Know Thy Self – or what actually happens at the time of initiation

“Know Thy Self” – this question has haunted the minds of many great thinkers and philosophers. Socrates immediately comes to my humble mind, but of course this utmost essential question
should be at the heart of all philosophy.

“Who am I” ? “Where do I come from?” “Where do I go from here?” “What is my duty(what are my duties?”

Srila Sanatana Goswami asked this question for the benefit of all souls and afterwards, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu instructs him on this very important topic.

‘ke āmi’, ‘kene āmāya jāre tāpa-traya’
ihā nāhi jāni — ‘kemane hita haya’ (CC Madhya 20.102)

“Who am I? Why do the threefold miseries always give me trouble? If I do not know this, how can I be benefited?

Everybody should understand who we really are. We all have forgotten our relationship with God. That is our greatest mistake. It is our duty to realize our true selves. To do this, we need to know about our relationship which we have with Krishna. It is all about relationship. A son is related to his father, a mother is related to her daughter. Without relationship there can be no love. When we know our relationship with Krishna, we can truly start to love Him. This is “sambandha-tattva”. We are here in this world to practice this through LOVE IN ACTION. All our relationships here in this world help us to be fixed in our eternal relationship with Sri Sri Radha Krishna. We can start with loving relationships right here in this world, in our daily life, because Krishna dwells in every living entity. So Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu told Srila Sanatana Goswami who we really are:

jīvera ‘svarūpa’ haya — kṛṣṇera ‘nitya-dāsa’
kṛṣṇera ‘taṭasthā-śakti’ ‘bhedābheda-prakāśa’
sūryāḿśa-kiraṇa, yaiche agni-jvālā-caya
svābhāvika kṛṣṇera tina-prakāra ‘śakti’ haya ( CC Madhya 20.108-109)

“It is the living entity’s constitutional position to be an eternal loving servant of Krishna because he is the marginal energy of Krishna and a manifestation simultaneously one with and different from the Lord, like a molecular particle of sunshine or fire. Krishna has three varieties of energy.”

Unfortunately, the living entity has forgotten his relationship with Krishna:

kṛṣṇa bhuli’ sei jīva anādi-bahirmukha
ataeva māyā tāre deya saḿsāra-duḥkha

“Forgetting Kṛṣṇa, the living entity has been attracted by the external feature from time immemorial. Therefore the illusory energy gives him all kinds of misery in his material existence.” (CC Madhya 20.117)

We are like a fish out of the water.

Truly, in intimate moments, we feel that we don´t belong here.
We don´t want to die. We don´t want to suffer. We all want to be happy.
As parts and parcels of the Supreme Happy Person, we too have the capacity to BE REALLY happy.

Sri Krishna is so merciful. He can arrange everything for us so that we can BE with Him for all eternity.
How does He arrange it? By letting us become “transformed” by a combination of His innermost energies.
This combination of His inner energies is widely known as BHAKTI (devotion, LOVE-IN-ACTION). When His bliss-energy and His knowledge energy combine, they form the BHAKTI-ENERGY.
This marvellous energy is not from our mortal realm. It descends to our realm like Mother Ganges descends from the spiritual realm to our earth.

By the causeless mercy of Sri Krishna, He lets us come in contact with this wonderful energy.
When we desire to dedicate our lives to the goal of becoming lovers of God (Krishna), all will be most wonderfully arranged.

We will meet saintly people who can answer us all our questions. We will become inspired to practice what many perfected souls have practiced. We follow their holy foot steps.

As followers of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, we can receive something very extraordinary and something which was never given before.
It is wonderful to love Sri Krishna, but it is most wonderful to love THE ONE WHO loves Krishna the most.

We can become Radhika´s shadows. We can be with Her for all eternity. This is the highest goal of our human existence: Radha-dasyam. Krishna will be so much happy if we decide to follow exactly THIS path.

Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu descended in the mood of Radhika to teach how to follow this most splendid path. It is called RAGANUGA-BHAKTI.

If we hear about the pastimes of Sri Sri Radha and Krishna, we will develop the desire, to also take part in these pastimes, to also BE WITH THEM.
In RAGANUGA-BHAKTI, we chose a role-model of the perfect associates of The Divine Couple (the ragatmika-devotees) and we follow them in mood and behaviour.

