Importance of Initiation by Guru - Sarada Ma

Disciple: “Well, Mother, what is the necessity of taking initiation? What if one should merely repeat “Kali, Kali” without being initiated? Will he not realize the Divine Mother by so repeating Her Name?”

Mother: “Initiation is necessary. It purifies the body. By repeating the mystic syllable of the Lord, man becomes purified. There is a Pauranic story about this. Narada had been to Vaikunta - the Heaven, where the Lord resides. At that time Narada was not initiated. Narada left after a short talk with the Lord. When he left the place the Lord asked Lakshmi (the divine consort) to sprinkle Ganges water, where Narada was sitting, and thus purify the place. Lakshmi said to her Lord: “Why do you ask me to do this? Narada is a great devotee”. The Lord replied: “He may be a great devotee, but he is not yet initiated”. Unless one is initiated his body is not purified. For the purification of the mind and the body initiation by a Guru is necessary.

The Vaishnavas after initiating one say: “Now this mind is yours”*. The mind is everything. Unless the mind is purified nothing can be accomplished. “In spite of the grace of the Guru, the Lord’s devotees, and the Lord Himself, the soul went a-begging for want of the grace of the mind””.

Disciple: “Well, so many people receive initiation, what do they get thereby? One seems to be the same man before and after”.

Mother: “The Guru imparts spiritual power to the disciple through the mantra (mystic syllable) at the time of the initiation. The spiritual powers flow from the Guru to the disciple or vice versa. That is why after initiation of a disciple one gets ill, for one has to take the sins of the disciple. That is why Rakhal is reluctant to initiate people. He says that immediately after initiating people he gets ill. But if the disciple is good the Guru is benefited thereby. Some people get a sudden spiritual awakening immediately after initiation, but that depends upon one’s Samskaras (past tendencies)”.

(*There is a pun on the word “Mantra” pronounced in colloquial Bengali as “Mantor”, which can be split up as “Man tor”, which means “This mind is yours” in Bengali, i.e. it depends now on you to exert.)

(“Spiritual Talks: by the first disciples of Sri Ramakrishna”, Advaita Ashrama, The Holy Mother, V, pp. 15-7)