A guru should not accept many disciples
Kurma Dasa: After taking an early massage and bath, Srila Prabhupada, with freshly shaven head and wearing pressed, shiny, saffron cloth, left for the temple to perform the initiation ceremony and Deity installation. When Prabhupada arrived, the small shop-front was already filled with devotees, guests and media representatives. TV news crews and reporters from several newspapers jostled with hot lamps and heavy equipment. Prabhupada offered his obeisances and sat behind a small fire pit filled with sand and bordered with white bricks and a few leaves for decoration. From briefly surveying the scanty paraphernalia before him, Prabhupada could easily discern that the devotees were not ready. Only one small vase of flowers decorated the almost bare altar. The devotees had not made any garlands for the Deities. Prabhupada appeared grave and expressed his concern to Bali-mardana.
Sheryl: We had no idea what we were doing. It seemed that everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong on that day. While the girls ran practically the full length of Oxford Street searching for garland flowers, Bali-mardana asked us to get some metal plates on which to put some utensils. We knew nothing of Deity worship, and returned with some enamel eating plates. Bali-mardana looked horrified and waved us away. Meanwhile, the TV crews filmed everything.
Willy: I was the temple treasurer at this time and had locked what few utensils we had acquired for the installation in the office. I was sitting, bare-chested, near the fire pit and, unbeknown to everyone, I had left the office key in my shirt pocket upstairs. Dipak, in a panic to open the office, smashed the door down. Srila Prabhupada sat, hands on knees, eyes closed in concentration, and spoke into a small microphone that Bali-mardana held in front of him. The crowd quietened as Srila Prabhupada described the auspicious events that were taking place that day. As well as the installation of the Deities of Lord Krishna and His eternal consort Radharani, many devotees would be initiated into the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra. Some would be initiated with a sacred thread, signifying that they had become brahmanas, and there would even be a wedding. More guests squeezed into the tiny temple as others crowded in the open doorway or peered curiously through the front window.
The installation ceremony began as Srila Prabhupada carefully poured pancamrita, a mixture of milk, yogurt, ghee, honey and sugar syrup, over the small Deities of Radha and Krishna that stood before him. Halfway through the ceremony, the girls returned with a few small bunches of large red carnations and began to quickly thread them into garlands. After the bathing ceremony, Prabhupada, still sitting adjacent to the small fire pit and in full view of everyone, personally dressed Their Lordships in the simple green, red and gold-check clothes that had accompanied them from India. Finally, Krishna stood in a gold-trimmed shawl, dhoti and wearing two simple pieces of jewellery. Radharani wore a matching sari. The Deities were placed on their simple altar tiled steps leading to a platform covered with a red velvet canopy perched on silver-painted wooden poles. Srila Prabhupada named them Sri Sri Radha Gopinatha.
The devotees had originally expected that perhaps three or four of them would be initiated. Earlier that morning, however, the news had spread quickly that Prabhupada would be initiating practically everyone in the temple, 16 devotees in all. The young men and women sat nervously before Srila Prabhupada. The men were shaven-headed and wore dhotis made of cheap synthetic peach-coloured material. The ladies were wrapped in saffron saris fashioned from the same simple cloth. Those who were married, or were going to be married, wore lemon-coloured material of a similar quality. Hardly anyone amongst them knew much of Krishna consciousness, and Srila Prabhupada knew he was taking a risk initiating such neophytes. Most probably some of the candidates sitting before him would not fulfill the exclusive life long commitment a disciple owes to his guru. And although the reactions for a disciples' past sins were removed at initiation, the spiritual master would remain responsible until the disciple was delivered from the material world. Lord Caitanya had warned, therefore, that a guru should not accept many disciples. But despite their disqualifications, Prabhupada took it as his responsibility to engage whomever had come forward to help him in his mission. Prabhupada was offering them the methods which, if followed, would protect them from ever falling down. Those who followed his instructions to chant Hare Krishna and avoid sinful activities would be successful. Some of the young men and women like Willy, Alan, Carol, Christine and Anne had been chanting and performing sankirtana for several months. Others had come in contact with Krishna consciousness more recently. Sheryl had first met the devotees at the Captain Cook Bicentenary celebrations. Their chanting felt soothing to her, and she eagerly received from them her first copy of the Back to Godhead magazine. She had come to stay with the devotees after graduating from high school a few months later. The older house holder couple, Stan and Joy, had also been chanting for a few months and so had Rosemary, a young former university student, as well as a heavy-set young man named Nick and the two schoolgirls from St. Patrick's. Eighteen-year-old Philip had been first introduced to Krishna consciousness by his parents during his last year of high school. His mother, working in an Indian handcraft boutique in Double Bay, had sold Bali-mardana and Upendra some vases for their temple altar in Potts Point, and had reported meeting the strange shaven-headed monks to her son. Shortly after, Upendra sold Philip's father the brochure on Chanting Hare Krishna, and he had given it to Philip to read. Philip and his school friend Mark, as well as Renate, a young girl recently arrived from Germany, had been living in the temple for a little over three weeks. Edwin, a young New Zealander, had arrived only a few days before.
Reference: The Great Transcendental Adventure by Kurma Dasa
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