(Kadamba Kanana Swami 08/03/2010)Initiation is a very auspicious time, because prior to the initiation we had become deviated from the goal of life and we had somehow or other become entangled by the material energy. But now things are changing because initiation means that the path back to Godhead is wide open and unobstructed, that now we are actually on the straight path back to Godhead. So it is a very glorious moment...
It is said that this path, we have to be very careful to stay on this path and we may compare it to driving on the road, and as we begin om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya, the Spiritual Master opens our darkened eyes with the transcendental knowledge. So we can say that in the beginning we are in darkness, in the path we are in darkness, we are entering in the road in the middle of the night. So when we are driving in the middle of the night we have to be very careful that we are paying attention to the white lines otherwise it will be difficult for us to stay on the road. Later as we are progressing time is moving along and gradually the day begins to come and we are still following the regulative principles but the process of devotional service begins to develop more and more, just like the day is arriving while we are on the road and we see the landscape and so on.
So at the time of initiation we are fixing ourselves in regulative principles. We were ofcourse fixed before but still when we promise that is different. It is different, it increases our commitment . So know we are thoroughly committed to these vows.
The vows are like valuable jewels, the vows are full of potential. In the Bhagavad Gita we find the reference to the regulative principles of freedom. So these regulative principles can actually offer us freedom from so many different types of entanglement that we experience in this material world. It is said the living beings in the material world are always in chains and there are six shackles or sometimes called the six waves: hunger, thirst, lamentation, old age, infirmity and ultimately death.
So in material life we are always bound. But by the process of devotional service we rise above and come to the stage where the soul is actually returning to its actual position and therefore experiencing full satisfaction.
So this initiation is very valuable and the vows are very valuable.
There is a story that once Krishna was taking pearls and planting these pearls in the ground.
Mother Yashoda said ‘What are you doing?’
He said ‘Oh, I’m growing pearls’
She was a Vaishya from a farming family, Mother Yashoda said: ‘ it doesn’t work , you can not grow pearls by putting them in the ground like seeds’
And Krishna said ‘ No No it is possible, it works’
And very shortly afterwards nice bushes began to grow out of Krishna’s pearls and on the bushes within a short time many pearls were there and Krishna said to His Mother: ‘see, they grow very nicely, no problem!’
So the vows of initiation are like pearls we plant them and they must produce bushes full of many more pealrls! So the initiation is known to be the beginning, from these vows so many other things will develop.
(Kadamba Kanana Swami 08/03/2010)
