Apart from spiritual knowledge, the Vedas offer also a system of social organization called Varnasrama. Although frequently confused with the caste system prevalent in India until the past century, the Varnasrama is a completely different system, based on training and on respecting the natural tendencies of the individual.
In modern times we have a strong polarization between left and right political systems. On the left, we have a strong emphasis on individual rights, but less emphasis on collective rights, while on the left we have an emphasis on collective rights, including maintenance of social structures, but individual rights are frequently neglected. The varnasrama system offers a balance between the two sides, balancing the needs of the individual and the needs of the society, therefore it can be considered an ideal system. The problem is that varnashrama is very difficult to implement, and things can be seriously wrong if it is presented in an equivocal way. One can mess up his life without varnashrama, but he can mess up his life even more seriously with wrong or limited conception of varnashrama.
At the 2020 Goura-Purnima festival in Mayapur, I had the opportunity of watching the seminar “How to mess up your life with Varnasrama” by Kaunteya Prabhu. Later, I also read the article “How to Mess up Your Life Without Varnasrama!” by R.P. Bhakti Raghava Swami. At first, it may seem that these are two opposite and irreconcilable opinions. In fact, most devotees I know (who had access to both) jumped into supporting one side or the other, polarizing into two opposing parties. My personal opinion however is that they just reflect two different sides of the same question. I got some important points from both, and therefore I’m grateful to both authors.
We may fail to realize that our philosophy is “Acintya-bhedabheda-tattva”. When Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu came, great thinkers were discussing if the jiva is equal to or different from Krsna. He explained that it’s actually both: the jiva is inconceivably both equal and different from Krsna at the same time. Equal in quality, but different in quantity. It may seem like a simple conclusion, but it revolutionized philosophical thinking at its time.
Similarly, most other philosophical points have two sides, and to reach a proper conclusion one has to understand both sides and be able to balance them. In this regard, I’m grateful to both Kaunteya Prabhu and R.P. Bhakti Raghava Swami who expertly called our attention to the two sides of the question, allowing us to understand it in a more complete way.
Kaunteya Prabhu calls our attention to the potential problems of trying to implement Varnasrama in a fanatical and immature way. We surely had (and still have) a good dose of that in our society, mostly in the form of discrimination against women. Just like muslins sometimes create so much havoc trying to blindly follow sharia law, we can also create terrible disturbances by trying to implement varnashrama in an immature way.
It’s important to note that there are different versions of the varnashrama system, according to the level of spiritual progress and the mixture of material modes that influence the members of different societies. Both suras and asuras follow varnashrama, but their implementations are quite different. To start, there is daiva-varnashrama (which is based on training and qualification and has the goal of spiritual upliftment) and asuric-varnashrama (which is based on hereditariety and emphasizes the material aspects). Daiva-varnashrama is a sattvic system, while asuric-varnashrama is based on the modes of passion and ignorance. If one is not very much into sattva-guna, the tendency is that he may end-up implementing the wrong type of varnashrama. We can see very clearly this tendency in our society when we put the ladies down instead of helping them to properly use their talents for Krsna.
R.P. Bhakti Raghava Swami on the other hand calls our attention to the other extreme: the danger of rejecting varnashrama. As Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura explains in his Jaiva Dharma, all civilized societies are based on reflections of the varnashrama-dharma system. This reflection appears in the form of moral principles, honestly, family values, protection to women and children, respect to elders, and so on. Societies are successful to the extent such principles remain strong. In this sense, liberalism, which culminates in the LGBT movement is the antithesis of varnashrama, successfully abolishing all role-models, to the point one doesn’t know even if he should be a man or a woman.
Even in political systems, these two extremes can be found. Right-wing ideologies, like fascism, want to suppress the individual in favor of the state, while left-wing ideologies, like anarchy, want to destroy the state in favor of the individual. We can see in practice that none of the two sides work well. Surely, none of the two extremes are positive. We don’t want to become Taliban, nor we want to go all the way to the opposite extreme, becoming completely liberal.
Vedic culture is the ideal system that can balance society and the individual, but it can only work when properly understood and maturely implemented. Fortunately, we have the intelligence and the proper philosophy to find the golden middle necessary to successfully implement a mature version of the varnashrama system, which will surely greatly benefit all of us.
What is varnasrama?