Unfortunately, we can´t enter the eternal pastimes with our mortal body.
We need a special body to BE WITH THEM.

For THEM, nothing is impossible. So it is not astonishing that They will mercifully “grant” us such a wonderful and everlasting body.

When we start engaging in raganuga-bhakti, we will at one point meet our Sri Gurudeva. Without the mercy of a true Gurudeva, NOTHING is possible.

yasya prasadad bhagavat-prasado
yasyaprasadan na gatih kuto ‘pi
dhyayan stuvams tasya yashas trisandhyam
vande guroh sri-charanaravindam

By the mercy of the spiritual master one receives the benediction of Krsna. Without the grace of the spiritual master, one cannot make any advancement. Therefore, I should always remember and praise the spiritual master. At least three times a day I should offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of my spiritual master.

When our Sri Gurudeva sees us fit and worthy, he will bestow upon us the “seed of bhakti”.

brahmanda bhramite kona bhagyavan jiva
guru krsna prasade paya bhakti-lata-bija

By the causeless mercy of guru and Krsna, the devotional practitioner can receive the seed of bhakti.

Sri Gurudeva, who carries bhakti in his heart because he received it from his own Gurudeva (parampara), can impart the seed of bhakti in our heart.
It all depends on the purity of our heart. The most important ingredient of such purity is humility. Our heart is like a container for bhakti. The more holes a container has, the more it is useless to carry anything in it.

So, we humbly approach Sri Gurudeva to bestow upon us the most merciful gift of initiation.
We beg him for giving us “DIKSHA”.

Krishna recommends this in His Gita:

tad viddhi pranipatena
pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti te jnanam
jnaninas tattva-darsinah

Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto you because he has seen the truth.

What is meant with diksha, or initiation?
In his Bhakti Sandarbha (283) Srimat Jiva Gosvamipada quotes the sastras to describe the glories of initiation —

divyam jnanam yato dadyat kuryat papasya sankshayam
tasmad diksheti sa prokta desikais tattva kovidaih

“That which bestows divine knowledge and destroys all sins is called diksha by the acaryas who know the truth.”
Sri Jivapada adds: divyam jnanam hyatra srimati mantre bhagavat svarupa jnanam tena bhagavata sambandha visesha jnanam ca —
“Here divine knowledge means the knowledge about the Lord’s intrinsic identity which lies within the mantra, along with specific knowledge of the living being’s relationship with the Lord.”

So most merciful Sri Gurudeva bestows upon us diksha-mantras. Srila Jiva Goswamipad explains to us here why we would need such mantras. These mantras are like touchstones. They contain two VERY important ingredients: Information of Krishna´s intrinsic identity AND ALSO information of our identity in a SPECIFIC relationship with Krishna. This is called divya-jnana: To KNOW OUR SELVES in relationship to the Divine Couple.
By chanting these diksha-mantras and by meditating on them, all perfection will come to us.

Some people claim that all this knowledge is not “imparted” or “bestowed”, but only “re-awakened” or “re-covered” since we are actually full of knowledge and we just forgot it.
This is not true and, like proven above, not mentioned in any shastra. Krishna specifically uses the verb “IMPART” and Jiva Goswamipad uses “BESTOW”…
The jivas are NOT full of knowledge, only Krishna is. Knowledge in the category of the jiva means “AWARENESS”.

At this very significant moment of holy initiation, something extremely wonderful happens.
Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu himself confirms this in the Caitanya-caritamrita:

diksa-kale bhakta kare atma-samarpana
sei-kale krsna tare kare atma-sama

At the time of initiation, when the devotee offers himself up to the Lord, then the Lord makes him equal to himself. He bestows to the devotee a body which is spiritual like his own so that the devotee can engage in the service of his lotus feet.

Now this verse has very very deep meanings. Clearly there are happening things on two “levels”: EXTERNALLY and INTERNALLY. Externally, the spiritualization of the devotee´s material body takes place miraculously.

