiritual endeavour. Its actual effect depends on the degree of willing co-operation on the part of the disciple and is, therefore, not the same in all cases.

 

It cannot, however, keep one going for good unless one chooses to put forth his own voluntary effort. The nature of the initial impulse also varies in accordance with the condition of the recipient.

 

Unless our soul of his own accord chooses to serve Krishna after obtaining a working idea of his real nature, he cannot long retain the Spiritual Vision. The soul is never compelled by Krishna to serve Him.

 

But initiation is never altogether futile. It changes the outlook of the disciple on life. If he sins after initiation, he may fall into greater depths of degradation than the uninitiated. But although even after initiation temporary set-backs may occur, they do not ordinarily prevent the final deliverance.

[Guruvani]

It's interesting to note also, that Srila Prabhupada and Srila Sridhar Maharaja both "initiated disciples" they had never personally met.

but, with their passing, their ability to do this was apparently taken from them according to the opinions of some.

 

threfore, we have to conclude that "initiation" is about something other than physical proximity to the guru.

[Guest guest]

The questions that are frequently asked are as these: ‘Why should it be at all necessary to submit to any particular person or to to any particular ceremony for the purpose of realizing the Absolute Who by His nature in unconditioned? Why should Krishna require our formal declaration of submission to Himself? Would it not be more generous and logical to permit us to live a life of freedom in accordance with the principles of our perverted nature which is also His creation.

 

Admitting that it is our duty to serve Krishna, why should we have to be introduced to Him by a third party? Why is it impossible for one to serve Sri Krishna directly?’

 

It would no doubt be highly convenient and helpful to be instructed by a good preceptor who is well-versed in the Scriptures in understanding the same.

 

A preceptor should be a person who appears likely to possess those qualities that will enable him it improve our spiritual condition.

 

Those and similar thoughts are likely to occur to most persons who have received an English education, when they are asked to accept the help of any particular person as his spiritual preceptor.

[Guest guest]

No one is a good preceptor who has not realised the Absolute. One who has realised the Absolute is saved from the necessity of walking on the worldly path. The good preceptor who lives the spiritual life is, therefore, bound to be wholly good. He should be wholly free from any desire for anything of this world whether good or bad. The categories of good and bad do not exist in the Absolute. In the Absolute everything is good. We can have no idea in our present state of this absolute goodness. Submission to the Absolute is not real unless it is also itself absolute. It is on the plane of the Absolute that the disciple is required to submit completely to the good preceptor.

 

The much vaunted individual liberty is a figment of the diseased imagination. We are bound willingly or unwillingly to submit to the laws of God in the material as well as in the spiritual world. The hankering for freedom in defiance of His laws is the cause of all our miseries. The total abjuration of all hankering for such freedom is the condition of admission to the spiritual realm.

 

The crux of the matter lies not in the external nature of the ceremony of initiation as it appears to us because that is bound to be unintelligible to us being an affair of the other world, but in the conviction of the necessity and the successful choice of a really good preceptor. We can attain to the conviction of the necessity of the help of a good preceptor by the exercise of our unbiased reason in the light of our ordinary experience. When once this conviction has been truly formed Sri Krishna Himself helps us in finding the really good preceptor in two ways. In the first place he instructs us as regards the character and functions of a good preceptor through the revealed Shastras. In the second place He Himself sends to us the good preceptor himself at the moment when we are at all likely to benefit by his instructions.

[Guest guest]

All honest thinkers will realise the logical propriety of the position set forth above. But most persons will be disposed to believe that a good preceptor in the above sense may not be found in this world. This is really so.

 

But spiritual discipleship is nevertheless capable of being realised by persons who belong to this world. Otherwise there wold be no religion at all in the world.

 

The good preceptor although he appears to belong to this world is not really of this world.

 

No one who belongs to this world can deliver us from worldliness.

 

The good preceptor is a denizen of the spiritual world who has been enabled by the will of God to appear in this world in order to enable us to realise the spiritual existence.

