Can somebody go back to Godhead without initiation?
May 22 197 Melbourne
Devotee 7: Prabhupāda, can a person go back to a spiritual planet without initiation?
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Devotee 7: Can a person go back to a spiritual planet…
Prabhupāda: No, there is no more init… Initiation here required when the living entity is in darkness. Just like uneducated person requires to go to school. One who is educated, in his full knowledge, he doesn’t go.
Madhudviṣa: The question was, Prabhupāda, is it possible for a person to return to the spiritual world without taking initiation from a bona fide spiritual master?
Prabhupāda: No, that is not possible. Therefore Rūpa Gosvāmī said, ā dau gurv-āśrayam. First business is to accept spiritual master. Ā dau gurv-āśrayam.
Who will train him? He is already fool, rascal. He must be trained up. So he must be trained up by the representative of Kṛṣṇa.
Devotee 9: Is second initiation necessary, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: Second or first only.
Devotee 9: Śrīla Prabhupāda, what are you saying? You said before there’s no necessary for a spiritual master and now you…
Devotee 1: He said in the spiritual world there is no necessity.
Devotee 9: Oh, in the spiritual world.
Devotee 1: Everyone is in full knowledge. In the material world everyone is in darkness.
Devotees: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda! Hari bol! Hari bol! [break]
Devotee 1: Śrīla Prabhupāda, it appears that there is a group of persons here in Australia who think, judging from the different questions that are being asked, they are thinking that it is not required to formally accept…
Prabhupāda: There are so many rascal swamis come. They say like that, “There is no need of guru.”
Devotee 1: Yeah, right. They think that Kṛṣṇa is in the heart and you can accept initiation by that way.
Prabhupāda: You do not know where to find out Kṛṣṇa in the heart. (end)
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“You have no feeling-that everyone knows”
June 23 1976 New Vrndavana
Devotee (4): The difficulty is that we cannot understand, we cannot feel what pleases Kṛṣṇa now, yet we can feel what pleases us, and that is the difficulty?
Prabhupāda: You have no feeling, that everyone knows. Therefore you have to carry out the order of spiritual master, that’s all.
Devotee (1) : If we try to please Kṛṣṇa with all of our service and activities, that automatically brings pleasure to the self?
Prabhupāda: You cannot please Kṛṣṇa directly. You please your spiritual master, Kṛṣṇa will be pleased. If you want to please directly Kṛṣṇa, that is not possible. That is concoction You cannot please. Yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādaḥ **. You have to please your spiritual master, then Kṛṣṇa will be pleased. Don’t jump. Guru-mukha-padma-vākya, cittete koriyā aikya **. What is that song you daily sing? What is that?
Pradyumna: By the words of the spiritual master our mind becomes conclusive from…
Prabhupāda: Āra nā koriha mane āśā. Don’t concoct. Don’t you sing daily? Āra nā koriha mane āśā. Don’t manufacture ideas. That is dangerous. Caitanya Mahāprabhu teaches by His example. Guru more mūrkha dekhi’ karilā śāsana [Cc. Ādi 7.71]. Caitanya Mahāprabhu said to Prakāśānanda Sarasvatī that “My spiritual master saw Me fool number one, so he has chastised Me, that ‘Don’t try to read Vedānta; chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.’ So I’m doing.” (motorcycle in background) Just hear. He has come to this turn. This sound is purposefully created? (motorbike going back and forth through much of the tape)
Some conclusions- From these two conversations we can see that one must have a bona fide spiritual master to go back to Godhead and that our position at present is that we have, practically speaking, no feeling for Krsna, therefore we require a spiritual master to guide us by our humbly hearing from him, and this hearing must be done without concocting something otherwise.
Hare Krsna
damaghosa das
(fall harvest now coming in-and it was a good one !)