My Param-Gurudeva, Sri Kunja Bihari das Babaji writes:

The transformation of the devotee’s body is a gradual process. In his commentary on the words “they gave up their bodies of material elements” in Bhagavata-purana (10.29.10), Visvanatha presents the following argument:

Other than a devotee surrendered to the Lord, no one, not the jnanin, nor the yogin, nor any other transcendentalist is actually completely free from the material qualities. This was stated by the Lord to Uddhava (BhP 11.25.26). One should understand this in the following way: the devotee’s body is considered to be nirguna because, on the order of his spiritual master, all of his senses are engaged in the transcendental service of the Lordhis ears in hearing about Krishna, his tongue in chanting the Lord’s names and glories, his mind in remembering Krishna, his entire body in prostrating himself in supplication to the Deity and his hands in various types of service. Thus, because all his senses are engaged in receiving transcendental materials connected with the Supreme Lord, they also become transcendental. On the other hand, as much as the senses receive non-spiritual data, they will be influenced by material qualities. As a result, from the beginning of the devotional process, the devotee’s body is partly material and partly spiritual. According to the indications of the Bhagavata verse (11.2.40) which compares advancement in devotional service to the satisfaction felt by a hungry man while eating, his gaining of strength and relief from the discomforts of hunger, one can understand that the process is progressive, for as much as one has eaten, that is the proportion to which he will feel these beneficial effects. Thus, as one progresses in spiritual life, the spiritualized portion of his body increases and the material portion is gradually reduced. When one reaches the stage of prema then his body is completely spiritualized and there is no mundane portion left. Thus the death of a devotee that is seen by all is to be known as nothing more than a kind of illusion and not at all real. The non-devotees consider that the devotee’s body must also die. This false doctrine is maintained by the Lord just to keep devotional service closed to atheistic and self-interested persons. An example of this is the so-called “Club Pastime” of the Lord in which he created the illusion of the demise of the Yadu dynasty. One should know that this too is non-factual. On some occasions, the Lord does not make such an illusory show but rather seeks to illustrate the glories of devotional service, as in the case of Dhruva. Dhruva went to Vaikuntha in the selfsame body, thus it is to be concluded that the apparent death of Narada was also an illusion created by the Lord.

The next question then is, what is to be gained by thinking that a devotee’s body is beyond the material qualities? And conversely, what is lost by thinking it to be material? Why do disease, etc., manifest in a devotee’s body if it is transcendental?

The response to these questions is as follows: By thinking a devotee’s body to be transcendental, one’s material existence comes to an end. To think it material results in increasing material entanglement and hellish suffering. Evidence is the Padma-purana verse beginning with vaishnave jati-buddhih. The Lord allows the appearance of death and diseases in a devotee’s body just to increase the materialists’ entanglement: it should be considered a test of faith. Caitanya Mahaprabhu said the very same thing in connection with the appearance of sores on Sanatana Gosvamin’s body: “The Lord Krishna made these pus-filled sores appear on Sanatana’s body just to test me. If I had not embraced him due to disgust at seeing them, I would have committed an offence and been punishable by the Lord.”

So much to the “happenings” of the material body of a devotee.

Let us now come to the internal aspect of this beautiful verse. Sri Krishna bestows to the devotee a body which is spiritual like his own so that the devotee can engage in the service of his lotus feet.

Here we have the actual evidence for the bestowing of siddha-pranali. At the time of initiation (diksha) we receive the diksha mantras and during the process of diksha we also receive a very wonderful gift of Sri Krishna: our siddha-deha, our eternal perfected body.

Diksha is a process and siddha pranali is included within this process. It may not be given IMMEDIATELY after the diksha mantras. Only Sri Gurudeva knows when the time for siddha pranali is right.

Srila Jiva Goswami enlightens us:

vaikunthasya bhagavato jyotir-amsa-bhuta vaikuntha-loka-sobha-rupa ya ananta murtayas tatra vartante, tasam ekaya saha muktasyaikasya murtir bhagavata kriyata iti vaikuntasya murtir iva murtir yesham ity uktam ||
Priti- sandarbha 10

“In the spiritual world, the Supreme Lord has unlimited spiritual forms; they all are expansions of Himself illuminating that world. With each one of those forms, the Lord enjoys pastimes with a single individual liberated soul.”

