Diksa, Siksa, and the Bhagavat-marga
BY: SHIVA DASA
Feb 12, CALIFORNIA, USA (SUN) — A Reply to Kailasa Chandra dasa.
Kailasa Chandra wrote:
"Where did Srila Prabhupada ever say that all of his sannyasis, leading secretaries, rittviks, and temple presidents were surrendered pure devotees and self-realized, liberated shiksha-gurus? Where did he ever authorize them to occupy the post of shiksha-guru?
From Srila Prabhupada we hear:
"The GBC should all be instructor gurus. I am the initiator guru, and you should be the instructor guru by teaching what I am teaching and doing what I am doing." (SPL to Madhudvisa Swami, 4/8/75)
"... but I have no qualification. How can I become guru ? There is no need of qualification...whomever you meet, you simply instruct what Krsna has said. That's all. You become guru." (SP Lect., Honolulu, 21st May 1976)
"Real guru is he who instructs what Krsna has
said....You have simply to say, "This is this." That's all. Is it very difficult task?" (SP Lect., Honolulu, 21st May 1976)
"Just always think of me, Krsna said, "And become my devotee. Just worship Me and offer obeisances. Kindly do these things." So if you can induce one person to do these things, you become guru. Is there any difficulty?" (SP Conv., Paris, 2nd August 1976)
You can also find verses and purports which seem to be contradictory to the above quotes. Why is that? It is because there are different types of siksa gurus. A less then perfected soul who transmits the message of the Bhagavata is acting as a siksa guru at the time he is transmitting that knowledge. At that point he is being used as a transparent via-medium of the Lord if he is actually being transparent in his presentation. This is from Srila Prabhupada's Vyasa Puja offering to his spiritual master at the Bombay Gaudiya Math 1936:
"...when we speak of the fundamental principle of gurudeva or acaryadeva, we speak of something that is of universal application. There does not arise any question of discriminating my guru from yours or anyone else's."
Sri Gauranga has told us yare dekha tare kaha krsna-upadesa amara ajnaya guru hana tara ei desa, By my order be a guru by giving whomever you meet Krsna upadesa, and then kabhu na badhibe tomara visaya-taranga punarapi ei thani pabe mora sanga by doing so you will transcend the ocean of
material existence and I will always be there with you.
Of course the potency of the person who attempts to follow that instruction will vary according to the level of education and realization of the aspiring servant of the Lord. In this way there are different levels of siksa guru, but ultimately guru is one. The Lord is the guru speaking through the devotee to the extent of the capacity of the devotee muka kavitva kare yan-sabara smarane pangu giri langhe, andha dekhe
tara-gane, "By remembering the lotus feet of the Panca-tattva, a dumb man can become a poet, a lame man can cross mountains, and a blind man can see the stars in the sky."
Kailasa Chandra wrote:
"A shiksha-guru is a spiritual master, a pure devotee. The mercy of the Supreme Lord upon his pure devotees is unlimited. The shiksha-guru is self-realized, and satisfaction of the self-realized spiritual master is the secret to advancement in transcendental life.
