Hare Krsna
Please accept my humble obeisance. All glories to Srila Prabhupada
There was a person in a village who had acquired occult powers through intense penance. He was a close friend of a merchant in the village. Whenever the merchant had any problems or troubles in his business or personal life, he would approach this person and have his issues instantly resolved by virtue of the divine powers acquired through penance.
After all, the merchant was human too. One day, he picked up a quarrel with this divine person over some issue and it became a big fight. Now the merchant was in depression. He lost his self-confidence and fell sick. This was because he was terribly afraid that the same friend of his, who had done a lot of good to him during his heydays, could now deploy his occult powers to harm the merchant, now that he is his deadly enemy. This very thought troubled the merchant and he became fit for nothing owing to depression.
One goes to the temple and prays to the Lord. Imagine that the Lord destroys all his bad Karma. Fickle-minded human that he is, tomorrow he may turn against God and start abusing Him or denying His very existence. Then he would think, Oh! God! when I was close to God, He absolved all my bad karmas. Now that I am no more grateful to Him, will He destroy my good Karmas too? This very thought will make his life a miserable one.
Hence, unless one is a great Bhakta or surrenders to God through a Uttama Guru, the Lord does not interfere with his karmas.
Replies
HK Mataji,
Yes, 4 sampradayas are there to take one back home, back to godhead, but one cannot get brahmana initiation under any of the 3 sampradayas other than gaudiya-madhva today.
They do give initiation, but it is equal to ISKCON's 1-round hari naam deeksha, it is not brahmana deeksha. Rudra sampradaya is not as it was during Adhi Sankaracharya, his followers are preaching mayawada philosophy, while sankaracharya did it in different mood, there is no point in taking initiation from them.
W.R.T. Shri Vaishnavas, Sripad Ramanujacharya gave initiations to 74 brahmanas and told that only those who take birth in these 74 families will be connected.
Kumara Sampradaya, I am not sure about this, this philosophy might be existing somewhere near mathura or vrindavan today, as you said it is not widely spread.
People may like it or not like it, but Brahma-Madhwa-Gaudiya Sampradaya is the only way out for a brahmana initiation, wherein since we are talking about a guru taking all the karmas; it happens only in ISKCON, I am pretty sure.
Others can please correct me if I am wrong.
Hare Krsna...
my humble obeisances!
it says that only Nishtha (firm faith into the Holy Names) destroys up to 70 % of karma.
And it is a very big issue.
Your servant,
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