Now, it is very important to understand the verse in question very clearly.
Srila Jiva Goswami writes that Krishna will GIVE a liberated soul who reached perfection a body “similar” to His. Many think that He “creates that form”, but this is not the case.
The siddha-deha is an eternally existing form.
Srila Jiva Goswami uses his words very thoughtfully.
He clearly says: KRIYATE. “KRIYATE” can mean many things.
A nice devotee explained the verse beautifully:

The root kṛin Sanskrit can actually have any meaning, it does not mean just “create”. It is akin to the English “do”. One can express every activity with it. Kriyate in the passage does not mean that the spiritual body is created. The text itself says that mūrtayas tatra vartante, they are there eternally, tāsām (out of them) ekayā saha (with one) muktasya(of the liberated) ekasya (of the one) mūrtir (body) bhagavatā (by the Lord) kriyate (assign), i.e. the Lord awards one of the bodies that eternally reside in Vaikuṇṭha to the liberated one. vaikuṇṭasya mūrtir iva mūrtir yeṣām, the body that one is given is similar (iva) to that of Lord Vaikuṇṭha. Jīva Goswāmī wants to explain that one achieves bhagavat-tulyatvam at the stage of utkrānta-mukti (gone forth or out, gone over or beyond , passed , surpassed, trespassing , exceeding – Monier Williams) by quoting the Bhāgavata verse (3.15.14 vasanti yatra puruṣāḥ) there (utkrānta-mukti-daśāyāṁ tu teṣāṁ bhagavat-tulyatvam evāha). There is nothing like that that the spiritual body is created at some time. It is eternal. It is aprākṛta. The fact itself should make it clear that it can’t be created. “

So we can clearly see that Krishna “assigns” such a form to the jiva who reached perfection.
But will Krishna “appear” at the time of initiation and tell us everything about our siddha deha?
No, it is Sri Gurudeva who reveals to us all information of our siddha deha. In Sri Gurudeva´s deep meditation, Sri Krishna reveals to him a siddha deha suitable for the bhava (mood) of the disciple. Then Sri Gurudeva. like a transparent medium, reveals this form to us.

Srila Jiva Goswamipada confirms this:

kecid ashtadasakshara-dhyanam go-dohana-samaya-vamsi-vadya-samakrishta-tat- tat-sarvamayatvena bhavayanti | yatha caike tadrisam upasanam sakshad vraja- jana-viseshayaiva mahyam sri-guru-caranair mad-abhishta-visesha-siddhy-artham upadishtam bhavayami || Bhakti-sandarbha 312

“Some, while remembering the eighteen-syllable mantra, meditate on the pastimes of tending cows and playing flute, becoming attracted and absorbed in them. In such upasana (worship), in order to attain my specifically desired perfection, I should meditate on that very form of a resident of Vraja my revered guru has instructed me in.”

So in our meditation on our diksha-mantas, we focus on the pastimes of the Divine Couple and we imagine our selves to be maidservants of Srimati Radhika, as instructed by our Sri Gurudeva. “THAT VERY FORM OF A RESIDENT OF VRAJA” means for followers of Sriman Mahaprabhu the form of a manjari since He solely came to bestow upon us the gift of manjari-bhava-sadhana.

The siddha-deha one longs to attain is not a figment of imagination. It is one among the infinite siddha-rupas in the spiritual realm.
In fact, beyond being expansions of bhagavan, the sakhi-gana with their various svabhavas are expansions of Sri Radha.
As we can read about our given manjari-forms in the Chaitanya Caritamrita:

akara svabhava-bhede vraja-devi-gana |
kaya-vyuha-rupa tanra rasera karana ||
CaiCa 1.1.79

“The multitude of Vraja-gopis have various natures (svabhava). They are the forms of Her bodily expansions (kaya-vyuha-rupa) and Her instruments for creating rasa.”

The one desirous for service in the wake of the manjaris will certainly be granted an appropriate form for such service.

vraja-lokera kona bhava lana yei bhaje |
bhava-yogya deha pana krishna paya vraje ||
CaiCa 2.8.122

“Whoever accepts the bhava of the residents of Vraja, engaging in bhajana appropriate for that bhava, will receive a body suitable for it, attaining Sri Krishna in Vraja.”