From Srila Prabhupada we hear:
"A person who is liberated acharya and guru cannot commit any mistake, but there are persons who are less qualified or not liberated, but still can act as guru and acharya by strictly following the disciplic succession." (SPL to: Janardana : 68-04-26)
"By 1975, all of those who have passed all of the
above mentioned examinations will be specifically empowered to initiate and increase the number of Krsna consciousness population." (SPL to Kirtanananda Swami, 12th January, 1968)
Kailasa Chandra wrote:
"According to sacred tradition, connection to the disciplic succession is attained by initiation into that disciplic succession from an acharya who is actually authorized by his predecessor spiritual master to give just such initiation (diksha). In order to understand the Absolute Science, a devotee seeking initiation secures this connection"
From Srila Prabhupada we hear:
"Well initiation or no initiation, first thing is
knowledge... knowledge. Initiation is formality. Just like you go to a school for knowledge, and admission is formality. That is not very important thing." (SP Press Interview, Chandigarh, 10/16/76)
"Initiation is a formality. If you are serious, that
is real initiation. My touch is simply a formality. It is your determination. That is initiation." (SP morning walk, Seattle, 02/10/68)
"The chanting Hare Krishna is our main business, that is real initiation. And as you are all following my instruction, in that matter, the initiator is already there." (SPL to Tamala Krsna, 19 August, 1968)
Jiva Goswami tells us that initiation is very helpful but not actually absolutely required. This is from the Bhakti Sandarbha where Jiva begins his exposition on deity worship:
"Now will be considered worship of the Lord (arcana), which begins with the invitation (avahana) to the Lord to appear. If one has faith in the path of worship, one should take shelter of a bona fide spiritual master and ask questions of him. This is described in these words of Srimad Bhagavatam (11.3.48):
"Having obtained the mercy of his spiritual master, who reveals to the disciple the injunctions of Vedic scriptures, the devotee should worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead in the particular personal form of the Lord the devotee finds most attractive."
Although in the opinion of Srimad-Bhagavatam the path of worshipping the Deity, as it is described in the Pancaratras and other scriptures, is not compulsory, and without engaging in Deity worship one may attain the final goal of life by engaging in even only one of the nine processes of devotional service, processes that begin with surrender, nevertheless, in the opinion of they who follow the path of Narada Muni and other great sages, by accepting initiation from a bona fide spiritual master one attains a relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, a relationship established through the feet of one's spiritual master, and when one is thus initiated, the process of Deity worship is compulsory. Therefore in the Agama-sastra it is said:
divyam jnanam yato dadyat kuryat papasya sanksayam
tasmat dikseti sa prokta desikais tattva-kovidaih
"Diksa is the process by which one can awaken his transcendental knowledge and vanquish all reactions caused by sinful activity. A person expert in the study of the revealed scriptures knows this process as diksa."
ato gurum pranamyaivam sarva-svam vinivedya ca
grihniyad vaishnavam mantram diksha-purvam vidhanatah
"It is the duty of every human being to surrender to a bona fide spiritual master. Giving him everything -- body, mind and intelligence -- one must take Vaishnava initiation from him."
And then he says:
"The words "divyam jnanam" (transcendental knowledge) here refers to the descriptions of the Lord's transcendental form in sacred mantras. Chanting those mantras establishes a relationship with the Supreme Lord. This is explained in the Padma Purana, Uttara-khanda's description of the eight-syllable mantra. Thus for wealthy householders the path of Deity worship is most important. The sages tell Maharaja Vasudeva:
"This is the most auspicious path of progress for a religious householder of the twice-born orders: to faithfully worship the Personality of Godhead with his uncontaminated possessions which have been acquired by just means..."
In the path of Deity worship one must first be initiated. Then there are many rules that must be followed. These rules are described in the scriptures. Initiation is described in these words of the Agama-sastra:
"Even though born in a brahmana family, one cannot engage in Vedic rituals without being initiated and
having a sacred thread. Although born in a brahmana family, one becomes a brahmana after initiation and the sacred thread ceremony. Unless one is initiated as a brahmana, he cannot worship the holy name properly..."
...The substance of all the Vedic mantras is the chanting of the holy name of the Lord. Every mantra begins with the prefix nama Om and eventually addresses by name the Supreme Personality of Godhead. By the supreme will of the Lord there is a specific potency in each and every mantra chanted by great sages like Narada Muni and other rsis. chanting the holy name of the Lord immediately renovates the transcendental relationship of the living being with the Supreme Lord. To chant the holy name of the Lord one need not depend upon other paraphernalia, for one can immediately get all the desired results of connecting or linking with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. It may therefore be questioned why there is a necessity for further spiritual activities in devotional service for one who engages in the chanting of the holy name of the Lord.
