Initiations

Prabhupāda:
They have got neckbeads?

Pradyumna:
Everyone has their neckbeads? Yes. Bhakta Adhīra?

Lokanātha:
[Transl. Those whose names will be called kindly come forward.]

Devotee (1):
Kṛṣṇa dāsa.

Prabhupāda:
His family? [indistinct discussion]

Kṛṣṇa dāsa [child]:
Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Lokanāha:
There he is, Adhira.

Pradyumna:
His name is Abhayāśraya.

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. So what are the rules and regulations?]

Adhīra:
[Transl. There are four rules. The first rule is no fish, meat, egg, onions, and garlic. Second rule is no intoxication—tea, bīḍī, coffee. Third is no illicit sex. And fourth is no gambling.]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. Abhayāśraya tomāra nāma.* Your name is Abhayāśraya.]

Devotees:
Jaya. [applause]

Pradyumna:
Bhakta Allen?

Devotee (1):
He’s not present.

Pradyumna:
Ātmānanda? Ātma-tattva dāsa.

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. What are the rules and regulations?]

Ātmānanda:
No meat-eating, no intoxication, no illicit sex, no gambling.

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. Your teeth are not clean. Teeth? You don’t brush them well?] Ātmānanda dāsa.

Pradyumna:
Ātma-tattva dāsa.

Prabhupāda:
Ātma-tattva dāsa.

Devotees:
Jaya!

Pradyumna:
Lakshmana? Bhakta Lakshmana?

Lokanātha:
Pay full obeisances.

Hari-śauri:
Daṇḍavats.

Lokanātha:
Fall flat.

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. What are the regulative principles?]

Lakṣmaṇa:
[Transl. No meat and fish eating, no intoxication—tea, bīḍī, cigarette.]

Prabhupāda:
[Transl. Is he telling all right?]

Lokanātha:
[Transl. Yes.]

Lakṣmaṇa:
[Transl. No illicit sex and fourth no gambling.]

Pradyumna:
Lakṣmīśa dāsa.

Prabhupāda:
Lakṣmīśa dāsa.

Lokanātha:
Laksmīśvara.

Devotees:
Jaya.

Pradyumna:
Robin?

Prabhupāda:
While coming they should be careful not to touch feet anything. These people, they do not know. Especially…

Lokanātha:
[Transl. When you come here do not touch anything. Leaves are there, bananas are there.] Do not touch any of these things with your feet.

Prabhupāda:
What are the rules and regulations?

Robin:
No egg or fish, no meat-eating, no illicit sex, no intoxication and no gambling.

Pradyumna:
Atīndra dāsa.

Prabhupāda:
Atīndra dāsa.

Lokanātha:
Atīndra dāsa.

Devotees:
Jaya.

Pradyumna:
Roger?

Lokanātha:
Haribol!

Prabhupāda:
Walk very carefully. You should come very carefully to get beads.

Lokanātha:
Excuse me, prabhus. I’ll repeat one more time, do not touch any of these things. Be careful.

Prabhupāda:
Not touch nor cross.

Lokanātha:
Not even go over it. It is offensive. Please make a way.

Prabhupāda:
What are the rules?

Roger:
No intoxication, no meat-eating, no gambling, no illicit sex. Chant sixteen rounds daily.

Pradyumna:
Revatī-kumāra.

Prabhupāda:
Revatī-kumāra dāsa.

Devotee:
Revatī-kumāra dāsa.

Lokanātha:
Jaya.

Pradyumna:
Satyānanda?

Lokanātha:
[Transl. Chant loudly.] Namaḥ oṁ should be uttered, should be a vibration. Otherwise, Nectar of Devotion says it’s offense. [Transl. You should chant loudly.]

Satyānanda:
[Transl. Four rules. Meat, fish, egg prohibited. Second is no intoxication-tea, coffee, cigarettes, bīḍī, gañja: hemp. Third is no illicit sex. Fourth is no gambling.]

Pradyumna:
Siddhārtha dāsa.

Prabhupāda:
Siddhārtha dāsa.

Lokanātha:
Siddhārtha dāsa.

Devotees:
Jaya.

Pradyumna:
Dharma?

Lokanātha:
Mr. Mehta. Prabhupāda? These are his beads you were chanting on before.

Prabhupāda:
No shaving?

Lokanātha:
He’s Tejiyas’s man. I don’t know. He is just a visitor, householder. He’s in business.

Prabhupāda:
That’s all right. Give him initiation! [Transl. You didn’t shave your head? You have got mustache also.]

Lokanātha:
[Transl. For a vaiṣṇava,] he should do it first?

Prabhupāda:
Yes.

Lokanātha:
[Transl. Not possible like this.] I’ll ask him.

Devotee:
Jaya, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda:
Nobody said to him? You did not know? Let him shave up. Then we shall… You should have known. You are introducing, you did not know? Then who has introduced?

Lokanātha:
Tejiyas.

Prabhupāda:
Tejiyas is not saying, and you also not detect? You should be very careful. If you remain ignorant, all ignorant, then where is progress? Everything ignorant I have to find out. So many big, big monkeys, nobody could find out. Big, big monkey, big, big belly. You also did not. That’s all… Who is next?