[Guest guest]

Realisation cannot come to you as a miracle done by your Guru. Lord Buddha, Lord Jesus, Rama Tirtha have all done Sadhana. Lord Krishna asks Arjuna to develop Vairagya and Abhyasa. He did not say to him, “I will give you Mukti now.” Therefore, abandon the wrong notion that your Guru will give you Samadhi and Mukti. Strive, purify, meditate and realise.

 

Guru-Kripa, grace of the Guru, is very necessary. That does not mean that the disciple should sit idle. He must do rigid Purushartha, spiritual practices. The whole work must be done by the student. Nowadays, people want a drop of water from the Kamandalu of a Sannyasin and desire to enter into Samadhi immediately. They are not prepared to undergo any Sadhana for purification and Self-realisation. They want a magic pill to push them into Samadhi. If you have got such delusion, give it up immediately.

 

Guru and Sastras can show you the path and remove your doubts. Anubhava of Aparoksha kind or direct intuitive knowledge is left for your own experience. A hungry man will have to eat for himself. He who has a severe itching will have to scratch for himself.

 

No doubt, Guru’s blessings can do everything. How can one have his blessings? By pleasing the Guru. A Guru can be pleased with his disciple only if the latter carries out his spiritual instructions implicitly. Carefully follow, therefore, the instructions of the Guru. Act up to his instructions. Then only will you deserve his blessings, and then alone his blessings can do everything.

 

To reach liberation is no easy matter. It is very, very difficult to become freed from ignorance. Out of the millions and billions of human beings on earth, there may be ten or twenty or even a hundred liberated souls. But God alone knows how many realised souls exist. To realise the Highest Absolute as one's very own and to constantly feel that this realisation is not something you have actually achieved but something you eternally are - that is called realisation.

 

A liberated soul is liberated from ignorance, from worldly undivine qualities. A liberated soul will inspire others with his presence. He will inspire them to be pure, simple, kind-hearted and loving. Tremendous purity and serenity will flow from him, and others will want to touch him, speak to him, look at his face. You can say that he is much more than a saint. True, worldly obscurities, impurities and other things will not enter into the liberated soul, or he will be all the time cautious so as not to allow them to enter into him. But a realised soul is much higher. He is consciously part and parcel of God.

 

Realised souls are extremely powerful. They know what they are and where they have come from. On the strength of their universal and transcendental consciousness, they can enter into the ignorance of humanity, into the earth-consciousness as such, and illumine it with their torch-light. They do so only because of their infinite compassion, not because they still have some temptations or wrong forces in them. No! They enter into ignorance deliberately so that humanity can be radically transformed. But only realised souls of a high order accept this bold challenge.

 

To reach liberation is no easy matter. It is very, very difficult to become freed from ignorance. Out of the millions and billions of human beings on earth, there may be ten or twenty or even a hundred liberated souls. But God alone knows how many realised souls exist. To realise the Highest Absolute as one's very own and to constantly feel that this realisation is not something you have actually achieved but something you eternally are - that is called realisation.

[Guest guest]

 

Re: first post ~

"If he sins after initiation, he may fall into greater depths than the uninitiated"

 

I take this as a stern warning, not a license to enjoy, as you seem to suggest.

 

 

"But although even after initiation temporary setbacks may occur, they do not ordinarily prevent the final deliverance... How is it any different than a duplicitous Jesus freak or a hypocrite Born-Again Christian preacher?"

 

I see this as causeless mercy, you see it as a license to commit sin. When one receives initiation and later falls down, Krsna protects His devotee. The devotee may have to take several more births, perhaps many, and suffer karmic reactions along the way. That's the difference. We don't preach that the devotee will go back to Godhead in this lifetime, if he has degraded himself. Still, mercy is higher than justice. We don't believe in a merciless God who sends His children to an eternal hell, neither do we believe in a God who grants entrance into His abode cheaply, before we are fully purified.

 

If you're looking for fault, Krsna will fulfill your desire, whether or not any fault exists. Please don't compare Srila Bhaktisiddanta Sarasvati Thakur to duplicitous salesmen and hypocrites. That is simply offensive.