Guest guest Posted July 19, 2009 Report Share Posted July 19, 2009 - P.S.Kamanat mrrusskennedy Cc: 'Jay' Sunday, July 19, 2009 1:46 AM On spiritual initiation. Sri Ramakrishna Charanam Saranam; Sri Sri Ma Dear Russ, Initiation means spiritual initiation by a Guru. The Guru instructs a person, who approaches him/her for spiritual instructions. The Guru gives (selects) a particular form (aspect)of God and imparts a particular mantra to repeat as a spiritual discipline. That Godhead selected by a Guru is known as Chosen Deity (Ishta-devata) and that mantra is called chosen mantra (Ishta-mantra). Our minds run after manifolds; many ideals and this going-after many is arrested by this Initiation process by this discipline. Basically it has its origin in Tantra (Tantric initiation) and subsequently all other paths accepted the concept of initiation from Tantra. · Sri Ramakrishna was initiated into the worship of Shakti (Mother Kali) by KERNARAM BHATACHARYA when he was brought to Kolkata from his native village Kamarpukur, at the age of 17 by his elder brother. · He was initiated into Vaishnava and Tantrika paths by BHAIRAVI BRAHMANI. · His sannyasa (monastic vows) Guru was TOTAPURI SWAMI of Advaita tradition under naga sect. · GOVINDA RAI was his Guru in Islam traditions. Swamiji (Swami Vivekananda) was initiated into Rama-mantra at Cossipore Garden house by Sri Ramakrishna. He had no other Gurus in any spiritual disciplines. All spiritual disciplines /trainings were under his Sag-Guru Sri Ramakrishna. His sannyasa (monastic vows) was taken in front of the paduka (sacred footwear) of Sri Ramakrishna after Sri Ramakrishna’s passing away. That is an accepted way of taking monastic vows. Though he made an unsuccessful attempt to become the disciple of Pavhari Baba to learn Raja Yoga later, he was not initiated by anyone other than Sri Ramakrishna in his life, according to the available records in prints. Initiation is not a MUST for spiritual practices. But it helps to a very great extant in our spiritual journey. In the present day of confusion and indecisiveness, spiritual initiation is important for ordinary aspirants like us. It is just a matter of taking a tour guide when you are in an unfamiliar city. Those visionaries of the past, who were responsible for founding great universities like Cambridge or Oxford might not have had themselves the prescribed eligibility criteria for admission now into their undergraduate or graduate schemes. But WE need to meet those eligibility criteria to get to those universities. If we are giants and visionaries like those founding fathers, we need not go for all these initiation businesses. We can directly jump to the crystal-clear depths of Absolute without wading through the murky shallow waters of initiation, learning scriptures and so on. In Hinduism, those ordinary aspirants, who do not have a personal Guru yet, consider Lord Ganesha as their symbol of Guru. They worship Ganesha until they find a Guru. Ganesha has an elephant-face with trunk. Elephants do not take a detour when met with obstacles on their way. They simply root out those obstacles and move on. Ganesha, the symbolic Guru simply root out the obstacles (ignorance) in our path towards knowledge. For them, our own self becomes Guru. A sincere mind of any aspirant can become his/her Guru. (Uddaret-atman-atmanam….Verse 5, Chapter 6, Bhagavad Gita) Sincerely yours, Prakash Kamanat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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