Both Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura and Srila Prabhupada urged us to implement Varnasrama Dharma, presenting it as a necessary step for Krsna Consciousness to spread through the world. Varnasrama is important because it regulates material activities, allowing one to live in a pious way. Someone who is in a platform of pure devotional service is already situated in the supreme dharma, but all the others, that are still acting (at least partially) in the material platform need to live a pious life in order to be able to advance in their spiritual lives. A pious life is a foundation that allows one to build his spiritual life. As Srila Prabhupada used to quote, “a sinful man can’t approach God”. Without varnasrama, devotees who are not very serious in spiritual life tend to slowly just fall back into their past sinful habits, and thus gradually forget about Krsna Consciousness.
Just as people in satya-yuga, a small community of sages living in the forest will not need varnasrama because they are solely dedicated to spiritual activities, but as soon as the community grows and starts to include families, children, etc., the need arises as a solution for the material side. A community has many needs: different products need to be bought and sold, different services have to be performed, different types of training are needed, there must be schools for the children, etc. The varnasrama system offers a culture, a set of rules, and the knowledge necessary to run a society in a progressive way.
Just like a machine, a society demands specialization: different people, with different talents can develop and practice different sets of knowledge and execute different activities that are useful for society. Someone needs to teach and train, someone, needs to manage, someone needs to produce and sell, and someone has to work. There should also be values, morals, etc. so people can perform their work in an honest way. Modern societies are based on values that are opposed to spiritual cultivation. The varnasrama system offers a much better solution from the spiritual standpoint, being thus a more solid basis for a spiritually progressive society. More than that, the main component of the varnasrama system is training: the idea is to teach people how to be proper human beings, instead of just giving them technical knowledge like in modern universities. Our acaryas knew about that, therefore they were promoting the idea.
What varnasrama is not
One great difficulty is that there is more than one type of varnasrama, and therefore we need to be able to differentiate and choose the right one. Varnasrama also needs to be reconciled with the higher Vaishnava principles to be useful in our communities, otherwise we may end-up losing the spiritual essence, defeating the whole purpose.
The first point to understand is that varnasrama is not a spiritual system. It’s useful as a foundation for spiritual activities and it can be spiritualized when practiced as a service to Krsna, but in itself is a material system. In fact, varnasrama by itself is a system tainted with the idea of dharma, artha, kama, and moksha: religiosity, material development, sense gratification, and impersonal liberation. This is the type of varnasrama that was rejected by Caitanya Mahaprabhu in his talks with Ramananda Raya.
As Vaishnavas, we follow daiva varnasrama, which is the varnasrama system in its pure form, where all duties are executed for the satisfaction of the Lord, as a foundation to our devotional practices. In the daiva varnasrama system, the stages of artha and kama are accepted only to the degree they are useful for our service and spiritual practice, and the ultimate goal of moksha is replaced by the idea of achieving pure devotional service. A Vaishnava may acquire riches, but he engages such resources in the service of Krsna, therefore he doesn’t become entangled. He may build a family, but he doesn’t see himself as the proprietor or enjoyer, it’s not “his” family, but Krsna’s family who he is maintaining. In essence, in the daiva varnasrama all of our activities are executed for the satisfaction of the Lord, and with the purpose of advancing spiritually.
In the materialistic varnasrama, the wife serves the husband with the mentality of obtaining material facilities and a better situation in the next life, while in the daiva varnasrama system she serves the husband as a service to The Lord. As we can see, in the first case the center is ourselves, while in the second the center is Krsna. As the service and spiritual practice have primal importance, sometimes part of the rules and regulations of the varnasrama system may be adjusted if they are not favorable for the performance of one’s service, as explained in the Srimad Bhagavatam:
“The supreme occupation [dharma] for all humanity is that by which men can attain to loving devotional service unto the transcendent Lord. Such devotional service must be unmotivated and uninterrupted to completely satisfy the self. By rendering devotional service unto the Personality of Godhead, Sri Krsna, one immediately acquires causeless knowledge and detachment from the world. The occupational activities a man performs according to his own position are only so much useless labor if they do not provoke attraction for the message of the Personality of Godhead. All occupational engagements are certainly meant for ultimate liberation. They should never be performed for material gain. Furthermore, according to sages, one who is engaged in the ultimate occupational service should never use material gain to cultivate sense gratification. Life’s desires should never be directed toward sense gratification. One should desire only a healthy life, or self-preservation, since a human being is meant for inquiry about the Absolute Truth. Nothing else should be the goal of one’s works.” (SB 1.2.6-10)
This is further elucidated on Caitanya Caritamrta: “‘Krsna is the origin of Lord Visnu. He should always be remembered and never forgotten at any time. All the rules and prohibitions mentioned in the sastras should be the servants of these two principles.’ (CC Madhya 22.113)