KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.5.37:
- The four divisions of human society, namely the intelligent class (the brāhmaṇas), the administrative class (the kṣatriyas), the mercantile class (the vaiśyas), and the laborer class (the śūdras), are all in different parts of the body of the Lord. As such, no one is different from the Lord.
- To speak for the Supreme Lord means to glorify the Lord by means of propagating the knowledge of the Lord as it is, broadcasting the factual nature of the Lord and the factual position of all other parts of the whole body.
- Veda means knowledge, and anta means the end of it. According to Bhagavad-gītā, the Lord is the source of everything (ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ), and thus the end of all knowledge (Vedānta) is to know the Lord, to know our relationship with Him and to act according to that relationship only.
- The parts of the body are related to the body; similarly, the living being must know his relationship with the Lord.
- Human life is especially meant for this purpose, namely to know the factual relationship of every living being with the Supreme Lord. Without knowing this relationship, human life is spoiled.
- Brahmanas – The intelligent class of men, the brāhmaṇas, are therefore especially responsible for broadcasting this knowledge of our relationship with the Lord and leading the general mass of people to the right path.
- Ksatriyas – The administrative class is meant for protecting the living beings so that they can serve this purpose.
- Vysyas – The mercantile class is meant for producing food grains and distributing them to the complete human society so that the whole population is given a chance to live comfortably and discharge the duties of human life. The mercantile class is also required to give protection to the cows in order to get sufficient milk and milk products, which alone can give the proper health and intelligence to maintain a civilization perfectly meant for knowledge of the ultimate truth.
- Sudras – And the laborer class, who are neither intelligent nor powerful, can help by physical services to the other higher classes and thus be benefited by their cooperation.
- Therefore the universe is a complete unit in relationship with the Lord, and without this relationship with the Lord the whole human society is disturbed and is without any peace and prosperity.
- Varṇāśrama-dharma, this system is meant to gradually purify those who are inimical to the Supreme Lord, bringing them back to their constitutional position of love of Godhead.
- The virāṭ-rūpa, or the universal form of the Lord, is an imaginary form meant to help the gross materialists gradually understand the position of the Personality of Godhead.
- The impersonal conception of formlessness is a mere negation of temporary material variety without any concept of the Lord’s spiritual potency.
- It is understood from this verse that the varṇāśrama-dharma system generated from the universal form of the Lord is a program offered by the Lord to engage the conditioned souls in a complete social and religious system that gradually brings them back home, back to Godhead.
- One who is engaged in pure devotional service to the Supreme Lord is already in a state of liberation, called brahma-bhūta, oneness with the Absolute.
- Without being one with the Supreme, the Absolute, one cannot render service unto Him. In the absolute conception, there is no difference between the served and the servitor; yet the distinction is there, in a higher spiritual sense.
- The constitutional position of the living entity is to carry out the order of the superior.
- As long as one’s mind remains an unconquered enemy, one has to serve the dictations of lust, anger, avarice, illusion, etc. But when the mind is conquered, one voluntarily agrees to abide by the dictation of the Personality of Godhead, who is situated within the heart of everyone as Paramātmā.
- Real yoga practice entails meeting the Paramātmā within the heart and then following His dictation.
- For one who takes to Kṛṣṇa consciousness directly, perfect surrender to the dictation of the Lord follows automatically.
- No conditioned soul actually knows what is to be done and what is not to be done, but a person who acts in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is free to act because everything is prompted by Kṛṣṇa from within and confirmed by the spiritual master.
SB 2.5.37 TRANSLATION:
The brāhmaṇas represent His mouth, the kṣatriyas His arms, the vaiśyas His thighs, and the śūdras are born of His legs.
