On dīkṣā

Today we have this ceremony of passage from one stage of life to another. I'll say a few words about the word dīkṣā.

divyaṃ jñānaṃ yato dadyāt kuryāt pāpasya saṅkṣayam
tasmād dīkṣeti sā proktā deśikais tattva-kovidaiḥ
ato guruṃ praṇamyaivaṃ sarvasvaṃ vinivedya ca
gṛhṇīyād vaiṣṇavaṃ mantraṃ dīkṣā-pūrvaṃ vidhānataḥ

The teachers who are knowers of the truth say that since it gives divine knowledge and destroys sin, it is called dīkṣā. (Bhakti Sandarbha (Anuccheda 283) by Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī)

It is taking these two syllables, dī and kṣā, and it is saying dī means “to give,” and kṣā comes from a root which means “to destroy.” What’s being cut or what’s being destroyed? What’s being destroyed is sin, pāpa. And the second part says, “Therefore, paying obeisance to the guru and offering him one’s all, one should receive a vaiṣṇava mantra, dīkṣā, preceded with proper procedures.” 

Mantra-dīkṣā that is given should be prepared in a certain way. There are certain steps that must take place.
Jīva Gosvāmī explains also what is divya-jñānam. “Divyaṁ jñānaṁ hy atra śrīmati mantre bhagavat-svarūpa-jñānam, tena bhagavatā sambandha-viśeṣa-jñānaṁ ca.” 

Divine knowledge means here “knowledge of the true nature of the Lord, who is in the mantra.” And now it gets interesting, because by that it also means “the knowledge of one’s own special relationship with the Lord.”

This may sound very exalted and elevated. We may think, “Is this all happening just here while we’re sitting here?” And the answer is: “It is a stage on the way.” Dīkṣā is an ongoing process. We might want to say, “It started when we first contacted devotees.”

I have some notes here from a lecture that the late His Holiness Bhakti Tirtha Swami gave, where he said that we should take the vows seriously. If we don’t follow them, initiation has no meaning. He said that Brahma-saṁhitā is the essence of all scriptures. This is also the essence of the Bhāgavatam itself. And he says that if we are able to understand Brahma-saṁhitā, we will be able to understand everything. Then he explained the meaning of the mantras that we chant along with the ācamana, and how this is about purification, which is a saṁskāra. The essence of this is śravaṇaṁ and kīrtanaṁ, from which comes smaraṇaṁ. Then he speaks about the Gāyatrī mantra, because that is what we are specifically going to be transmitting. His Holiness Bhakti Tirtha Swami says, “This is a mantra, it is a sound from the spiritual world.” 
Actually, we have altogether seven mantras that indicate spiritual objects. Through the medium of succession and through the process of initiation, which reveals different aspects of spiritual nature, we have to receive the mantra. The initiation reveals the transcendental nature, the guru, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, and Krishna.

It is interesting because the first mantra is, at least on one level, worshipping Sūrya Nārāyaṇa, the Lord. We are in the middle of a snowstorm right now, but we know that the Sun is there. It is just not visible now. We may remember the verse from Caitanya-caritāmṛta, that “Krishna is like the sun and māyā is like darkness.” Where there is Krishna, jahāṅ kṛṣṇa, there is no adhikāra, there is no power of māyā. Therefore, our mahā-mantra, for which the gāyatrī mantras are a kind of support, is the key. Especially in this age, “harer nāma harer nāma harer nāmaiva kevalam kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva nāsty eva gatir anyathā.” There’s no other gatiḥ, no other way than this chanting of Krishna’s names. The Holy Name is sweeter than the sweetest. It is maṅgalam, the most auspicious of all that is auspicious. It is pāvanam, the most merciful, most purifying. The Holy Name is the only way. While we are chanting these verses, the Holy Name makes this world insignificant like a blade of grass, because it is cid-ānanda-maya, or constituted of conscious ecstasy. Cid-ānanda-maya, meaning the Holy Name possesses a continuous transcendental ecstasy.

Anthropologists tell us that there are always rituals and ritual innovation. What we are doing now is a bit of ritual innovation. You can come and offer obeisance. Would you like to reaffirm your vows? The first is the prohibition of meat-eating, which includes no meat, fish, or eggs; the second is a prohibition of intoxication; the third is a prohibition of illicit sex; and the fourth is a prohibition of gambling. Thank you. Now we’re going to invoke the Lord and His associates in the form of Agni and chant mantras for their blessings, after which, then, I will give you the Gāyatrī mantras.

—From the address by H.H. Krishna Kshetra Swami before the second initiation of Viṣṇurāta dāsa in Poland on January 12, 2025




An Active State on the Way to Perfection 

One of the key themes of the Bhagavad Gita is equal vision (sama-darshana): “A learned brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog, or a ‘dog-eater’—a wise person sees [them all] with equal vision” (Gita 5.18). 

It was such equal vision that enabled King Yudhishthira to insist that his companion dog be admitted with him into heaven; and by this insistence, he exercised his power of choice (iccha). With these two foundational capacities—seeing with equal vision and making a conscious choice based on that vision, the king was empowered to practice nonviolence (ahimsa) and, in the process of doing so, to teach by example (acharya) to the world. To hold fast to this teaching despite all resistance from the world required and enabled him to realize humility (amanitva), which he could experience blossoming into true affection (priti) for fellow beings. I am grateful to Shaunaka Rishi Das for calling attention to this sixfold thematic understanding of the Bhagavad-gita. 

—From the book Cow Care in Hindu Animal Ethics by Kennth R. Valpey (HH Krishna Kshetra Swami), published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2020. The legal open access download version is available at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-28408-4