Initiation: Beyond Formality

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kolkata, 13 December 2020, part 4

Question: There is a person who is undecided about what is the best time to receive diksa. Could you please give them your advice?

First choose the guru who will give you initiation, then you can come and ask him, "Gurudev, what time is good for me?" The guru will tell you what is the good time for initiation.

Generally speaking, one can take initiation at any time. Why can you not decide? Do not follow your mind. If your Gurudev says, "You can take initiation now," then you must do that—that is the best time for you.

One time, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu asked Puri Das (Kavi Karnapur) to recite a sloka from Srimad Bhagavatam, and he recited it. After that, Sri Svarup Damodar Prabhu said, "Oh, Prabhu, Puri Das has already become Your disciple!" So, for a disciple, taking a mala, etc. is just a formality. You must understand what for you are taking initiation, what is the meaning of initiation, what is necessary for initiation. These are the main things.

If you only take the initiation and a few days later forget your guru, forget the service of your guru, then how can you be happy through that? If you do not think about all this and just take initiation, what will be the result? You should think only, "How can I please my Guru?" This is the main aspiration.

So, you can take initiation at any time. There are no prohibitions, no rules or regulations concerning the time when to take initiation. What time, which month, which day, etc.—it does not matter; you can take initiation at any time.

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