Eight New Disciples of Srila Prabhupada

Last Sunday 8 devotees stepped forward to take Harinam Initiation, vowing to chant at least 16 rounds per day and following the four regulative principles and 5 devotees took second initiation, Brahman Initiation, taking of the sacred thread.

All initiates accepted A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada as their sole Diksha guru and the ceremony was facilitated by H.G. Sundar Gopal Prabhu who acted as the Ritvik representative of Srila Prabhupada.

Through the initiation process one is connected to the spiritual master who delivers the fallen soul from the clutches of birth and death. The process purifies the living entity who evolves from the mode of ignorance to the mode of goodness. 'By chemical manipulation, bell metal is turned into gold when touched by mercury; similarly, when a person is properly initiated, he can acquire the qualities of a brahmana' (Bhakta-sandarbha 28)

[PADA: This is the way forward, we simply need to make our own devotees of Srila Prabhupada. Of course, some people complain to us that there are  problems in the various ritvik programs, and there are. Then again, having no program is yet another problem. Overall, we think that if a person accepts Srila Prabhupada as their guru, and they start to read his books, they will come to their own stable platform of realization despite various real or alleged problems. 

That is what happened to me. All through the 1970s I was surrounded by sometimes very flaky if not trouble making devotees, including some very egotistical GBC folks that I did not like all along. Some of them tried to even lead me astray and so on, but after I read the books, I was able to keep my own situation steady at least to some extent -- and not let these influences take me down. I believe anyone else can do the same at any time. Give them Srila Prabhupada, and give them his books, and the process will act even if imperfectly delivered otherwise. Folks from various ritvik camps write PADA with nice questions and nice realizations, so the process is working nonetheless. 

And this is the real reason some Gaudiya Matha folks / GBC folks / Hanuman Croatia etc. don't like our process, they are not happy that people are getting a bona fide acharya. As one devotee said, they want people to have any other guru in the universe, as long as its not Srila Prabhupada. Meanwhile we have a lot of readers who have not got any formal initiation, and many who do not even live near a temple or program, but they accept the principle, and that in our opinion means they are initiated de facto.

ys pd]