Pradyumna:
Anyone else? That is all, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda:
So?

Lokanātha:
[Transl. Sit down. You can speak Hindi? So the vaiṣṇavas should know…]

[break] Yes. Because some of them, they could not follow Hindi.

Pradyumna:
I’ll just do it fast. First nāma-aparādha is satāṁ nindā nāmnaḥ paramam aparādhaṁ vitanute yataḥ khyātiṁ yātaṁ katham u sahate tad-vigarhām. Paramam aparādham. The saints, the saintly persons who are spreading the glories of the holy name, if we abuse them, if we make offense at the people who are spreading the glories of the holy name, then the holy name will never tolerate that. How can the holy name tolerate the abuse of those who are spreading the glories of the holy name? So we must understand that a saintly person, a sādhu, satām, spreading the glories of Kṛṣṇa, talking about Kṛṣṇa, must never be offended. Must always be very careful. Sādhu-saṅga [Cc. Madhya 22.83].

You must know how to associate with the sādhus, to always honor them and worship them and not to make offense. The second offense is that we should not put the…, understand that the names of Śrī Kṛṣṇa or Viṣṇu-tattva personalities, which are completely spiritual, are the same as the material designations of jīvas like ourselves. There’s Viṣṇu-tattva, there is jīva. Viṣṇu-tattva is God; jīva is this ordinary living entity. The name of the Supreme is the same as the Supreme. The name of the jīva is different from the jīva. So we should not confuse these. We should understand the name of Viṣṇu is the same as Viṣṇu. The name of jīva is not the same. So the names of demigods—the demigods are also jīvas—their names are not spiritual. If we call names of some demigods, it will not do us the same spiritual…, it will not give us this spiritual result as calling the name of Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda:
Therefore during the time of initiation we change the name. A spiritual name is given. Go on.

Pradyumna:
Because that spiritual name has…, because the name of Kṛṣṇa, a name of Hari, has the spiritual potency; therefore we use the name of Hari as much as possible. Hari dāsa…

Prabhupāda:
Dāsa. Not that name, but the name’s servant. Dāsa. When one is named Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa dāsa, he is servant of Kṛṣṇa. Not that Kṛṣṇa. If he thinks, “I have become Kṛṣṇa,” that is Māyāvāda. Kṛṣṇa dāsa. Go on.

Pradyumna:
The next offense is guror avajñā, to neglect or disrespect the orders of the spiritual master. Because the spiritual master is the external representation of the internal Kṛṣṇa, whatever the spiritual master says is to be taken as exactly what Kṛṣṇa’s desire is. Kṛṣṇa is within all of us as Paramātmā, but because we cannot see Him, because He is adhokṣaja, or above our senses, therefore that same Kṛṣṇa within appears without as the spiritual master, and he gives us instructions, and these are taken to be the same as Kṛṣṇa’s instructions. So to disrespect the orders of the guru is not to make any progress on the spiritual path. Na gatiḥ kuto ’pi. There can be no gatiḥ, there can be no spiritual achievement without following the orders of the spiritual master, because the order of the spiritual master is the same as Kṛṣṇa’s order. Śruti-śāstra-nindanam. One should not make blasphemy the śruti, which are the Vedas, and śāstra, the śāstras which follow the Vedas. This is Mahābhārata, the Purāṇas, the itihāsa, the smṛti. Śruti-smṛti. These are the two eyes. It is said the brāhmaṇa has two eyes: one is śruti, one is smṛti. So by these śāstras we can understand, because the śāstras are made by God, because they are emanating from God; therefore they are perfect. As Kṛṣṇa…

Prabhupāda:
Not different. Not different from God.

Pradyumna:
Because God is perfect, because Kṛṣṇa is perfect, therefore His words and His ideas are also perfect. So these śāstras are the words of God. So they are also perfect. So the śruti-śāstra-nindanam means to think that there may be something wrong in the scripture or to take one verse out of Bhagavad-gītā and reject another verse. Because it is all coming from Kṛṣṇa and is all-perfect, therefore everything is perfect within it. We must accept everything. We must accept it without any…, as being without any fault. So śruti-śāstra-nindanam. We should not think that it has any imperfection, that “This may be wrong.” Śruti-śāstra-nindanam hari-nāmni kalpanam. We should not think that the…, should not speculate on the nature of the holy name.

Prabhupāda:
Go on, next. Dharma-vrata sarva śubha kriyā… [The eighth offense]: To consider the chanting of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra to be one of the auspicious ritualistic mantras mentioned in the Vedas as fruitive activity. Nāmnād balād pāpa-buddhiḥ.

Pradyumna:
Nāmnād balād pāpa-buddhir na tasya śuddhiḥ, na tasya vidyate śuddhir yamaiḥ. Of one who makes… The next offense is that…, if by chanting the holy name one becomes relieved from all his past sinful reactions, so if one thinks that “I will perform sinful activities. I’ll have illicit sex, I’ll eat meat, fish…” [break] [end]