After a slight post hick up, I’m back with quite some news. At the moment we are working hard on the construction of the new temple. If you have recently looked at my flickr page (a link is located in the middle on the left), you will have seen some shots of it. Today we put housewrap up, which is a sort of insulation/ protection for the walls against the weather. And since the weather has changed a lot from 8 degrees celcius to about 20, we are able to do this.
This past weekend was quite busy too. About 35 guests came for the festival. Normally there are 5 people living at the monastery, so this was quite a temporary expansion. There was no ordinary cooking, but we ate big feasts. If you could just taste the food or prasadam (mercy) as we call it, you would dance too. Most people came from California and had quite some drives, while even others drove 11 hours to be here for three days.
I explained earlier a little bit of the importance of Gaura Purnima to our tradition and said it means the golden moon. So when I woke up and stepped out of my yurt and walked towards the bathhouse. I was very happy to see the full moon light my path while it was rising over the new temple. We held most of the festival here even though it is not quite finished. Later on we heard that there would be a lunar eclipse too. When Caitanya Mahaprabhu appeared in this world, there was a lunar eclipse as well. So you can imagine how auspicious we considered this day. We had two lectures by Swami, my teacher, on this day. The day before he had mentioned there would be diksa initiation and said it would be a very auspicious day because of aforementioned reasons. Actually, the most auspicious reasons is that a teacher is willing to give you diksa.
Let me explain a little what diksa is. As in every spiritual tradition, there are moments when you want to dive deeper into the tradition. In Christianity you of course have baptism to make an impossible comparison. In gaudiya vaisnavism, we have diksa. It is sometimes called second initiation and comes after first initiation, which is when a teacher gives you the main mantra for chanting on beads (for everyday meditation) and you are given a new name.
Diksa goes further. The teacher gives you more mantras and these are to be chanted silently 3 times a day. When the sun rises, midday and when it sets. The mantras have different functions but in general they can be said to support the main mantra, offer access to performing rituals and are a formalization of the relationship with one’s teacher. At this initiation a sacred thread is also given which is worn from the shoulder on the left side to the waist on the right side.
During the day Swami hadn’t said anything about diksa to me. After his first lecture he just said “those who will be initiated should come up to my room, whoever they may be.” He mystically tested the sincerity and determination as this is not something you receive easily. I went up to his room. I had talked about it earlier, but for my first initation I was not very confident, but now I was. This is my life. I want to pursue happiness on the path treaded by my and previous teachers. I wouldn’t have come here for four and a half months if this was not what I wanted.

Alright, back to audarya, and out of the world for the moment.

ps walking around in tshirts is quite nice, anyone from Holland who wants to borrow an umbrella?

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