Before heading off for the festival site at North Beach, the temple at Chatsworth filled up with devotees from all over the country for a rite of passage. That rite is called diksha or the acknowledgement of accepting a teacher or guru. Forty initiates (1st and 2nd) sat by the agni-hotra, fire arena, for this purificatory event. Four of us gurus placed ourselves nearby. Rama Govinda, Indradyumna, myself and Bhakti Chaitanya Swamis - in that order.
I formally accepted two local young men int
