Initiation--the Most Important Step

After unlimited lifetimes of suffering in the rotation of birth, death, old age, and disease there is nothing more wonderful and inconceivably blissful than being released from the prison of material existence and receiving entry into the eternal spiritual sky where the Supreme Person is eternally engaged in loving pastimes with His dear devotees. The most important step for making this ultimate journey is to take initiation from the bona fide spiritual master. Srila Prabhupada explains that it is at the moment of initiation that the disciple becomes deathless. At this moment he enters into immortality provided that he remains always faithful to the vows that he accepts at the time of initiation. Those vows are to chant at least 16 rounds of the Hare Krishna mahamantra on japa beads every day and to strictly avoid illicit sex, intoxication, meat eating, and gambling.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Initiation of Krishnaprema Das 19 June 2009--Melbourne, Australia

Sankarshan Das Initiating Krishnaprema Das 19 June 2009

Answers According to the Vedic Version:

Question: Knowing Truth with Imperfect Senses?

From reading Srila Prabhupada's books I learn that we conditioned souls have four defects. Because we have imperfect senses we have a tendency to be illusioned and thus we make mistakes and cheat. So how with these defects can we know that we are reading in the Vedic teachings is true and not false?

R.V.

Answer: Senses Are Perfected by Krishna Consciousness

I appreciate that you asked a very intelligent question. If we are all possessing the four defects of imperfect senses, the tendency to be illusioned, making mistakes, and cheating, how can we trust our judgment to accept the truth of the Bhagavad-gita? If our senses are imperfect, how can we know for sure that Krishna is God and that His teachings are the Absolute Truth?

It is indeed a fact that with our imperfect senses we cannot know certainly that anything is true. So how with these imperfect senses can we with any degree of intellectual integrity accept the truth of the Vedic wisdom? Are we simply blindly, dogmatically accepting the Vedic wisdom like brainwashed cult members?

The answer is that although it is a fact that with our imperfect senses we cannot know the truth, by the process of Krishna consciousness our senses become perfect and with perfected senses we can perfectly understand and directly experience the truth of the Vedic wisdom.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

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