Two weeks after the first initiation I heard that Prabhupada was holding another initiation. I decided that this time I would not miss out. Prabhupada was going to hold the second initiation on September 23, 1966, on the appearance day of Radharani, Krsna's eternal consort. A week before that date, I went to Prabhupada's apartment and asked him if I could be initiated. "You know you'll have to be a strict vegetarian," Srila Prabhupada said.
"Oh," I replied, "I already am." Then Srila Prabhupada said, "Yes, it is all right."
The other first initiates had already been chanting regularly on their beads. One evening, a few days before my initiation, I asked if we should count the beads as we chant. Srila Prabhupada said Vaisnavas did have a counting method. He then asked me to purchase small beads and string them and show them to him when I was finished. As soon as Srila Prabhupada said this, I walked up to Fourteenth Street to Tandy's and within a couple of hours of his request I returned with the little beads. He laughed and Srila Prabhupada said, "You are very punctual." The other devotees in the room also laughed. I took it that he was laughing because I exhibited such a minor virtue as punctuality.
I had an extra day off coming to me from the welfare office, and I took it on the day of initiation. Prabhupada had not requested us to dress in any special way or to cut our hair, but I had decided to get a regular haircut at the barber's. That day, I also wrote a letter to one of my ex-college professors, who was in Europe, informing her that I was becoming initiated into spiritual life on the occasion of Radhastami, the appearance day of Radharani. I did not fully understand initiation and partly thought I was now becoming a Hindu. At least I understood that I was becoming a disciple -- of Prabhupada.
Three other devotees were going to be initiated also: Bruce, Chuck, and Keith. Keith had been at the storefront from the beginning and had become Prabhupada's personal cook, but on the occasion of the first initiation he had been detained. Attempting to get money for the temple he had gone to the welfare department and asked for money. Someone there had asked him, "Who told you to come here?"
When he had replied, "God told me," they thought he was insane. They had not asked him to explain himself further, but told him to go to Bellevue Hospital to get psychoanalytical clearance to prove he was mentally stable. The welfare office then called the hospital to forewarn the staff that a man was coming who claimed he could talk to God. When Keith arrived they put him into an observation ward and detained him. He had therefore missed the first initiation.
Like the others, I had bought large red beads and strung them with a knot between each bead, as Prabhupada had shown us. I had sewn an old cut-up green shirt into a bead bag, but when Prabhupada saw it Srila Prabhupada said, "Get a proper bag." There were, however, no other bead bags around at that time.
On the evening of the second initiation, Keith put on an Indian dhoti, which was the first time any of us had done that. It was made of yellow cloth and after Prabhupada helped him put it on, he told Keith he looked like a Hindu brahmacari.
Before the ceremony I expressed some of my doubts to Keith. Understanding personalism was hard. With faith, Keith recited to me a verse from the Bhagavad Gita: "All truths are resting on Me as pearls are strung on a thread." Hearing this, I felt encouraged.
At the initiation ceremony, Prabhupada chanted on our beads. We handed him our beads and he chanted a full round while we watched him, and then he handed the beads back to us and Srila Prabhupada said, "Bow down." When my turn came I bowed down before him and then heard him say, "Repeat after me." One word at a time he recited a prayer that began "nama." I repeated the word "nama." Then Srila Prabhupada said, "om." I repeated each word until I had recited the whole prayer, which was later translated: "I offer my obeisances to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, who is very dear to Lord Krsna on this earth, having taken shelter at the lotus feet of the transcendental Lord." When I recited, word by word, the Sanskrit to this prayer, my eyes were closed, and I plunged into feelings of devotion and sincere surrender. I experienced an intense feeling that I was entering eternal life. He gave me my name: Satsvarupa dasa.
In a lecture that night, he described the significance of our initiation:
Lord Caitanya asked His disciple Rupa Gosvami to go to Vrndavana to preach and sustain His mission. This is disciplic succession. Not that one thinks, "I have understood from my spiritual master. Now let me sit tight." That is also nice, but Lord Caitanya's mission is to spread the teaching -- it is your duty. When a disciple receives instruction from the spiritual master, he has an obligation to the spiritual master to preach. After being instructed, the disciple will offer, "My dear master, what can I do for you? I am indebted to you for the knowledge you have given me; therefore, I must serve you."
When I heard this, I was astounded. I hadn't yet realized what a complete commitment I had made.
Present at the second initiation was Bruce's mother. She sat on a folding chair in the corner of the room. After the ceremony, in which Prabhupada had given Bruce the name "Brahmananda," Prabhupada said to him, "Now offer your obeisances to your mother." He bowed before her, and she seemed embarrassed. Later, Prabhupada spoke with her in his room before the rest of us. Prabhupada gave the name "Kirtanananda" to Keith and "Acyutananda" to Chuck.
He didn't comment on the spiritual significance of my Sanskrit name that night, but a few days later when I was in his room I asked, "Swamiji, what does my name mean?" Srila Prabhupada said, "The inner truth of reality." (Later, during Karttika, we were burning candles on his coffee table. I came in late; everyone was already gathered, burning their candles. When I entered the room, Srila Prabhupada said, "Oh, here comes the truth personified.") At my initiation, Prabhupada told me to chant twenty-five rounds, but shortly afterwards he reduced the number to sixteen. After my initiation I faithfully executed Prabhupada's order to chant sixteen rounds a day.
Prabhupada also gave me some new duties. One of my minor duties was to regularly change the white letters in the sign posted in the front window, which announced the topics of Prabhupada's talks. He would give me the name of a topic on a small piece of paper. I would change these topics a couple of times a week.
Biographies and Glorifications of Srila Prabhupada Gita-nagari Press- Prabhupada-lila-Satsvarupa dasa Goswami-Meeting Srila Prabhupada
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