So two things happen at the time of initiation:

Srila Sanatana Goswami writes that our material body will be transformed by the touchstone of bhakti into a “spiritualized” body. Like a rod of iron is taking on all qualities of a fire when held long enough into it, so our material body will “take on” all qualities of bhakti. But this doesn´t mean that our material body changes into a siddha deha. It is true that our material body is “spiritualized” but still it will perish and we still will have to leave it “behind”.
A siddha-deha has no begining. What begins at the time of initiation is that we START to shift our IDENTIFICATION from our mortal body to our Krishna-given form.

At first we mentally conceive of the siddha deha. By progressing on the path of bhakti, at the higher stages like asakti and rati, this mentally conceived siddha deha becomes “REAL” to our love-filled eyes and we drop our identification with our material though “spiritualized” body.
At the time of death, when we have reached PREMA, Yogamaya lets us take birth in a universe where the eternal pastimes of the Divine Couple are manifested. We then go through the stages of childhood up to youth and when we reach our certain age, we eternally stay at that age and then again by Yogamaya´s power, we ARE in the eternal pastimes which are unmanifested.

Since our minds think in logical terms and since we live in linear “time-thinking”, it is impossible to fully understand such a miraculous concept.

This nothing new.

The concept of the siddha deha in the realm of Gaudiya-theology makes its famous appearance in Sri Rupa Gosvami’s Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu, in a section where the practice of raganuga-bhakti-sadhana is explained.

seva sadhaka-rupena siddha-rupena catra hi |
tad-bhava lipsuna karya vraja-lokanusaratah || BRS 1.2.295

“One should serve both in his present sadhaka-form and in his siddha-form, following in the wake of the residents of Vraja, desiring to have feelings similar to theirs.”

So we serve with our “spiritualized” material bodies and with our mentally conceived, Krishna-given siddha dehas, according to our inner bhava.

Srila Narottama das Thakur makes an interesting comparison:

yugala carana sevi, nirantara ei bhavi, anuragi thakibo sadaya |
sadhane bhavibe yaha, siddha dehe pabe taha raga marge ei sei upaya ||
PBC 55

“With attachment, I will always serve the feet of Sri Yugala, remaining attached to them forever. Whatever I think of during sadhana I will attain in siddha-deha; such is the means on the path of raga.”

sadhane ye dhana cai, siddha-dehe taha pai, pakkapakka matra se vicara |
apakke sadhana-riti, pakile se prema-bhakti, bhakati-lakshana tattva-sara ||
PBC 56

“The treasure I covet during my sadhana I will attain in my siddha-deha; It is merely a matter of ripe or raw. The stage of sadhana is unripe, and the stage of prema is ripe. This is the essential truth on the characteristics of bhakti.”

It is evident from the last verse that such meditation is not a matter of generic meditation, but of specific conceptions. The difference between a ripe mango and a raw mango is in the taste; a raw mango has the shape of a mango still.

In our lineage, Sri Gurudeva plays a very vital role in the process of diksha.
My Gurudeva, Srila Ananta das Babaji, follows the system like the one mentioned by Sripad Jiva Goswamipad – “while remembering the eighteen-syllable mantra,… in order to attain my specifically desired perfection, I should meditate on that very form of a resident of Vraja my revered guru has instructed me in.”

My Gurudeva, like many other sadhus in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, says that diksha is a process and the revealing of the siddha deha is included in that process.
When I asked him, he told me that according to the advancement of the sadhaka, Sri Gurudeva can reveal the siddha deha at the time of bhajana-kriya (after diksha-initiation).

Srila Narayana Maharaja said the following:

We have entered into the class of dīkṣā, but our dīkṣā is not complete. We are in class now, meaning that we are in the training, or learning, process. May God and guru shower their grace upon us so that we can receive full dīkṣā – divya- jnāna (realized transcendental knowledge) and divya-darśana (spiritual vision).

When we fully realize our truest SELF, our eternal, Krishna-given siddha deha, then the process of diksha is successfully accomplished.

To give further information, I include here some videos of my Gurudeva and a Godbrother of mine.