The answer is that although it is correct that one who fully engages in chanting the holy name need not depend upon the process of initiation, generally a devotee is addicted to many abominable material habits due to material contamination from his previous life.
In order to get quick relief from all these contaminations, it is required that one engage in the worship of the Lord in the temple. The worship of the Deity in the temple is essential to reduce one's restlessness due to the contaminations of conditional life. Thus Narada in his pancaratriki vidhi, and other great sages have sometimes stressed that since every conditioned soul has a bodily concept of life aimed at sense enjoyment the rules and regulations for worshipping the Deity in the temple are essential."
The initiation Srila Prabhupada was speaking about was a different type of initiation then what Jiva Goswami was writing about. Jiva was writing about the importance of pancaratriki vidhi in developing one's Krishna bhakti which he said is especially important for people immersed in householder life, whereas Srila Prabhupada was speaking about the bhagavat-marga when he was saying that "Initiation is a formality. If you are serious, that is real initiation. My touch is simply a formality. It is your determination. That is initiation" or 'Disciplic succession does not always mean that one has to be initiated officially.
Disciplic succession means to accept the disciplic conclusion" or "So anyway, from 1922 to 1933 practically I was not initiated, but I got the impression of preaching Caitanya Mahaprabhu's cult. That I was thinking. And that was the initiation by my Guru Maharaja" or "Well initiation or no initiation, first thing is knowledge ... knowledge. Initiation is formality. Just like you go to a school for knowledge, and admission is formality. That is not very important
thing."
"Bring more Americans and start this movement nicely. Not necessarily that we have to establish a temple. We want to preach our philosophy. That is most important. Bhagavata-marga. There are two ways, bhagavata-marga and pancaratriki. The bhagavata-marga is more important than pancaratriki. Pancaratriki is Deity worship." (SP Room Conversation in Tehran, Aug. 8, 1976)
Even though there appears to be some contradiction between what Srila Prabhupada has said and what the previous acaryas and sastra has said on the matter of diksa, still we are advised by all of them that everyone should take actual diksa initiation following the pancaratriki method. The contradiction is really not a contradiction because what is being discussed is the difference between the initiation into the bhagavat-marg and the pancaratriki vidhi where one needs to be properly initiated as a brahmana in order to properly worship the deity.
Srila Prabhupada Lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam,
02-13-71, Gorakhpur:
"Sravanam kirtanam visnoh smaranam--this is bhagavata-marga. And arcanam vandanam dasyam sakhyam atma-nivedanam--that is pancaratrika, arcanam. So out of the nine--nine, eight, seven, six, five--whatever you do, that is sufficient because absolute. Any item, even one item, you can, if you perform perfectly, that is sufficient. But there are nine alternative items. Just like Haridasa Thakura, he simply chanted, sravanam kirtanam. He did not establish any Deity, but he got perfection. There were many others. Just like Pariksit Maharaja. At the last stage of his life he simply concentrated in hearing Srimad-Bhagavatam. Sravanam. So if sravana is perfect, that is sufficient. Any one of the nine items, if it is done perfectly, that is sufficient. Pariksit Maharaja, he did not go to the temple. He sat on the bank of the Ganges, and he was very serious because he knew that "I am going to die within seven days. Let me finish as soon as possible simply hearing of Srimad-Bhagavatam." He was intelligent. Otherwise... Not that simply he was hearing. He was questioning, as you have seen in the Srimad-Bhagavatam. So he was very scholar. It means as the spiritual master, Sukadeva Gosvami, was a great scholar in Sanskrit, the king was also a great scholar. Therefore quickly he was reciting, and he was understanding. And as soon as there was some difficulty, he was immediately questioning.
So both the spiritual master and the disciple, they became perfect simply by sravanam kirtanam. This is Bhagavata-marga. Simply by hearing and chanting. The spiritual master chanted, recited Srimad-Bhagavatam, and that is being imitated."