CLASS NOTES:
All living beings are stated to be the parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord, and how they are so is explained in this verse. The four divisions of human society, namely the intelligent class (the brāhmaṇas), the administrative class (the kṣatriyas), the mercantile class (the vaiśyas), and the laborer class (the śūdras), are all in different parts of the body of the Lord. As such, no one is different from the Lord. The mouth of the body and the legs of the body are nondifferent constitutionally, but the mouth or the head of the body is qualitatively more important than the legs. At the same time, the mouth, the legs, the arms and the thighs are all component parts of the body. These limbs of the body of the Lord are meant to serve the complete whole. The mouth is meant for speaking and eating, the arms are meant for the protection of the body, the legs are meant for carrying the body, and the waist of the body is meant for maintaining the body. The intelligent class in society, therefore, must speak on behalf of the body, as well as accept foodstuff to satisfy the hunger of the body. The hunger of the Lord is to accept the fruits of sacrifice. The brāhmaṇas, or the intelligent class, must be very expert in performing such sacrifices, and the subordinate classes must join in such sacrifices. To speak for the Supreme Lord means to glorify the Lord by means of propagating the knowledge of the Lord as it is, broadcasting the factual nature of the Lord and the factual position of all other parts of the whole body. The brāhmaṇas, therefore, are required to know the Vedas, or the ultimate source of knowledge. Veda means knowledge, and anta means the end of it. According to Bhagavad-gītā, the Lord is the source of everything (ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ), and thus the end of all knowledge (Vedānta) is to know the Lord, to know our relationship with Him and to act according to that relationship only. The parts of the body are related to the body; similarly, the living being must know his relationship with the Lord. The human life is especially meant for this purpose, namely to know the factual relationship of every living being with the Supreme Lord. Without knowing this relationship, the human life is spoiled.
RESPONSIBILITIES OF 4 SOCIAL ORDERS
Brahmanas – The intelligent class of men, the brāhmaṇas, are therefore especially responsible for broadcasting this knowledge of our relationship with the Lord and leading the general mass of people to the right path.
Ksatriyas – The administrative class is meant for protecting the living beings so that they can serve this purpose.
Vysyas – The mercantile class is meant for producing food grains and distributing them to the complete human society so that the whole population is given a chance to live comfortably and discharge the duties of human life. The mercantile class is also required to give protection to the cows in order to get sufficient milk and milk products, which alone can give the proper health and intelligence to maintain a civilization perfectly meant for knowledge of the ultimate truth.
Sudras – And the laborer class, who are neither intelligent nor powerful, can help by physical services to the other higher classes and thus be benefited by their cooperation.
Therefore the universe is a complete unit in relationship with the Lord, and without this relationship with the Lord the whole human society is disturbed and is without any peace and prosperity. This is confirmed in the Vedas: brāhmaṇo ’sya mukham āsīd, bāhū rājanyaḥ kṛtaḥ.
This purport and this verse to help the people who don’t know kRsna understand Him as sum total of creation. Virat rupa which is the imaginary concept of Lord. It will help the less intelligent people to understand something that the Lord has a body encompassing everything and how all living entities fit into that vrat rupa, seeing the unity of all creation. This is a unifying concept.
Some people say that they cannot comprehend that God is a little boy. Some people say that the whole universe is God. There are 4 divisions of society. Virat Rupa helps less intelligent people who has reservations to accept God as a child or a person.
One person is the origin of everything. It is very hard to believe this. That this person has no short coming like us. To understand that Krsna is the supreme personality of Godhead a step-by-step process is explained here.
Preaching is very hard. One has to understand the level of the ignorance of the person to whom one is preaching. Otherwise you can give a blast of Philosophy and the person gets turned off. We have to be trained to understand the level of ignorance of the person. For us to preach effectively, we need to hear constantly and chant constantly. Then only we can understand the different levels of understanding and be effective preachers.
Different strategies to preach to different levels of social orders and ashramas is right there is Srimad Bhagavatam.
All of us have come to this word due to aversion or envy of God. If a husband and wife hate each other how hard it is to bring them together. Similarly, it is so hard to bring an envious soul to love God.
SB 11.5.2
Śrī Camasa said: Each of the four social orders, headed by the brāhmaṇas, was born through different combinations of the modes of nature, from the face, arms, thighs and feet of the Supreme Lord in His universal form. Thus the four spiritual orders were also generated.
Those who are not spontaneously attracted to the devotional service of the Lord can be gradually purified by observing the varṇāśrama system of four social orders and four spiritual orders. According to Śrīdhara Svāmī, the brāhmaṇas are born of the mode of goodness, the kṣatriyas of a combination of goodness and passion, the vaiśyas of a combination of passion and ignorance and the śūdras of the mode of ignorance. Just as the four social orders are born from the face, arms, thighs and feet of the Lord’s universal form, similarly the brahmacārīs are generated from the heart of the Lord, the householder order from His loins, the vānaprasthas from His chest and the sannyāsa order from His head.
