Spiritual master takes all your karma

Dvaipayana Dasa: There was a devotee named Dipak, he came from America about the time when Prabhupada first came to Australia in 1971 and installed the Radha Gopinath Deities in Sydney. And Dipak had some association with the pujari in LA, so he was training the devotees up in Australia, they had to do the Deity worship.
But in those days for everybody the mood, let’s say the most senior devotee may be somebody joined six months or twelve months before you. But this Dipak was the most senior devotee but he always wanted to share any association extra that we could have with Prabhupada. So one day he said to me, he gave me some little ball of sandalwood paste in a flower and he said, ‘Go up in to Prabhupada’s room and offer the sandalwood paste to Prabhupada’s forehead.'
This was I guess my first intimate association with Prabhupada by myself. I went up and knocked on the door, Prabhupada said, ‘Come in.’ And my first dilemma was that I have got sandalwood paste in the flower - do I pay my obeisances or I spill the sandalwood paste. I think I decided, I better not spill the sandalwood paste. I humbly went before Prabhupada and said, ‘I have got some sandalwood paste for you Prabhupada.’
He took the flower with the sandalwood paste. He had a cut on his little finger and he put some sandalwood paste on this finger, this cut was giving him some pain. So he put some sandalwood paste on the cut and then put it on his forehead.

And later came that Prabhupada was experiencing some pain due to all the devotees not following his instructions properly. Because the spiritual master, by his unlimited mercy, when you get initiated he agrees to take all your karma. Because of Prabhupada’s strong, pure devotion he was able to burn up the karma, but sometimes you will get some pain. So he said this pain was caused by his disciples not following the principles properly.
So after that time he made a rule that anyone who cooks for the Deity has to be brahmana initiated. Before that time I was initiated... one of my main services was Deity worship. I was not good at selling things, so I was good at cooking. So I used to cook for the Deities but after that time he said , "Only second initiation allowed to cook for the Deities." And I think his secretary sent that letter all over the world to make that rule. And at that time I remember there was a couple of, Prabhupada installs small brass Radha Krishna Deities. 
And there were two devotees who got first and second initiation, it was Shukla and Ganesha, first and second initiation at the same time because they were going to stay in Melbourne and look after the worship of the Radha Krishna Deities. So I went up to Sydney and I got second initiation in Sydney temple.