Spiritual, Peaceful Life

The varna system of four castes-brahmana, ksatriya, vaisya and sūdra-is perfectly organized in material terms in order to allow people to live peacefully and pursue spiritual life while engaged in their regular occupation. In every society there is always a class interested in business and agriculture. According to the Eighteenth Chapter of Bhagavad-gita, the vaisyas' duties are "Farming, cow protection and business." The sūdra class does the labor or serves the other classes. The ksatriyas are the administrators and protectors or policemen. "Heroism, power, determination, resourcefulness, courage in battle, generosity and leadership are the qualities of work for the ksatriyas." (Bg. 18.43) The brahmanas constitute the intelligent class and offer spiritual knowledge and guidance to the people. Whether or not one accepts the names brahmana, ksatriya, vaisya and sūdra, there is naturally in every society an intelligent class interested in spiritual understanding and philosophy, a class interested in administration and ruling over others, a class interested in economic development, business and moneymaking, and another class of men who are not intelligent or martial spirited and have no capacity for economic development but who can simply serve others for their own bread. This system has been extant from time immemorial, and it will continue through time immemorial. There is no power which can stop it.

Due to India's dependency on foreigners and those who are non-varnasrama, that country is now witnessing the degradation of the caste and order system in the form of the heredity caste system. Because the varnasrama system is created by God, it will always exist, either in degraded form or in original; it cannot be extinguished. It is like the sun, a creation of God. Either covered by clouds or in a clear sky, the sun will exist. When the varnasrama system becomes degraded, it appears as the hereditary caste system. The four natural orders are still there, but there is no actual regulation for cooperation between the communities. According to the original system in the Bhagavad-gita, caste is determined not by birth but by qualities. The Vedic literature is perfectly clear on this point. Lord Krsna Himself used the phrase brahma-bandhu, meaning "relative of a brahmana," to describe a person who happens to take birth in the family of a brahmana but is not qualified as a brahmana. This was the case with Asvatthama, as described in the Srimad-Bhagavatam (1.7.36). He was a brahmana's son, but he killed the five sleeping sons of Draupadi, and therefore Krsna said that he should be called a brahma-bandhu. As the judgeship is a post for the qualified man, so also the post of a brahmana is attainable by qualification only. By birth alone one cannot become a high court judge, but a qualified person, regardless of birth, is eligible for the post. Similarly, any man who attains the qualities of a brahmana but is born in a lower caste family must be recognized as a factual brahmana. There is an example in the Chandogya Upanisad of a student boy who approached a guru for instruction. The guru asked the boy his family name. On enquiry from his mother, the boy was told. "I do not know. I was a servant girl in my youth and worked in many places. I do not know who was your father." The boy related this exactly to the sage, and the sage declared: "None but a brahmana could speak as truthfully as this," and the boy was thereby accepted as a brahmana because of his acting like a brahmana. Similarly, in Hari-bhakti-vilasa, which is the standard literature for regulative behavior in devotional service, it is stated: "As bell metal can be transformed into gold by the proper chemical process, similarly by the bona fide process of initiation any human being can be transformed into a twice-born brahmana."