A similar verse is found in the Ṛk-saṁhitā (8.4.19), as well as the Śukla-yajur Veda (34.11) and the Atharva Veda (19.66):
brāhmaṇo ’sya mukham āsīd
bāhū rājanyaḥ kṛtaḥ
ūrū tad asya yad vaiśyaḥ
padbhyāṁ śūdro ’jāyata
“The brāhmaṇa appeared as His face, the king as His arms, the vaiśya as His thighs, and the śūdra was born from His feet.”
It is understood that pure devotional service to the Lord has already been described by two of the Yogendras, Drumila and Āvirhotra. Camasa Muni now describes the system of varṇāśrama-dharma, because this system is meant to gradually purify those who are inimical to the Supreme Lord, bringing them back to their constitutional position of love of Godhead. Similarly, the virāṭ-rūpa, or the universal form of the Lord, is an imaginary form meant to help the gross materialists gradually understand the position of the Personality of Godhead.
Since the foolish materialist cannot understand anything beyond matter, he is encouraged to see the entire universe as a personal form of the Supreme Lord’s body.
The impersonal conception of formlessness is a mere negation of temporary material variety without any concept of the Lord’s spiritual potency. The impersonal view is another kind of material speculative conception. The Supreme Lord is full of spiritual potencies under the principal headings hlādinī, or unlimited bliss, sandhinī, or eternal existence, and saṁvit, or omniscience. It is understood from this verse that the varṇāśrama-dharma system generated from the universal form of the Lord is a program offered by the Lord to engage the conditioned souls in a complete social and religious system that gradually brings them back home, back to Godhead.
Mayavadi philosophy is even worse than atheists… The lord Himself is giving a program called Virat rupa so people who cannot comprehend the personal form of the lord to understand that lord has form.
To become a preacher is not a simple thing. There are people
BG 18.54 (V imp verse)
One who is thus transcendentally situated at once realizes the Supreme Brahman and becomes fully joyful. He never laments or desires to have anything. He is equally disposed toward every living entity. In that state he attains pure devotional service unto Me.
To the impersonalist, achieving the brahma-bhūta stage, becoming one with the Absolute, is the last word. But for the personalist, or pure devotee, one has to go still further, to become engaged in pure devotional service. This means that one who is engaged in pure devotional service to the Supreme Lord is already in a state of liberation, called brahma-bhūta, oneness with the Absolute. Without being one with the Supreme, the Absolute, one cannot render service unto Him. In the absolute conception, there is no difference between the served and the servitor; yet the distinction is there, in a higher spiritual sense.
Oneness – Ekatma Anupasyati (ISO)
BG 6.6
For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will remain the greatest enemy.
The purpose of practicing eightfold yoga is to control the mind in order to make it a friend in discharging the human mission. Unless the mind is controlled, the practice of yoga (for show) is simply a waste of time. One who cannot control his mind lives always with the greatest enemy, and thus his life and its mission are spoiled. The constitutional position of the living entity is to carry out the order of the superior. As long as one’s mind remains an unconquered enemy, one has to serve the dictations of lust, anger, avarice, illusion, etc. But when the mind is conquered, one voluntarily agrees to abide by the dictation of the Personality of Godhead, who is situated within the heart of everyone as Paramātmā. Real yoga practice entails meeting the Paramātmā within the heart and then following His dictation. For one who takes to Kṛṣṇa consciousness directly, perfect surrender to the dictation of the Lord follows automatically.
Children order of parents
Worker order of Manager
Citizen order of State laws
Disciple order of Spiritual master
Dictation of the lord – Jivera svarupa hai Krishna das
Chaturvarnam maya srishtam… Guna Karma Vibhagasya…
In this kali yuga if everyone is sudra then how can we have varnashrama..
Gunas can be admin, teacher, worker
But their lifestyle, habits, are like sudras or even demons- drinking, illicit sex…
They can be purified when they meet a devotee..
Oneness – Means cooperate following the orders or dictation of lord.
Cooperation is the main thing in the varnashrama system.
All plans can be successful if there is cooperation. Ofcourse one has to follow a bonafide world. In the spiritual world everything is cooperation and in the material world everything is non cooperation.